JETIR1903169

© 2019 JETIR March 2019, Volume 6, Issue 3 www.jetir.
org (ISSN-2349-5162)
Existentialism in Notes from the Underground

through the Lens of Gita’s Philosophical Discourse
*Mudita Choudhary
Student, M.A. (Eng.) The IIS University, Jaipur
**Dr Sucharita Sharma
Assistant Professor, Department of English
The IIS University , Jaipur
Abstract
Existentialism is an incredible aspect because of its intrinsic aspect in solving the fundamental
human problem. Its applicability has gone beyond the era, time, space and culture. The article explores the
work of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground through the existential discourse of Sartre,
dealing with the shaken existence of an individual who is very intricately characterized. The research is an
endeavor to trace the long existing tussle amidst human perceptions and actions. The world that is weaved
in the text projects a very universal frame of human conscious. The characters are endowed with a wide
array of scope to understand the man’s self crafted illusionary trap, and this trap is displayed in the cognitive
conflict of man’s internal and external world. This research also attempts to find evidences of existential
ideas in Indian classical texts like Bhagvad Gita, exploring the dispute of ‘existence’ and ‘being’ vis-à-vis
the Philosophical approach of Gita in projecting a wide spectrum of human psychology with their multiple
nature and needs to attain the ultimate ‘freedom to choose’.
Keywords: Existential, Self - Deception, Conflict, Action, Freedom
People say that we are all seeking is the meaning of life…I think what we are really seeking is the
experience of being alive
- Rudyard Kipling
Existentialism was never a single specific doctrine. Its meaning kept on changing with the time and
the list of much diverse existentialists kept on emerging. Therefore “ There was no single voice of authority,
its definition has always had blurry edges .It grew up in the public domain, as a drawing of a new way of
thinking about life that emerged at a particular moment in history. It could be seen as a historical necessity
or inevitability, an effort to adapt to a new confluence of cultural and historical forces” (Cogswell, 1).
Existential views helped in expanding man’s vision and his views of the universe. Discoveries,
scientific explorations opened new vistas in people’s life and gradually the old biblical view that God
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© 2019 JETIR March 2019, Volume 6, Issue 3 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162)
created world in six days shattered as people gradually realized that earth had a long history to munch upon.
Therefore a more realistic approach was needed that could accommodate with the expanding universe. But
even with the increase in scientific probe, people exercised power over the material world. Man surely
became powerful but not as powerful to control the catastrophic destructions of his own over ambitions.
“Even science, with its cold objectivity lacked the human dimension, so it failed as an all-encompassing
belief system that could guide human judgment and actions.” (Cogswell, 5)
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist, emerged in nineteenth century, much before his
contemporaries perceived the calamities the world was about to suffer due to their “naïve belief in a coming
technological Utopia.” (Cogswell, 28) Dostoevsky in his works portrayed the classic problems of
existentialism. For instance Notes from the Underground deals with an existential point of view, “beginning
with the unreliability of reason.” However man is allured with logic and rationality, Dostoevsky claims that
originally man is not a logical creature he rather believed that what triggers man’s choice, is not just most
“advantageous advantage” but a “freewill” as his choices are not always guided alone from his rational side
but also is a manifestation of his impulses and desires. He says “and how these wiseacres know that man
wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally
advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost
and wherever it may lead” (Cogswell, 30)
His novella Notes from the Underground likewise wrangles with the most fundamental existential
framework of Sartre i.e. “the world is founded upon the absurd”. Dostoevsky’s novella can be regarded as
definitive voice of existential beliefs.
In Notes from the Underground the protagonist consistently and repeatedly deals with inner
conflicts, self contradictions, self pity which engrosses his mind so rigorously that his life becomes an
embodiment of an unknown suffering. The work openly declares the paradox of human mind. Underground
man exists without any sort of sanctuary and refuge from the pain and agony of modern consciousness
alongside Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and so on.
He addresses the world from that crack; he has also spent a lifetime listening at it. Everything that
can be said about him, and more particularly against him, he already knows; he has, as he says in a
typical paradox, overheard it all, anticipated it all, invented it all. “I am a sick man….I am a wicked
man.” In the space of that pause Dostoevsky introduces the unifying idea of his tale: the instability,
the perpetual “dialectic” of isolated consciousness. (Dostoevsky, ix)
The novella is known for its absurd narrative, unorganized framework and a general sense of disdain
which runs through it. It is majorly divided into two major parts. Part one contains no plot and deals with an
unending chaotic philosophical pondering and descriptions of surrounding. Part second however deals with
his failure or incapability of forming meaningful relationships. Underground man’s interaction to people
gives him joy but at the same time tear him down, which is why he chooses to be underground. The work is
an unorganized memoir of an unknown narrator, who throughout the novel has been called as ‘Underground
man’ whose logic is twisted and often contradictory. A man who concludes, that the universe is without any
reason.
Underground man is an aggressive, conflicted and indecisive man living alone in St. Petersburg,
Russia, in the 1860s. He is a Russian civil servant who has recently retired as he has inherited money out of
a will. The novella consists of the confused, contradictory statements and confessions of his detachment
from the society. It is an epitome of modern tragedy; and efficiently put up to the fore, it is an absurd
destruction of human self and life in its totality. His inability to act generates from several important factors
working together. First, the Underground Man is suffering from a major existential crisis, he thinks that
nothing in the world can provide his life any meaning, and in fact there is no meaning in trying. He believes
that traditional social values have no basis and that human existence is essentially useless. As a result the
Underground Man detests the society he is living in. He is filled with bitterness and hatred toward all
aspects of society, but he is aware that he is powerless to act against the hypocrisy which lies within it.
Man’s sadism, the pleasure he takes in his own pain and humiliation explores the further idea in more depth
later in the novel.
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 able, though I respect medicine and doctors. What’s more, I am also superstitious in
