Raskolnikov Conscience

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In Dostoevsky's novel, Crime and Punishment, the author’s voice is heard through Raskolnikov and the other characters. Dostoevsky’s use of polyphony in this novel lets the reader explore both the inside and outside perspectives and motives of a criminal. The point of view follows that of Raskolnikov for most of the novel, but there is also perspective from the other characters as well as a narrator. Because of this, the novel is not strictly about Raskolnikov, but it brings into view the impact of others characters on Raskolnikov’s conscience. Raskolnikov’s inner monologue reflects deeply the voice of Dostoevsky and weight of guilt on the human conscience.
In the novel, Dostoevsky places the reader in several different points of view. Through …show more content…

Dostoevsky knew how to reveal, to see, to show the true realm of the life of an idea. The idea lives not in one person’s isolated individual consciousness -- if it remains there only, it degenerates and dies. The idea begins to live, that is, to take shape, to develop, to find and renew its verbal expression, to give birth to new ideas, with the ideas of others. Human thought becomes genuine thought, that is, an idea, only under conditions of living contact with another and alien thought, a thought embodied in someone else’s voice (Bakhtin …show more content…

The reader gets to explore both the events preceding and following the crime. Mikhail Bakhtin praises Dostoevsky because his novels “change the form of their existence: they become thoroughly dialogized images of ideas not finalized monologically; that is, they enter into what is for them a new realm of existence, artistic existence” (Bakhtin 647). Dostoevsky creates new ideas through his characters and gives a different position of the author. “The new artistic position of the author in relation to the hero in Dostoevsky’s polyphonic novel is a seriously realized dialogical position which is fully pursued… To the author the hero is not a “he”, not an “I” but a total “you”., i.e. a different, other fully justified “I” (“you are”)” (Jones 194). Dostoevsky gives Raskolnikov a voice and through that voice is the voice of the author. Dostoevsky’s novel gives rise to the genre idea of carnival. It creates a scene for the reader where the are in the middle of the act. The reader gets a clear picture of the main source of “action” but also subsequent events occurring. In regards to the idea of carnival, Bakhtin

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