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The Perspectives of Existentialism and Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground

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 1

Course: VII

(19th Century Fiction) English

Lesson No: 1

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Socio-Political-Cultural Background

INTRODUCTION:

The historical, cultural and political background of an author plays a significant role in

the constitution of his/her fictional discourses. These aspects must be studied in order to

comprehend the geo-political, historical, cultural and ideological positions of a literary writer. It

is more important in the case of 19th century Russian writer like Dostoevsky who belongs to a

complex set of historical, political and cultural circumstances of Russia. Like many of his

contemporaries, he responded to the cultural, historical and political climate of the

transformation era of Russia in his writings. The examining of the cultural and political

background of Dostoevsky shows some sort of similarity in his upbringing and immediate

ideological environment. So, his response to the socialist discursive ideas is predominantly

unique and his fiction becomes an attempt to critique that heritage by revisiting, appropriating

and articulating afresh the rich historical, political and cultural heritage of Russian Society.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: Life and Works

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is a very versatile genius and prolific writer. He is a

novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and a philosopher. He was born in 1821in

Moscow, Russia. His parents Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevskaya and Mikhail Andreevich

Dostoyevsky belonged to a mixed ethnic and multi-denominational noble family from the Pinsk

region. He was the second among seven siblings. Dostoevsky’s father was supposed to work as

a priest like his ancestors but he ran away from home and broke his relations with the family. His
 2

father was enrolled in Moscow's Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy in 1809. He served as a

military doctor and senior physician in Moscow hospital. He worked in the Mariinsky Hospital

that was for the poor. After the birth of Dostoevsky, he was promoted as a collegiate assessor

and got legal status of nobility. This status enabled him to own an estate in a town Darovoye. It

was about 150 km away from Moscow and Dostoevsky used to spend summer there.

Dostoevsky’s mother died of tuberculosis on September 27, 1837 and after two years, his

father was murdered. Dostoyevsky’s nanny, Alena Frolovna introduced him to literature and

developed his reading habits in his childhood. His family atmosphere made him familiar with

world literature and writers like Karamzin, Pushkin, Derzhavin, Ann Radcliffe, Schiller and

Goethe, Cervantes, Walter Scott, Homer and others. Besides, the impact of some horrible

experiences of his childhood days can be seen in his writings. As once nine year old girl patient

came to his father who was raped brutally by a drunkard. The memory of that incident haunts his

sensitivity throughout his life. In his childhood, he was hot headed, pale, introvert and a dreamer.

He did not like his school much because of his aristocratic schoolmates.

Dostoevsky joined Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute at St Petersburg in January

1838 to receive education. He could not enjoy his studies because of his lack of interest in

science, mathematics and military engineering. He was interested in drawing and architecture.

He felt like an outsider in the institute. After getting the degree, he worked as an engineer and

also translated the books and earned some money. He appeared on the literary scene by

translating Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet. He started writing in his 20s and he

wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, when he was 25 years old in 1840 and he became popular

among the literary writers. He established himself as a genius writer after the publication of his

first novel. It was well received and Harold Bloom quotes well known critic Belinsky who
 3

admired this novel as a first “social novel” (12). He was arrested by the state for his participation

in a literary discussion group in the Petrashevsky Circle in 1849. It was a society for liberal

utopian world. He was charged by the Czar administration for reading and circulating the works

by Belinsky and Gogol and awarded death sentence but at the end movement, the death sentence

was converted into life imprisonment with rigorous work at Omex jail at Siberia. He was

diagnosed with epilepsy during his confinement and released from the jail on medical grounds.

He was released from the prison on February, 14 1854. He was forced to work as a soldier after

his release. But after some time, he left his military job in order to concentrate on writing. He

wrote his second novel, The Double in 1846. His novel The House of the Dead is about his

horrible experience in prison. It was published in 1861 and it was a first attempt of its kind about

the conditions of prisons in Russia. He was very impressed by Belinsky’s logic, rationality, idea

of justice and his concern for the marginalized sections of society. But he could not like his

orthodox atheism and strong disliking religion. After that he wrote some short stories like "Mr.

Prokharchin", "The Landlady", "A Weak Heart", and "White Nights". He launched a journal The

Times in 1861 with the help of his brother Mikhaile. In 1882-1883, he set out on a journey for

Europe, it gave impetus to his anti Europe ideas.

Dostoevsky taught to school children and here he came into contact with Maria

Dmitrievna Isaeva (1857–1864) and fell in love with her. They got married in Semipalatinsk on

February 7, 1857 and after her death he got married to Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina (1867–1881).

His children are Sonya (1868), Lyubov (1869–1926), Fyodor (1871–1922), Alexey (1875–1878).

Dostoevsky worked as a journalist, editor and a diary writer. In his Diary, he discussed many

burning issues related to society, religion, politics and ethics. He travelled throughout Europe

and he suffered a lot of financial hardships due to his gambling addiction. At the same time, he
 4

established himself as a well known writer and his books had been translated in many languages.

He was in deep financial crisis and his stories couldn’t help him in this regard. He became the

part of Betekov circle; they helped him for his survival. But the circle was disbanded after

sometime. After that Dostoyevsky became friend of Apollon Maykov and his brother Valerian.

He participated in the discussions organized by these circles.

Dostoevsky’s contemporary Russian society was feudal and strictly believed in

hierarchies. The political structures, religion, social norms, land ownership established hierarchy

in the society. The society was divided into classes. The industrial labourer and marginalized

peasantry were in majority of the population. In comparison to Europe, Russia’s educated and

professional middle class was small in number. The historian Michael Lynch divided the

population during 1897 census into the following classes and categorized the population of

Russia in these broad class groups. The upper class included royalty, nobility and higher clergy.

It was 12.5 per cent of the total population, they lived comfortable life without any concern with

the plight of poor peasantry and the Middle class comprised merchants, bureaucrats and

professionals. They were only 1.5 per cent of total population and they are educated, liberal and

reformists. The working class consisted of Factory workers, artisans, soldiers and sailors and

they were only 4 per cent. Peasants included landed and landless farmers who were 82 per cent

of the total population. They lack opportunity of any kind to get education. They do not have the

feelings of hatred towards Czar but they have the strong sense of revulsion towards the

bureaucracy for their inhuman behavior. Similarly, Russian society of 19th century was highly

patriarchal. Due to the growth in population, sharp inequalities and exploitative policies, the

landlords became more and more exploitative and brute towards the peasantry. As a corollary,
 5

many people from marginalized section of society were forced to adopt the inhuman profession

of prostitution. They were addict to alcohol and indulged in petty crimes.

Russia came across many political and cultural movements during this time. These

movements played a significant role in transforming Russian society into communism. The

economy of Russia collapsed in the last half of the 19th century. Agriculture was also technically

underdeveloped at the same time, population of Russia doubled during 1850 to 1900. In

peasantary, women were doubly at a disadvantage edge. They were treated like commodity and

slaves. In this context, Dostoevsky became more and more popular among the readers and

received numerous letters. He was invited by many rich persons. He was primarily concerned

with the terrible aspects of human existence. The influence of Dostoevsky on other writers like

Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre and others was

immense. He wrote 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short novels and numerous other works. His

well known novels are Poor Folk (1846), The Double (1846), The Landlady (1847), Netochka

Nezvanova (1849), Uncle's Dream (1859), The Village of Stepanchikovo (1859), Humiliated and

Insulted (1861), The House of the Dead (1862), Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and

Punishment (1866), The Gambler (1867), The Idiot (1869), The Eternal Husband (1870),

Demons (1872), The Adolescent (1875), The Brothers Karamazov (1880). He writes Short

Stories collections and novelettes like "Mr. Prokharchin" (1846) "Another Man's Wife and a

Husband under the Bed" (1848) "The Honest Thief" (1848) "The Christmas Tree and a

Wedding" (1848) "White Nights" (1848) "A Nasty Anecdote" (1862) "The Crocodile" (1865)

"Bobok" (1873) "The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree" (1876) "The Meek One" (1876)

"The Peasant Marey" (1876) "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (1877). His Non-fictional works
 6

are "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions" (1863) A Writer's Diary (1873–1881). The

summaries of the well known works are given below.

The protagonist in Crime and Punishment is Raskolnikov who is a former student, a 23-

year-old man living in a small rented room at Saint Petersburg. The setting of the novel is mid-

nineties Petersburg. In the desperate need for money, he makes a plan to murder and rob Alyona

Ivanovna who is an old lady and money lender. He enters into her house and murders her and her

sister with an axe and steal some money. He runs away from the scene and nobody suspects him

for the murder. His guilty conscious rises and he falls into a feverish state. He gives all the

money to Marmeladov and his daughter Sonya, who has been forced to become a prostitute to

support her family. Meanwhile, Raskolnikov's mother and his sister, Avdotya Romanovna (or

Dunya) have reached the city. Dunya starts working as a governess in Svidrigaïlov family. Soon

Svidrigaïlov attracts toward her and offer her money but she feels humiliation and leaves the job.

In the end, Svidrigaïlov provides her three thousand rubles and he commits suicide. She went to

meet Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin for seeking help. He provides the proposal for marriage and Dunya

accepts it. On the other hand Raskolnikov does not agree to this marriage proposal. Dunya gets

married with Razumikhin who is the friend of Raskolnikov. At the same time, Raskolnikov falls

in love with Sonya.

Sonya urges him to confess his crime in order to relieve guilty consciousness. He is

sentenced to eight years imprisonment in Siberia. But after some time he is released from the

prison. Dostoyevsky's represents the miserable plight of the poor people in city Petersburg.

The Idiot is a well known fictional work of Dostoevsky. In the beginning, it was

published in 1868-1869 in a journal The Russian Messenger. The protagonist of the novel is an

intelligent young man Prince Lyov Nikolaevich Myshkin. His family belongs to Russian lines of
 7

nobility. He is coming to Russia by a train after spending four years in a Swiss clinic. He meets

a young man Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin who belongs to a merchant class. Rogozhin gets a

lot of wealth after the death of his father.