the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicines. (I am sufficiently educated not to be
superstitious, but I am.) No sir, I refuse to be treated out of wickedness. Now, you will certainly not
be so good as to understand this. Well, sir, but I understand it. I will not, of course, be able to explain
to you precisely who is going to suffer in this case from my wickedness; I know perfectly that I will
in no way “muck things up” for the doctors by not taking their treatment; I know better than anyone
that by all this I am harming myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t get treated, it is out of
wickedness. My liver hurts; well, then let it hurt even worse ( Dostoevsky, 5)
The Underground Man has great contempt for prevailing school of thought that attempted to use
practical, rational and logical line of thought to cope up with man’s desires and choices.He complains that
man’s primary desire and choice is to practice freedom of thought. This explains the reason of Underground
Man taking pleasure in his own toothaches and liver pains and he accepts his situation without even
questioning the value of going to the doctor. He predicts that man would be bored in a society based on
scientifically derived principles for moral behavior, rather, in his views man should overturn this logic and
should rely on his own and live according to their own irrational free will. According to him, in any
circumstance, a man prefers to think he is acting as he desires to act, not as reason dictates. Thus, the most
important thing to man is that his freedom of choice should not be constrained by anything— not even
reason.
He further implies that his heightened consciousness is the reason behind his inactiveness. He says
that all those people who are active are always “duplicitous”. By saying this he make some rational points to
justify his inability to act. However, the Underground Man’s alienation from society and his self delude
statements does not mean that Dostoevsky necessarily wants to glorify the “man of action” by mocking
inactivity, indeed the novel no only criticizes those people who spend too much time in contemplating but
also those people who act but act blindly, without giving their action a proper thought.
Existential crisis thus encompasses every aspect of a person’s life and can manifest in many different
ways, including a sense of loss of meaning, deep detachment from people, or denunciation in the Universe?
And all these questions trouble the underground man too. Underground man also displays a conflict between
his beliefs towards literature of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods. He feels pride in “beautiful and
lofty” but at the same time is disgusted with society that has crushed all those ideals and faiths. Thus “ one
of the main thematic strand of the book is the underground man’s denunciation of the estranging and
vitiating influence of books, so that from his perspective of the 1860’s, when he begins to write, the word
“literary” has become one of the most sarcastic he can utter”.( Dostoevsky, x)
Underground’s man inability to act gives us one of the major dimensions of Sartre’s Existentialism
i.e. the necessity to act. Sartre presents several arguments to justify why it is only through action and
responsibility that man can transcend human subjectivity, and according to him, it lies in the fundamental
principle of existentialism. Sartre says “If I decide to marry and have children-granted such a marriage
proceeds solely from my own circumstances, my passion or my desire-I am none-theless committing not
only myself, but all the humanity, to the practice of monogamy. I am therefore responsible for everyone
else, and I am fashioning a certain image of man as I choose him to be. In choosing myself, I choose man”. (
24)
Underground man is thus not only a victim of inactivity but also of bad faith as he runs away from
his responsibility by seeking pleasure in inactivity. He lies and excuses himself and is therefore struggling
with bad conscience. Sartre gives a precise example of a café waiter, identifying himself with his role as
waiter only. He is thus denying the transcending of self beyond the role that he has accepted so strongly.
This further gives us an insight into understanding some more complex words such as ‘anguish’ and
‘despair’ playing a crucial role in the development of existential crisis. Anguish according to Sartre is a state
where a man becomes aware of his responsibility towards humanity as a whole. Sartre believes that people
who don’t suffer anguish are not the ones contented but are merely hiding it or not facing it. The
Underground man can be seen as an inactive man who is contended in his inactive position and therefore is
a victim of an “anguish can be seen even when concealed”. (Sartre, 25)
The second part of the Novella describes specific events in the Underground Man’s life when he was
young. The underground man is so alienated that his interaction with people turns out to be a mixture of
disgust and fear. His alienation is evident in all kinds of relationships. His interactions with soldier and his
school acquaintances are mixed with several feelings of fear disgust and also craving their attention and
friendship. He meets a prostitute named Liza and clearly moves her by a long whole argument about the
importance of marriage and family despite being a man who is himself detached from society, that too out
of wickedness. All in all, throughout the novel we see that the Underground Man contradicts himself and
never been able to come out of that contradiction which goes on in the novel throughout and leads him
towards inactivity. He is able to imagine the variety of consequences that every action could have, and make
possible arguments against the statements which he just made. As a result, the Underground Man sees that
every choice a person makes is more complicated than it may seem on the surface and it is this complexity
of circumstance that makes the decision to act so difficult for him.
Sartre provides very interesting example of leaders across the world who have suffered this kind of
conflict. He says
All leaders have experience that anguish, but it does not prevent them from acting. To the contrary, it
is very condition of their action , for they first contemplate several options, and , choosing one of
them, realize that its only value lies in the fact that it was chosen. It is this kind of anguish that
existentialism describes, as we shall see it can be made explicit through a sense of direct
responsibility towards the other men who will be affected by it. It is not a screen that separates us
from action, but a condition of action itself. (Sartre, 27)
Underground man’s inability to decide leads to an anguish that makes him develop a heightened
conscious .He is not inhuman, in fact he is an extreme individual. He is an individual, struggling with the
nature of his being, with his existence and with the universe around him. The “underground man” struggles
to define himself, and to place himself into the world, into a reality in which he feels he does not belong.
There seems to be a couple of philosophically interesting ways of understanding the debate between
our actions exclusively in terms of observable causal and the intuitive self understanding for freedom of
