“Sophisticated Wickedness” and Multi-Voiced Dialogism

In revisiting Bakhtin’s theories of Dialogism, I am at once struck with the variety of ways in which Stephen Burroughs memoirs are dialogic—and not only double-voiced, but multi-voiced. To begin, I noticed that I hear a variety of Burroughs’es in the text—there is the young lad scamping around and getting into “innocent” mischief; the slightly older teenage Burroughs, sounding cocky in his cleverness (the shoe sermon); the whiny Burroughs constantly blaming others for his crimes; the scared Burroughs pleading his case with high pathos (the starvation) (see dramatic monologue on page 107 “O! ruthless mortals! said I, . . . Am not I a member of the same family with yourselves!”); and the outraged democratic Burroughs expostulating on the inconsistencies of America’s belief in Liberty. Finally, all of Burroughs’s voices are told in hindsight through the narrator, the older, hopefully more wise, Burroughs. He is, indeed, creating “meaning out of past utterance[s]” and enabling the “constant need for utterances to position themselves in relation to one another” (Vice 45), by positing the past utterance of the young Burroughs within dialogue with the older Burroughs.

Furthermore, Burroughs’s narrative considers the voice of the reader as an interlocutor, making assumptions about his/her opinions, thoughts, curiosities, etc., in his narrative. In addition to the dramatic monologue mentioned above, see also page 67, Burroughs writes, “I know the world will blame me, but I wish to justify my conduct to myself let the world think what it may.” While this message appears to be monologic, he is in fact “mixing intentions of speaker and listener” (Vice 45) and incorporating in the narrative voice of the social and historical listener. He, in essence, considered what we the readers would likely think or say and anticipating our voice in his statement. In a similar vein, he searches out voices in rhetorical questions like those on page 86, “What could be done? What more could be said? . . . What would you have done, had you been in my situation?” I think Vice would say these questions fit Bakhtin’s monologism as they expect no answer (See Vice page 52) (I’m really confused by her example), but I don’t agree. Burroughs knows there will be an answer and tries to anticipate it by answering it before it is asked. Anticipating the answer inherently acknowledges another’s voice. In this instance, he tells us he has no choice but to do the evil errand for Lysander that ultimately gets Burroughs incarcerated and tortured.

Burroughs (or rather the author; I guess I should distinguish) continues to incorporate dialogism in his narrative by including excerpts or summaries from contemporary newspapers (see, for instance, page 91 about the printer from Springfield) so that he may refute them, inserts letters from various Reverends and family members so that he may interpret them and place them in context with his own narrative, and uses their dialogue in such a way as to sway his reader towards his cause—thereby giving their voice double-voicedness. These examples exemplify the ways in which Dialogized heteroglossia “refers to the combative relations different languages enter into when they come into contact, most clearly perceptible in a text” (my emphasis, Vice 49).


Moreover, there is the recipient “Sir” (the “Friend” the story is addressed to) not only implies the individual “Sir” and takes into account his voice, but it also is double-voiced because Burroughs knew others would come to read the letters as well (as argued above). Taking into account the opinion of a wider audience, I read a comic turn on page 110 when Burroughs abruptly ends his tale just when the story is getting interesting—he gives a pathos-educed build-up just to tell us that he is tired and will finish his story later—a technique we later came to call “the cliff hanger.”

Finally, I cannot forget the editor, who in turns both supported Burroughs claims (see footnote page 43) and contradicted him (see footnotes page 26 and 28, where the editor defends Professor Ripley). The pro / con stances evidenced by the editor epitomize the dialogic nature of the narrative and also make me wonder about the printer, the book store owner, the advertisement writers, and all other “voices” that, I feel, go into making up the “author,” including the sketch artist of Burroughs.

As I've been asking my students all week, "So What?"  So what if Burroughs' narrative is dialogic (multi-voiced)? What is the significance of that?  I believe the "So What?" lies in the fact that because Stephen Burroughs' wrote his narrative, he has gained immortality through the written word and has become public property.  As public property, he does not live (in print) in a vacuum.  We all re-write Burroughs' life when we read him and interpret him--we all participate in the dialogic process in defining Burroughs, and therefore, Burroughs can never be finalized (I am on shaky ground with Bakhtin's unfinalizablity theories).

Thus far I have very much enjoyed reading Burroughs—and I most distinctly see both serious (political) and comic double-voicedness in the text. I also have noted many instances of “the spectacle” and “the carnivalesque,” but I’ll save those ideas for another chapter of Vice.


Works Cited

Burroughs, Stephen. Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs (1798). Boston: Northeastern UP, 1988. (*"Sophisticated Wickedness" refers to the description Robert Frost used in the forward to describe Burroughs.)

Vice, Sue. Introducing Bakhtin. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1997.