Abstract
This article applies Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogic method to James Joyce's The Sisters. Although the surface structure, which consists of many Biblical analogies, implies that this text presents a strictly Christian point of view, the deep structure turns that perspective upside down. As a process of dialogization, The Sisters contrasts Catholic Dublin with the ancient roots of dialogism which Joyce must have rediscovered independently from Bakhtin: the Socratic Dialogue and the Carnivalesque which is closely related to Nietzsche's principle of the Dionysiac. As Joyce presents his central character James Flynn not only as a broken man who had to spend his terminal days in paralytic silence, but also as an ironic reincarnation of Jesus, Socrates and Dionysus, his early story turns out to be a polyphonic text whose multi-voicedness subverts Christianity with Socratic freedom of thought and Pagan festivity.
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