Myshkin wants to meet distant relative Lizaveta Prokofyevna Yepanchina and his wife

Madame Yepanchina in St. Petersburg. He is a wealthy and respected man in his mid fifties.

While waiting for them, Myshkin starts conversation with a servant. He considers him equal and

treats him nicely. Yepanchina has three daughters, Alexandra, Adelaida, and Aglaya, the

youngest is the most beautiful and intelligent.

Ganya was General Yepanchin’s ambitious assistant, he is in love with Aglaya and also

trying to marry Anastassya Filippovna Barashkov. She was once the mistress of Totsky who is

an aristocrat. Totsky is ready to give 75,000 rubles to Ganya if he marries Nastassya Filippovna.

Ganya and the General openly discuss the subject of the proposed marriage in front of Myshkin.

Rogozhin proposes a sum of hundred thousand rubles to Nastassya Filippovna if she will be

ready to marry him instead of Ganya. Nastassya Filippovna rejected Ganya's proposal at the

same time Myshkin also shows interest in her and offers to marry Nastassya Filippovna. She was

surprised by his proposal.

Rogozhin attempts to stab Myshkin but he remains unhurt because of his epileptic fit.

After some time, he realizes that he is in love with Aglaya but she does not accept his proposal.

Again, he turns towards Nastasya but at the last moment she changes her mind and run away

with Rogozhin because he is primitive and lacks sophisticated manners. His inclination towards

love, faith and sensitivity deemed to fail in the end. The hero of the novel Prince Myshkin is

honest, generous and innocent and regarded as an idiot.

 8

The Possessed is considered as the most brilliant political novel published in 1872.

Nikolay Stavrogin is a central character in the novel who is fascinated by the intellectual of that

time. The novel is a critique on the idea of socialism. It represents the multiple perspective of

human evil. It depicts the destruction and chaos by the agitators. A young student of Moscow

was murdered by the fellow revolutionaries. His influence on the other characters like liberal

intellectual Stepan Verkhovensky, his revolutionary son Pyotr and other radicals can be seen.

Stavrogin looses faith in god and hangs himself in the end of the novel.

The Brothers Karamazov is another significant novel by Dostoyevsky. It was also

published in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1880. The author died soon after the

publication of this novel. It is set in Russia of 19th century. The novel is a critique on morality,

faith, doubt, judgement, and reason. The plot of the novel is centered on the theme of patricide.

Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov is the eldest son of Fyodor Karamazov. He is the only child

from his first marriage. Dmitri is a sensualist like his father and spends large sum of money on

wine, champagne and women. Dmitri is married to Katerina Ivanovna, but soon after falls in love

with Grushenka. Alyosha and Ivan are the other sons of Fyodor Karamazov. They search for

faith, morality and reason. Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is depicted in the novel. The universal

harmony can be attained through heart and not by the mind. Dostoevsky represents the

psychological and spiritual love hate relations among the characters.

His health declined when he was completing his Diary. By writing it, he is attempting to

initiate a new literary genre. It contains multiple subjects matter like autobiographical essays,

journalistic writing, literary criticism and crimes. It was immensely popular and well appreciated

by the literary world. He died in 1881

 9

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Broomall: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Print.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976.

Print.

… The Idiot. New York: The New American Library, 1969. Print.

… Notes from Underground. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Vintage

Classics. 1994. Print.

... Crime and Punishment. London: Wordsworth, 2000. Print.

Lynch, Michael. “The Emancipation of the Russian Serfs, 1861: A Charter of Freedom or an Act

of Betrayal?” History Today. www.historytoday.com/michael-lynch/emancipation-

russian-serfs-1861-charter-freedom-or-act-betrayal (accessed November 29, 2015)

 10

Course: VII

(19th Century Fiction) English

Lesson No: 2

Existentialism and Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground as a response to

Chermshevsky’s What is to be Done?

INTRODUCTION:

Notes From Underground is more relevant in 21th century when human beings are

dangerously and completely trapped by market and media. On the other side, the problems of

unemployment, sharp economic inequalities, intolerance and fundamentalism are rising day by

day. Life today has become alarmingly insecure. Large scale manufacturing of nuclear weapons

and greed of power hungry politician have touched new heights in present scenario. The world

has broken up in fragments and a common person has become a rootless, lonely and alien to

society.

The common people don’t find any alternative, solutions or way out to come out of this

vortex. The situation has become more complex and intricate in present scenario. Notes From

Underground inspires us to understand the current discourse and find out solution. Existentialism

is a vague and scholastic philosophy that represents mumbo Jumbo, Insecurity, culture decline,

alienation, industrial revolution and race for armament. Existentialists strongly emphasize on the

philosophy of hope amidst the encircling gloom. It is a philosophy that emphasizes individual

existence, freedom and choice. It is a fact that human life is in no way complete and fully

satisfying but it has meaning. Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true

personal meaning in life.

 11

Existentialism

Existentialism gives emphasis on human existence. It was originated by Søren

Kierkegaard (1813–55) in the nineteenth-century. His books Fear and Trembling (1843), The

Concept of Dread (1844) and Sickness Unto Death (1848) represent existential philosophy. In

the beginning of 20th century, it was propagated by Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert

Camus and Kafka from the atheistic point of view. Existential scholars argue that existence

precedes essence. They challenge and negate preconceived beliefs and life is incapable of being

described in its essential nature. The previous philosophers used to explain life in this manner.

Jean-Paul Sartre provides new vistas to existentialism through his novels, plays and

philosophical writings.

Most of the existentialists surrender in despair but some writers like Dostoevsky have

courage to resist. Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground is considered as first existential text.

It portrays underground man who is unable to fit into society. His free will is supreme for him.

Existentialism is the philosophy of understanding the condition and existence of human beings,

their place and function in the world.

Dostoevsky represents pain as a product of society and does not write directly about the

necessity of change in political and economic structures. He does not polemically state why the

society is bad in Notes From Underground. He attempts to find psychological solutions of deep

rooted crisis. The novel indicates that individual is above the society. He does not depict that

economics is the root cause of the evils prevalent in society. Underground man is so much

engrossed in pain that he does not see the dream of better healthy society. He believes in the

completeness of society in its own way. According to him life is more than logical reasoning.
 12

Reason can be the small part of human personality. At the same time he was responding to

Chernyshevsky’s novel What is to be Done?

Chernyshevsky’s novel What is to be Done?

What is to be Done? is one of the representative texts of the 19th century Russia written in

1863. It is written by Nikolai Chernyshevsky who is a literary writer, philosopher, polemicist,

radical revolutionary, political critic and prisoner. He wrote this novel in response to Ivan

Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862).

Czar Nicholas was disliked by the majority of the population of Russia. His death in 1855

was considered as a matter of relief and his successor the new Tsar, Alexander II brought some

relief reforms, culminating in the emancipation of the peasants in 1861. But these reforms were

not enough for the betterment of the peasants, that is why, majority of the people were not fully

satisfied. The corruption prevalent in the regime of Tsar made the intelligentsia and middle class

people restless. These feelings paved the way to revolution in Russian society. The establishment

of railways, media and education played a significant role in uniting the Russian society. Many

contemporary writers represented the inequality, injustice and exploitation in the regime of Tsar.

The protagonist in What Is To Be Done is Vera Pavlovna. She is living with her self-

righteous mother, who wants to marry her as soon as possible. Vera is an ambitious girl who

wants to live her life on her own terms. She was strongly inclined to be an economically

independent woman and she dared to challenge the institution of marriage and family. She

comes into the contact with Lopukhov who is a medical student. In order to save herself, she

marries him. She enjoys the freedom in the house which is built by both of them. Meanwhile, she

starts a sewing union with help of other ladies. She collects some girls and educates them. After

some time, she comes into contact with a friend and classmate of Lopukhov, Kirsanov and falls
 13

in love with him. Lopukhov does not object to her relationship and Rakhmetov guides him in this

regard. Rakhmetov is portrayed as an ideal revolutionary who is strictly committed to the process

of revolution. Vera and Kirsanov marry and live happily after that. This novel is well received

and appreciated by Plekhanov and Lenin. The historical context of growing radicalism in 1860s

is reflected in this novel.

Jane Barstow observes in his article Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground Verses

Chermshevsky’s What is to be Done ? that Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, “ is one of

those important short novels that college professors delight in placing on syllabi but abhor

teaching. It's so easy to note the polemic tone but so hard to answer those inevitable questions

asking who or what the narrator is screaming at…. Dostoevsky was so enraged by the simplistic

solutions to complex social and human problems this work preached, that instead of writing a

literary review, he wrote a bitter artistic answer (24)”. One can get leads for the answers from the

Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done? It is a highly didactic and naively optimistic and offers

simplistic solutions to complex social and human problems.

Cherneshevsky’s What is to be Done? is deeply socialist, feminist, and atheistic. The

protagonist of his novel, Vera Pavlona, is a liberated, modern and independent superwoman. She

works for the betterment of other women in the society by educating them and making them

aware about the subjugation and exploitation.

Dostoevsky strongly reacted on such simplistic responses towards the problematic of life.

He gave proper artistic answer to Chernyshevsky by writing this text. Dostoevsky was writing

the text in the second half of Eighteenth century. It was a time when a rapid transformation was

occurring in social, economical and cultural life of Russia. The writers and intellectuals of that

time were looking for the solutions seriously.

 14

Chernyshevsky in his novel What is to be Done? attempts to provide direct surface level

solution to the evils of society. Dostoevsky strongly disagreed with this highly logical positive

approach. Underground man does not accept the goodness or creativity of human being.

Although, he is self centered but he is honest and does not accept bribes at any cost. By self

destruction, he proves the irrationality of human beings.

