Filistovitch Alena

Fall 2000

Course Paper

Dr. H. Maragou

there can be neither a first nor a last meaning; [anything that can be understood] always

exists among other meanings as a link in the chain of meaning, which in its totality is the only

thing that can be real. In historical life this chain continues infinitely, and therefore each

individual link in it is renewed again and again, as though it were being reborn.

Thoughts like these have led many theorists to consider Bakhtin as one of the
greatest theoreticians of language and literature in the twentieth century.
Bakhtins view that language is a social phenomenon characterised by openness and
and involved in an ever-evolving process provides a counteractive pole in theories
like deconstruction, which saw communication as virtually impossible. What is
more important for students of literature is that Bakhtin applied his views on
language not on strictly political field but on literary texts. This stems from his
belief that literature can indirectly disrupt authority and liberate alternative
voices. In addition, he believed that it was the novel which embodied this
liberating openness of social discourse.
However, in order to appreciate the application of his views on literarary texts
and especially on the novel, it is essential to understand the main tenets of his
philosophy of language. Bakhtin and the so called Bakhtin School, which arose in
the later period of Russian Formalism, was not interested in abstract linguistics of
the kind which later formed the basis of structuralism. He was mainly concerned
with language or discourse as a social phenomenon. For Bakhtin verbal signs are
active and dynamic capable of acquiring different meanings and connotations
depending on the social and historic context. Moreover, these verbal signs are
involved in a class struggle characterised by the presence of centripetal and
centrifugal forces in the language. The centripetal forces, which represent the
ruling layers of society, try to impose a unitary language in its effort to enforce
conformity to the main ideological notions of the given time. The centrifugal
forces, however, are the ones which try to resist this providing alternative
discourses which strive for diversity. This multiplicity of languages points to
Bakhtins fundamental concept of heteroglossia according to which all meaning
depends on the context where utterances interact with each other.
Bakhtin developed the implications of this dynamic view of language on
literarary texts and reached the conclusion that the novel is the only genre which
can fully embody the above features and is able to subvert authority and liberate
alternative voices. The novel, according to Bakhtin is characterised by a diversity
of individual voices, which ideally should represent the internal stratificaction of
the language at the particular moment, and which are involved in dialogisation.
This multiplicity of voices becomes apparent if we think that the basic unities of
novelistic discourse, according to Bakhtin, involve the authorial narration, the
individualised speech of the characters, which can be represented in a variety of
ways, the semiliterary written everyday narration in the form of letters and
diaries, and various forms of literary but extra-novelistic discourse such as
philosophy, sociology and so on. More importantly, if the novel is to be successful,
the author should not speak in any given language but through language avoiding
imposing his own voice on the novel destroying thus heteroglossia.
Contrasting novelistic discourse to poetic discourse he claims that the unity of
the language system adopted by the poet and the poets individuality, which are
indispensable prerequisites of the poetic style, are not conducive to diversity. This
fundamental difference between the two discourses led different scholars like
Sphet to dismiss the novel from the realm of artistic creation because it does not
spring from poetic creativity but it consists of purely rhetorical devides. In
contrast, Bakhtin stresses the fact that it was the novels interaction with the
existing rhetorical genres (journalism, philosophy, etc.) that enabled it to acquire
its uniqueness. For Bakhtin, the novel is the product of decentralising, centrifugal
linguistic forces that make it not fit into the frame provided by the stylistics of
poetic discourse.
Another important aspect of his work, connected to the concept of
heteroglossia, is the importance he lay on the novels interaction with with low-life
verbal discourse such as found in local fairs, carnivals and the square, and genres
like the fabliaux which provided opportunities for mocking authority. This
liberating and often subversive use of various dialogic forms, explored in his other
books Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics, and mainly Rabelais and his World,
became especially dominant in the Renaissance but it can be traced in earlier
literary forms like the the Socratic dialogue and the Menipean Satire.
 If we try to see how Bakhtins theory can be practically applied we can resort to
Renaissance comedies like Shakespeares Twelfth Night where there is the clash
between Malvolio, who represents prudence and decorum, and Sir Toby Belch, who
embodies the festive, carnival spirit and mocks the dominant social conventions
supported by Malvolio. There is, for example a scene where Malvolio scolds Sir
Toby, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Maria for having fun and Sir Toby answers back by
saying Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes
and ale? Sir Tobys disrespect for conventional norms is feature which Bakhtin
believes has been adopted by novelistic discourse.
Another example, which clearly displays how the author can promote
heteroglossia through the use of different kinds of discourse even while narrating,
is James Joyces modernist classic novel Ulysees. In a paragraph where the central
character, Leopold Bloom, has invited the other main character for tea after an
adventurous night at a brothel Joyce narrates it using a multiplicity of styles:

What did Bloom do?

He ... drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen with its back
to the area window, the other for himself when necessary, knelt on one knee, composed
in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and
irregular polygons of best Abram coal at twenty one shillings a ton from the yard of
Messrs Flower and MDonald of 14 DOlier street, kindled it at three projecting points of
paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing the potential energy contained
in the fuel by allowing its carbon and hydrogen elements to enter into free union with
the oxygen of the air.

In just one paragraph the narrator employs the language of catechism used in
Christian teaching, descriptive prose typical of a realist novel, technical
description, and the language of commerce found in advertisements. By adopting
language from different social discourses, Joyce shows how every event can be
seen from multiple perspectives and described in a variety of ways, thus
undermining the concept of unitary language.
A novel which exemplifies Bakhtins concept of polyphonic heteroglossia is Toni
Morrisons Beloved. Firstly, the