Dostoevsky Notes From Underground Analysis

1304 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Dostoevsky’s “Underground Man”

McKenzi Higgins Dostoevsky in Translation March 10, 2014 Paper Prompt #1 Dostoevsky’s noteworthy literary works each contain similarities in theme, character development, and purpose when analyzed beyond face value. Dostoevsky’s early life and ideals, intertwined with life-changing events that shifted his ideologies, and critiques of fellow Russian writers during his time period lay the groundwork for Dostoevsky’s recurring arguments for the way which Russian society would be best-off, as well as ways in which the people of Russia would be suited to live the most fulfilling, non-corrupt lives. Through themes involving hyper-consciousness, calling into question free will, and suffering in isolation, Dostoevsky’s “Underground Man” serves as a character who exemplifies everything Dostoevsky believes is wrong with the belief in a Russian society perfected by laws, mathematics and science. The tragic ending of The Idiot manifests itself as product of the continual struggle of its characters throughout the book, namely through the downfall of the traditional Russian family, the mockery of Christ-like qualities, and the tensions between good and evil members of society. Both Notes from Underground and The Idiot speak to Dostoevsky’s critique of the rising popularity and prominence of utopianism and socialism ideals in Russian society. In Notes from Underground, the Underground Man serves as a critique to the idea of a utopian society achieved through reason and rationality. Dostoevsky links the Underground Man to the idea of consciousness, explaining that his hyper-consciousness is what contrasts and alienates from the rest of society. The Underground Man explains that this consciousness is linked to intelligence, and that... ... middle of paper ... ... characters in The Idiot provide a way for Dostoevsky to describe the internal struggle of those in transitioning to a rational, socialist society. In describing Myshkin’s view of Nastassia, Dostoevsky shows readers particular tensions and struggle. Nastassia, throughout the book, is characterized according to the eyes she is seen through-damaged in the eyes of society, perfect in the eyes of Myshkin, and hopeful, yet vengeful in her own. These tensions of good and evil characteristics show her yearning for, yet rejection of, Christ, exhibited through her rejection of Myshkin, and her acceptance, yet disgust of Rogozhin. Nastassia serves as a symbol of rational egoism, following how things “should” be according to her previous life-events with Totsky. She mourns the life she could have had, when no person is forcing her to live a certain way, namely with Rogozhin.

Show More
Related

  • Comparing The Corner Residents and Dostoevsky’s Underground Man

    2340 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote these words around 1864 to describe the mental state of a hyperconscious retired bureaucrat whose excessive analysis and inability to act separate him from the mainstream of the society in which he lived. Dostoevsky's underground man, as he termed his character, is characterized by alienation, spite, and isolation. Dostoevsky presents the life of his character as a testimonial to the possibility of living counter to an individual's own best interests.

    Read More

  • A Defense Of Individualism Based On Foydor Dostoevskys Novel:notes F

    664 Words  | 2 Pages

    The underground man is represenative as a product of individaul pathology or a biographical accident. He is "one of the characters of our recent past," part of a generation that is living out its days among us. Internal eveidence makes it clear that his generation is of the 1840s. He shows the fate of the isolated petty clerk and Dostoevkian dreamer twenty years after, surveying his wasted life in the new spiritual climate of the 1860s and at the same time finding justification for his own grotesque being in the simplistic views of the human nature now current.

    Read More

  • Primary Anti-Heroism In Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground

    714 Words  | 2 Pages

    For the duration of his life, he has gathered awfulness, depression and melancholy because he is unable to avenge to his satisfaction wrongs done to him. Further ambushed by inquiries and problems, he keeps himself in this position by envisioning insults, and disguising the outrage they motivate. In the last part of the book, the underground man who is the storyteller and the protagonist calls attention to that he made a mistake by writing his memoirs because there is no point in indicating how he had ruined his life. He admits that "a novel needs a hero, and every one of the qualities of an anti-hero are explicitly assembled in the novel". With underground man, Dostoevsky depicts an opposite illustration of a legend who does not fulfill satisfy the expectation of readers, but rather still commands the novel as the principle

    Read More

  • The Enlightment Period of the Age of Reason in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dostoyevsky does not believe in the norms set by society. The underground man is the opposite of what society deems acceptable and appropriate. He is intelligent with lucid perception, and is self-admitted to be sick, depraved, and hateful. He is determined to ruin every chance fate offers him to be happy and content. He actively seeks to punish and humiliate himself...

    Read More

  • Dostoyevsky's Notes From the Underground and Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver

    1562 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although he regrets it, the Underground Man’s inability to commit to one action, to save Liza or to repulse her, to seek revenge or attempt fit in, is what ultimately keeps him from connecting with others, it is what keeps him in the underground. Travis’ commitment to action ultimately leads him above ground. Works Cited Dostoevsky, Fyodor. A. Notes from Underground: A New Translation, Backgrounds and Sources, Responses, Criticism. Norton Critical Edition.

    Read More

  • Dostoyevsky ‘Notes from Underground’ Critique

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    The tone of “Notes from Underground” is sharp, strange and bitter. The bitterness of the book is traced to the multiple personal misfortunes the author suffered as he wrote his novel. Through these personal tragedies it can be argued that the author presented the position of the “underground man” through his own experiences. Additionally, the research holds the second belief that the novel’s presentation of “underground man” is founded on the social context the novel addresses (Fanger 3). Through this, it was found that Dostoevsky presented the suffering of man under the emerging world view directed by European materialism, liberalism and utopianism. As he began writing his novel, Dostoevsky had been directed by the romantic error that looked at utopian social life and the social vision of satisfying and perfecting regular life for man. The failure for the society to gain these achievements was as a result of the distant liberalism and materialism that reduced the power of reasoning and...