The society governed by reason creates separation between individuality and

surrounding. Reason takes one away from individuality. " But once all this has been explained to

us and worked out on a sheet of paper (which is very possible, because it is contemptible and

meaningless to maintain that there may be laws of nature which man will never penetrate ), such

desires will simply cease to exist. For when desire merges with reason, then we reason instead

of desiring" (111).

The underground man does not ready to reduce human individuality to the logic of, “Two

times two will be four even without my will. As if that were any will of one’s own!” (31).

Dostoevsky’s art of the autobiographical novel is a kind of contrast to the autobiography The

Confessions, by Rousseau. Similarly, Chernyshevsky defines life idealistically, ““How splendid

the brightness/Of nature around me!/How the sun shines!/How the fields la ugh!...Oh earth! Oh

sun!/Oh happiness! Oh delight!,” (Chernyshevsky 105). He further points out that life can be

lived rationally and the person should have knowledge of using the observes, “One has only to

be rational, to know how to organize, and to learn how to use resources most advantageously,”

(Chernyshevsky 120).

Dostoevsky considers them romantic views about human beings. He points out that life is

meaningless but human beings try to find meaning in it. He rejects Chernyshevsky’s model, “I

agree: man is predominantly creative animal, doomed to strive consciously toward a goal, and to
 15

occupy himself with the art of engineering-that is, to eternally and ceaselessly make a road for

himself that at least goes somewhere or other….Man loves creating and the making of roads, that

is indisputable. But why does he so passionately love destruction and chaos as well” (32-33).

According to Chernyshevsky’s utilitarian philosophy, human beings can be happy when their

desires are fulfilled. To Dostoevsky, the happiness is a matter of conviction. A self conscious

human being can be happy when he rejects the happiness. A human being is highly individual, he

can be happy when he works individually.

On the contrary, Dostoevsky ridicules Cherneshevsky’s philosophy of socialist

rationalism in his Notes from Underground. But he was not anti women, he wrote to V.P.

Merchevsky. “A woman has only one main purpose in life: to be a wife and a mother. There is

no, there was no, and there will not be, any ‘social purpose’ for a woman. This is all stupidity,

senseless talk, and gibberish” (Merchevsky 205). But at the same time many critics like Nina

Pelikan Straus polemically criticize Dostoevsky, “Dostoevsky’s negative responses to Nikolai

Chernyshevsky’s socialist heroinism in What is to be Done? and his specific support of

Slavophiles, Russian Imperialism, and Czars indicate an anti-feminist stance” (Straus, 2).

In comparison to Chernyshevsky, Albert Guerard points out in his book The Triumph of the

Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky,Faulkner that Dostoevsky is far more psychologically complex, in

this regard Chernyshevsky, “is left very far behind in this great masterpiece of psychological

literature” (171).

According to Chernyshevsky, the society will change when the social and economic

conditions will get better but Dostoevsky strictly opposes this model of social engineering and

names it as a vulgar scientism and determinism. He notes in A Writer’s Diary, “evil lies deeper

in human beings than socialist-physicians suppose” (38).

 16

\Works Cited

Barstow, Jane. “Dostoevsky's “Notes from Underground” Versus Chernyshevsky’s “What Is to

Be Done?”. College Literature 5.1 (1978): 24–33.Print.

Meshchervsky, V.P. “Memoirs.” The Dostoevsky Archive: Firsthand Accounts of the Novelist

from Contemporaries' Memoirs and Rare Periodicals. Ed. Peter Sekirin. Jefferson, N.C. :

McFarland & Co, 1997. Print

Straus, Nina Pelikan. Dostoevsky and the Woman Question: Rereadings at the End of a Century.

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. 2-32. Print.

Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich. What Is to Be Done? Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986. Print.

Guerard, Albert J. The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulkner. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1976. Print.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. A Writer’s Diary, vol. 2, 1877–1881. Chicago: Northwestern University

Press, 1994. Print.

 17

Short Answer Questions

1. Write a note on Existentialism and Dostovesky’s Notes From Undergrounnd.

Existentialism is a vague and scholastic philosophy that represents mumbo Jumbo,

Insecurity, culture decline, alienation, industrial revolution and race for armament.

Existentialists strongly emphasize on the philosophy of hope amidst the encircling

gloom. It is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It

is a fact that human life is in no way complete and fully satisfying but it has meaning.

Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning in

life.

Existentialism gives emphasis on human existence. It was originated by Søren

Kierkegaard (1813–55) in the nineteenth-century. His books Fear and Trembling

(1843), The Concept of Dread (1844) and Sickness Unto Death (1848) represent

existential philosophy. In the beginning of 20th century, it was propagated by

Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Kafka from the atheistic point of

view. Existential scholars argue that existence precedes essence. They challenge and

negate preconceived beliefs and life is incapable of being described in its essential

nature. The previous philosophers used to explain life in this manner. Jean-Paul Sartre

provides new vistas to existentialism through his novels, plays and philosophical

writings.

Most of the existentialists surrender in despair but some writers like

Dostoevsky have courage to resist. Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground is

considered as first existential text. It portrays underground man who is unable to fit

into society. His free will is supreme for him. Existentialism is the philosophy of
 18

understanding the condition and existence of human beings, their place and function

in the world. Dostoevsky represents pain as a product of society and does not write

directly about the necessity of change in political and economic structures. He does

not polemically state why the society is bad in Notes From Underground. He attempts

to find psychological solutions of deep rooted crisis. The novel indicates that

individual is above the society. He does not depict that economics is the root cause of

the evils prevalent in society. Underground man is so much engrossed in pain that he

does not see the dream of better healthy society. He believes in the completeness of

society in its own way. According to him life is more than logical reasoning. Reason

can be the small part of human personality.

2. Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground as a response to Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What

is to be Done?

Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground is a response to the philosophy

represented in Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done? What is to be Done? is one

of the representative texts of the 19th century Russia written in 1863. It is written by

Nikolai Chernyshevsky who is a literary writer, philosopher, polemicist, radical

revolutionary, political critic and prisoner. The protagonist in What Is To Be Done is

Vera Pavlovna. She is living with her self-righteous mother, who wants to marry her as

soon as possible. Vera is an ambitious girl who wants to live her life on her own terms.

She was strongly inclined to be an economically independent woman and she dared to

challenge the institution of marriage and family. She comes into the contact with

Lopukhov who is a medical student. In order to save herself, she marries him. She enjoys

the freedom in the house which is built by both of them. Meanwhile, she starts a sewing
 19

union with help of other ladies. She collects some girls and educates them. After some

time, she comes into contact with a friend and classmate of Lopukhov, Kirsanov and falls

in love with him. Lopukhov does not object to her relationship and Rakhmetov guides

him in this regard. Rakhmetov is portrayed as an ideal revolutionary who is strictly

committed to the process of revolution. Vera and Kirsanov marry and live happily after

that. This novel is well received and appreciated by Plekhanov and Lenin. The historical

context of growing radicalism in 1860s is reflected in this novel.

The underground man does not ready to reduce human individuality to the logic

of, “Two times two will be four even without my will. As if that were any will of one’s

own!” (31). Chernyshevsky defines life idealistically, ““How splendid the brightness/Of

nature around me!/How the sun shines!/How the fields la ugh!...Oh earth! Oh sun!/Oh

happiness! Oh delight!,” (Chernyshevsky 105). He further points out that life can be lived

rationally and the person should have knowledge of using the observes, “One has only to

be rational, to know how to organize, and to learn how to use resources most

advantageously,” (Chernyshevsky 120).Dostoevsky considers them romantic views about

human beings. He points out that life is meaningless but human beings try to find

meaning in it. He rejects Chernyshevsky’s model, “I agree: man is predominantly

creative animal, doomed to strive consciously toward a goal, and to occupy himself with

the art of engineering-that is, to eternally and ceaselessly make a road for himself that at

least goes somewhere or other….Man loves creating and the making of roads, that is

indisputable. But why does he so passionately love destruction and chaos as well” (32-

33). According to Chernyshevsky’s utilitarian philosophy, human beings can be happy

when their desires are fulfilled. To Dostoevsky, the happiness is a matter of conviction. A
 20

self conscious human being can be happy when he rejects the happiness. A human being

is highly individual, he can be happy when he works individually. On the contrary,

Dostoevsky ridicules Cherneshevsky’s philosophy of socialist rationalism in his Notes

from Underground.
 21

Course: VII

(19th Century Fiction) English

Lesson No: 3

The Underground Man as a representative of 19th century Russia

INTRODUCTION:

Dostoevsky believes that the human is the social construct of its surroundings, the

protagonist is a child of his time who is strictly against the rational egoism. He gives answer by

writing this text to the mechanized and logical structure of society. However, the novel is set in

the later part of 19th century and it depicts the disoriented world in many ways. But in 21st

century the situation has become even more complicated. That is why, it emerges as a more

relevant work in present technology/ market obsessed world. The individual finds himself like a

stranger and faces uncomfortable familiarity. The miseries suffered by the intellectual

underground man in 19th century, foreground more vehemently and are more relevant in 21th

century.

The Underground Man:

The protagonist is a first-person narrator underground man and an unnamed 40-year-old

civil servant. He has quit his service and spending his time in a basement flat. It is situated

outside Saint Petersburg. He vengefully ridicules the modern world. Like his novel Same Face,

Notes from the Underground is also the story of an underground person. His hero or antihero is a

highly conscious person. He feels bad when people ignore and insult him. He ran away and hid

himself whenever he is insulted or loose. He takes revenge of his insult from the people who are

weaker than him. Dostovsky wrote in his diary that he represented a true Russian in his totality
 22

and a split personality in Notes from the Underground. He is the first Russian writer to

experiment in this field.

