Lacan and narrative identity: The Piano Teacher

Abstract

The importance for narratology of the psychoanalytical theory of the subject, formulated by the poststructuralist, Jacques Lacan, should not be underestimated. The reason for this is that, for Lacan, the subject is not monodimensional, but has to be conceived of as occupying different subject-positions, namely those of the subject of the symbolic register (the 'je'), of the imaginary (the 'moi') and of the 'real' (the body-subject or the subject as body). Moreover, his early theory of the three 'imagoes', as well as his work on aggressivity, fleshes out the structural relevance of the imaginary 'identity' of the subject for narratological purposes. Every human being – and therefore also every human character in narrative fiction – is precariously constituted in the tension-field between these three registers and their constitutive structures, and each subject-position highlights a different possibility in the life of a human being. The Lacanian theory therefore provides one with a flexible grid for the understanding of actual or fictional subjects and of their narrative development. To demonstrate this, the complex narrative character or 'identity' of the piano teacher in the film by that name is analyzed in terms of the various registers of Lacan's theory, and in the process his theoretical model of the subject is shown as allowing for an exemplary grasp of narrative identity.

Full text

1
Bert Olivier
Extraordinary Professor of Philosophy
University of the Free State
South Africa.
OlivierG1@ufs.ac.za
bertzaza@yahoo.co.uk
This paper first appeared in Word, (wo)man, world: Essays on literature. Festschrift for
Ina Gräbe. Oliphant, A.W. & Roos, H. (Eds). Pretoria: UNISA Press, pp.94-112, 2005.
Lacan and narrative identity: The Piano Teacher
Abstract: The importance for narratology of the psychoanalytical theory of the subject, formulated by the
poststructuralist, Jacques Lacan, should not be underestimated. The reason for this is that, for Lacan, the subject
is not monodimensional, but has to be conceived of as occupying different subject-positions, namely those of the
subject of the symbolic register (the ‘je’), of the imaginary (the ‘moi’) and of the ‘real’ (the body-subject or the
subject as body). Moreover, his early theory of the three ‘imagoes’, as well as his work on aggressivity, fleshes
out the structural relevance of the imaginary ‘identity’ of the subject for narratological purposes. Every human
being – and therefore also every human character in narrative fiction – is precariously constituted in the tension-
field between these three registers and their constitutive structures, and each subject-position highlights a
different possibility in the life of a human being. The Lacanian theory therefore provides one with a flexible grid
for the understanding of actual or fictional subjects and of their narrative development. To demonstrate this, the
complex narrative character or ‘identity’ of the piano teacher in the film by that name is analyzed in terms of the
various registers of Lacan’s theory, and in the process his theoretical model of the subject is shown as allowing
for an exemplary grasp of narrative identity.
A woman stands in the foyer of a concert building. People walk hurriedly past her up the
stairs – the performance, in which she is supposed to play the piano, is about to begin. One of
them – a handsome young man – tells her that he cannot wait to hear her play. When she
seems to be alone, she opens her handbag, takes out a knife and stabs herself violently in the
chest. With blood staining her evening dress she walks out of the building. This is the
culminating moment in a film-narrative with puzzling, intermittent scenes of apparent
masochistic or sadistic actions on the part of characters. What may seem incongruous at an
intuitive, everyday level, however, turns out to be eminently comprehensible as part of the
unfolding narrative with the aid of psychoanalytic theory – specifically that of Jacques Lacan.
What, if anything, does the psychoanalytical theory of the human subject, formulated by
the poststructuralist thinker, Jacques Lacan, have to offer narratology? Plenty, as far as I can
judge. The mere fact that Lacan’s theory of the human subject is, like Freud’s, a
developmental theory, unlike the vast majority of philosophical theories
1
or models of the
subject that have been formulated in the course of the history of (western) thought, already
intimates such narratological fecundity. It is striking that, in the case of traditional
philosophical anthropologies, the human subject is usually theorized as if it is born at once
complete as a being, furnished with all the faculties that characterize the mature or adult
human being, notably reason. It should be added, of course, that by and large, until Freud, this
subject was assumed to be the masculine adult subject, in whose rational capacities women
supposedly shared to a greater or lesser degree. It is also true that in the work of various
1
Even those philosophical theories which do function by means of developmental principles – notably
Hegel’s and Marx’s, as well as their derivatives – lack the all-important concept of the unconscious, which gives
psychoanalytical theories their distinctive heuristic, hermeneutic value.

2
philosophers are to be found scattered, largely undeveloped references
2
to children as beings
who do not yet possess the full rational capacities of adult (male) humans, but it is only with
Freud that an account – in narrative terms – of the emergence of the human subject is given
with reference to developmental stages, and with Freud’s successors (the ego-psychology
school, for instance) his theories have been increasingly refined and revised or modified.
