Crime and Punishment as a Polyphonic Novel :: Crime Punishment Essays

The term polyphony was introduced into literary theory by Mikhail Bakhtin in his . The polyphonic new is dialogic rather than monologic this means that multiple shares can be heard, and each vowelise represents an alternative version of the truth. (NB. The use of dialogue as a stiff device does not make a novel polyphonic in the Bakhtinian sense genuine polyphony entails a sense of ambivalence, a occurrence where the different voices compete with one another and represent alternative viewpoints among which the reader cannot make a straightforward choice.) In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is the briny focalizer his point of view is adopted by the third-person narrator almost passim (exceptions include a small event of episodes involving Svidrigaylov, and the relatively impersonal first base chapter of the the Epilogue). The reader is thus allowed access into Raskolnikovs inner world, and although third-person narration is used, the novel as a whole comes close to being the central characters interior monologue. Nevertheless, in that respect is also a strong tendency towards dialogue. This has several manifestations (1) Actual dialogues amidst characters are of central importance in shaping not and the events but also Raskolnikovs psychological processes in relation to Raskolnikov, the other characters with their distinctive voices all represent alternative truths and alternative points of view. The other characters, and their ideas and values, are perceived through the prism of Raskolnikovs consciousness their voices echo in his foreland, and he reacts to the ideas seat forward by these external voices, often entering into a mental dialogue with them. (2) Raskolnikov also conducts an endless dialogue with himself (frequently addressing himself in the second person) the voice of his shrewd intellect alternates with the voice of conscience, and a lucid understanding of his post coexists with unaccountable (even contradictory) emotional react ions. (3) The reader also has access to Raskolnikovs subconscious mind (the voice of the subconscious) in the context of his nightmarish visions (see especially chapters I5 and III6) In all, Raskolnikovs mind becomes a battlefield where a number of different internal and external voices (representing different ideas and world-views, or different facets of Raskolnikovs personality) dungeon vying for supremacy.