The Monologue Beynd the Dialogue: Why are Dostoevsky’s characters are so real? Dostoevsky’s polyphonic world is full of free subjects, not objects. We don’t know what they might say or do next, and we suspect that the author doesn’t know either. They speak in their own voices, and Dostoevsky doesn’t drown them out. Yet Dostoevsky’s complex novels are animated by his conviction that there is a monologue beyond the dialogue, the one Word of the one God who entices us into his future kingdom of freedom and beauty.