choice. This is the moment when one feels an existential gap between understanding himself as a free agent
and actual experience of absurd existence. Man suddenly realizes how brutal the commonness of the world
and human life outside philosophical pursuit of truth and meaning is. This perspective thus leads us to a
revised notion of freedom not as “self-determination” but as “existential achievement”.
Ancient Hindu Scripture Bhagwat Gita is a brilliant text in which this existential perspective is very
deeply manifested.. Krishna speaks the philosophy in the midst of the battle ground where opposing armies
are ready to fight a destructive war. While most religions advocate kindness, love, compassion, mercy,
forgiveness. Krishna Himself urges Arjuna to fight but for Dharma. Arjuna on the other hand, stands
conflicted between the two opposing ends of action and inaction. The Bhagavad Gita takes up his subject
from the viewpoint of the human soul acting in the world. The interaction between Krishna and Arjuna
centers on the issue of Arjuna’s existential crisis when he is faced with the brutal reality of external world.
Thus the question raised is not about achieving the ultimate purified state but rather dealing in the world that
is full of conflicts, issues, motives, values, calls and loyalties. Arjuna faces a total emotional breakdown at
the moment and stands conflicted.
The reply of Sri Krishna to Arjuna’s conflict can be interpreted in many ways- the social, personal
and ultimately spiritual. Krishna convinces Arjuna of his responsibility and herein lays the fact the whole
Bhagwat Gita is a systematic, step by step argument towards more satisfying answers.
The Bhagavad-Gita enlightens man with an unending probing on the knowledge of self and world.
Our understanding of the world is generally dependent upon our ability to correlate, interpret, and assimilate
information gained through observation and experience through our senses. Man’s understanding of the
world is framed through his abiltity to comprehend what lies within him. There exists a correlation between
the self and the outer world and the most important key to self knowledge begins with self evaluation .Many
people have confused swadharma to be their religion.. Swadharma is something unique to every individual
in the world. So the question that arises here is that how can all people in the same religion have the same
Swadharma? Hence Swadharma is not religion, neither Swadharma has something to do with one’s creed or
profession. It has a deeper meaning. Swa means the consciousness or Atma and Dharma means Duty. Thus,
all duties and action that has been guided by Swa (Self) can be called as Swadharma. And if swadharma
means following this inner voice, then Paradharma is just the opposite of Swadharma. Hence all activities
which are not guided by Swa (Self) can be called as Paradharma.
श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुणः परधर्माा त्स्वनुवितात्।
वधर्मे वनधनं श्रेयः परधर्मो भयािहः।।3.35।।
Thus, Bhagwat Gita provides many answers when it comes to life and existence and those answers
are surely free from any dogma and recognizes an individual’s liberty to choose and act and therefore it
leave the ultimate choice in the hands of the seeker. The objective of of Gita is therefore not to restrict any
action, nor to bar any choice, it just demands from its actors to exercise their choices in a self channelized
and enlightened manner so as to preserve one’s own Dharma as well as the Dharma of the entire world.
Sartre believed that we solely are responsible for our choices and its result, and by not exploring the
myriad possibilities life presents to us, we restrict our freedom. Underground man fails to interpret the
world, or interprets it too much and thus falls in the middle of action and inaction. Likewise at many places
man restricts himself because however free, he is incapable to internalize that freedom. For him, freedom is
randomly given to man, not achieved by the free state of mind.
Underground man too, is free to act but is unable to and probably the reason for his inaction and
schizophrenic duality is the state of freedom that has not been internalized. Myriad possibilities lie beyond
the circumference of observable causal, and desire. The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved can be a
form of freedom, but the idea is that power and right to be able to speak or act is a limited understanding of
freedom. While one may be free to act and choose, one cannot escape the result of these actions. Complete
responsibility of an action demands a free mind .But if a man allows himself to become controlled and
directed by his mind and senses in the hope that he is going to get some actual lasting happiness, then he
will remain unfulfilled, empty, and a slave to those desires, or a slave to his own mind.
The truth is that man is defined by not the body or the mind as these, but the spiritual being (atma)
within. Living in the illusion that this body is “me”, man mistakenly concludes that by trying to satisfy the
desires of the mind and senses he will experience real happiness. This is untrue. What is atma in Gita , is
radical freedom for Sartre ie. The state of absolute freedom is where one’s actions are channelized by man’s
own choices, choices that does not result from any cause and effect, but that result from his own freedom of
mind.
The absolute freedom or ability to make choice leads man to act. Action constitutes major part in
Gita’s philosophical discourse. Most famous soliloquy in Hamlet “To be or not to be” is not really a conflict
of whether to live or die but rather the conflict between action and inaction. For every human being since
the beginning of time, the question has not been life or death. The question has been what is in between life
and death. The question has been the point of life, the meaning of life, and the definition of humanity.
Throughout the play, his speeches have an undercurrent of existential philosophy as he keeps on
comprehending and contemplating the various circumstances in life , his fate and actions in life and
gradually the question –whether to suffer or to take weapons, becomes the pinnacle of existential crisis.
Gita emphasizes on action that results not from one’s moral faculty or observable causal but from the
free state of mind that transcends individual freedom for the sake of common good and therefore the real
‘karma’ is to act without thinking of any consequences- with a free will.
कर्माण्येिावधकारस्ते र्मा फलेषु कदाचन।
र्मा कर्माफलहे तुभभार्माा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मावण।।2.47।।
The Bhagavad Gita clearly preaches the notion that it is not society that imposes its values on the
individuals , instead individuals chose an independent path keeping in mind the interests of the world and
society as Jean Paul Sartre also says that “when a man chooses , he chooses for mankind”.
Man’s focus, as revealed to Arjuna by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, is not our bodies but our
souls. Mortal bodies are not man’s true identity but rather it is an appearance that man presents to the world.
Man’s true identity is the soul (freedom of mind) and, unlike our bodies (observable cause), it does not
change and alter over time, it remains eternal.
सहजं कर्मा कौन्तेय सदोषर्मवप न त्यजेत्।

