Dramat Smierdiakowa

Autor

  • Michał Kruszelnicki

Abstrakt

This paper offers an interpretation of the figure of Pawel Fyodorovitch Smerdyakov
— the fourth of the Karamazov brothers, parricide featured in the last great novel by
Fyodor Dostoevsky. The analysis of existing criticism on Smerdyakov, which is my
point of departure, invites an assertion that this figure tends to be regarded in almost
exclusively negative terms. Looking for answers to the question whence comes this
unequivocal evaluation of Smerdyakov, I focus on plot resolutions, the way narration
is led, and on the poetics of Smerdyakov’s depictions in the The Brothers Karamazov.
I establish that their aim is to fashion from the outset a much revolting image
of this particular protagonist. This perspective allows me to state a thesis that is
contrary to that of Michail Bakhtin who claimed that the polyphony of Dostoevsky’s
oeuvre renders each protagonist’s worldview fully individual and equally valuable
and that access to their personalities is granted to us only in so far as they speak of
themselves. In a critical discussion with Bakhtin I argue that Smerdyakov functions
as an example of an anti-dialogical, that is obscuring the protagonist’s individuality,
specifically authorial take aiming to arrest his personality within a predetermined,
monological interpretive regime. I then offer a meditation on the ethical message
of The Brothers Karamazov which rests on the notion of “the responsibility of everyone
for everyone” and I reflect on the reasons why this formula does not apply to
the figure of Smerdyakov who, surprisingly, is not treated as a “brother” by anyone
in the novel, let alone a human being.

Pobrania

Opublikowane

2017-04-14

Jak cytować

Kruszelnicki, M. (2017). Dramat Smierdiakowa. Przegląd Rusycystyczny, (1). Pobrano z https://trrest.vot.pl/ojsus/index.php/PR/article/view/5491

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