The Underground Man

The Underground Man

Question 1-UndergroundMan’s Insanity

The Underground Man begins this book by telling us that he is sick and spiteful.  He realizes that he is sick and should go to the doctor to get treatment, but he refuses to go out of spite. The Underground Man is very stubborn, and we realize he has been sick since he was 20.  He has been living with the disease for 20 years as he is now 40.  He even says, “My liver is bad, well then- let it get even worse!” (Dostoevsky p.3)  He then explains how he was a spiteful official and took pleasure in arguing with petitioners.

Question 2- How the Underground Man Is Affected By St. Petersburg

No one in St. Petersburg, not even his former colleagues, stops enjoying the pleasures in life to pity the Underground Man for a lifestyle he has chosen. In Part 1 of the story, the way he talks about life makes him seem miserable. Rather than talking about enjoyable things, he masochistically talks about finding joy in painful things like toothaches, ‘Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next…” (Dostoevsky p.18). When he begins talking about finding pleasure in a toothache only because it makes you moan, he mocks those who find enjoyment in life.

Question 3-Similarities and Differences between Underground Man and Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky creates complex characters that have similarities and differences. The Ridiculous Man is more of a hero than the Underground Man character, who is exceptionally alienated from the society in which he lives. He believes he is more intelligent and conscious than any of the individuals he meets. However, both the Underground man and Dostoevsky have psychological issues.

Question 4-

Dostoevsky, a Russian Orthodox Christian, resented the Poles for their disdain of the Russian prisoners. He was wary of the allegiance of the Roman Catholic Church to the Jesuits. Dostoevsky’s co-conspirators to communism seemingly liked the organizational structure of the Jesuits. This aspect did not help handle issues that the Jesuits vowed obedience to the pope whom Dostoevsky regarded as a spiritually manipulative figure.

Question 5-Dostoevsky’s Sense of Realism in the novel

Dostoevsky uses his ability to heighten realism in the novel by his description of the Underground Man. The Underground Man puts himself in this situation and is overly aware of every minute detail in his actions, which forces him to restrain himself from participating in social activities. Although the Underground man is an individual of high intelligence, it can be assumed that his actions and behavior come from a deeper psychological issue developed during the early years of his life.

Question 6- Use of Tragedy

Dostoevsky creates the story very different from the classical literary expectation of tragedy by using contradictions. He writes that “His heroes have no real family life nor do they marry,” which contradicts what the rest of society views as heroes. Dostoevsky’s depiction of what he believes to be heroes is entirely contradictory. Therefore, readers can rightfully argue that the Underground Man starts and remains an anti-hero throughout the novel despite his efforts to save Liza.

Question 7-Attitude towards Reason and Logic

The Underground Man is a paradoxical thinker, but his life seems to be paradoxical. He chooses to distance himself from society, but it angers him when people do not notice him. Dostoevsky purposely characterizes the underground man this way, “the coordinated use of irony and paradox is an apt method of revealing the absurd, a hallmark of existentialist literature that causes many characters…to perceive an absence of absolute order and significance of life” (Dostoevsky p.20)

Study Questions

Question 1

By defining his identity as one that usually stands in opposition to civil society, the Underground Man falls into deterministic notions because the ability to always act concerning suffering is a predictable metric in and of it. By rejecting societal values, the underground man falls into an inevitable binary between himself and civil society. However, such binaries should be deconstructed due to their static nature. As it stands to reason, the underground man risks transforming his identity into something static by attempting to be the antithesis of what everyone else stands for.

Question 2

The underground man uses several phrases, including “the idea of the crystal palace” and “underground,” as metaphors. He attempts to free himself from the “crystal palace” from the utopia because it falls into deterministic ideals that subjugate human autonomy value. The “underground” serves to be an escape from the utopia as it is a place that is not held by the conventional norms of human society. He states, “Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next,’ you cry, with a laugh. ‘Well, even in toothache, there is enjoyment,’ I answer” (Dostoyevsky, p.18).

Question 3

The Underground Man is obsessed with power. According to Dostoevsky, every attempt made by the Underground Man in creating a Utopian society results in a state of discontentment because of the social rule and the order of over-privileged “impudent egoists.” The author mostly depicts obnoxious and arrogant behavior amongst his peers. These groups are also competing with each other as former school mates to better consider themselves as smarter.

Work Cited

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. “Notes From The Underground.” Planet EBook, www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/notes-from-the-underground.pdf.