In Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, the underground man struggles between two opposing beliefs. The first acknowledges that his fictional existence has been predetermined, subject to his author’s conduct. The is the underground man’s insistence that the only possible world humans can live in undetermined world which extols and situates free will within a human. In order to try and solve this problem, the underground man turns to writing, to try and be honest with himself, probe into why he is this way, and to not reject any truth that comes forth, horrifying or not. Through this exercise, he comes to realize that his self awareness sheds light on how little control he has over his actions even though he continues to believe in free will. This understanding within the underground man, and acceptance from the reader, engenders with humility brings forth what I believe to be a humbling message to the now indurate reader, who, after reading Notes from Underground, returns to their own, undetermined world with a new sense of duty. In the section titled “Underground,” the underground man discusses the notion of determinism. He states that to accept this theory, one’s actions become stripped from any ulterior motive. “That is to say, in life itself, [it] is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four – that is a formula; and two times two is no longer life gentleman, but the beginning of death” (pg 32). Moreover, that to believe two times two is four and that the outcome of four is unchangeable within the distance future, is something that the Underground man refutes. For one’s life to have any meaning or validity, actions must be understood as non-robotic; an answer to this question must not only be unknown, but more imp... ... middle of paper ... ...nd. The underground man concludes that it’s impossible to discover yourself without feeling fear, and the potential for feeling fear doesn’t give an excuse for one to not try, even if one’s within a book. But we’re not the underground man. We’re not characters in a book. We can feel words and bring forth actions which transcend them. Our consciousness will never allow us to understand the complexity of life; we don’t live in a two-times-two world. If our future seems doomed, we have time at our disposal and the ability to utilize it for change. This concept is hard to live with. It brings with it that most rare breed of pain: the kind that’s removed only through acceptance and action. Once the pain settles, however, you’ll emerge out of that shattered lattice once called the underground, with and a deeper, clearer understanding of that which you are, we all are.
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.
As Rodya analyzes Luzhin’s character, he realizes that intellect unrestrained by moral purpose is dangerous due to the fact that many shrewd people can look right through that false façade. Luzhin’s false façade of intellect does not fool Rodya or Razumikhin, and although they try to convince Dunya into not marrying Luzhin, she does not listen. Rodya believes that Luzhin’s “moral purpose” is to “marry an honest girl…who has experienced hardship” (36). The only way he is able to get Dunya to agree to marry him, is by acting as if he is a very intellectual person, who is actually not as educated as he says he is. This illustrates the fact that Rodya knows that it is really dangerous because he knows that people can ruin their lives by acting to be someone they are not. Rodya also knows that people will isolate themselves from others just so that no one will find out their true personality. This is illustrated in through the fact that Luzhin tries to avoid Dunya and her mother as much as possible. The way he writes his letter, exemplifies his isolation, for Luzhin does not know how to interact with society. He has no idea how to write letters to his fiancée and his future mother in law. This reflects on Rodya’s second dream because he is unable to get Dunya married off to a nice person. He feels isolated from everyone else because his intellect caused him to sense that Luzhin is not telling the truth about his personality. However, it was due to his lack of moral purpose that Rodya berates his sister’s fiancé. He is unable to control himself, and due to his immoral act of getting drunk, Rodya loses all judgment and therefore goes and belittles Luzhin. Although Rodya’s intellectual mind had taken over and showed him that Luzhin wa...
