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The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher. “The opposite sex always wants the exact opposite.” (143). “Pain itself is merely a consequence of the desire for pleasure, the desire to destroy, to annihilate; in its supreme form, pain is a variety of pleasure.” (107). Peep shows. Peep shows. shame, voyeurism, anonymity

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The Piano Teacher

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  1. The Piano Teacher “The opposite sex always wants the exact opposite.” (143) “Pain itself is merely a consequence of the desire for pleasure, the desire to destroy, to annihilate; in its supreme form, pain is a variety of pleasure.” (107)

  2. Peep shows

  3. Peep shows • shame, voyeurism, anonymity • simultaneously public and private, nameless, reductive • power, control, domination • shame, disgust, pleasure, mediation of desire through other • auto-/allo-eroticism | objectification | subjectivity • the Gaze – Laura Mulvey (Sartre, Lacan, Zizek)

  4. Peep Shows • immigration, race, ethnicity • class, economics, urban life • gender and sexual politics • shame, secrecy, anonymity, privilege, power • the GAZE | Objectification (subjectivity) • Precedents and Consequences for Erika

  5. Peep shows • I – 44-45 and 47-49 and 52-56 • antecedent – the country cousin and first reported cutting • subsequent – sees other young people in groups, flirting, dating, etc. • Erika goes to porn theatre 105-108 • greater violence, sadism, blurred interior/exterior – where is the mystery of women’s desire (and male desire for it)? • then to the park for some live-action voyeurism 140-141

  6. Peep shows • I – 44-45 and 47-49 and 52-56 • antecedent – the country cousin and first reported cutting • subsequent – sees other young people in groups, flirting, dating, etc. • Erika goes to porn theatre 105-108 • greater violence, sadism, blurred interior/exterior – where is the mystery of women’s desire (and male desire for it)? • then to the park for some live-action voyeurism 140-141

  7. A letter always arrives • typically letters are love letters • romance, epistolary novels – seduction by words, images • long-distance seduction – even in Les Liaisons Dangereuses • commitment, affirmation, oath • the epistolary tradition in novels – record of truth, interiority, privacy, tenderness, detail, subjectivity, desire

  8. A letter always arrives • In The Piano Teacher this all gets overturned • antecedent to the letter – the bathroom “seduction” 175ff. • then the letter – 214 ff. • and its consequences – c. 272ff.

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