    Read More

  • The Underground Man

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Notes From the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky offered readers a psychological and philosophical view of one of the most interesting and reflective protagonist of all times. As one the most main topics, the Underground Man was quite detailed and personal in his view toward reason and

    Read More

  • Impact of Prison on Fyodor Dostoevsky's Poor Folk, The Double, and The Idiot

    2186 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is perhaps one of the most well known but least understood authors from the nineteenth century. His life was one full of misfortune and suffering; his works filled with religious pondering and philosophical discussions. Dostoevsky's life experiences were integrated into the characters in his pieces, both in terms of personality and ideology. An especially important turning point in his life was his arrest and imprisonment at the age of twenty-seven, shortly after the beginning of his writing career. This prison sentence and time in exile served to shape his perceptions and beliefs towards life, which were then incorporated into his literary works.

    Read More

  • Notes from the Underground, the Tormented Narrator

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Underground Man is spiteful. He tells us this and we really ought to believe him. The Underground Man is not only bothered by the class system of Russia but he is also plagued by everyone that he happens to glance at. Namely, I think that he is tormented by the fact that he is not free. He will never be free. He is a prisoner of himself.

    Read More

  • Theodicy and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

    2495 Words  | 5 Pages

    Hansen, Bruce. “Dostoevsky’s Theodicy.” Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1996. At . accessed 18 November 2001.

    Read More

  • Comparing Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground

    490 Words  | 1 Pages

    Dostoyevsky's characters are very similar, as is his stories.  He puts a strong stress on the estrangement and isolation his characters feel. His characters are both brilliant and "sick" as mentioned in each novel, poisoned by their intelligence.  In Notes from the Underground, the character, who is never given a name, writes his journal from solitude. He is spoiled by his intelligence, giving him a fierce conceit with which he lashes out at the world and justifies the malicious things he does.  At the same time, though, he speaks of the doubt he feels at the value of human thought and purpose and later, of human life.  He believes that intelligence, to be constantly questioning and "faithless(ly) drifting" between ideas, is a curse.  To be damned to see everything, clearly as a window (and that includes things that aren't meant to be seen, such as the corruption in the world) or constantly seeking the meaning of things elusive. Dostoyevsky thought that humans are evil, destructive and irrational.

    Read More

  • Character Development in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    1278 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the most profound and obvious changes in Raskolnikov’s character can be seen in the newfound appreciation for other people and human relationships he discovers at the end of the novel. When the reader is first introduced to Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky quickly makes it apparent that he has little to no regard for others, writing on the very first page that Raskolnikov was “so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all” (1). Indeed, in Raskolnikov’s mind, “to be forced to listen to [the landlady’s] trivial, irrelevant gossip […] and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie” is the most loathsome thing imaginable (1). His disdain toward other people is so great that the mere thought of interacting with anyone for any length of time repulses him. On some occasions...

    Read More

  • The Themes of Dostoyevsky

    2968 Words  | 6 Pages

    Dostoyevsky achieved success with Notes from Underground, a psychological study of a spiritual and intellectual misfit. Dostoyevsky’s greatest success came with four novels that rank among the masterpieces of world literature. Crime and Punishment concerns a student who murders because he imagines himself to be superior to most people, but who cannot face the enormity of his crime. In The Idiot, Dostoyevsky tried to portray a truly good Christian person. “The Possessed, also published as The Devils, is a prophetic portrait of Russian revolutionaries. Dostoyevsky’s greatest novel is probably The Brothers Karamazov. It centers on the murder of the evil Fyodor Karamazov and the effect of this crime on each of his four sons” (Crone).

    Read More

  • Notes from Underground

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story revolves around the thoughts and rants of an unnamed character that we shall refer to as “The Underground Man.” In Dostoevsky’s time, the term "man" or "men" referred to all humankind, and the Underground Man seems symbolic of what could happen to mankind should the endless application of reason take over. Dostoevsky seems to be making the statement that rationality is indeed useful for analyzing situations but is ultimately damaging to the self if focused on constantly. Reason does not, as many Enlightenment thinkers believed, free man but instead takes something away from the essential human existence. It reduces us to something that can be scientifically explained, forcing us to lose a fundamental piece of what makes us human in the process: “All human actions will then, of course, be classified according to these laws – mathematically, like a logarithm table, up to 108,000 – and entered in a special almanac…with such precision that there will no longer be any actions or adventures in the world” (24).

    Read More

  • Binding Limits: Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, the underground man struggles between two opposing beliefs. The first acknowledges that his fictional existence has been predetermined, subject to his author’s conduct. The is the underground man’s insistence that the only possible world humans can live in undetermined world which extols and situates free will within a human. In order to try and solve this problem, the underground man turns to writing, to try and be honest with himself, probe into why he is this way, and to not reject any truth that comes forth, horrifying or not. Through this exercise, he comes to realize that his self awareness sheds light on how little control he has over his actions even though he continues to believe in free will. This understanding within the underground man, and acceptance from the reader, engenders with humility brings forth what I believe to be a humbling message to the now indurate reader, who, after reading Notes from Underground, returns to their own, undetermined world with a new sense of duty.

    Read More

More about Dostoevsky Notes From Underground Analysis

Open Document