SOURCE: “A Game Played: ‘Moderato Cantabile,’” in The USF Language Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer, 1988, pp. 32-4.

In the following essay, Wight asserts that the principal characters of Moderato cantabile work out their issues through Freudian game-playing.

Game-playing can surely provide a major sport for both participants and viewers. And game-playing can supply dangerous sport—both psychologically (in actual life) and allogorically (in literature). In Marguerite Duras' story Moderato Cantabile, for instance, a real-life problem faced by many women is depicted on the page, here, while a little boy watched by his mother takes a lesson from his piano teacher, a certain meaningful play is being played.

Sigmund Freund described another game played by another child that might throw light on the piano lesson scene in Moderato Cantabile. The child Freud watched was seeking to solve a personal problem. The little boy suffered agonies whenever his mother...