The underground wants to foreground his individuality and he wants to live with his free

will but his individuality and free will is not accepted by the society .In the chapter second or

third chapter of second Unit, he represents the dreadful and hateful incidents, characters, and

places of his former days of his job and his experiences in a Military school, that are extremely

sad and terrible. He takes revenge from the poor and weak prostitute Liza.

Liza is the real heroine of the text.

The Underground man tries to find his individuality in his own sufferings. Even he

attacks the society to reassert his individuality, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am not justifying

myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme

in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and what’s more, you’ve taken your

cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves (130)”.

The protagonist is completely lonely and in dire need of some company. He is waiting for

his old schoolmates. When he opened the window to watch them he finds that there is dense

darkness and it was awfully cold. Therefore, his hope of reunion with them goes in vain.

The underground man is deeply anguished human being. He is badly shattered in the

contradiction of worldly truth and reality. The protagonist in the text is the anonymous narrator

and he is known as the irrational underground man.

The underground man is not a hateful creature. However he declares openly that in the

beginning of the text, “I am a sick man...I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my

liver hurts. However, I don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts

me. I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine and doctors. What’s
 23

more, I am also superstitious in the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicine (3)”. The

main motif of the writer is to depict the hellish atmosphere of the time in which the protagonist is

living.

The underground pays the price of “One’s own free and voluntary wanting, one’s own

caprice, however wild, one’s own fancy, though chafed sometimes to the point of madness – all

this is that same most profitable profit, the omitted one, which does not fit into any classification,

and because of which all systems and theories are constantly blown to the devil… Man needs

only independent wanting, whatever this independence may cost and wherever it may lead (25-

26)”. He wants the liberty of the human spirit. Scott and Traschen point out in “Dostoevski-

Tragedian of the Modern Excursion into Unbelief”, that underground man is a tragic hero who is

ready to suffer and die for his freedom (197)”. Some critics negate the underground man as the

representation of individualism but Walter Kaufman critically examines him in “Existentialism

from Dostoevsky to Sartye” and praise the underground man like an “unheard-of song of songs

of individuality”. (12-1 3). The text is autobiographical like the autobiographical works of

Augustine, Pascal, and Rousseau.

The underground man strongly believes that conformity with the establishment is like the

non existence of personality or individuality. To be antiestablishment is a gesture to come out of

the inertia of a normal human being. Underground man observes, “The final end, gentlemen:

better to do nothing! Better conscious inertia! And so, long live the underground! Though I did

say that I envy the normal man to the point of uttermost bile, still I do not want to be him on

those conditions in which I see him (though, all the same, I shall not stop envying him. No, no,

the underground is in any case more profitable!). There one can at least… Eh! but here, too, I’m

lying! Lying, because I myself know, like two times two, that it is not at all the underground that
 24

is better, but something different, completely different, which I thirst for but cannot ever find!

Devil take the underground!” (37).

The underground man does not want to lose his human essence at any cost. He has a

strong disliking for the people surrounding him. His head of the department Anton Antonitch

Syetotchkin is a miser and he never gives money to anyone. He decides to borrow money from

him, “I was horribly worried. To borrow from Anton Antonitch seemed to me monstrous and

shameful. I did not sleep for two or three nights. Indeed, I did not sleep well at that time, I was in

a fever; I had a vague sinking at my heart or else a sudden throbbing, throbbing, throbbing!

Anton Antonitch was surprised at first, then he frowned, then he reflected, and did after all lend

me the money, receiving from me a written authorisation to take from my salary a fortnight later

the sum that he had lent me”(54). Even he hates his servant Apollon and considers him, “It was a

good thing Apollon diverted me at that time with his rudeness. Drove me out of all patience! He

was my thorn, a scourge visited upon me by Providence. He and I had been in constant

altercation for several years on end, and I hated him. My God, how I hated him! I think I've

never in my life hated anyone as I did him” (112).

He does not like the idiotic behavior of Zverkov. Similarly, he treats Simonov. However

he is not very dull, “I put six roubles into the letter, sealed it, and prevailed upon Appollon to

take it to Simonov. On learning that there was money inside, Apollon became more respectful

and agreed to go…. My head was still aching and dizzy from yesterday (108)”. At the same time

all the fellows throw him into exclusion as he does not want to shun his intelligence. They also

hate him very much:

My school fellows met me with spiteful and merciless derision, because I was not

like any of them. But I could not endure derision; I could not get along so cheaply
 25

as they got along with each other. I immediately began to hate them, and shut

myself away from everyone in timorous, wounded, and inordinate pride. Their

crudeness outraged me. They laughed cynically at my face, my ungainly figure;

and yet how stupid their own faces were! In our school facial expressions

degenerated and would become somehow especially stupid. So many beautiful

children came to us. A few years later it was disgusting even to look at them.

Already at the age of sixteen I gloomily marveled at them; even then I was

amazed at the pettiness of their thinking, the stupidity of their pastimes, games,

conversations. They had so little understanding of the most essential things, so

little interest in the most impressive, startling subjects, that I began, willy-nilly, to

regard them as beneath me. It was not injured vanity that prompted me to do so,

and for God's sake don't come creeping at me with those banal objections that one

is sick of to the point of nausea - "that I was only dreaming, while they already

understood real life." They understood nothing, no real life, and I swear it was this

in them that outraged me most of all. On the contrary, they took the most obvious,

glaring reality in a fantastically stupid way, and were already accustomed to

worshiping success alone. Everything that was just, but humiliated and

downtrodden, they laughed at disgracefully and hardheartedly. They regarded

rank as intelligence; at the age of sixteen they were already talking about cushy

billets. Of course, much of this came from stupidity, from the bad examples that

had ceaselessly surrounded their childhood and adolescence. They were depraved

to the point of monstrosity. (66-67)

 26

The underground man instead of transforming himself, prefers to live in isolation. He has

to suffer and comes across topsy-turvy situation in search of meaning of life. He is free to fulfill

his natural desires and he takes pleasure in whatever he does or wants to do. He can sleep as long

as he wants. But at the same time, he does not accept the establish authority. Conformity with

authority is like a kind of slavery to him.

He has to decide whether he can become an antiestablishment or a rebel against the state

or he can establish conformity with that state. First idea is full with suffering, self destruction

second idea leads towards the life in peace. But he follows first option and does not care about

any damn authority. He does not allow them to curtail his freedom. He declares that he is “Not

just wicked, no, I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a

scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am living out my life in my

corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even impossible

for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, and only fools become something. Yes, sir,

an intelligent man of the nineteenth century must be and is morally obliged to be primarily a

characterless being; and a man of character, an active figure–primarily a limited being (5)”.

But in real sense he is a hero who continuously protects his freedom. He considers his plight

better than others fellows who dare not challenge the authority. His gestures are the symbol of

the dynamism and dignity of life.

The underground man states, “ Now I ask you: what can be expected of man as a being

endowed with such strange qualities? Shower him with all earthly blessings, drown him in

happiness completely, over his head, so that only bubbles pop up on the surface of happiness, as

on water; give him such economic satisfaction that he no longer has anything left to do at all

except sleep, eat gingerbread, and worry about the noncessation of world history—and it is here,
 27

just here, that he, this man, out of sheer ingratitude, out of sheer lampoonery, will do something

nasty. He will even risk his gingerbread, and wish on purpose for the most pernicious nonsense,

the most noneconomical meaninglessness, solely in order to mix into all this positive good sense

his own pernicious, fantastical element. (30)

He was against the relentless positivism, logic mania for hope and believed in facing the

bleakness of dark reality. To resist materialism and scientific logic means to acknowledge that

we are living in a world where freedom is supreme. Noncooperation with authority means

defying radicalism. He was not only rejecting nihilism but also depicting complete human

nature. He was depicting the overall impression of the rationalism on the contemporary Russian

society.

The Underground man is one of the representatives of the contemporary generation. He is in

search for his own individuality and his quest for himself. However, he is very conscious “to

keep an eye on this goal through all enthusiasms and little volumes of lyrical verses, and at the

same time also to preserve “the beautiful and lofty” inviolate in himself till his dying day, and

incidentally to preserve himself quite successfully as well, somehow in cotton wool, like some

little piece of jewelry, if only, shall we say, for the benefit of that same “beautiful and lofty”

(46).

The underground man is a member of the intelligentsia but he is not able to digest the

conclusions and determinism of reason, rationalism and logic. The ambiguity of the underground

man is conspicuous:

but at first, in the beginning, how much torment I endured in this struggle! I did

not believe that such things happened to others, and therefore kept it to myself all

my life as a secret. I was ashamed (may be ashamed even now) it reached the
 28

point with me where I would feel some secret, abnormal, mean little pleasure in

returning to my corner on some nasty Petersburg night and being highly conscious

of having once again done a nasty thing that day, and again that what had been

done could in no way be undone , and I would gnaw, gnaw at myself with my

teeth , inwardly, secretly, tear and suck at myself until the bitterness finally turned

into some shameful, accursed sweetness, and finally- into a decided, serious

pleasure! Yes, a pleasure, a pleasure! I stand upon it” (8).

He desires freedom as an another ideal and he is desperate to attain it, “I know that I will not

rest with a compromise, with a ceaseless, recurring zero, simply because according to the laws of

nature it exists, and exists really. I will not take a tenement house, with apartments for the poor,

and a thousand-year lease, and the dentist Wagenheim's shingle for good measure, as the crown

of my desires. Destroy my desires, wipe out my ideals, show me something better, and I will

follow you” (36). At the same time underground man believe in the relevance of speech, “Our

discussion is serious; if you do not deign to give me your attention, I am not going to bow and

scrape before you. I have the underground” (36).

In the later part of Notes from Underground, he lampoons the romanticism of socialist

sentiment. The underground man is a learned person full with bookish ideas. He is influenced by

the romantic ideas of European and Russian socialism. He writes about his book reading habit,

“At home, I mainly used to read. I wished to stifle with external sensations all that was

ceaselessly boiling up inside me. And among external sensations the only one possible for me

was reading. Reading was, of course, a great help. It stirred, delighted, and tormented me (48)”.

