The Underground Man

Notes From the Underground was a tale written by Dover Dostoyevsky in 1864. It presents a very disjointed view into the mind of a man who is hyper aware of his existence and sees himself as a man of great intelligence. As the main character is known as, “The Underground Man,” there is a tone of implied madness that the man suffers with his existence of isolation. In this analysis of the novella will identify the Underground Man’s suffering with an understanding of his desire to seek out revenge and his acceptance of what he has sought. The Underground Man is one that is presenting his musings and thoughts through an internal conflict throughout the entirety of the novel. There is a great struggle that is presiding in his mind to a point that there is spite in his words when interacting with the different characters. One such example is an officer that he felt has wronged him in the early point of the novella, where in a tavern a gentleman gets thrown out of a window in a tavern. An officer of the military moved the Underground Man out of the way without as much as an acknowledgement.

In a letter that was written with the intent for the officer to be implored to apologize, the Underground Man considered if friendship was offered instead of a duel. In the line, “Offered me his friendship, and how fine that would have been!” (Dostoyevesky 35). It is implied that friendship would dissolve his desire for revenge and eliminate the Underground Man’s isolation. Unfortunately, the theme of isolation and madness are only reinforced as the altercation happened over two years prior. The musings of the Underground Man show that of a man who is consumed by the madness of isolation with time to obsessively analyze what could be a harmless mistake, but runs throughout the entirety of part II in the novel of how to get his