सिाा रम्भा वह दोषेण धभर्मेनाविररिािृताः।।18.48।।
As long as individuals do not take the responsibility to make their own choices and take
responsibility of their actions, they will remain stuck in the duality of mind. Underground man being highly
conscious of himself resist action and somehow escapes the inevitability of action and is unable to
understand that it is impossible. Bhagavad Gita enables man to contemplate the hidden lessons and
philosophical discourses beyond religious interpretations and allows man to gain insight into every aspect of
our lives, right in the world full of conflicts, and existential dilemma.
Sartre’s existentialism therefore seems collaborating with the philosophical discourses of Gita.
Concepts of choice, freewill, responsibilities, action find their extension in Bhagawad Gita, where actions
seems to inevitable but must trigger from a free will of an individual realizing that he is free from the traps
of obligations of outside world. Arjuna doesn’t realize that his actions should not be affected by the worldly
concerns rather should be directed for the sake of humanity, for common good.
‘Atma’ thus is not necessarily the eternal soul, but an individual who has internalized his freedom,
therefore becoming free and unaffected. In the world of twenty first century, in which man is standing on
the edge of world war III. Underground man’s dilemma therefore is the dilemma of ‘us’, dilemma of
conscience of a common man, who is torn between his determine cycle of birth and death and his freewill
that offers him to choose freely for himself. Underground man understands this very absurdity of ‘being’
and thus shatters the same every time. Existential crisis of underground man to a very extent is same as the
dilemma of Arjuna, who falls hopelessly on his chariot, coming face to face with this very ugliness of life.
Gita and its philosophical teachings therefore is a journey from the state of uncertainty to certainty,
from inaction to action, determinism to freewill, body to ‘atma’, individual to common good of humanity,
state of dilemma to a state of internalized freedom.
Consulted readings
Primary sources
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, et al. Notes from underground. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Print
Secondary sources
Aho, Kevin. Existentialism: an introduction. Polity Press, 2014.Print
Appignanesi, Richard, et al. Introducing. Icon Books, 2014.Print
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Penguin, 2005.Print
Cogswell, David, and Joe Lee. Existentialism for beginners. For Beginners, 2008.Print
Dostoievski, Fedor Mikhailovich, and Michael R. Katz. Notes from Underground: an Authoritative Translation,
Backgrounds and Sources, Responses, Criticism. Norton, 2001.Print
Gandhi. The Bhagavad Gita. Jaico Pub. House, 2010.Print
Ghose, Aurobindo. Essays on the Gita. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1996.Print
Flynn, Thomas. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2006.Print
Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism: from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Plume, 2004.Print
Pattanaik, Devdutt. My Gita. Rupa, 2015.Print
Sartre, Jean-Paul, et al. Existentialism is a humanism = L Existentialisme est un humanisme. Yale University Press,
2007.Print
Wolf, Peter McGuire. Dostoevskys Conception on Man Its Impact on Philosophical Anthropology: a Thesis in
Literature and Philosophy. Pennsylvania State University, 1997.Print
Web sources:
Baggini, Julian. “Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism and Humanism (1947).” Philosophy: Key Texts, 2002, pp. 115–133.
Cornwell, Neil. “Around the Absurd II: the Theatre of the Absurd.” The Absurd in Literature, 2006, pp. 126–150.,
doi:10.7228/manchester/9780719074097.003.0005.
“Existential Freedom.” Sartre : A Guide for the Perplexed, doi:10.5040/9781472547484.ch-004.
“Relations With Others and Authentic Existence.” Starting with Sartre, doi:10.5040/9781472547552.ch-005.
Matondang, A. Yakub, and Dja’Far Siddik. “Http://Www.iosrjournals.org/Iosr-Jhss/Papers/Vol. 22 Issue6/Version-
1/A2206010106.Pdf.” IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 22, no. 06, 2017, pp. 07–16.
Menon, Sangeetha. “Consciousness, Love and Well-Being: Indian Psychology and the Bhagavad Gita.” PsycEXTRA
Dataset, doi:10.1037/e627722013-057.

