The specific features of the narrative structure of the epilogue to F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel "Crime and Punishment" (to the 200th anniversary of the birth)

Abstract

The paper examines the narrative structure of the epilogue to the novel "Crime and Punishment" by F. M. Dostoevsky. The aim of the study is to describe the techniques employed by the author of the novel to actualise his final speech. The principal methods the research employs include general scientific methods (observation, comparison, and others), general philological methods (contextological, compositional, structural, and others), proper linguistic methods (semantic-stylistic, comparative stylistic, intertextual, and others). To reveal the specific features of the epilogue, the peculiarities of the author’s narration in the main body of "Crime and Punishment" were taken into consideration. In the first place, they are the "telling", dialogical nature, the presence of the author’s final speech. The comparative-contrastive study of the two parts of the epilogue in contrast to the rest of the novel facilitates the determination of the narration uniqueness in the epilogue. The subjective and chronotopic organisation of the final part of "Crime and Punishment" makes the tale move to a different level: the Christian system of coordinates becomes the world view basis of both the author-narrator and the protagonist (lifetime is measured in terms of church holidays, the "mundane" chronotope is replaced by the "Christian" one). The author’s voice in the epilogue is expressed both indirectly and directly, with the help of ironic and dialogic contexts. The author’s stand is manifested in the choice of words as well as in various symbolic details, and numerous references to the preceding contexts, and in the intertextual links of the novel.