“The Split Self” by Klim Samgin: The Essence of Polyphonic and Monological Characters

The study examines the psychological portrait of the main character of the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” through the analytical theory of schizoid personality accentuation by A. Lowen and R. Lang. The article analyzes the character's childhood, which had a decisive influence on Samghin's specific traits. The author describes the phenomenon of schizoid alienation of the book's hero, his ambivalent-polyphonic dialogue with himself, due to the specifics of his inner world. Klim is extremely clearly aware of the split of his personality into several incompatible characterological radicals, totally opposed to each other. According to the author, «polyphonic character» can be positioned as a synthesis of multidirectional volitional impulses in the destructive consciousness of the protagonist of the novel, in which «social absenteeism» is opposed to activity, «revolutionary ideas» are opposed to conservatism, etc. According to the researcher, the character’s social autism is fraught with not only very negative and catastrophic consequences, but also a hidden opportunity to find one’s true being. Thanks to such self-isolation, Samghin has the opportunity to preserve his authentic features, to avoid the total depersonalizing influence of the social system, which is capable of subjecting his inner world to «chaotic non-existence». A comparative comparison of the personalities of Samgin and the worker Kutuzov allows us to draw a paradoxical conclusion that the main character of the work A.M. Gorky is much closer to understanding his bottomless inner world than the “Bolshevik-Leninist”, very limited by the social dictates of «democratic centralism». The study raises the question of the comparative relationship between different types of characters. In our opinion, «monological character» is a type of characterological mosaic in which there is a total absence of a «split of consciousness» into several subpersonalities united in one body. In our opinion, this character is most clearly captured in the image of the merchant Marina Zotova. Unlike Samghin, she is not absorbed in «existential Hamletism», she is completely open to the world, optimistic, and has overcome «social absenteeism».