"The Self And Others" And Polyphony-A Reading Of Dialogism In Atonement

Dialogue refers to the inquiry and response action between subjects, namely, the exchange and communication between open ideologies. Dialogism theory is the core of Bakhtin's linguistic philosophy, which is concerned with social factor of human being and people's existence state. According to Bakhtin, a man's existence is based on the existence of others and one ideology stays in the contact with others. Self can not break away from the influence of others. Dialogue is the basic state of human existence and polyphony is the highest form of dialogue.Ian McEwan's Atonement presents the characteristics of dialogical both in content and in form. In content, the novel is a process of Briony growing up from a girl of the absolute self into one who could have a dialogue with others. In form, the author employs metafictional device, a multi-viewpoint and multi-person narrative technique realizing a polyphonic dialogue.After a thorough analysis of the relationship between self and others, the unfinalizable self and polyphony in Atonement, the paper comes to the conclusion: in theme, the deep reason for Briony's crime is her having no dialogue with others and only by dialogue could she achieve atonement; moreover, the self of the main characters are unfinalizable and no one can escape the influence from others; in form, the usage of metafictional device and shift of view point realizes the juxtaposition and interaction of multiple voices. The analysis of this novel from the perspective of dialogism provides a new interpretation of Ian McEwan's Atonement.