Among those successors Jacques Lacan and the thinkers who have, in turn, developed his
work further (Julia Kristeva, Slavoj Žižek and Joan Copjec, among others), occupy a
distinctive place, given Lacan’s claim to be ‘returning to Freud’ (via the structuralist linguistic
theory of Saussure and the structuralist anthropology of Lévi-Strauss) in a resolute attempt to
recuperate the radical implications of the place of the unconscious in the latter’s theory of the
subject – implications largely abandoned, if not perverted, according to Lacan, by the school
of ego-psychology (Lee 1990: 32-34). It is on Lacan’s theory of the subject – especially its
narrative dimension – that I shall focus in this paper, with a view to drawing out its pertinence
for narratology. In addition to unpacking Lacan’s theory I shall attempt to demonstrate its
structural-hermeneutic fecundity in relation to the film, The Piano Teacher
3
(based on the
novel by Elfriede Jelinek), directed by Michael Haneke (2002).
The Piano Teacher unfolds the narrative of Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert), a
professor of music at a prestigious Vienna music conservatory, who is regarded as a ‘Schubert
expert’, especially by her domineering mother (Annie Girardot), who tells her that Schubert is
‘her department’, and that she should not let her pupils ‘surpass’ her. From early on in the
film the audience witnesses this professionally accomplished, but apparently lonely woman
incongruously visiting sex shops to watch pornographic films (while sniffing spent tissues left
there by other – masculine – customers, presumably for the smell of semen). Or one observes
her going to a drive-in cinema, engaging in voyeurism and evidently getting (retrogressive,
pre-genital) pleasure from urinating while regarding couples having sex in cars. She is also
shown engaging in masochistic acts such as cutting herself between her legs with a razor
blade (and with the aid of a mirror), causing such bleeding that her mother remarks scathingly
on the blood running down her leg (despite Erika having used a sanitary towel to halt the
flow), mistakenly attributing it to menstruation. Erika has a number of piano students, and
also accompanies singers on the piano. In the course of an evening when she performs
together with another pianist at a private home, she encounters a handsome young man called
Walter Klemmer (Benoît Magimel), who is related to her hosts and who – despite not being
an exclusively dedicated music student – gives a brilliant performance of a Schubert piece
after her and her fellow-pianist’s earlier recital, displaying precocious talent in the process. He
shows a distinct interest in her, and as the narrative unfolds, it turns out to be an amorous one
at that. Walter decides to audition for inclusion in Erika’s master class for piano-recital, and
so impresses her colleagues that he is admitted. In fact, she is the only one who votes against
his admission.
2
There are exceptions to this rule, especially in educational-philosophical thought, although these differ
from the psychoanalytical account concentrated on here as far as the role of repression and the unconscious in
the development of the subject are concerned; these concepts are usually absent. The educational thought of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as formulated in his Émile (see Copleston 1964: 92-95), is one such exception.
3
I could just as well have chosen Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) for this purpose – which makes one
wonder whether this is a coincidence or if the phenomenon of music has something to do with its ostensible
privileged function regarding the narrative history of human subjects. Schopenhauer would probably have
affirmed this (see Olivier 1996). Or I could have selected – for a different reason – Haneke’s Funny Games
(1998), a film that addresses the issue of sadism in relation to ostensible, but spurious communication (at the
level of the symbolic). In both these cases of serious cinema, Lacan’s theory of the subject would function in an
exemplary manner to elucidate narrative dynamics.

3
One of Professor Kohut’s students, Anna Schober, whose mother displays signs of being
as domineering as the professor’s own, is very unsure of herself when accompanying a singer
on the piano. Erika does not treat her sympathetically, and while Anna is in the auditorium
providing accompaniment for a singing performance of a Schubert piece, she stealthily goes
to the dressing room, crushes a glass in a scarf and shakes the broken pieces into one of
Anna’s coat pockets. Later, while people are talking in small groups in the dressing room, a
scream alerts one to the unsurprising discovery that Anna’s hand has been horribly cut by the
glass shards in her pocket.
