The Genre of Trolls - Doria

sample contains two extreme variations on this theme: the first is the
instance of invisibility rendering finalization utterly impossible and unfinalizability
completely uncontrollable (text 1: R II 70), the second is the examples
of the slaying of the troll in order to halt unfinalizability and effect
finalization (text 4: Nyland 1887, 180; text 5: SLS 137 I, 1). Finalization as a
type of dying gains a very concrete dimension in the latter.
The analysis of the finalizing ambitions of the human characters is further
aided by the distinction between the unity of the other, which ought
to be spatio-temporal in nature, and the unity of the self which must be a
unity of meaning, according to Bakhtin. The fact that the unity of the troll
is very much a unity of meaning violates this basic principle, and it causes
great unease among the human characters. The narrator is rather the one
to cherish the troll’s insistence on being categorized as a self, and the notion
of the author’s, or in this case narrator’s, dialogical position vis-à-vis
his characters has been useful in describing the performer’s attitude to the
troll.
More generally, both the early, non-dialogic and the later, polyphonic
theory have proven useful in understanding the relationship between man
and troll from the point of view of the indeterminacy of the latter. Each
has been applied where it has furnished the best solution to an analytical
problem, and they have been equally valuable.
Unfinalizability, Dialogue and Stories of the Supernatural 279