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© 2019 JETIR March 2019, Volume 6, Issue 3 www.jetir.

Existentialism in Notes from the Underground

Keywords: Existential, Self - Deception, Conflict, Action, Freedom

श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुणः परधर्माा त्स्वनुवितात्।

वधर्मे वनधनं श्रेयः परधर्मो भयािहः।।3.35।।

कर्माण्येिावधकारस्ते र्मा फलेषु कदाचन।

र्मा कर्माफलहे तुभभार्माा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मावण।।2.47।।

सहजं कर्मा कौन्तेय सदोषर्मवप न त्यजेत्।

Aho, Kevin. Existentialism: an introduction. Polity Press, 2014.Print

Appignanesi, Richard, et al. Introducing. Icon Books, 2014.Print

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Penguin, 2005.Print

Backgrounds and Sources, Responses, Criticism. Norton, 2001.Print

Gandhi. The Bhagavad Gita. Jaico Pub. House, 2010.Print

Ghose, Aurobindo. Essays on the Gita. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1996.Print

Flynn, Thomas. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2006.Print

Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism: from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Plume, 2004.Print

Pattanaik, Devdutt. My Gita. Rupa, 2015.Print

Literature and Philosophy. Pennsylvania State University, 1997.Print

“Existential Freedom.” Sartre : A Guide for the Perplexed, doi:10.5040/9781472547484.ch-004.

Matondang, A. Yakub, and Dja’Far Siddik. “Http://Www.iosrjournals.org/Iosr-Jhss/Papers/Vol. 22 Issue6/Version-

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