Some time later Walter follows Erika into the cloakroom, and, having locked the door,
starts kissing her passionately when she comes out of the toilet. She stops him, and – refusing
to have sex with him in the ‘conventional’ way – insists on masturbating him by hand and by
using her mouth. Except that…she does not finish the job, so to speak, but stops, telling him
she will send him her ‘instructions’. Needless to say, the young man – who was evidently
looking for a sexual fling with an older woman (whom he nevertheless professes to love) – is
dumbfounded, disconcerted by Erika’s unorthodox behaviour. She dominates him in the same
way that her mother dominates her, telling him what he can and cannot do. At her apartment
he insists on entering with her and accompanying her to her room, her mother’s indignation
notwithstanding. They barricade the door, but instead of making love, as Walter evidently
hoped they would, he is persuaded to read the letter containing her masochistic instructions to
him. Taken aback by her wish, that he should hurt her in various ways – she confesses that the
‘urge to be beaten’ has been in her ‘for years’, and shows him an assortment of torture
instruments – he accuses her that she ‘is sick’, and that she ‘repulses’ him. After his departure
Erika gets into bed next to her mother, as usual, and in response to her mother’s complaints
about all her own sacrifices, she suddenly gets on top of her mother and starts kissing her. The
older woman accuses her of being ‘mad’, then switches to a different register and advises her
to rest in order to be well prepared for the next day’s performance. Incongruously, Erika tells
her mother: ‘I saw the hairs of your sex’.
Unexpectedly Erika arrives at Walter’s ice-hockey club, wanting him to have sex with
her and declaring her love for him, but when he finally agrees – after much reluctance, given
their lack of privacy – she starts vomiting. Walter is clearly repulsed, and tells her that she
‘stinks’. Later he arrives at her apartment and accuses her of wanting to make him a pervert
too. After locking her mother, who tries to intervene, in her room, he starts slapping Erika.
She wants him to stop, but he proceeds by kicking her. Her nose bleeds. Walter starts having
sex with her, telling her that there are some things that a woman should not do to a man. Erika
asks him to desist, but he ignores her.
The next day Erika, accompanied by her mother, goes to the concert hall to stand in for
the injured Anna, that is, to accompany the singer on the piano, playing Schubert. As
previously indicated, it is here where she waits in the foyer, looking at people arriving, some
of whom greet and exchange a few words with her. Incongruously none of them remark on
her black eye (or even show any awareness of it) – a reminder of the abuse that Walter
inflicted on her the previous evening. It is here, too, that Walter, in the company of a group of
other people, calls out to her that he ‘can’t wait’ to hear her play, before she takes the knife
from her handbag and stabs herself. In the final scene she is seen from outside, exiting the
brightly lit building.
What is one to make of this strange narrative? As suggested earlier, Jacques Lacan’s
psychoanalytic, poststructuralist conception of the human subject proves invaluable when it
comes to making sense of narratives – especially those involving subjects whose identities
seem problematical, or in some way challenge conventional notions of identity. Clearly, the

4
eponymous piano teacher of the film in question challenges ‘normal’ concepts of identity. Her
behaviour seems pathological, to say the least. I also intimated earlier that Lacan’s theory
provides one with a ‘structural hermeneutic’. It is the latter which bestows intelligibility on
the incongruous actions of the professor of music concerned.
Of particular pertinence in this respect are Lacan’s early papers on the family
complexes (Lee 1990: 13-17), on aggressivity (Lacan 1977a) and on the so-called ‘mirror
stage’ (Lacan 1977)
4
, the latter of which provides a densely metaphorical account of an early
phase in the subject’s development – one which is at once indispensable for a sense of self
and simultaneously inimical to it in a certain sense. Briefly, he argues that at an early age
(between 6 and 18 months) the infant finds or recognizes in its own mirror image the unity
and wholeness that it lacks at a time when it is still largely physically uncoordinated. He
stresses that, for this reason, it is a ‘fiction’ or a ‘misrecognition’, but one that nevertheless
fulfills a necessary ‘orthopaedic’ or normative function – one that provides the basis for the
subject’s sense of self or identity in an ‘irreducible’ (that is, particularistic) manner, until such
time that the subject acquires language. While the mirror-image inscribes the subject
narcissistically in the register of what Lacan calls the ‘imaginary’, language enables it, at the
level of the ‘symbolic’ register, via the universal (or concept), to attain its human ‘destiny’ as
a subject – that is, as someone who, through language, finds his or her place in cultural
(including kinship) relations, and is subject to the norms of this culture as embedded in
language.
5
Lacan puts it succinctly as follows (1977: 2):
This jubilant assumption of his specular image by the child at the infans stage, still
sunk in his motor incapacity and nursling dependence, would seem to exhibit in an
exemplary situation the symbolic matrix in which the I is precipitated in a primordial
form, before it is objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before
language restores to it, in the universal, its function as subject….the important point is
that this form situates the agency of the ego, before its social determination, in a
fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the individual alone, or
rather, which will only rejoin the coming-into-being…of the subject
asymptotically…this Gestalt…symbolizes the mental permanence of the I, at the same
time as it prefigures its alienating destination…
It is further imperative to note in more detail how he conceives of the infant’s passage from a
state of imagined fragmentation to that of imagined wholeness, for this is crucial to be able to
understand the narrative events in The Piano Teacher (Lacan 1977: 4):
The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to
anticipation – and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial
identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented body-
image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopaedic – and, lastly, to the
4
Although the published, revised version of ‘The mirror stage’ (1949) succeeded that of the other papers
mentioned here, its first version was actually written before Lacan wrote the latter, namely in 1936 (see Lee
1990: 13-17; 25).