The underground man came across Liza but he does not behave properly with her.
 29

The underground man does not want to lose his individuality under the impact of outer

atmosphere and surroundings at any cost rather he feels that he is unique connected with nature.

He strongly asserts, “Human beings are still human beings and not piano keys, which though

played upon with their own hands by the laws of nature themselves, are in danger of being

played so much that outside the calendar it will be impossible to want anything” (30) .

He combines the creative as well as destructive nature of human beings, “I agree: man is

predominantly creative animal, doomed to strive consciously toward a goal, and to occupy

himself with the art of engineering-that is, to eternally and ceaselessly make a road for himself

that at least goes somewhere or other….Man loves creating and the making of roads, that is

indisputable. But why does he so passionately love destruction and chaos as well” (32-33).

The underground man is not able to understand the reason behind his plight.

The underground man does not believe in simplistic, unproblematic and mechanical

solution of the human predicament but he does not believe that hyper consciousness is also not

able to find answers, “But all the same, I am strongly convinced that not only too much

consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a sickness. I stand upon it” (7). He further

points out, “Though I did declare at the beginning that consciousness, in my opinion, is a man’s

great misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfactions”

(35).

The underground man is a petty clerk but an intellectual of its own kind who is

completely dissatisfied with oppressive atmosphere created by reason, technology, and

bureaucracy. He resists but sinks deep into isolation and negativity. He is one of the most

memorable characters in 19th century literature. He is self styled, incomprehensible, compulsive

 30

and cruelly obsessive, at the same time intelligent, straight forward and honest. He suffered a lot

by others.

Reader gets educative experience in reading the text. The underground man seems

unfamiliar and strange in the beginning but the reader finds some kind of similarity with him.

The influence of the style of Dostoevsky can be seen in the contemporary fiction.

He does not want to remind his tormented school days when he meets his school friend Simonov.

He does not like to meet his other school friends and he wish to “cut off all at once the whole of

that hateful childhood of mine. Curses on that school ….on those terrible years of penal

servitude! In short, I parted ways with my fellows as soon as I set free” (60). When he comes to

know that his school fellows are arranging dinner party, he wish to be the part of the party. But

he is not in a condition to pay contributory money for it.

In the dinner, he feels that he is being ignored and ridiculed by the class mates. All the

school fellows consume lot of alcohol. He delivered a passionate speech to show his anger and

shame. In the end, he seeks Simonov help to pay the money for the dinner. He feels lonely when

his school friends leave the place. He wishes apology from his friends. He wants to weep and

talk to himself. He writes a letter to Simonov on the next day of the party blaming him for the ill

treatment in during the dinner. He sent the money for the party which is paid by Simonov.

Bakhtin (1984) rightly observes that the underground man is a complex character with

polyphonic voices. The characters of Dostoevsky do not merely follow the command of the

writer rather they have their own individuality. The underground man is at same time angry and

feels lonely. His emotions vary widely from one moment to another, “ The self-clarification,

self-revelation of the hero, his discourse about himself are not predetermined (as the ultimate

goal of his construction) by some neutral image of him, does indeed sometimes make the
 31

author’s setting “fantastic”, even for Dostoevsky. For Dostoevsky the verisimilitude of a

character is verisimilitude of the character’s own internal discourse about himself in all its purity

– but, in order to hear and display that discourse, in order to incorporate it into the field of vision

of another person, the laws of that other field must be violated, for the normal field can find a

place for the object-image of another person but not for another field of vision in its entirety.

Some fantastical viewpoint must be sought for the author outside ordinary fields of vision (54)”.

D.S. Mirsky points out in A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900

that Notes from the Underground is literature as well as philosophy. It is difficult to comprehend

the paradoxical and unexpected behavior of underground man. The underground man is self-

absorbed, irrelevant, malicious, and cruel in spite of the fact that he is a part and parcel of every

human being. He represents the mental and psychological picture of human beings. He shakes

the reader from deep slumber for the betterment.

The well known scholar Hesse was well familiar with many writers but Dostoevsky was

much liked by him. He wrote many critical articles on him and he said Dostoevsky is most

favourable, “when we are miserable, when we have suffered to the limits of our capacity for

suffering and feel the entirety of life as a single searing wound, when we breathe despair and

have died the death of hopelessness” (133). Hesse further writes, “ Staring from afar into life,

bereft and crippled by misery and no longer able to understand life in its wild, beautiful cruelty,

wishing to have no more to do with it, then we are open to the music of this terrifying and

magnificent writer. Then we are no longer onlookers, no longer epicures and judges; we are

fellow creatures among all the poor devils of Dostoevsky’s creation, then we suffer their woes,

and we stare fascinated and breathless with them into the hurly-burly of life, into the eternally

grinding mill of death. But at the same time we can also catch Dostoevsky’s music, his comfort,
 32

his love, and then we can first experience the marvelous meaning of his terrifying and so often

hellish world (133)”.

Hesse points out that Notes from Underground depicts the cruel, bloody harshness and

ambiguity of all human existence. He considers Dostoevsky’s work similar to the music of

Beethoven. One has to be ready with sorrow and despair to experience the beauty.

The Underground Man is considered as self-centred, obsessive, oversensitive, manipulative, and

spiteful but he is in search of something more. He is not merely a repulsive creature.

The Underground Man is identified with us. He is a stranger and at the same time one wishes to

consider him as a fellow, frail, learning human being.

Khrapchenko writes in The Writers Creative Individuality and the Development of

Literature, “Even while Dostoevsky was still alive his work struck the deepest chords in the

hearts of his readers and was highly valued both at home and abroad. But the fame he enjoyed

today all over the world is incomparably greater than it was while he was writing his great novels

and stories. Since that time his art has gained world-wide recognition. (364)”.

M. Khrapchenko writes in The Writers Creative Individuality and the Development of Literature,

“ Critics abroad often express the view that the most valuable part of Dostoevsky literary

heritage is in no way a product of the time in which he lived and worked. The writer, they claim,

was interested not in social questions, not in subjects suggested to him by some concrete

historical situation, but in what they call the timeless problems of human existence. But for

setting up such an option, proceeding from the view that the work of the greatest artists is outside

the bounds of social concerns, there is no serious justification”(366).

M. Khrapchenko further writes, “The work of Dostoevsky encompasses many complex

conflicts and phenomena that were typical of the Russian society of the nineteenth century.
 33

Reflected in it are the characteristic features of its feudal and serf-owning structure and the

conflict between differing social aspiration to be seen in Russia and the period when the

bourgeois system was developing apace…. But his main concern was to show the general outline

of the life of men, not so much the eternal realities of changing conditions in everyday life as

social conflicts and important features in human relations and in man’s psychology.” (366)

M. Khrapchenko points out, “He strove not for simple verisimilitude but for great

authenticity in the human characters which he depicted for this reason he was not afraid to show

in close-up and in a maximalised from their typical features. In Dostoevsky’s work the depiction

of the concrete social reality and human relations is inseparable from his disclosure of the

tendencies revealed within them and their general significance….Dostoevsky not only gave a

broader picture of the miserable existence of those at the lower end of the social scale, but he

also revealed their inner world more fully than had ever been done before. (367-68) ”.

Underground man is in deep alienation and he has nothing to do with the outer world. It

seems that he is interested in himself and he wants to take revenge from others but he does not

see any positive quality in himself, “Well, and I do know that I’m a blackguard, a scoundrel, a

self-lover, a lazybones. I spent these past three days trembling for fear you might come. And do

you know what particularly bothered me all these three days? That I had presented myself to you

as such a hero then, and now you’d suddenly seem in this torn old dressing gown, abject, vile. I

just told you I was not ashamed of my poverty; know, then, that I am ashamed, I’m ashamed of it

most of all, afraid of it more than anything, more than of being a thief, because I’m so vain it s as

if I’d been flayed and the very air hurts me” (122). His attitude does not change in the narrative

of whole text. He is deeply angry with the world, “Shall the world go to hell, or shall I not have

my tea? I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea” (122). He strongly
 34

disbelieve in the possibility of changing the society and creating better new world. Construction

of human beings based on reason is something contradictory to human nature.

He represents the eternal aspect of man’s mind. He is the construct of concrete historical

phenomena. This is considered one of the major Existentialist texts because it signifies the

assertion of an alienated human being. The idea of useless society is away from reality.

The underground man habitually thinks about what other people are thinking about him, “‘But is

this not shameful, is it not humiliating!" you will perhaps say to me, contemptuously shaking

your heads. "You thirst for life, yet you yourself resolve life's questions with a logical tangle.

And how importunate, how impudent your escapades, yet at the same time how frightened you

are! You talk nonsense, and are pleased with it; you say impudent things, yet you keep being

afraid and asking forgiveness for them” (38).

Bakhtin calls the hero in Notes from Underground the first hero-ideologist in

Dostoevsky’s work. “One of the basic ideas, which he sets forth in his polemic with

socialists, is precisely the idea that man is not a final and determinate quantity upon which stable

calculations can be made; man is free and therefore can overturn any rules which are forced upon

him.” “Dostoeveksy’s hero always seeks to shatter the finalizing, deadening framework of

others’ words about him. Occasionally this struggle becomes an important tragic motif in the

hero’s life (Nastasya Filippovna, for example).” For Bakhtin this profound sense of personal

unfinalizedness and indeterminacy are realised through the very complex means of ideological

thought, crime or heroic feat. “Man is never coincident with himself. The equation of identity

A=A is inapplicable to him.” “The genuine life of the personality can be penetrated only

dialogically, and then only when it mutually and voluntarily opens itself.” “The truth about an
 35

individual in the mouths of others nondialogical, second-hand truth, becomes a degrading and

deadening lie when it concerns his ‘holy of holies’ ie. the ‘man in man’ ” (Problems 48).

