Underground Man Quotes

1728 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays on the underground man by dostoyevsky

The character The Underground Man from Notes From Underground, written by Fyodor Dostoevsky, can be seen as the least free character encountered. While he may seem very free, because of being highly self-conscious, it is the opposite fact because of the former. Many themes of this novel point to his lack of freedom, including: a crippling sense of consciousness, which eliminates all possible confidence, a false view of angelism in terms of intelligence, and isolation which stems from a source of hatred. The Underground Man is hyper-conscious throughout Notes from Underground. This act is predominantly what drives his awkward interaction with others and strips away his confidence. In the beginning, the Underground Man starts by saying, “I …show more content…

The Underground Man uses the example of “the stone wall” to show his thoughts on an intelligent, conscious man compared to a normal man. While giving his thoughts on scientific rationalism, he …show more content…

One can see that the Underground Man is afraid of reality, although his thoughts regarding actions are accurate. This relates to him being able to only act through his imaginations. The Underground Man’s irrational action is proven in his friendship, or lack thereof with Zverkov. Zverkov can be seen as the opposite of the Underground Man. He is an example of what the Underground Man describes as the man of action. The Underground Man’s hatred for Zverkov stems from his attractiveness. He says, “I hated his handsome, stupid face (for which, however, I’d gladly have exchanged my own intelligent one).”(43) His actions and hatred toward Zverkov and the others prove jealously, and the Underground Man seemed uncomfortable with what could not be changed, his consequences. The group spoke on the Underground Man’s appearance, salary, and other humiliating points. He became quickly drunk, which floored a long list of hateful words. The Underground Man pointed out all the actions he hated, which are what Zverkov mostly possessed. Following this, the Underground Man thought to himself, “How much, how very much I longed to be reconciled by them at that moment!”(55) The words and actions by the Underground man once again did not match. While he says hateful words, he quickly wants to be reunited with the other men. This separation of thought and action is what binds

Show More
Related

  • The Use Of Allegory In Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the most important elements in Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground is Wright’s careful use of sensory descriptions, imagery, and light to depict Fred Daniels’ experiences both above and below ground. Wright’s uses these depictions of Fred Daniels underground world to create incomplete pictures of the experiences he has and of the people he encounters. These half-images fuel the idea that The Man Who Lived Underground is a dark and twisted allusion to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

    Read More

  • Allegory and Truman Show

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Allegory of the Cave has many parallels with The Truman Show. Initially, Truman is trapped in his own “cave”; a film set or fictional island known as Seahaven. Truman’s journey or ascension into the real world and into knowledge is similar to that of Plato’s cave dweller. In this paper, I will discuss these similarities along with the very intent of both of these works whose purpose is for us to question our own reality.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Abraham In Fear And Trembling

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like Abraham, the underground man’s “most profitable profit” (Ibid.) acts as a suspension of the moral, and as a rejection of determinist philosophies. Ostensibly, the underground man’s refusal to be “nothing but a sort of piano key” (Dostoevsky 19) seems incompatible with Di Silenctio’s portrayal of Abraham, but this is not the case. The underground man and Abraham share an identical belief in the absurd nature of human behavior and both reject the universal ethics of

    Read More

  • Comparing The Corner Residents and Dostoevsky’s Underground Man

    2340 Words  | 5 Pages

    Frequently, the public debate over the those problems which occur in poverty-ridden urban environments is presented as if the inhabitants were copies of Dostoevsky's underground man who differed mainly in that they frequently had less education and more pigment in their skin. That is to say, although there are valid comparisons that can be drawn between the Underground Man and the inhabitants of west Baltimore who are so vividly depicted in The Corner, there are also important differences that make any claim of strict equality between a Russian intellectual from the nineteenth century and a 20th-century tout or slinger an absurd caricature. Moreover, the intent of portraying inner-city residents as Underground Men and Women is, frequently, to blame these people for all of their own problems, something t...