5
It should be noted that, through the entry into the symbolic register of language, the subject is
simultaneously ‘castrated’, to the extent that it becomes ‘subject to’ the laws of society (Lee 1990: 34-38; 46;
Silverman 1983: 174-176).

5
assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid
structure the subject’s entire mental development.
The importance here of Lacan’s claim that, in the development of a child, there is a passage
from fantasized incoherence to one of fantasized coherence should already be obvious in so
far as it makes Erika Kohut’s behaviour intelligible. But first other relevant parts of Lacan’s
theoretical arsenal have to be adduced.
In the paper on aggressivity (1977a) Lacan had previously elaborated on the relation
between what he refers to – in the preceding quotation – as ‘a fragmented body-image’ and
the ostensibly unified mirror-image. Aggressivity is a human phenomenon whose provenance
and elaboration as a structural psychoanalytical concept is to be found in Freud’s Beyond the
pleasure principle (1957) and Civilization and its discontents (1961). It is the one face of the
death-instinct or -drive, the other being the tendency towards inertia or reconstitution of a
previous state. For present purposes it is important to note that in the paper on aggressivity
Lacan argued, on the basis of psychoanalytical evidence, that the lived-body experiences of
the subject prior to the (spurious) ‘unity’ perceived in its own mirror image, assume the shape
of fragmented body-images. These so-called imagoes represent aspects of (Lacan 1977a: 11):
‘…aggressive intentions…the images of castration, mutilation, dismemberment,
dislocation, evisceration, devouring, bursting open of the body, in short, the imagos that I
have grouped together under the apparently structural term of imagos of the fragmented
body.
In other words, aggressivity manifests itself in images of fragmentation and mutilation.
Importantly – as Lee (1990: 25) remarks, for Lacan these images are the result of
retrospective ‘imaginary reconstructions’ of recollected bodily experiences antedating the
mirror stage and its ‘unifying’ function regarding the emergence of the ego or moi.
Understanding this is not difficult if one keeps in mind that the infant who (mis-) recognizes
its mirror image narcissistically as ‘itself’, experiences a profound disharmony between the
‘fragmentation’ of its own uncoordinated body, with its lack of motor control, and this
mesmerizing, ‘unitary’ image with which it identifies. After all, as Lacan indicates in The
mirror stage, this identification is simultaneously alienating. Following Lacan (1977a: 22),
several commentators (see Benvenuto & Kennedy 1986: 57) have pointed out that this
moment of alienation implies the ‘otherness’ of the mirror image, and imparts to the subject a
structural rivalry with him- or herself; hence the aggressivity (see Bowie 1991: 34). Small
wonder that the disharmony within the subject between the unitary visual Gestalt and a
fragmented body is transferred to the infant subject’s relations with others, insofar as she or
he identifies with the iconic appearance (that is, body-images) of other human beings. As may
be expected, rivalry – and concomitantly, ‘aggressive competitiveness’ (Lacan 1977a: 19) – is
an integral thread of these relations.
It therefore comes as no surprise that Lacan posits a correlation (however unlikely it may
seem at an intuitive level) between this aggressivity and the process of narcissistic
identification, described earlier (Lacan 1977a: 16):
Thesis IV: Aggressivity is the correlative tendency of a mode of identification that we
call narcissistic, and which determines the formal structure of man’s ego and of the
register of entities characteristic of his world.

6
Lee (1990: 27; see also Lacan 1977a: 19) summarizes this state of affairs admirably:
Thus, the disturbing realization of the gap between the child’s lived experience of the
still minimally competent and functionally fragmented body and his narcissistic
identification with the unity of his visual reflection is displaced into various kinds of
aggressive tendencies directed towards others. In other words, the discrepancy between
the child’s fragmented bodily experience and his unified, imaginary identity…gives rise
to a kind of primordial paranoia in the young moi…In modeling oneself on another, one
is also modeling one’s desires on those of the other, and the inevitable consequence of
this is an aggressive rivalry between the child and the other for the object desired by the
other. In this way, aggression directed towards others is found at the very center of the
moi’s structure, as it comes into being through the dialectic of the child’s narcissistic
identifications with various visual images.