The underground man is forty years old, living in St. Petersburg and former government

employee in Russia during the regime of Czar. He is speaking to anonymous imaginary

audiences. During his talk with imaginary listeners, he depicts his guilt and anger.

The underground man confesses his limitations, faults and pains as a "sick man, a bad man”

Some persons have very low self consciousness and they are not having any predicament.

They are familiar with the ways of the world and know very well how to behave in society.

These types of persons are not conscious about the contradictions and paradoxes of human nature

and they happily accept the singular truths about the world and themselves. That is why, they are

healthier and happy, “The final end, gentleman: better to do nothing! (37).

Underground man’s behavior with his servant Apollon is not normal. Sometimes, he hates his

servant very much, “I don't know why, but he despised me even beyond all measure and looked

at me with an insufferable haughtiness. But then he looked at everyone with haughtiness. One

glance at that pale-haired, slicked-down head, at the quiff he fluffed up on his forehead and oiled

with vegetable oil, at that serious mouth forever pursed in a V - and you immediately sensed

before you a being who never doubted himself. He was in the highest degree a pedant, and the

most enormous pedant of any I've ever met on earth,” (112). He is full with his own insecurities

and prejudices while talking to his servant. Their relationship is different from the connotation of

master/slave concept but some time he wants to impose his will on his servant. Sometimes he

does not want to pay the salary of his servant. He deliberately delays in giving him money, “I

"did not, did not, simply did not want to give him his wages, did not want to because that's how I
 36

wanted it, because such was 'my will as the master,' because he was irreverent, because he was a

boor; but that if he asked reverently, perhaps I would relent and pay him; otherwise he'd have to

wait another two weeks, wait three weeks, wait a whole month” (114). It depicts the material

conditions of St. Petersberg.

The underground man’s self-hatred is the construct of his existentialist crisis. He has his

own notion of reality and he makes fun of other’s reality. To trace any kind of meaning in life is

a useless phenomenon. He does not like his fellow worker. He considers himself as an outsider

and a stranger. He is completely in isolation, however, it seems that he is self centered and

thinks about himself. In reality he is isolated not only from the outer world but also from himself.

The underground man is unnamed and faceless person who is living in absolute anonymity. He is

the representative of a person who is suffering from inertia and society does not support such

kind of persons. The underground man experiences the feeling of paranoia due to his

existentialist self-hatred attitude. His love-hate relationship with Liza also indicates towards the

existential characteristics in him. The underground man is frightened with the idea of rejection.

That is why he construct a wide gap between him and the society.

The underground man deliberately accepts the position of marginality. The underground

man thinks himself as a mouse and feels comfortable, “Oh, absurdity of absurdities! Quite

another thing is to understand all, to be conscious of all, all impossibilities and stone walls; not to

be reconciled with a single one of these impossibilities and stone walls if you are loath to be

reconciled; to reach, by way of the most inevitable logical combinations, the most revolting

conclusions on the eternal theme that you yourself seem somehow to blame even for the stone

wall, though once again it is obviously clear that you are in no way to blame; and in consequence

of that, silently and impotently gnashing your teeth, to come to a voluptuous standstill in inertia,
 37

fancying that, as it turns out, there isn't even anyone to be angry with; that there is no object to be

found, and maybe never will be; that it's all a sleight-of-hand, a stacked deck, a cheat, that it's all

just slops - nobody knows what and nobody knows who, but in spite of all the uncertainties and

stacked decks, it still hurts, and the more uncertain you are, the more it hurts!” (13-14).

Albert Guerard praises the writings of Dostoevsky. According to him Notes from the

Underground is “the most intense and most authentic rendering in Dostoevsky, perhaps in all of

novelistic literature, of neurotic suffering seen from within…it is also a document of major

philosophical interest” (1976, 166).

Joseph Frank points out the problematic of Notes from Underground. It is “one or the

other of the work’s two main aspects….text cannot be properly understood” if one does not

understand the psyche of the underground man (1986, 310). Frank indicates that the first person

narrative makes it difficult to understand it. His characters are the production of the

circumstances of Russian society. It represents the conditions of the Russian intellectuals.

Mark Spilka points out, “the narrator claims to choose perversity clearly . . . perversity

has chosen him” (1966, 239–40). The underground man is a victim of the environment. His

wretched life in childhood as a school going lad, a clerk is a saga of pain. His outer life is not

very happening and eventful, that is why he turns towards the inner psychological world.

He is an orphan and brought up by the distant relatives. His childhood memories haunt him

throughout his life, his school experiences are also very horrible, “That night I had the most

hideous dreams. No wonder: all evening I was oppressed by recollections of the penal servitude

of my school years, and I could not get rid of them. I had been tucked away in that school by

distant relations whose dependent I was and of whom I had no notion thereafter - tucked away,

orphaned, already beaten down by their reproaches, already pensive, taciturn, gazing wildly
 38

about at everything. My school fellows met me with spiteful and merciless derision, because I

was not like any of them. But I could not endure derision; I could not get along so cheaply as

they got along with each other. I immediately began to hate them, and shut myself away from

everyone in timorous, wounded, and inordinate pride. Their crudeness outraged me. They

laughed cynically at my face, my ungainly figure; and yet how stupid their own faces were! In

our school facial expressions degenerated and would become somehow especially stupid. So

many beautiful children came to us.” (66).

He tries to tell Liza about his homeless and miserable plight in the past, “‘"You see, Liza

- I'll speak about myself! If I'd had a family in my childhood, I wouldn't be the same as I am

now. I often think about it. No matter how bad things are in a family, still it's your father and

mother, not enemies, not strangers. At least once a year they'll show love for you. Still you know

you belong there. I grew up without a family: that must be why I turned out this way…

unfeeling."(94). His life is completely loveless, he feels self pity for his past life.

The atrocious incidents of his childhood played a major role in shaping his personality

profoundly. They develop inner paradoxes, oscillations and scatteredness in his life. The

atmosphere of his childhood creates the feeling that he is insignificant and unwanted in every

sphere. He feels that whole world is his enemy. As a corollary, he does not gain a stability in his

life, so much so that he loses the sense of identity. In such situation, it is bit obvious that he will

become aggressive, self centered and will hate everyone. He generates his own convictions,

values and self-righteousness. In order to come out of his identity crisis, he becomes more self

centered, aggressive and ultimately gets detached from everybody. He is in search for security,

love and warmth, he tries to meet his school mate but he does not get approval from anywhere.

He is not strong enough to fight with anyone and nor does receives love from anywhere. He tries
 39

to find solace in detachment. He is lonely at every phase of his life. During his school days he

says, “. I immediately began to hate them, and shut myself away from everyone in timorous,

wounded, and inordinate pride. Their crudeness outraged me. They laughed cynically at my face,

my ungainly figure; and yet how stupid their own faces were! In our school facial expressions

degenerated and would become somehow especially stupid” (67).

When he grows young, he was very restless, “At that time I was only twenty-four. My

life was even then gloomy, ill-regulated, and as solitary as that of a savage. I made friends with

no one and positively avoided talking, and buried myself more and more in my hole. At work in

the office I never looked at any one, and I was perfectly well aware that my companions looked

upon me, not only as a queer fellow, but even looked upon me-I always fancied this-with a sort

of loathing. I sometimes wondered why it was that nobody except me fancied that he was looked

upon with aversion? One of the clerks had a most repulsive, pock-marked face, which looked

positively villainous. I believe I should not have dared to look at any one with such an unsightly

countenance. Another had such a very dirty old uniform that there was an unpleasant odour in his

proximity. Yet not one of these gentlemen showed the slightest self-consciousness-either about

their clothes or their countenance or their character in any way. Neither of them ever imagined

that they were looked at with repulsion; if they had imagined it they would not have minded-so

long as their superiors did not look at them in that way. It is clear to me now that, owing to my

unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for myself, I often looked at myself with furious

discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to every one.

I hated my face, for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even suspected that there was

something base in my expression, and so every day when I turned up at the office I tried to

behave as independently as possible, and to assume a lofty expression, so that I might not be
 40

suspected of being abject. "My face may be ugly," I thought, "but let it be lofty, expressive, and,

above all, extremely intelligent." But I was positively and painfully certain that it was impossible

for my countenance ever to express those qualities. And what was worst of all, I thought it

actually stupid looking, and I would have been quite satisfied if I could have looked intelligent.

In fact, I would even have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have been

thought strikingly intelligent. (42-43)”.

He hates his government job very much. He left the job at once when he got something in

inheritance, “it was impossible for me to live in chambers garnies: my apartment was my

mansion, my shell, my case, in which I hid from all mankind”(113).

His interaction with his classmates reminds him of his inferior job and poverty. Therefore

he decides to keep alone, “ But I had a way out that reconciled everything, which was - to escape

into "everything beautiful and lofty," in dreams, of course. I dreamed terribly, I would dream for

three months at a time, shrinking into my corner, and, believe me, in those moments I bore no

resemblance to that gentleman who, in the panic of his chicken heart, sat sewing a German

beaver to the collar of his overcoat. I'd suddenly become a hero” (56). Doubtlessly, he is more

intelligent from his classmates.

The underground man uses his detachment and loneliness as a defense. Sometimes, he

wishes to meet with his friends as he could not bear the loneliness, “Towards the end I myself

could not stand it: as I grew older, a need for people, for friends, developed. I tried to start

getting closer with some; but the attempt always came out unnaturally and would simply end of

itself. I also once had a friend. But I was already a despot in my soul; I wanted to have unlimited

power over his soul; I wanted to instill in him a contempt for his surrounding milieu; I demanded

of him a haughty and final break with that milieu. I frightened him with my passionate
 41

friendship; I drove him to tears, to convulsions; he was a naive, self-giving soul; but once he had

given himself wholly to me, I immediately started to hate him and pushed him away - as if I had

needed him only to gain a victory over him, only to bring him into subjection. But I could not be

victorious over everyone; my friend was also not like any of them, and represented the rarest

exception. The first thing I did upon leaving school was quit the special service for which I had

been intended, in order to break all ties, to curse the past and bury it in the dust… And the devil

knows why, after that, I dragged myself to this Simonov!…” (68).