“But here, in our tunnel, we feel it no longer. The air is pure under the ground. There is no odor of men. And these three hours give us strength for our hours above the ground” (Rand 46). Equality 7-2521 becomes aware that the only way he will achieve freedom is to be absent from the society around him. Although he is in a small, dark underground space, which most people associate with confinement itself, Equality 7-2521 enjoys time alone without the “odor of men.” Individual freedom ceases to exist, yet Equality 7-2521 is aware of his isolation from
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
In some moments of my life I too feel shackled or chained down. Whether it’s in a relationship or just trying to get ahead in life. In my teenage years I was careless and figured that since I was young I had time to waste. I held my own self back from doing a lot of things I should have done back then that would have made life a whole lot easier for me now. In the allegory, once the prisoner returned from the outside world he shared his stories with the other prisoners. The prisoners wanted to hear nothing of what the man had to say. Nor did they believe him. It reminds me of when I took a trip to Hawaii for my cousin's wedding. Everything there was so beautiful and the air smelled so fresh and clean.I took a lot of pictures and when I returned home I let my friends know all about the wonderful experience I had. Some did not want to hear it at all saying things like “ Well I will never go there so I don't care”, or “Your putting extras on it i’m sure it was not that pretty. People are afraid or quick to refuse new information or ideas because they are so comfortable in believing their own beliefs or what society wants them to believe. In the case of the allegory the prisoners all wanted to only believe what they were subjected to. They were afraid to receive knowledge. Most of us these days do the exact same thing simply because we believe we know it
In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky gives the reader an inside look to the value system that he holds for himself, as well as the type of characteristics that he abhors in people as well as the characteristics that he admires in people. He uses characters in the novel to express his beliefs of what a person should be like in life to be a “good'; person. Specifically he uses Raskolnokv to show both good and bad characteristics that he likes in people. Also he uses Svidriglaiov and Luzin to demonstrate the characteristics that people should shun and his personal dislikes in people.
In such poor living conditions, those that the slums of Russia has to offer, the characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment1 struggle, living day to day. Raskolnikov, the protagonist, experiences multiple layers of suffering (the thought of his murder causes him greater suffering than does his poverty) as does Sonia and Katerina Ivanovna (1). Through these characters as well as Porfiry Petrovitch, Dostoevsky wants the reader to understand that suffering is the cost of happiness and he uses it to ultimately obliterate Raskolnikov’s theory of an ubermensch which allows him to experience infinite love.
Sethe was not able to have control over the outcome of her life until her later years. She was not able to sulk around and blame everyone for her problems as The Underground Man was, she had to constantly push forward because society did not feel sorry for he and it would not allow her to feel sorry for herself. Unlike Sethe, the Undergrond Man was able to experiment with his condition. This shows while they may be expressing the same feelings, they are not going through the same situation. This is a topic of the 19th century, the world is entering the modern era and people are becoming more self-aware of the impact of society. While at the same time the effects of a barbaric system are being felt. These otherwise foreign stories are linked to the fact that they express the mental drain of the new modern
Bellow, Saul. "Man Underground" Review of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Commentary. June 1952. 1st December 2001
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
Fanger, Donald. Introduction. Notes From Underground. By Fyodor Dostoevsky. Trans. Mirra Ginsburg. NY: Bantam, 1992.
Hansen, Bruce. “Dostoevsky’s Theodicy.” Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1996. At . accessed 18 November 2001.
In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskalnikov undergoes a period of extreme psychological upheaval. By comparing this death and rebirth of Raskalnikov's psyche to the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, Dostoevsky emphasizes not only the gravity of his crimes, but also the importance of acceptance of guilt.
Dostoyevsky's characters are very similar, as is his stories. He puts a strong stress on the estrangement and isolation his characters feel. His characters are both brilliant and "sick" as mentioned in each novel, poisoned by their intelligence. In Notes from the Underground, the character, who is never given a name, writes his journal from solitude. He is spoiled by his intelligence, giving him a fierce conceit with which he lashes out at the world and justifies the malicious things he does. At the same time, though, he speaks of the doubt he feels at the value of human thought and purpose and later, of human life. He believes that intelligence, to be constantly questioning and "faithless(ly) drifting" between ideas, is a curse. To be damned to see everything, clearly as a window (and that includes things that aren't meant to be seen, such as the corruption in the world) or constantly seeking the meaning of things elusive. Dostoyevsky thought that humans are evil, destructive and irrational.
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.