Contradiction In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground

Jennifer Toth details the stories of many who face extreme opposition in the choices they have made in order to survive the ever present wickedness of today’s society. In the book Mole People, Jennifer Toth (1993) exonerates the myths of mole people, those who have chosen to live underground in New York City. Toth quickly becomes immersed not only in the emotional connections she has established, but also in her benevolence towards the underground homeless. Toth (1993) comments, “Tunnel people always amaze outsiders at how well they hide” (p.157). Throughout her writing process, Toth had to overcome many obstacles in order to gain a credible insight into the Mole People’s community.

My favorite book from this semester has to be the Grand Inquisitor by Fyoder Dostoevsky. First off, what compelled me to pick this book was the originality of the content by having the Grand Inquisitor appear to conversate with Jesus Christ. However, more specifcally, I appreciated the main themes like the ideas that the masses are innately naïve, a majority of people would rather be told what to do rather than to follow their own logic, and people are satisfied as long as they are comfortable. The idea of the masses seeking refuge and protection over their freedom due to being unintelligent is mentioned frequently in the Grand Inquisitor.

At the same time, the dichotomy between underground and surface can represent the subconscious emotions and drives that the characters conceal or are unaware of in their conscious life; this dichotomy can also stand for the ‘underclass’ of workers and bourgeoisie or aristocracy. Although these various and complex deployments of the tunnel trope appear and reappear throughout the novel, this essay tackles the topic in three sections, corresponding

And Ellison’s character is also accused of murder and finds himself running from white militants. Both are deceived, angry, and sometimes delusional. Their stories are both set in big cities so they are able to utilize manholes as their place of escape and music as a refuge; a place to surrender. Both stories deal with guilt and innocence for example, in The Man Who Lived Underground, as Fields begins to explore the underground tunnels, he’s lured by the sounds of music. As comes across a gospel choir singing songs of faith and forgiveness.

Having invented a whole world in the underground, “his entire being [is] full of what he [wants] to say to them,” (69) but without the proper words, he is left with meaningless ellipses. Fragmented speech only serves to widen, as Cappetti describes, “the insurmountable abyss” that is “separating Fred Daniels and the rest of humanity.” Cappetti also points out that it is Fred Daniels’ rejection of all aboveground values, including language, that renders him incapable of eloquent speech. Yet in the same situation, Dostoevsky’s Underground Man is not only fully capable of expressing himself, language becomes his sole asset that allows him a way back into the aboveground and society. Although he ultimately rejects it in favour of solitude under the floorboards, the choice is still there.

Raskolnikov 's act of violence is what causes him to go insane, impacts the lives of the people around him, and finally violence is Raskolnikov’s way of proving himself as an above-average individual. Dostoyevsky used violence to change the course of not only Raskolnikov’s life but also the lives of the people around him. The story shows how one man 's image of himself as a higher being can cause him to commit violent acts, which impact everyone around

Furthermore, the anti-hero is not capable of creating a normal human relationship with anyone he encounters, more importantly being in love. He once said that he had loved and hurt himself. The traumatic experience caused him to behave this way. The Underground Man is not able to look at people in the eye. He sees himself with disgust and regret, hating the appearance of his face but frightens if others catch a glimpse of him, as he is afraid of their derisive laughter.

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley presents us with a Dystopian society, for as we read, there is a revelation of the true nature of the society. The basis of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is that the shadows in which the trapped conformists see are the flawed reflections of ideal forms, such as beauty. Within the society of Brave New World, the entire population appears perfect for they are manufactured to be that way, therefore, the ‘outsiders’ appear as the flawed reflections of their ideal forms, which is present in the Allegory of the Cave, as well as other similarities. Within the trapped society in the World State and Plato’s cave, there is a general origin of knowledge, since birth.

He uses descriptions of spaces in St. Petersburg to morph protagonist Raskolnikov’s mind and his surroundings into an indistinguishable amalgamation of confusion and claustrophobia, showing the Westernized city’s stifling effect on the internal workings of a traditional Russian man bombarded by new ideas. Dostoevsky focuses on St. Petersburg on the scale of individual rooms as opposed to full cityscapes. This use of space is most evident in his repeated descriptions of the cramped living quarters which act as barriers to Raskolnikov’s achievement of his full potential. At many points in the novel, Raskolnikov appears stuck in his own mind as well as in his physical space. The first description of his living-quarters immediately conveys this feeling of entrapment: “His closet was located just under the roof of a tall, five-storied house, and was more like a cupboard than a room.”

He disagrees with the society’s way of living and is arrested for it, but he takes a step forward to change it. The author takes on different varieties of tone throughout the story such as gloominess, despair, and joy, which clarify the idea that he disagrees with this society’s

Death, sacrifice, love, nearly every story has them, but what else do they have in common? Nearly everything! Every story created is composed of the same ingredients, yet somehow, the stories still captivate their audiences. One would think the use of such elements repeatedly would eventually become monotonous, but in fact, it actually entices people to read. One reason for this is the story is in the nature of a cake.

There Is More Than One Type of Hero In “Notes from the Underground”, a fiction book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Underground Man is not like the traditional main character in most other fiction books. Often books have a tragic hero where he or she either saves the days or unfortunately is killed. But that is not the case for this book, the main character shows characteristics that do not fit along the lines of a tragic hero at all. This paper argues that the Underground Man is most definitely not the tragic hero, but instead an anti-hero.

Continuously he is abused and stripped from a satisfaction of feeling socially equal to others. This is a cause of his social economic status, which only allows him to clothe himself with old stained garments. For this reason, he is perceived to be less than a human in the eyes of individuals who play an important role to society. Since the Underground Man’s character has been described as socially isolated since the beginning of the book, his difficulties expressing himself to other individuals was the commencement of a deep angry desire to have some authority over the officer. Rather than letting the incident go he torments himself with it and plans a revenge.

“I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us…” I once read this from a poem written by Emily Dickinson, the American poet. Frankly speaking, at that moment, I couldn’t understand how come a person would be willing to become a nobody——a nobody with little importance and sense of existence!

Raskolnikov’s accumulating debt owed to his landlord prevents him from moving outside of Saint Petersburg and causes massive emotional damage. Each time he leaves his apartment, he fears seeing his landlady, The stress and anxiety arising from the debt he owes to his landlord causes him to become unruly and he had, “fallen into a state of nervous depression akin to hypochondria,” feeding into his detachment from society. Not only does Raskolnikov’s living situation seem grim, but his room itself furthers his emotional detachment from society. Raskolnikov’s room allows him to dehumanize himself.