In “Thoughts on Narcissism and Narcissistic Rage,” Kohut indicates that narcissistic rage is a reaction to narcissistic injury which is the psychic injury or threat to self-esteem of the narcissistically vulnerable individual. Whenever a narcissist’s self-esteem or self-worth is impaired, he will desperately seek revenge and compensation for the wrong and injustice inflicted on him at any cost. The narcissistic injuries contain others’ contempt, insult,
conspicuous defeat, and so on. These psychic injuries threaten one’s self-esteem and provoke one’s rage and shame which are “two principal experiential and behavioral manifestations of disturbed narcissistic equilibrium” (637). Moreover, Kohut observes that the narcissistically vulnerable tends to actively inflict narcissistic injuries on others as he anticipates a possible shameful situation. He will actively and deliberately make others suffer the injuries which terrify and torture him most. According to Kohut, narcissistic rage manifests the most
devastating kind of human aggression. In “The Narcissistic Function of Masochism (and Sadism),” Robert D. Stolorow reviews Kohut’s ideas and indicates that “aggression is a peculiarly human response to narcissistic injuries. . . . Indeed, one finds the most violent and primitive manifestations of self-directed and object-directed aggression precisely in those individuals who are the most narcissistically vulnerable” (446). In other words, a
narcissistically impaired would direct his narcissistic rage to himself and others.
As mentioned in the previous section, Erika’s frequent self-mutilation has multiple meanings and Kohut’s theories may provide another insight into her self-harm behaviors. The narcissistically impaired Erika seems to turn the rage or aggression to herself. Frustrated by her relationship with Klemmer, Erika goes to Klemmer’s school in order to make up with Klemmer. Erika attempts to resume their relationship but ends up in her humiliation.
Klemmer rejects Erika and insults, “Goddamnit, but you stink, piano teacher, you just can’t imagine how bad you stink” (246). Klemmer repeats insulting that Erika smells terribly stinky and he even could not talk about her to dirty his mouth. Klemmer claims that he does not want to be as dirty and stinky as Erika. The capitalized SHE appears again and now turns into the small italicized “she” which may symbolize Erika’s humiliated self-esteem and her deteriorating sense of self. The narrator notes, “It’s bad enough that she stinks. He doesn’t have to stink too!. . . . He can feel her disgusting teacher stench down in the pit of his stomach.” (248). As she makes up her mind to change herself and walk out of her safe shell, Erika only receives Klemmer’s repulsion and rejection. Frustrated and humiliated by
Klemmer, Erika returns home and resumes the act of self-mutilation. Erika is shedding tears and at the same time pricking her body with clothespins, pins, and needles. Erika feels completely depressed and lonely:
Shedding tears, Erika applies the greedy leeches of the cheery, colorful plastic clothespins to her body. . . . She bawls and blubbers. She is all alone. . . . After a while, she stops and then stands in front of the mirror. Her image cuts into her brain
with words of scorn and mockery. It is a colorful image. It would be a truly merry image if the causes were not so dismal. Erika is utterly alone. . . . If Erika, aided by the mirror, finds an unravaged place on her body, she grabs a clothespin or needle, while weeping and wailing. She drives the instruments hard, drives them into her body. Her tears flowing down and she is all alone. (249)
This incident can be seen as the second blow to Erika’s already injured and bruised sense of self. Even the image of herself watches Erika with contempt and ridicule. The self image should have been a merry one if there were not so many frustrating causes. As she decides to separate herself from her mother and come to Klemmer, Erika only receives her second blow and becomes more frustrated than before. Erika completely fails and now she only feels sheer loneliness and helplessness. What all she can do is weeping, pricking herself, and turning all the rages to herself. The harder she is crying, the harder Erika is driving the needle into her body. Erika would not stop cutting herself until she ravages all the places of her body.
Finally, the narrator concludes that “Erika Kohut goes to her mother so as to end her loneliness” (250). As usual, Erika would come to her mother as she encounters frustration outside. Erika again walks into her safe shell and “reunite” with her mother. In “A “Healthier Marriage”: Elfriede Jelinek’s Marxist Feminism in Die Klavierspielerin and Lust,” Linda C.
DeMeritt indicates that “Erika’s relationship with Klemmer can be seen as a final opportunity to “unwrap” herself” (114). Because Klemmer would be her last chance to separate from her mother, their relationship provides Erika with probability to break away from her mother’s domination. Nevertheless, Erika does realize this possibility as she does not realize the ideal of concert pianist, either.
Furthermore, Erika seems to direct her rage not only to herself but also to others.
Although the aspiration for professional pianist turns out to be a phantom, Erika still has the sense of superiority of a music genius who ever “licks at one of the blocks” on the way to the highest peak of music. The narrator ironically states, “What else can she do but become a
teacher? A difficult step for a master pianist, who is suddenly confronted with stammering freshmen and soulless seniors” (27). Erika feels condescending to be a teacher who has to face and mingle with the mediocre masses. She should have been a concert pianist admired and circled around by the masses but now she has to listen to the dull notes of her unskillful students. The way Erika abusively treats her students resembles the way how her mother sadistically treats her. As Kohut argues that the narcissist who is treated sadistically by their parents will retain the heightened sadistic attitude toward others. In the private chamber concert, Erika sharply and sternly stares at her students because they are talking as the host is introducing her. The narrator says, “Barely shaking her head, she eyes some of her pupils with a glare that could cut glass (the very glare her mother hurled at her daughter’s skull after Erika messed up her big concert)” (61). The glare which Erika gives to her pupils is exactly as pungent as the one which her mother threw at Erik in her failed recital. Erika’s glare is sharp enough to cut the glass into pieces. As her mother’s surveillance on her, Erika would also secretly follow her students to spy their private lives and suddenly appear to catch their mistakes and wrongdoing outside the classroom. The narrator observes, “She weighs one interpreter against the other, annihilating the students with her yardstick, to which only the greatest musicians can measure up. She pursues, always out of the eyeshot of students, but always within her own eyeshot” (98). Erika sets forth the highest and strictest standards for her students and forces her taste on them. Yet only the music master can achieve Erika’s standards which she does not have the capability to meet, either. If they are unable to meet her demands, Erika will chastise and humiliate her students. Erika just crosses her legs with ease and jeers at one of her student’s interpretation of Beethoven. “She need say no more;
he’s about to cry” (108).
Narcissistically injured, Erika also turns her rage and aggression to her students and transfers her frustration to her students. Based on Kohut’s argument, the narcissistically vulnerable will actively and deliberately make others suffer the injuries which terrify and
torture him most. Erika attempts to inflict the frustration and shame she ever suffered in her debut on her students. Jelinek depicts Erika’s inner thoughts, “Of course, art turns many people away, for there has to be a limit. The limits between the gifted and the ungifted. Erika, as a teacher, is delighted to draw that limit. Selecting and rejecting make up for a lot. After all, she was once treated like a goat and separated from the sheep” (27). To Erika, art separates the gifted genius from the ungifted mediocre multitude. Art is restricted to the gifted genius and exclusive of the ungifted mediocre people. Only genius like Erika is qualified to reach the peak of art. Erika employs her rights of being a teacher to select and divide the students into two groups, namely the gifted and ungifted. She enjoys rejecting or
“sneering” at her students as she was rejected in the failed recital. She wants to make her students suffer as she once suffered in her failed recital. Erika wants to take revenge on her students to “make up for a lot” or compensate her own narcissistic injury in her debut.