Fyodor Dostoyevsky created the novel, Notes From Underground, holding insightful thoughts on the purpose and meaning of life. In the novel, Dostoyevsky creates the character, the Underground Man. He laments human’s inconsistencies and their inability to grasp the meaninglessness of existence; while they work tirelessly to exert control over their uncontrollable environments. Human desire for power is epitomized in their attempts to rebel against the physiological laws of nature that govern the human body. The Underground Man would be infuriated over the advancements made in gene therapy to reverse diseases. Modern science cites the saving of lives as the purpose for their pursuit. While the Underground Man would bellow, “You megalomaniac fools. …show more content…
CALD is predominantly discovered in male children because it is carried in the mother’s X gene. When females are born they have two X genes. If one is abnormal the other gene will compensate. Males do not have two X genes, so if the mother passes a CALD infected X gene to a male child he will develop the disease. Originally, scientists utilized donor stem cells to fight this disease. This method resulted in numerous patients rejecting the treatment and becoming sick. The genetic material had to be as close as possible and only had real success when the patient had a sibling. Today doctors eliminate the need for donor stem cells by harnessing the patient’s own blood stem cells. Blood stem cells create adult blood cells. The blood stem cells are cultured modified by inserting a correct form of the X gene. They are then reintroduced into the patient’s bone marrow after the patient undergoes chemotherapy. Chemotherapy destroys bone marrow so there is room to reinsert the corrected blood stem cells. Carrying out this process manipulates the body into creating its own cure to the disease; eventually erasing the gene from the patient’s body. This process is still in clinical trials, but has shown an 88% success rate. Through future research, scientists hold high expectations of increasing that percentage. Giving more children the chance to live full …show more content…
The Underground Man’s exasperation begins at the realization that people are not in control of their own being—at all. This science only works to prove that it is pointless to try to make decisions for yourself. If a gene predetermines what is going to happen to the human body, then what sense is there in trying to make choices. If the genetic material predetermines how a person behaves then is a person really in control of their own personality; or are people, simply a collection of genetic material that is destined to proceed along a predetermined route through life to a known end? Further, with this advance in science are humans meddling in areas they have no business? Should a man live past the time the law of nature dictates that he dies? The Underground Man writhes in these questions searching to grasp the meaning of it
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...
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, discuss the modification of the natural world and human nature. The books come from different perspectives but discuss these same ideas. Notes from the Underground comes from the perspective of a man who is somewhat in hiding in a small corner of a room with a servant in an attempt to escape the outside world of Petersburg, Russia. While Oryx and Crake comes from a boy who is also living on the outskirts of society but travels in an effort to escape the tragedy at home.
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.
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
Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Dostoevsky, the only one who has taught me anything about psychology.” The two writers share many similarities and differences. Dostoevsky clearly had an effect on the thinking of Nietzsche. The two would be considered both philosophers and psychologists. Both writers became prominent in the late 19th century in Germany and Russia respectively. Dostoevsky was noted for his Russian literary classics and would be responsible for a flowering of late 19th century Russian literary culture. His Russian contemporaries include Leo Tostoy and Anton Chekov. Dostoevsky’s most famous works include The Brothers Karamozov, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment. Nietzsche is most famous for his philosophical works such as thus spoke Zarathustra. The two writers have many similarities in their philosophy. They both see a changing role in religion. Nietzsche and Dostoevsky also differ sharply on some other aspects of life. One of these being the differing views on the role of the fatherland. Nietzsche’s beyond good and evil and Dostoevsky’s crime and punishment are two works that can be compared and contrasted to show the similarities and dissimilarities of the two geniuses. The two men offer great insights in these books on morality and the affect it can have on the actions of the individual and the society as a whole.
He constantly attempts to seek out revenge, but the concept of revenge, paired with the underground character’s actions and inertia, becomes problematic with the underground ideal. The underground character is steeped in contradiction, and how one interprets his actions, or his inactions, is what ultimately determines whether the he is, truly, an underground man. Notes from the Underground and Taxi Driver both depict a protagonist, the underground character, who scoffs and scorns at those aboveground, termed the “normal man” (PDF 15). Notes describes the normal man as someone with “normal interests,” who “act[s] in accordance with the laws of reason and truth” (). Notes were written at the time of the Enlightenment, and used to criticize the then-popular theory of material determinism: that “all choice and reasoning can be.calculated” by science, and if this is applied to human behavior, it is possible that “there will some day be discovered the laws of our so-called free will” (PDF 42)....
Caves believes that people should and must accept that life outcomes are determined by disparities in nature and nuture so people can take practical measures to remedy misfortune and help others to fulfill their potential. “Free will and determinism are not the opposites they are often taken to be; they simply describe our behavior at different levels”, stated Stephen Cave. People should focus on their ability, in any given setting, to generate a wide range of options for theirselves, and to decide among them without having the feeling of restraint. If people give up their beliefs in free will, then their behavior will be viewed as a natural phenomenon. In the idea of cause and effect, a belief in free will may not inspire people to make the
..., 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.
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
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground: A New Translation, Backgrounds and Sources, Responses, Criticism. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 1989.
Because he has no respect for himself, he can have no respect for others, either.
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.
In his novel Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov as a vessel for several different philosophies that were particularly prominent at the time in order to obliquely express his opinions concerning those schools of thought. Raskolnikov begins his journey in Crime and Punishment with a nihilistic worldview and eventually transitions to a more optimistic one strongly resembling Christian existentialism, the philosophy Dostoevsky preferred, although it could be argued that it is not a complete conversion. Nonetheless, by the end of his journey Raskolnikov has undergone a fundamental shift in character. This transformation is due in large part to the influence other characters have on him, particularly Sonia. Raskolnikov’s relationship with Sonia plays a significant role in furthering his character development and shaping the philosophical themes of the novel.
Social Contradictions in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground. 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. In Notes from Underground, Dostoyevsky relates the viewpoints and doings of a very peculiar man.