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Erika Kohut Analysis

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Erika Kohut lives a double life. She has her role in society as a respected piano teacher and an alter ego that engages in voyeurism and sadomasochism. She has two realities, one that is expected of her by society and another of her private escape which consists of her sexual fantasies and her quest for a specific kind of intimacy. Her sexual fantasies are deemed by society as madness, but that madness is actually what keeps her sane. Erika lives a suffocating life that can be regarded as different cages. She regards her regular piano lessons as a cage; when asked where she had been she replied that she was tired after spending 8 hours in her cage and needed some air. She is emotionally cold and shows no emotions through her facial feature. …show more content…

Walter represented society when Erika gave him her letter and showed him her “toys”. He expressed disgust and contempt, views that society would take and refused to comply with her instructions in the letter. Erika’s fantasy and reality failed to merge when Walter raped her according to her wishes. What Erika really wanted was a consensual lapse of control with fictitious coercion while all Walter saw was violence. Society in the form of Walter, refused to understand her perversions and deemed it as “madness” by saying “No one would touch your sort, not even with gloves …show more content…

Her sexual fantasies deemed as “madness” by society is what kept her sane to keep up with society’s expectations. She could keep up with the society’s façade as long as she had her unfulfilled fantasies to keep her going. From her perspective, society’s expectations were “madness”. Erika’s own “madness” was developed through a misguided desire for intimacy and a form of escape from society. Ultimately, Walter who represented society destroyed that escape and left her unable to carry on with her only role as a piano teacher, as she stabbed herself and left the building at the end of the

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