The Road Of Pursuing Freedom —A Polyphonic Study Of A.S.Byatt’s Possession

Possession tells a series of stories of the postmodern scholars Roland and Maud researching the secret love affair of two Victorian poets Ash and LaMotte. This thesis analyzes the novel from Bakhtin’s theory of polyphonic novel in order to have a evaluation of the structure of the novel. At the same time, it reveals the characteristics of the heroes Byatt creates, their subjective consciousnesses, the essential unfinalizability of the novel, and the author’s sense of freedom.First, according to the characteristics of “the objectivity of the author” and the heroes’ sense of self-evaluation, this thesis analyzes the characteristics of the heroes and concludes that the heroes are not only the object who convey the author’s opinion, but also the subject who have the right to state their views frankly and have the subjective consciousnesses to express their opinions. What’s more, the heroes also have the sense of self-evaluation. All these fully explain the heroes’ enthusiasm to yearn for and pursue freedom.Next, this thesis explores the great dialogue of the novel. The dialogic spirit runs through the novel structure which forms the “great dialogue” in the structure, that is the clue and the characters’ contrapuntal relationship. The author guides the readers to shuttle back and forth between the ancient times, the Victorian era and the postmodern academia casually; this seemingly arranged loose structure fully expresses the author’s pursuit of freedom in the writing.The essence of the polyphonic artistic world is the unfinalizability and the openness of the dialogue. The thesis finally analyzes the whole novelistic unfinalizability, including the unfinalizability of the plot, the open-ending of the novel and the openness of the heroes’ consciousnesses. This unfinalizability leaves suspense to the readers which endow them to imagine the development of the novel to their own and interpret the novel from various aspects, and this argues the readers’ freedom to interpret the novel given by the author.To sum up, through the polyphonic study, it can be argued that as the subject of equal dialogic relationship, the author and the heroes keep on pursuing freedom, and at the same time, Byatt also gives the readers to interpret the novel from various aspects, thus realizing her dream to pursue freedom and it also coincides with Byatt’s concept of freedom in literary work.