One of the major ideas throughout Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky is the suffering brought about by isolation from society. Dostoevsky is suggesting that it is nearly impossible to escape the suffering and pain brought on by isolation and it can only be possible if you realize that you must help yourself. Throughout this novel the narrator, also known as “the underground man” experiences many levels of suffering and pain. Dostoevsky is saying that in order to overcome this suffering the narrator will have to take the opportunity to save himself.
This is the story of an unnamed man only referred to as “the underground man”. This underground man is the narrator of the story. The story he tells is a first person account of his own past experiences. There are two major parts to this story. This first is a description of the narrator and his warped world view. The second is a story from years past that illustrate his earlier described opinions.
We learn in the first part of this story that the narrator does not suffer physically but instead suffers mentally and emotionally. The underground man feels alienated by his peers and isolated from a society that, he feels, can never accept him. Since, in his view, he can never be accepted, he retreats to an “underground” world of self isolation. The narrator believes that neither he nor society has the ability to change. Since he does not accept the possibility that he may change he will remain forever depraved.
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The narrator has struggled for his entire life with feelings of depravity and shame. This has given him negative feelings toward himself and toward all of mankind. It has gotten to the point where feelings of shame are normal and acceptable to him. The narrator does not realize it but he is only further contributing to his problems. Not only does society alienate him but he alienates himself further by accepting and even inviting society’s torment of him. At this point in the story it seems he will never be able to find salvation.
The narrator believes that the feelings he is experiencing are inevitable and because of this grows to enjoy these feelings. He puts himself in degrading situations on purpose. He claims to do this to try and escape the boredom of his life. The actual reason he does this is because he knows no life other than one of humiliation. When he is humiliated he is exposing others to the pain he feels. This is the only way he can connect with society. He is trying to give some sort of meaning to his life and instead he is only filling it with more pain.
The underground man wants to have some kind of identity, something to be remembered as. He has struggled throughout his life to affirm his own identity and to this point has been unable to do so. It has gotten to the point where he does not care if he is remembered negatively just so long as he is remembered. He wants to die with dignity but doesn’t yet realize that being remembered shamefully will not give that result. He knows that he is leading an uneventful meaningless life and he needs to escape it. However he will never escape it because he won’t let himself escape it. He believes that it is impossible for him to take action because he is too intelligent. He believes that truly smart people spend all their time thinking and none of it taking action. This is just an attempt to justify actions that only add to his already warped world view.
The narrator hasn’t always felt this way. There was a time when he was open to change and action. Unfortunately as a child the narrator was ignored and left alone. This made his childhood extremely difficult. Whenever he reaches out to others he is scorned and turned away. If he ever managed to gain a friend he would always lose the friend through his own self alienating actions. Even in his adult life the narrator finds himself unwanted by his peers. The narrator feels unloved and unwanted. This is shown when he attends a party of an old school mate that he never even liked. He attends knowing that he will be insulted and humiliated but at the same time he desperately needs to be included.
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At the party he is only insulted and humiliated more than he had expected. This again illustrates his inability to escape his life of isolation because he doesn’t know how to live anywhere but in an underground world.
After the party he follows some of his classmates to a brothel. At this brothel he meets a young prostitute named Liza. The narrator finds in Liza a person similar to himself. Liza’s life has also been one full of suffering. She too desires a new life and a new beginning. The narrator attempts to warn her about the many problems a life of prostitution will bring her. He even goes so far as to give her his address and an offer of help. This is another attempt to interact with another human being. However he immediately regrets giving her his address along with an invitation to stop by. He is again showing his unwillingness to let go of his underground world. At this point it seems as though he is the only one keeping him in isolation.
When the narrator first returns home he is upset that he gave Liza his address and wishes that he hadn’t done it. He fears that she will show up at his home and see the poverty he lives in. He is even more afraid that she will invade his “underground” world. After a few days pass and Liza is nowhere to be seen the narrator begins to daydream about Liza. He dreams that they become involved romantically and fall in love with each other. This is another key example of the narrator dreaming of escaping his world of alienation but at the same time not really wanting to because he feels insecure and would have no idea how to function as a member of society.
One evening Liza finally arrived at the narrator’s door. He invites her in but really wishes she would just leave. His underground existence is in jeopardy and it makes him upset. Liza comes looking for help, looking for a friend. This is most likely the underground man’s last chance at salvation. Instead of feeling happy he is ashamed of himself. At this point the only thing he knows how to do is isolate himself. So the underground man insults Liza for coming to his house and she says she is going to leave. Since he still feels drawn to her he convinces her to stay but only for a short while because he resumes his insults and she walks out on him forever. With Liza went the narrator’s last chance at a life “above ground”. The narrator does not believe himself to be capable of loving others so he will remain in his underground world until the day he dies.
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Now the narrator realizes what it is that has made him an underground man. He refuses to accept a society he does not understand and that does not understand him so he must live “underground”.
Since the story is being told many years after the events took place I believe that the narrator realizes that he had his chance at salvation and he missed it. Now that he realizes he missed his best opportunity to return to society, the narrator only becomes more isolated than ever before. He becomes filled with hatred and has missed his shot at a life without constant pain. The point of the narrator’s story is to show what happens to those people who are forced underground by society and are too frightened to attempt a return to a real existence. It is like a warning to anyone else who feels as though they live “underground”.
Society and unforgiving people are what pushed the narrator into his underground state. The life of pain, suffering, humiliation, and insult that he was subjected to alienated him from not only society but the rest of mankind. Once alienated it was the narrator who kept himself from returning to society. Once he realized that he missed his final chance to escape the underground he only dug himself deeper in, never to return.
Dostoevsky wrote Notes form the Underground to illustrate the evil that can happen when someone is isolated from society. Dostoevsky shows us that isolation is like a black hole. Once a person is sucked in they are likely to remain there by themselves forever. Dostoevsky does offer some hope. He says that you can escape the black hole of isolation only if you realize that you are only person holding you there. If you don’t come to that realization quickly enough you are almost certainly doomed to an isolated existence.
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