Discussing The Artistic Characteristics Of "Crime And Punishment"

Dostoevsky's creation is one of the most complex phenomena in the literature history of the world. Dostoevsky is an outstanding representative of Russian realism in the 19th century but his creation is opposite to the traditional realism in many important aspects and closely associated with the contemporary literature. "Crime and Punishment"　is one of his best novels and quite familiar to readers of all over the world. Being published, the novel was interpreted and commented very differently. However, Gorky once said that only Shakespeare could match him in the capacity for artistic description. This article analyses "Crime and Punishment" and examines Dostoevsky's artistic creation in four aspects. I . Polyphonic structure of many kinds of dialogues Bakhtin divided novels into two types. One is traditional, that is a kind of novel controlled by a single-author's conscious The other is "polyphonic novel". Bakhtin elaborated Dostoevsky's work by using "polyphony" (a music term) and thought that Dostoevsky was the founder of polyphonic novel. The writing structure of "Crime and Punishment" is just the author's bold new idea in the artic form and Challenges to the traditional realism. "Polyphonic novel" theory is considered as a unique school of thought by the western literary and art circles and they are interested in it. The polyphonic phenomenon of "Crime and Punishment" includes basically three kinds of dialogues and two kinds on the whole. Firstly let's see the dialogues between the hero and the author, between the heroes and between the hero and himself. The dialogues between the hero and the author are far beyond the author's thought. From them we can see not only the complete value but also mere conclusion than the author makes from the fact so the readers can see an independent and distinctive hero. The dialogues between the hero and himself are most exciting. Through these dialogues the sharp conflict of heart can be expressed and many different aspects of hero's thought present themselves before our eyes. They can reveal a character's inner world .The dialogues between the heroes are heated arguments. The two parts master each other's comments. Under this situation, the readers are very easy to have an insight into the heroes' minds. Secondly the article discusses the large –size dialogues and mini-dialogues. Bakhtin said that the large –size dialogues was a counterpoint structure. In the novel "Crime and Punishment", the psychology counterpoint constitutes its structure center and restricts its overall arrangement. The readers can read the mini-dialogues everywhere which were written very carefully by the author. The hero of "Crime and Punishment" is pathological, disagreeable and unfortunate. His inner soliloquy full of dialogues and arguments reflects the extremely contradictory, miserable and spiritually unbalanced inner world, which subtly mirrors the variety of social phenomena and the deposits of historical ideology. With the polyphonic theory, we can easily understand Dostoevsky's unique psychoanalysis which is close to real life style, go deep into the soul of the character, watch his deepest inner world so as to see the subtly reflected social life and the realistic nature. Although "Crime and Punishment" cannot be defined as a polyphonic novel, this polyphonic structure shows Dostoevsky's uniqueness of artistic creation. It challenges to the tradition and becomes the author's bold new idea in the artistic form. II The ridiculous artistic techniques of describing breakup of inner world A brilliant author can reveal things' nature from ridiculousness. As a realistic author, Dostoevsky was intentionally contrary to the realistic habit of their time in order to describe deformity, abnormality and breakup. "Crime and Punishment" is full of gloomy and pathological flavor. Abnormal rhythm and emotional disturbance really break down the novel's overall arrangement because the author had his own opinion. Dostoevsky thought the illusory...