It is important to keep in mind that this aggressivity towards others at the heart of the
subject’s structure as ego (moi) is in the first place, as pointed out earlier, aggressivity towards
oneself – at least towards the image which is ambivalently experienced as being oneself and
as being alien at one and the same time, and with which one enters into rivalry precisely
because of it being experienced as ‘other’. It is this ‘otherness’ which is transferred to other
individuals when the child encounters them in various social relations, and which forms the
basis for rivalry with, and aggression towards them. Working one’s way further back, for the
sake of uncovering the roots of Lacan’s (structural) psychoanalytical account of the emergent
constitution of the subject and its characteristic tendencies of narcissism and aggressivity, it is
illuminating to note that his two early papers on ‘family complexes’ (written for Vol. 8 of the
Encyclopédie francaise of 1938) not only further elucidate the formal conditions for
narcissism and aggressivity, but actually provide the parameters for understanding the
provenance of both psychosis (like that of the piano teacher in the film under discussion) and
neurosis. Briefly, what Lacan outlined in the first of these two papers – ‘The complex as a
concrete factor of family psychology’ – amounts to the fundamental structural or formal
constituents of subjectivity. He distinguishes here among three so-called imagoes which, as
basic family-structures, organize the behaviour of individuals (Lee 1990: 14). Each of these
imagoes – the maternal, the fraternal and the paternal – is the unconscious embodiment or
representation of a family complex that ‘reproduces a certain reality of the environment’
(quoted in Lee 1990: 14). The relevance of this for narratology consists in the manner that
these unconscious imaginary representations (to be found in family relations) enduringly
shape human responses to their environment in the form of actions or behaviour.
The significance of the ‘maternal imago’ consists in its connection with the child’s
‘weaning complex’ and therefore its representation of the child’s ‘congenital deficiency’,
signalled by its dependence on the mother’s breast as source of satisfaction for its bodily
needs (Lee 1990: 14). It is not difficult to grasp the structuring function of this ‘maternal’
imago as being responsible for all those (fundamentally ideological) quests for a plenum of
some kind, whether religious, ‘philosophical’ (that is, metaphysical) or political, insofar as it
marks the interminable lack on the part of the subject in the face of whatever totality it desires
(behind which the image of the maternal breast lurks; Lee 1990: 14). In Lacan’s words
(quoted in Lee 1990: 14):
If it were necessary to define the most abstract form where it is refound, we might

7
characterize it thus: a perfect assimilation of the totality of being. Under this formulation
with a slightly philosophical aspect, we can recognize these nostalgias of humanity: the
metaphysical mirage of universal harmony, the mystical abyss of affective fusion, the
social utopia of a totalitarian guardianship, and every outburst of the obsession with a
paradise lost before birth or of the most obscure aspiration toward death.
It should be clear that the ‘orthopaedic’ function that Lacan attributes to the mirror image in
The mirror stage ultimately has its provenance in the ‘maternal imago’, and further that what
Julia Kristeva (1997: 35) refers to as the semiotic chora of the maternal body (which provides
the infant with its first experience of a quasi-wholeness) corresponds to this. Narratologically
speaking, Lacan here focuses on a structural-dynamic motif which may be fruitfully
implemented at a hermeneutic level to make sense of the actions of characters in fiction, as
indeed in social life. The actions of the piano teacher in the film concerned are no exception
in this regard, as I hope to show, although one should remember that actions on the part of
characters can sometimes be assessed only in negative terms, that is, as being directed against
the representation of wholeness rather than as being symptomatic of a striving towards a
totality – even if these actions are ultimately to be construed as preliminary to the constitution
of a new totality via the image.
The significance of the other two imagoes can be summed up as follows. The ‘fraternal
imago’ corresponds to what Lacan calls the ‘intrusion complex’ (Lee 1990: 14), and
underpins the envy that accompanies the child’s discovery that her or his identity is
inseparably conjoined with that of others. The envy or jealousy in question should, he argued,
be understood in the first place as representing a ‘mental identification’, instead of ‘a vital
rivalry’ (quoted in Lee 1990: 14). This claim is consonant with what Lacan argued in The
mirror stage concerning the intimate connection between identification and aggressive
behaviour, and appears here as the insight into the aggressive behaviour of siblings as the
consequence of something more fundamental, namely their identification with one another
(itself made possible by the prior identification with their own mirror image). In this way the
‘fraternal imago may be seen as the unconscious foundation of human social behaviour, with
the startling corollary that envy or jealousy appears to be ‘the archetype of social feelings’
(quoted in Lee 1990: 15). This imago, too, may be detected as playing a dynamically
structuring role in the story of The Piano Teacher.
