| This study examines the significance of nonverbal expression in Dostoevsky's poetics and argues that nonverbal discourse is as essential to understanding the ideas in Dostoevsky's novels as verbal discourse. After challenging the hierarchy between verbal and nonverbal discourse established by Bakhtin's dialogic theory, this study examines the semiotics of ideokinemes, the smallest unit of human movement conveying an idea demarcated by context. Thus, an examination of facial expressions and nonverbal interaction between Raskolnikov and his interlocutors reveals a nonverbal discourse that, at times, becomes more meaningful than the verbal discourse in Crime and Punishment; the examination of The Brothers Karamazov reveals how the outstretched hand, as an ideokineme signifying the novel's main ideological concern, dominates the novel's nonverbal discourse. In the final analysis, the peculiarity of Dostoevsky's poetics derives from his characteristic ability to make words and gestures convey ideas equally. |