    Read More

  • The Mole People Analysis

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is a given that our culture will vary differently than of one that dwells in the tunnel. In prehistoric time, the underground was seen as a place of safety, much like it is seen today for the mole people. Throughout literature, the underground man, as Toth explains, is extreme, withdrawn and isolated. He is self exiled from human society and only maintains as much contacted as needed to survive. He believes in nothing and is often filled with rage and anguish (177). Many of the tunnel dwellers share many of the same practices and use of material objects key to their survival like eating rodents, using loose electrical wires for electricity, finding water through leaky pipes and cardboard and garbage for building a home. They all share the same knowledge and ideas of how live in the tunnels. They evolve by the changes in their environment and learn how to change to better protect themselves from predators like outsiders or from the dangers of trains. They have norms like we do but what they considered to be a norm, is what we may see as a folkway. Some may even develop their own language so others in their group can understand them. The nature of this counterculture and its formation shows that our society has the ability to create various countercultures that can either show how we excel or fail as a society. However it does show that if we were to

    Read More

  • Invisible Man Essay: Importance of Setting

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bellow, Saul. "Man Underground" Review of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Commentary. June 1952. 1st December 2001

    Read More

  • Dostoyevsky's Notes From the Underground and Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver

    1562 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although he regrets it, the Underground Man’s inability to commit to one action, to save Liza or to repulse her, to seek revenge or attempt fit in, is what ultimately keeps him from connecting with others, it is what keeps him in the underground. Travis’ commitment to action ultimately leads him above ground. Works Cited Dostoevsky, Fyodor. A. Notes from Underground: A New Translation, Backgrounds and Sources, Responses, Criticism. Norton Critical Edition.

    Read More

  • Dostoyevsky ‘Notes from Underground’ Critique

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    ..., his physical inertia thwarts his aggressive desires and he has compulsive talk of himself but has no firm discussion (Frank 50). Moreover, the underground man is full of contempt for readers but is desperate that the reader understands, he reads very widely but writes shallowly, he depicts the social thinkers as superficial and he desires to collide with reality but has no ability to do this. Therefore the underground man is completely emotional, babbly with no real form.

    Read More

  • What Is Social Determinism In The Note From Underground?

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    The underground man is the product of the social determinism due to all the personal experiences that he had throughout his life with the society. He is a person who always wanted act in a different way but he stops himself and act as how the society wants him

    Read More

  • Freedom in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground

    1805 Words  | 4 Pages

    Fanger, Donald. Introduction. Notes From Underground. By Fyodor Dostoevsky. Trans. Mirra Ginsburg. NY: Bantam, 1992.

    Read More

  • Comparing Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground

    490 Words  | 1 Pages

    Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground   Fyodor Dostoyevsky's stories are stories of a sort of rebirth.  He weaves a tale of severe human suffering and how each character attempts to escape from this misery.  In the novel Crime and Punishment, he tells the story of Raskolnikov, a former student who murders an old pawnbroker as an attempt to prove a theory.  In Notes from the Underground, we are given a chance to explore Dostoyevsky's opinion of human beings.

    Read More

  • Social Contradictions in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a truly remarkable novel. Dostoyevsky's novels probe the cause of human action. They questioned conventional wisdom of what drove humans and offered insight into the inner workings and torments of the human soul.

    Read More

  • Crime and Punishment and Raskolnikov's article, On Crime

    3487 Words  | 7 Pages

    Raskolnikov's article, "On Crime," is vital to the understanding of his beliefs. This article also has a profound effect on Crime and Punishment as a whole, the subject matter being one of the main themes of the novel. The idea of the "extraordinary man" is referred to literally throughout the book, but also notable is the subconscious effect the idea has on Raskolnikov. Sometimes Raskolnikov is not even aware of this influence. It is important to note originality, or the ability to "utter a new word," as a defining characteristic of the extraordinary man. Therefore, we must take into account the presence of similar ideas, those of Pisarev, Nietzsche, and nihilism, as these might bring to light the possibility that Raskolnikov is not original, a possibility that haunts him throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Raskolnikov’s Theory of Extraordinary Men

    1286 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Raskolnikov’s theory in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”,there are two types of people that coexist in the world; the “Extraordinary” and the “Ordinary”. The ordinary men can be defined as “Men that have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because they are ordinary.”(248). To the contrary “extraordinary” men are “Men that have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way , just because they are extraordinary”(248).  Dostoevsky’s theory is evident through the characters of his novel. The main character, Raskolnikov, uses his theory of extraordinary men to justify contemplated murder.  There is a sense of empowerment his character experiences with the ability to step over social boundaries. He is led to believe the killing of the pawnbroker is done for the perseverance of the greater good. It is ironic that character who is shown to be powerful in the early stages of the novel subsequently go on to show many weaknesses.

    Read More

  • Notes from Underground

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    One can find much anecdotal support in Notes from Underground that this is an anti-Enlightenment novel – far too much to be included in this short book review. Even from the few examples listed here and through the Underground Man’s discourse throughout, it is easy to see the explicit rejection of the Enlightenment notion that reason would free man’s mind of ignorance and set humankind on a path to a utopian existence.

    Read More

More about Underground Man Quotes

Open Document