The ‘paternal imago’ is probably the most difficult to understand as a structuring factor in
relation to the emerging subjectivity of the child. For Lacan this is what is behind the
Freudian Oedipus complex (Lee 1990: 15), through which the child supposedly finds his or
(more problematically) her place in kinship relations and society. Here Lacan draws attention
to an ambiguity that, he claims, is usually overlooked in psychoanalytical theory, namely the
parallel between the role of the father’s ‘threat of castration’ in the repression of infantile
(male) sexuality, on the one hand, and the process, on the other hand, by which the child’s
reality is sublimated (that is, transformed) by means of the paternal imago. The child is thus
enabled to approach the world in an apparently ‘desexualized’ manner, while the flipside of
this is inward-directed, narcissistic (sexual) self-interest – which again connects these insights
with the ‘mirror stage’ as site of narcissistic identification. Lacan points to a ‘subversive’
tension (Lee 1990: 15) in the paternal imago, insofar as the very paternal authority responsible
for the repression of the child’s sexuality, also comprises the paradigm of sexual maturity for
the narcissistic child.
6
As Lee (1990: 15) reminds one, this is nothing other than the ego ideal
6
This is clearly a double function that can hardly be satisfactorily performed: as Lacan argued in the
second of his papers on the family complexes (‘The family complexes in pathology’), it is this inability to

8
(or superego), at the basis of which the structuring function of the paternal imago can
therefore be discerned. Lacan attributes the confusion and anxiety about sexuality – so
noticeable in modern people (including the professor of music in the narrative under
consideration) – to the above-mentioned tension (Lee 1990: 15). Lee further stresses that
Lacan’s main interest here is to show how human actions are structured by these unconscious
imagoes in the shape of formal patterns for possible human behaviour – something with
obvious resonances for narrative theory.
The part of the second of Lacan’s papers on the family complexes (‘The family complexes
in pathology’) that is especially relevant to my chosen theme of narrative identity on the part
of a professor of music, is the one on psychosis (Lee 1990: 15-16). Here he argues again that
these complexes, embodied in the different imagoes, play a formal role in relation to the
psychoses insofar as they supply the basic ‘themes’ developed in different cases of psychotic
delirium.
7
Such cases, Lacan argues, may be understood in terms of the parallel that exists
between ‘the evolution of [a child’s] sexuality’, on the one hand, and the ‘constitution of
reality’ (quoted in Lee 1990: 16), that is, her or his understanding of their environment. The
‘objects of psychotic delirium’ therefore represent the ‘”stagnation” of sublimation [the
transformation of libidinal or sexual energy into, for example, cognitive structures] at
preliminary stages of the child’s appreciation of the constitution of reality’ (Lee 1990: 16), a
process which may manifest itself in, for instance, a psychotic distancing from everyday
reality. Perhaps here, too, one may find Lacanian clues for the understanding of the music
professor’s problematic narrative identity.
Right from the opening scene of the film – when the audience is privy to a physical
struggle between Erika and her mother, which ends where she pulls a handful of hair from her
mother’s scalp – as the film-narrative progresses, more and more signs seep into the narrative
that all is not as it should be with the professor. After all, apart from the masochistic
tendencies that one witnesses on Erika’s part, she shares a bed with her mother, and when she
becomes aware of Walter’s designs on her, after initially ignoring his advances, she
eventually switches to an apparently masochistic desire for him to hurt her in the course of
making love to her – something that, as pointed out, disconcerts the young man thoroughly.
When he finally yields to her masochistic demands, apparently more out of disgust than
complicity, to his (and the audience’s) surprise she is horrified instead of gratified. In the
course of her involvement with music students she also commits what appears to be a cruel
and sadistic act, by placing broken glass in a student’s coat pocket, with the predictable effect
of causing severe lacerations of the girl’s hand when the latter reaches into her pocket,
effectively preventing her from further participating in competitions for the foreseeable
future. Having witnessed the student’s domineering mother in action – reminiscent of Erika’s
own mother – and also knowing that Erika has reason to regard her as a rival as far as
Schubert piano-interpretations are concerned, it is never unambiguously clear what her
motives are with this ostensibly sadistic act. Does she set out to mutilate the young woman’s
hand to neutralize her as a rival (corresponding to the aggression that Lacan links with
identification), or to rescue her from falling prey to the same fate as herself, under the
tyrannical rule of an inexorably (and vicariously) ambitious mother?
I would propose that these disconcerting narrative events are made intelligible by Lacan’s
achieve both ends which makes the paternal imago the source of the different symptoms characteristic of the
different neuroses (Lee 1990: 15-16).
