In Aggressivity, Narcissism, and Self-destructiveness in the Psychotherapeutic
Relationship, Otto Kernberg states that envy which is the main manifestation of aggression characterizes the regular emotional state in narcissistic personality disturbance. Kohut also depicts the similar emotional state to envy but does not directly mention the term envy which provokes narcissistic revenge. The evil stepmother’s envy triggers her revenge on Snow White whose youth and beauty outshines her and mirrors her lacks. According to Kernberg, envy is a specific form of hatred of the “bad object” or other who has “good qualities” or something highly desired by the narcissistically vulnerable. The bad object would be perceived as the one who possesses teasingly and irritatingly what the narcissistically vulnerable lacks, misses, and desires. A narcissistically vulnerable person will use
“devaluation” of others or objects to defend against the potential envious feelings. Most importantly, hatred would prompt the narcissist to transform these envious feelings into
concrete actions and take revenge on the bad object, for example, to destroy the frustrating object and make it suffer.
Kohut’s and Kernberg’s ideas may explain why Erika maliciously discloses the child prostitution of the school girl with the new gray ensemble and sets the trap to injure the hands of the female flutist with a newly stylish miniskirt. These two girls possess the new and stylish dresses which are strongly prohibited by her mother. The new dresses also symbolize youth and display of femininity which Erika is deprived of by her mother. The girls with new and fashionable dresses poignantly offend Erika and provoke her revenges. Therefore, Erika desperately removes the sting of her eyes, destroys them, and makes them greatly suffer.
Moreover, the young female flutist not only possesses the new dress but also “seduces”
Klemmer. The young girl possesses two things that Erika desires most, namely the youth and Klemmer. Thus, the young flutist incurs Erika’s rage and provokes her most bloody revenge.
The narrator indicates,
That flutist, made up like a clown, has heated up her Walter Klemmer with thighs that can be seen far and wide. Erika knows that the girl is a much-envied student of fashion design. As Erika Kohut slips a deliberately smashed tumbler into the girl’s coat pocket, it crosses her mind that she would not care to relive her own youth at any price. She is glad that she’s as old as sheis; she managed, just in time, to replace youth with experience. (167-68).
In the novel, Erika constantly laments over the fading of her youth and ponder over her age and aging face. The narrator also informs the readers many times that Erika is not pretty. She is also well aware that she is much older than Klemmer. In sharp contrast with Erika, the female flutist is much younger than Erika and still has a promising future in her career. What frustrates Erika most is that the girl will be a more suitable lover for Klemmer than her because the girl and Klemmer have similar age. The existence of the “bad” girl offends and irritates Erika because it keeps reminding Erika of her inferiority. What’s worse, Erika
catches the girl “heating up” or flirting with her would-be lover Klemmer. The girl’s dare to talk with Klemmer directly provokes Erika’s narcissistic rage. Consequently, Erika takes revenge on the girl to compensate for her narcissistic injury at any price. Erika secretly smashes the tumbler and pours the broken glass into the girl’s stylish coat’s pocket. As she is setting up her trap, Erika suddenly comes up with a thought that she wants to revive again her own youth at any cost. Erika’s trap leads the girl to slash and wound her hand as she puts her hand into the pocket. The blood of her hand suddenly flows from the wound and drips on the stylish new coat. Erika’s revenge destroys not only the girl’s new coat but also her promising career as a flutist. A flutist’s delicate hand is very important and it should be used to play instrument but now “the hand that presses and releases keys, has shards and shivers stuck in it” (170). Now the hand is destroyed and blooding.
As Kernberg claims, a narcissistically vulnerable would devalue the bad object to prevent the envious feelings. In fact, Erika also envies the fashionable girl but she denies her envy. Instead, Erika thinks that “the girl is a much-envied student of fashion design” (167) by many ordinary people but would not be envied by her. Erika first devalues the young flutist as a clown to deny her envious feelings. Elsewhere in the novel, Erika also devalues and despises other young girls and thinks they are shallow and worthless. However, Erika
actually envies their youth, beauty, and freedom to make up and to wear new dresses. As the narrator reveals, “Erika would like to find out how the girl can give herself airs with a slashed hand. Her face will twist into an ugly grimace in which no one will recognize her former youth and beauty” (166-67). Youth and beauty of the young girl severely irritates Erika and provoke her rage. In consequence, Erika must take revenge on the bad girl to make her suffer and to undo her own hurt at any rate.
Chapter Three
Elfriede Jelinek and Her Arrant Feminism
“And undoubtedly, I thought, looking at the shelf where there are no plays by women, her work would have gone unsigned” (56).
“Cats do not go to heaven. Women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare” (52).
－Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”
In “A Room of One’s Own,” the narrator quotes the most modest Mr. Z’s exclamation,
“The arrant feminist! She says that men are snobs!” (40-41) as he reads one passage from the book of Rebecca West6. The narrator feels astonished by Mr. Z’s reaction to West’s remarks and comments that “why was Miss West an arrant feminist for making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex?” (41). The narrator wonders why West is viewed as the notorious feminist just because she says something negative but probably true about men. Why does Mr. Z feel offended just because West makes the statement against his belief in himself? In the same manner, I would argue why Jelinek is labeled as anti-feminist just because she does not make a complimentary but possibly true statement about men and women.
Elfriede Jelinek is a controversial figure whose works receive the negative and
simultaneously positive reception and criticism among scholars. Jelinek’s works attract many critics’ attention due to her audacious and unreserved treatment of sexual subject and her alleged anti-feminism. Some critics condemn Jelinek’s works as the cheap pornography and attack her treatment of woman which dubiously belittles the status and body of the female.
However, many critics recognize Jelinek as an important writer in German language and
6 Rebecca West is an English writer, literary critic, and journalist in twentieth century.
approve her outspoken and harsh critique of society and patriarchy. At the end of “A Room of One’s Own,” the narrator says that men and women can collaborate with each other in the vast world. However, for Jelinek, men are always the source of women’s suffering and oppression since the world has been already dominated by the male. Jelinek says, “The history of the woman is a history of suppression” (153) in her article “Im Namen des Vaters (In the Name of Father). In “Preface: The Many Faces of Elfriede Jelinek,” Matthias
Piccolruaz Konzett claims that “women do not always elicit the author’s sympathy but often earn her scorn and contempt” (19) since they often display the tendency of masochism, internalized value of patriarchal society, and so on. Contrary to Konzett’s arguments, I would contend that Jelinek always has more sympathy with women and uncovers the hidden
oppressive structure in the (patriarchal) society in her works. Jelinek does not direct her attack to her female characters but to the ideologies and the value system which they live in.
The entire masculine value system is always the target of Jelinek’s examination and criticism.
In my opinion, what Jelinek attempts to challenge is not only the patriarchal society but also any established conventions and discourses, including feminism itself.