Notes From the Underground

“Notes from the Underground,” by Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel, although it was written before the term “existentialism” was coined. The novel is focused once again on an unnamed narrator but he is generally referred to as the Underground Man. This novel is divided into two distinct parts, the first part being the more existential of the two and it deals with suffering, enjoyment of suffering, reason, and logic. The narrator is best understood through this passage:

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive
man. I believe my liver is diseased....
I was lying when I said just now that I was a spiteful official. I was lying from spite. I was simply amusing myself with the petitioners and with the officer, and in reality I never could become spiteful.
It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything: neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal not an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.... I am forty years old now.... To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows.

Essentially (or should I say existentially?), the Underground Man is so fixated on his spitefulness that it causes him to avoid concepts that he is fixated on. The true existentialism comes when the Underground Man criticizes man’s attempt at establishing the “Crystal Palace” because although it is possible to live in an ideal and inherently good world, it is possible for anyone at anytime to act against what is considered to be good. He also says that this is due in part to their desire to prove themselves as individuals. This choice of who one is as a person and how one defines themselves is a cornerstone to existentialism and Dostoevsky also seeks to explore man’s place in the world. The novel does a particularly adept job as explaining where he felt that humanity was going, and although he did not believe that that is what is should be, he characterized the Underground Man’s suffering as man’s own suffering in a world that was growing increasingly irrational.