7
Interestingly, Lacan claims that, in the case of the neuroses, the complexes (with which the imagoes
correspond) do not merely play a formal role, but a causal one in the production of recognizable symptoms (Lee
1990: 16).

9
theoretical elaboration of the developmental conditions of the subject’s ‘identity’,
remembering that the latter is always to a greater or lesser extent ‘fictional’. First, the scene
where Erika literally pulls hair from her mother’s head in the course of a mutual display of
aggressivity, must be seen as an attempt to reverse the normal direction of identification,
namely to break down the ‘form of totality’ assumed by her mother’s body – that is, in so far
as it symbolizes the ‘maternal imago’ – and return it to its primordial, fragmented state. Why?
Because what her mother’s body symbolizes, has become unacceptable to her – so much so
that one witnesses an atavistic attempt to go back to what must necessarily precede any
process of identification on her or her mother’s part that would restore the situation between
mother and daughter to ‘normal’. After all, for Erika to be able to find a ‘quasi-wholeness’ in
the ‘semiotic chora’ (Kristeva) of her mother’s body, she has to experience it as protective,
which is evidently not the case. But more drastic than her apparent aggressive wish to
mutilate her mother’s body in some or other way, is her desire to do so to her own body, as
evinced in the way she cuts herself, as well as in her wish, that Walter beat her and inflict
various injuries on her. Recall Lacan’s words, quoted earlier, that ‘imagos of the fragmented
body’, including ‘mutilation, dismemberment’, and ‘bursting open of the body’, represent
aggressive intentions.
The crucial question is why she should manifest such masochistic aggressivity towards
herself, and to such a degree that it virtually drives the narrative events. The answer lies not
only here, in the characteristic imagoes of the fragmented body as concretizations of
aggressive intentions, but more fundamentally in the terms of the correlation that (as pointed
out earlier) Lacan posits between the ‘narcissistic mode of identification’ and aggressivity via
the rivalry that the subject enters into with the image – whether it is its ‘own’ or that of
another person. If it is indeed ‘normal’ for the child to cling narcissistically to its own mirror-
image as the ‘orthopaedic’ (if imaginary) corrective to the fragmentation it feels at the level of
lived experience, then anyone as hell-bent as Erika on destroying her self-image by mutilating
it the way she does, cannot be regarded as being narcissistic even in the minimal sense that
every human subject may be said to be. On the contrary. Again, why? Recall that her
domineering mother insists on her being the Schubert authority and urges her to guard against
her pupils usurping that position. Clearly, a parent who wields that kind of power over a child
even into adulthood, could be said to have engineered the child’s identification-process in a
direction that ultimately left the child – in this case Erika – dissatisfied, more than usually
alienated from the self she has become. Lacan tells us that all of us are alienated from
‘ourselves’ to the extent that the image with which we originarily identify, is a fiction, albeit
an orthopaedic one. But in Erika’s case her self-image was evidently not of her own choosing
– her mother selected it for her, in the same way that Anna Schober’s mother seems to be
doing it on behalf of her daughter (which seems to suggest that Erika’s ‘sadistic’ act
precipitating the mutilation of Anna’s hand may indeed be intended as a rescue mission).
Add to this the element of rivalry with one’s (alienating) self-image, linked as it is to the
aggression accompanying identification, and more light is cast on Erika’s actions: Lacan tells
one that the aggressivity derives from the experience of sharing the desires of the image that
one identifies with. But what if, as in Erika’s case, those desires (belonging to a professor of
music) have been imposed on one? It is unavoidable to share (that is, have) them, even if the
identity to which they are attached has become intolerable to one. But this means that an
unbearable conflict has to arise between the desires attributable to the intolerable identity and
the desire to break down the latter, elevating aggression to the second degree, as it were. The
structural role of the ‘fraternal imago’ may be discerned here, too, inseparable as it is from
envy or jealousy – themselves feelings indissociable from rivalry and its accompanying

10
aggression. Hence, Professor Kohut’s psychotic acts of self-mutilation and desire for
masochistic treatment at the hands of Walter are intelligible as desperate attempts to break
down the unsolicited ‘alienating armour’ imposed on her by her mother. This also explains
her taste for pornography and her spying on couples having sex in public – images
diametrically opposed to that of a ‘respectable’ piano instructor at a prestigious institution,
and therefore, in so far as they impart pleasure to her, directly subversive of the self-image
that she carries like a curse. Small wonder – as Lacan observes regarding the role of the
family complex-imagoes in the development of psychoses – Erika Kohut appears to be
‘distanced’ from everyday reality; to such an extent, apparently, that she seems to be
oblivious of the dangers attendant upon her arrival at Walter’s ice-hockey club with the
intention of having sex with him in the locker-room.
