3 - Self and Other in Dostoevsky's Aesthetic Activity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
Summary
Dostoevsky's conception of the human personality, as defined by Bakhtin, centres on the problem of dualism and the need for interaction as the foundation of dialogue:
A single person, remaining alone with himself, cannot make ends meet even in the deepest and most intimate spheres of his own spiritual life, he cannot manage without another consciousness. One person can never find fullness in himself alone.
The orientation of one person to another person's discourse and consciousness is, in essence, the basic theme of all of Dostoevsky's works. The hero's attitude toward himself is inseparably bound up with his attitude towards another, and with the attitude of another toward him. His consciousness of self is constantly perceived against the background of the other's consciousness of him–“I for myself” against a background of “I for another”. Thus the hero's words about himself are structured under the continuing influence of somebody else's words about him.
Bakhtin posits dialogue as an ideal of self-affirmation arising from co-existence and interaction. This suggests a harmonious unity with the other in a polyphonic ‘world of consciousnesses mutually illuminating one another, a world of yoked-together semantic human orientations.’ However, few readers would agree that harmonious cooperation forms the basis of Dostoevsky's works, where interaction habitually involves dispute, violence, coercion, violation and withdrawal, on the verbal, physical and emotional levels. While Bakhtin addresses dialogue as an ideal, and perceives harmony in Dostoevsky's polyphony, the novels themselves depict the varying ways in which dialogue is distorted and corrupted, and polyphony is frequently transformed into cacophony.
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- Information
- Dostoevsky's The Idiot and the Ethical Foundations of NarrativeReading, Narrating, Scripting, pp. 135 - 182Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2004