The underground man was more upset in his job than his school days, “We Russians,

generally speaking, have never had any stupid, translunary German, and more especially French,

romantics, who are not affected by anything; let the earth crumble under them, let the whole of

France perish on the barricades - they are what they are, they won't change even for the sake of

decency, and they'll go on singing their translunary songs till their dying day, so to speak,

because they're fools. But we, in our Russian land, have no fools; that is a known fact; that's what

makes us different from all those other German lands. Consequently, we have no translunary

natures in a pure state. It was our "positive" publicists and critics of the time, hunting after

Kostanzhoglos and Uncle Pyotr Ivanoviches, 2 and being foolish enough to take them for our

ideal, who heaped it all on our romantics, holding them to be of the same translunary sort as in

Germany or France” (45).

He is suffering from sickness, he hates but does not want to come out of it, that is why he

starts glorifying it, “I'll bet you think I'm writing all this out of swagger, to be witty at the

expense of active figures, and swagger of a bad tone besides, rattling my sabre like my officer.

But, gentlemen, who can take pride in his sicknesses, and swagger about them besides?” (7).
 42

The underground man denies to do anything, “Only asses and their mongrels show pluck, and

even then only up to that certain wall. It's not worth paying any attention to them, because they

mean precisely nothing” (44). He seek relief in self degradation and self pity and he develops the

feeling that he cannot change. He takes pleasure from the hopelessness, “I say it seriously: surely

I'd have managed to discover some sort of pleasure in that as well - the pleasure of despair, of

course, but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur, especially when one is all too

highly conscious of the hopelessness of one's position” (9).

He is suffering from existential problems of indecisiveness and uncertainty. His

insecurities and uncertainty are the construction of inhuman conditions of the society.

He does not consider reasoning as the essence of human nature, “ What does reason know?

Reason knows only what it has managed to learn (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this

is no consolation, but why not say it anyway?), while human nature acts as an entire whole, with

everything that is in it, consciously and unconsciously, and though it lies, still it lives. I suspect,

gentlemen, that you are looking at me with pity” (28).

The underground man strongly believes in the prolificacy of human nature , “But why

does he so passionately love destruction and chaos as well? Tell me that! But of this I wish

specially to say a couple of words myself. Can it be that he has such a love of destruction and

chaos (it's indisputable that he sometimes loves them very much; that is a fact) because he is

instinctively afraid of achieving the goal and completing the edifice he is creating? ” (33).

The underground man considers his individuality and personality, “And in particular it may be

more profitable than all other profits even in the case when it is obviously harmful and

contradicts the most sensible conclusions of our reason concerning profits-because in any event

it preserves for us the chiefest and dearest thing, that is our personality and individuality” (28).
 43

Walter Kaufmann critically observes in Existentialism From Dostoyevsky to Sartre in

Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. No good society can rid man of depravity: the book is

among other things an inspired polemic against Rousseau and the whole tradition of social

philosophy from Plato and Aristotle through Hobbes and Locke to Bentham, Hegel, and John

Stuart Mill. The man whom Dostoevsky has created in this book holds out for what traditional

Christianity has called depravity; but he believes neither in original sin nor in God, and for him

man's self-will is not depravity: it is only perverse from the point of view of rationalists and

others who value neat schemes above the rich texture of individuality.

His behavior is arbitrary most of the times; it is a creative force of expression and self

affirmation. Underground man is an anti hero with a lot of questions and doubts.

Dostoevsky did a lot of experiments with the character of the protagonist. Underground man

indicates the precarious condition of the modern man.

Dostoevsky writes about the underground man in Author’s Note that such persons as the

writer of such notes not only may but even must exist in our society, taking into consideration

the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. The protagonist

polemically satires the rationality of an ideal human being. As a keen observer, Dostoevsky

points out the problematic of the riddle of human being through the underground man.

Dostoevsky reveals intelligently the meanness of the society of his century through the character

of underground man.

Notes from Underground raise serious questions on the linear elucidation of the society.

Dostoevsky himself was a kind of antihero, he got death sentence but at the last moment, he was

pardoned. He spent many years in rigorous labour camps. His father was cold bloodily murdered
 44

when he was young. He was constantly suffering from poor health conditions, financial crisis,

political hostility and relational tragedies. While he was writing Notes from Underground

He lost his wife and brother, he writes in a letter to Wrangel published in Dostoevsky; The Stir of

Liberation, 1860–1865 by Joseph Frank, “I suddenly found myself alone and simply terrified…

My entire life at one stroke broke into two. In one half, which I had lived through, was

everything I had lived for, and in the other, still unknown half everything was strange and new,

and there was not a single heart that could replace those two. Literally—I had nothing left for

which to live . . .What remains from all the reserve of strength and energy in my soul is

something troubled and disturbed, something close to despair. Worry, bitterness, a completely

cold industriousness, the most abnormal state for me . . . . And yet it still seems to me that I am

just now preparing to live. Funny, isn’t it? The vitality of a cat” (369–370.)

He tried to keep on living but the impact of all this turmoil can be seen on the portrayal of

underground man. His protagonist failed to come out of this predicament. However he is trying

to solve the riddle of life throughout the year. Suffering can create a better human being. The

conflict among Free will, pleasure and equality Fyodor is a life-long phenomena. The

underground man consistently refuse to open his heart to anybody, he is consistently inconsistent

in his relationship with Liza. Notes from Underground is one of the best novels not only in

Russian literature but also in World literature. Underground man represents the precarious

condition of modern man.

 45

Works Cited

Bakhtin, M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, trans. C. Emerson. Manchester:

Manchester University Press, 1984. Print.

Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich. What Is to Be Done? Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986. Print.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Letter to A. Wrangel of 31 May, continued on 14 April 1865, PSS,

vol. 28.2 (1985), pp. 116, 120; quoted in Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Stir of

Liberation, 1860–1865. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986 .

369–370. Print.

… Notes from Underground. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Vintage

Classics. 1994. Print.

Frank, Joseph. 1986. Dostoevsky; The Stir of Liberation, 1860–1865. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press. Print.

Guerard, Albert J. The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulkner. New York:

Oxford University Press,1976. Print.

Hesse, H. (1978) My Belief: Essays on Life and Art, trans. D. Lindley, with two essays

Trans. by R. Manheim, ed. T. Ziolkowski (London, Triad/Panther). Print.

James Scanlan. Dostoevsky the Thinker. N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002. Print.

Khrapchenko, M. The Writers Creative Individuality and the Development of Literature.

Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1977. Print.

Kaufman, Walter. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, 1956. 12-1 3.

Print.

Mirsky, D.S. A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900. Chicago:

University of Chicago press 1999. Print.

 46

Muraw, Harriet. “Reading Woman in Dostoevsky.” A Plot of Her Own: The Female Protagonist

in Russian Literature. Ed. Sona Hoisington. Evanston Ill.: Northwestern University Press,

1995. 45. Print.

Spilka, Mark. 1966. “Playing Crazy in the Underground.” Minnesota Review 6: 233–43. Print.

Straus, Nina Pelikan. Dostoevsky and the Woman Question: Rereadings at the End of a

Century. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. 2-32. Print.

Scanlan, James. Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002. Print.

Nathan A. Scott, Jr., "Dostoevski-Tragedianof the Modern Excursion into Unbelief, " in The

Tragic Vision and the Christian Faith, ed. Scott. New York: Association Press, 1957.

197. Print.
 47

Suggested Questions

1 Discuss the relevance of the title Notes From Underground.

2 Write in detail about underground man as a construct of 19th century Russia.

3 Is there any aspect of the Underground Man that we identify with as readers in

21st century?

4 What are the Underground Man's objections to scientific progress? Are these

same objections valid today?

5 Underground Man as "anti-hero". Discuss in detail.

6 Discuss, Notes from Underground as the representation of power structure

prevalent in society.

7 How does this obsession with rank and power manifest itself throughout Notes

from Underground?

8 Some critics see the Underground Man as insane, while others see him as an

intellectual. Evaluate the Underground Man’s sanity, using concrete examples

from the text.

9 Notes from Underground as a tragedy.

10 Discuss underground man’s relationship with Liza.

 48

Course: VII

(19th Century Fiction) English

Lesson No: 4

A Critical Study of Notes From Underground

Notes From Underground : An Introduction

Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground is considered as the beginning of new fiction and

its style is a diversion from nineteenth century fiction. He includes philosophical and

psychological insights into his fiction that paves the way to 20th century existential and

psychological literature. He has created the characters who are emotionally and spiritually

downtrodden. Notes from Underground is also known for representing the melancholic and

saddest character in the literature. The protagonist has no faith in reason and hope in life. At

every phase of history of human existence, the creative and sensitive human beings suffer from

loneliness, isolation and displacement. These sentiments are well depicted in the writings of

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Their characters are terribly lonely in the

godless world. They have lost interest in logic and reason. They become against the society and

themselves. Even they harm the person who is liked by them.

Notes from Underground was published in 1864. With this novel he perfected the

technique of novel of Ideas. It was published in a magazine The Epoch. It explores the

psychology of human beings in the disturbed political, economical, social environment of Russia

in 19th-century. The human beings have to face the hardships of life in such conditions. Notes

from Underground seems like an essay in the first part, and the second part is in narrative style.