8
An obvious objection would be to point to Erika’s resistance to Walter finally, ostensibly,
rising to her expectations by hitting and kicking her. Isn’t this what she wants, to enlist his
help in breaking down her detestable ‘identity’ as professor of music? To see her plea, that he
desist, as contradictory would be to misunderstand what is at stake for Erika in terms of
power. When an infant identifies with its mirror-image and subsequently with the ‘desirable’
images of others in the social sphere, it wields a certain power over its own choices – to be
sure, never an absolute power; witness the manner in which agencies of capital manipulate
individuals’, including children’s, desire through ‘desirable’ advertising or branded images –
but when a parent or some other influential person encourages certain identifications on the
child’s part, robbing her or him of its own capacity to choose, the foundation is laid for what
one may call ‘dis-identification’. Hence Erika’s desire for Walter to abuse her – as usual, the
masochist has to be in control. When Walter takes the initiative, power is once again wrested
from her, exacerbating her self-hatred.
The film ends with the professor leaving a concert building where she was supposed to
accompany a student singer. As intimated earlier, while standing in the foyer she takes out a
knife and stabs herself in the chest (an apparently superficial wound, for it has no visible
lethal effect). It is significant that this occurs directly after Walter had walked past her, telling
her that he is looking forward to her piano-playing: the man on whom she depended for
assisting her in breaking down her self-image – or at least for confirming the experience of
not being at ease with that identity – once again reinforces precisely the image she is at pains
to obliterate. Hence her act of stabbing herself in the chest. The last shot shows her from the
outside, exiting the brightly lit building – in fact, it is conspicuously defined by neon and
other lights. Iconically, the building may be seen as representing the well-defined contours of
the ego as bastion of the subject’s putative ‘identity’, but here one that she wishes to destroy,
and to leave behind in the same way that she leaves the building.
Although it cannot be pursued here, it is perhaps important to draw attention to the fact
that Lacan also provides the theoretical terms for a re-inscription of one’s identity, or perhaps
rather, a re-narrativization of it at the level of the symbolic register as opposed to the
imaginary – although one should remember that these two registers continually overlap each
other as well as the register of the ‘real’. The latter register also sheds light on the narrative
8
One should add that the role of the ‘paternal imago’ may be discerned here, too, in the ‘confusion and
anxiety’ that Erika displays regarding her own sexuality, as well as in the fact that, being a woman, there was
obviously no narcissistic inward turn in the face of a father’s ‘threat of castration’ in her case. In the absence of
the enduring salutary structuring role of the ‘maternal imago’, and of the related orthopaedic function of the
mirror image – given Erika’s self-loathing, for reasons advanced here – one could therefore say that, instead of
the paternal imago playing a positive role here, its role is negative. The fact that (as one learns from her) Erika’s
father became insane, implies that such negativity would be exacerbated in terms of ‘confusion and anxiety’.

11
events in question here, in so far as, for Lacan, it is that which resists symbolization, but
nevertheless has ‘effects’ in the symbolic. It could be argued that what Erika is desperately
seeking, are the symbolic means for the rearticulation of her symbolic identity, or what Lacan
calls the ‘I’ (je) as opposed to the self or ego (moi). From this perspective, the instances where
she mutilates herself are not only attempts to fragment her ego as a prerequisite for assuming
a new or different one, but also psychotic manifestations of what Lacan calls ‘foreclosure’
which, in so far as it manifests itself in somatic guise, alludes to the ‘real’ (Lacan 1977b;
Benvenuto & Kennedy 1986: 146-153; Olivier 1998, 2003 and 2004).
In conclusion it must be emphasized, once again, that – as I have tried to demonstrate in
this article – Lacan’s theory of the subject is a rich structural-hermeneutic source of pertinent
concepts for the interpretation of diverse narratives, given the fact that it is a poststructuralist
developmental theory. As such, its cardinal conceptual features enable the narratological
interpreter to draw connections between the developmental stages in a character’s life and the
events that occur in the course of her or his unfolding personal life-story. What makes
Lacan’s theory poststructuralist (and not structuralist), is his employment of the logic typical
of poststructuralism, according to which human beings cannot be adequately theorized as
being (for example) either stable or unstable, but may be shown to be both stable and
unstable at the same time, albeit at the level of different subject-registers or positions (Olivier
2004: 1-2). It is this characteristic ability of poststructuralist theory (whether that of Lacan,
Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Kristeva or Deleuze) that enables one to come to grips with the
complexity of the human condition. And this condition is accessible to us, among other modes
– but arguably in a privileged fashion – in the guise of personal narratives in the register of
the everyday life-world as well as the registers of literary and cinematic art.
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