The existential isolation of the anonymous protagonist is highlighted in Notes From

Underground. The first part of the text, it contains a long monologue of the anti-hero. It depicts
 49

the life philosophy of Dostoevsky through the protagonist. It critiques polemically the utopian

socialist principles and ideals.

He reacts strongly on the mathematical, mechanical and scientific rationalism and it

seems that these principles and theories have the capacity to define the best interests of human

beings. These theories believe in perfection of human beings. Every person has some interests

and ideas which are more valuable than anything else and one can work hard to turn them into

reality.

For a human being, his free will whether it is horrific or obnoxious, is supreme. This

cannot be rationally or problematically theorize. This freedom is very significant for him.

Dostoevsky wants to run away from the harsh reality of the present to the memories of his

youthful days. The theme, situations and characters of Notes From Underground are completely

imaginative but in the present historical context, such type of circumstances is not only possible

but also inevitable.

Edward Wasiolek writes in Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction “Against science,

against the laws of reason, against the whole movement of man's systematic accumulation of

knowledge . . .against all that man pursues and dreads-the underground man opposes his unique,

capricious, subjective world of feeling: wish, dream, hope, and, yes, cruelty, suffering, pettiness

and visciousness (40)”.

Dostovsky writes about the significance of free will in one’s life, “That would still be

nothing, but what is offensive is that he'd be sure to find followers: that's how man is arranged.

And all this for the emptiest of reasons, which would seem not even worth mentioning: namely,

that man, whoever he might be, has always and everywhere liked to act as he wants, and not at

all as reason and profit dictate; and one can even want against one's own profit, and one
 50

sometimes even positively must (this is my idea now). One's own free and voluntary wanting,

one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, though chafed sometimes to the point of

madness--all this is the same most profitable profit, the omitted one, which does not fit into any

classification, and because of which all systems and theories are constantly blown to the devil

(25).”

The female protagonist Liza is a prostitute. She is passive towards the society and the

concept of morality given to her by the underground man. She wants to come out of the filth of

prostitution and seeks the help from underground man. But he does not take her seriously and

ultimately she leaves him.

Notes From Underground is a kind of confession. The underground protagonist wants to

maintain his inherent superiority and pride. The window is the symbol of the psychological

struggle. Dostoevsky’s Liza is a good girl but she is thrown into the prostitution by the

circumstances. Dostoevsky negates the idea of thinking human being as a natural phenomena. In

the current atmosphere thinking hyperconscious human being is a costly affair and makes one

inactive.

Dostoevsky believes that freedom and materialism are the two different philosophies. So

much so that freedom that is created from necessity is not actually freedom.

Liza is a young prostitute and the underground man abuses on her. The relationship between

underground man and Liza depicts the complex psychological structure of human beings.

Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground is a well accepted book among the classical of the

literature. The "underground man" is fashionably popular in people of different continents,

disciplines and interests like Don Quixote, King Lear, Don Juan and Faust. Various school of
 51

thoughts like Expressionism, Surrealism, Existentialism, consider this text as the representative

of their ideas.

Notes from Underground is a critique of the radical Socialism of his time. He is polemic

on the ideas of Chernyshevsky, who wrote a utopian novel What Is To Be Done? (1863). This

novel became very sensational among wider readership. Dostoevesky critically rejected the novel

by writing Notes from Underground. He critiques the ideas of rationality, scientific logic and

human goodness to construct a better progressive society.

Dostoevsky in contrast to that put his point that man was instinctively violent, evil, illogical,

impulsive and destructive.

Some scholars have criticized Dostoevsky on the same issue like the underground is

negating the purposeful social activity and reasoning against reason, evil and immorality. But

Dostoevsky was not simply doing this but he was more subtle and effective. He observes the

mental turmoil that Liza is experiencing, “She bit the pillow, she bit into her hand till it bled (I

saw it later), or, clutching her loosened braids, she would go stiff with effort, holding her breath

and clenching her teeth. I started to say something to her, to beg her to calm down, but felt I

didn't dare, and suddenly, all in a sort of fever myself, almost horrified, I rushed gropingly, in

haphazard haste, to get myself ready to go. It was dark: no matter how I tried, I couldn't finish

quickly. Suddenly I touched a box of matches and a candlestick with a whole, unused candle. As

soon as light shone in the room, Liza suddenly rose, sat up, and looked at me almost senselessly,

with a somehow distorted face and a half-crazed smile. I sat down next to her and took her

hands; she recovered herself, made a quick move as if to embrace me, but did not dare, and

quietly bowed her head before me (104)”.

 52

While departing from Liza the underground man feels proud to provide his address and

invites her to visit his home. But at the same time he is disturbed, “What if she comes? However,

why not, let her come; it's no matter…” But, obviously, that was not the main and most important

thing now: I had to make haste and, whatever the cost, quickly save my reputation in the eyes of

Zverkov and Simonov. That was the main thing. And I even quite forgot about Liza that morning,

what with all the bustle” (106-107).

The underground man understands that he is not able to love anybody, “At that time I

was only twenty-four years old. My life then was already gloomy, disorderly, and solitary to the

point of savagery. I did not associate with anyone, even avoided speaking, and shrank more and

more into my corner. At work, in the office, I even tried not to look at anyone, and I noticed very

well that my colleagues not only considered me an odd man, but - as I also kept fancying -

seemed to look at me with a certain loathing” (42).

But in the end of second part of Notes from Underground, he again fell deep into

frustrated isolation. Dostoevsky was well familiar with the fact that the innovations and

discoveries are made when a person would think out of the logic, for instance an engineer

innovated roads only when he was highly imaginative. He wants to create a dialogue between

radical rationalism and dead end old irrationality.

Dostoevsky is a master storyteller and is not very simplistic as it seems to be. In the

beginning he attempted to be understood as a psychologist, a portrayer of dark and deep realities

of the mind. He is also considered and understood as an existentialist who represents

meaninglessness and absurdity of life with hope and joy. Also he is considered as one of the

most significant Christian writers.

 53

However, many readers, scholars and critics find it difficult to understand Dostoevsky

because of his specific cultural background from Russia. The fact of the matter is that Russia is

culturally identified with West and East. The influence of Eastern spirituality and mysticism as

well as rationality of west can be seen on Russian culture. Dostoevsky accepts such influence of

his country that is why, he takes free will, liberty and freedom not only as political concepts but

also as theological concepts of love. He believes in the unique cultural and religious heritage fof

the West.

Dostoevsky’s novels are highly experimental, specifically in the Notes From

Underground, he does not impose any ideology on his characters but they act freely. He depicts

the dynamic quality of his character when he portrays that the behavior of a person can change at

any moment. One can observe the ideas and thoughts of the character when he interacts with

other people. Dostoevsky does not write like a prophetic preacher, rather he leaves the reader

free.

The underground man seems to be irrelevant doing nothing and he is totally messed up. It

is not easy to understand the characters, they are problematically complicated. He comes across

Liza, she is a young prostitute, “Mechanically, I glanced at the girl who had come in: before me

flashed a fresh, young, somewhat pale face, with straight dark eyebrows and serious, as if

somewhat astonished, eyes. I liked it at once; I would have hated her if she'd been smiling. I

began to study her more attentively and as if with effort: my thoughts were not all collected yet.

There was something simple-hearted and kind in that face, yet somehow serious to the point of

strangeness. I was certain that it was a disadvantage to her there, and that none of those fools had

noticed her. However, she could not have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong, well

built. She was dressed extremely simply. Something nasty stung me; I went straight up to her…
 54

(86)”. The center of the second part of the book is the interaction between Liza and the

underground man.

The underground man wants to know about the background of Liza in a bookish manner.

He turned hostile to her while listening her miserable story. Liza starts weeping in sadness and

the underground man requests her to visit him again. He is worried if Liza comes to visit him and

at the same time he wants that she must come such is the ambivalent situation of the

underground man. She comes to meet him when he is very angry with his servant Apollon. At

once he started heat argument with her but she bears all this very compassionately. He wishes

that she should leave him alone and he feels shame and disgrace when she leaves him in solitude,

“I did not hate her so much, however, when I was running about the room and peeking behind

the screen through a crack. I simply felt it unbearably burdensome that she was there. I wanted

her to disappear. I longed for ‘peace,’ I longed to be left alone in the underground. “Living life”

so crushed me, unaccustomed to it as I was, that it became difficult for me to breath” (126).

Dostoevsky’s major works are a great contribution to both Russian and world literature.

Diffused with humanism, they are dear both to the hearts and to the intellect of the readers from

different countries and nations. All the progressives writers in the world value his work highly

along with the important part that it has played in the spiritual development of humanity.

Dostoevsky’s work is lit with the flame of his inspired thought and his strong feelings; it is

timeless and unfailing, and will live forever.

Notes From Underground was written from January to May 1864 and it was based on

the horrific experience of Siberia prison where he got the penalty of forced labor in the regime of

Czar. After releasing from the prison, he found that Russian intellectuals were obsessed with the

deterministic ideology.
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Dostoevsky is very famous for portraying very rich characters. His own life was directly

linked with his characters. He has been strongly criticized for his stereotypical rendering of

female character in Notes From Underground. So much so that, female characters are not

depicted as protagonists in any of his novels. Liza in Notes from Underground is not a

revolutionary rather she is marginalized and voiceless character. The whole narrative of Notes

From Underground is centered on a male protagonist. The end of the Notes From Underground

is abrupt and anticlimactic, “However, the ‘notes’ of this paradoxalist don’t end here. He could

not help himself and went on. But it also seems to us that this may be a good place to stop”

(130). In the end the fate of Liza is more ambiguous, however, he gave back money to the

Underground Man.
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Works Cited

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976.

Print.

… The Idiot. New York: The New American Library, 1969. Print.

… Notes from Underground. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Vintage

Classics. 1994. Print.

... Crime and Punishment. London: Wordsworth, 2000. Print.

Wasiolek, Edward. Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964. Print.

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