Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground - Exposing the Unseen Depths of the Human Mind

Due to the lack of entertainment, Lizabeth and her friends have to resort to bothering Miss Lottie for fun, and they compel Lizabeth to ransack the marigolds Miss Lottie pours her love into. At first, she is hesitant to perform such an immature act, but her friends continue to taunt her, jeering, “You scared, Lizabeth?”(Collier 3). Their attitude influences her negatively;not only does it encourage behavior that is pointless and problematic, it also makes Lizabeth feel as if she is somehow less of a person if she does

The battle between society and man, the social creature, would be a definition of social alienation. As a result of the wounds casted upon a man from society, that man begins to alienate himself and retreat. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in “Notes from Underground,” shows us the Underground Man who, after expecting the world to work like it does in literature, finds himself being isolated for the last twenty years of his life. Ralph Ellison, in “Invisible Man,” shows us an Invisible Man who, in the beginning has social hopes and aspirations, eventually becomes completely alienated on. While Dostoyevsky and Ellison show us somebody alienated from society in different eras and environment, they differ on why one becomes alienated.

“I loved to fall into the common rut, and had a whole-hearted terror of any kind of eccentricity in myself.” This quote from Notes from the Underground, by Feodor Dostoevsky inspired the theme for my first paper. While the underground man displayed more of the tragedy of life, Emily Dickinson’s poem showed the beauty behind the tragedy. The underground man and Emily Dickinson have experienced isolation towards society.

Poverty is an essential motif in Crime and Punishment that enables characters to expose their isolation from society. Raskolnikov demonstrates the true effect that poverty can have on an unemployed man in the 1860s. Razumikhin is seen as Raskolnikov’s foil character that reacts to his form of poverty in the opposite way of Raskolnikov towards society. The weight of being desperately pour effects Marmeledov to extensive lengths that ultimately ends in his death.

Closely observing a character gives the readers a chance to truly understand them , their thoughts and their points points of views. The actions that Lizabeth takes are things that need to be closely examined to comprehend the complexity of Lizabeth’s behaviors. Lizabeth, the protagonist from the short story Marigolds by Eugenia Collier portrays unique characteristics such as being resilient, addled and compassionate.

According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a Russian novelist, born on December 11, 1918. From an early age, Solzhenitsyn was interested in becoming a writer, and began sending his writings for publication. He received a degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Rostv-na-Donu but had to put his career aside due to World War II. In 1945, Solzhenitsyn was arrest for letters he wrote that criticized Joseph Stalin. This led to him spending eight years in prison and labor camps. Following these events, Solzhenitsyn went on to publish numerous novels: Odin den iz zhizni Ivana Denisovicha (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), V kruge pervom (The First Circle) Rakovy korpus (Cancer Ward) and Arkhipelag Gulag (The Gulag Archipelago). The Gulag Archipelago discusses Solzhenitsyn’s experiences in labor camps and the way the system worked. This led to Solzhenitsyn being brought to court for treason. These works received critical acclaim and he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. In his quote, Solzhenitsyn is saying that human beings are always having internal fights with themselves over good and evil. They always try to overcome one or the other, with most cases being humans try to drive the evil away. No matter how hard human beings try to turn it away, it isn’t possible; humans are inherently evil.

In Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, the Underground Man proposes a radically different conception of free action from that of Kant. While Kant thinks that an agent is not acting freely unless he acts for some reason, the Underground Man seems to take the opposite stance: the only way to be truly autonomous is to reject this notion of freedom, and to affirm one's right to act for no reason. I will argue that the Underground Man's notion of freedom builds on Kant's, in that it requires self-consciousness in decision-making. But he breaks from Kant when he makes the claim that acting for a reason is not enough, and only provides an illusion of freedom. When faced with the two options of

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” Leo Tolstoy. There are many different themes within the play of Fences, what will be focused on in this work is the theme of family. In the great play of Fences, we are introduced to the Maxson family, this particular family goes through many trials and tribulations as all families may. The main character Troy sets the tone for all that his family is put through throughout the play. Fences depicts a family conflict or can be looked at as a family drama based on Troy’s decisions in his life. The play also supports how families can be ruined because of certain decisions made by one particular family member. Within study of Troy’s relationship with his son Cory, wife

Would you want to be thrown out of a window? In the novel, Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky talks about a scene where the underground man wanted to be thrown out of a tavern window after seeing another man get tossed out of it. The social control theory does a good job at explaining the underground man’s need to fit in with society. Do you want to be constantly in debt that you never have money and are a burden to your friends? The strain theory explains really well the scene in the book where the underground man does not get invited to the going away party and does not have the money to pay for it. Both of the theories had interesting histories and more than one theorist has had some input on both.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky paints Underground man as someone who is tortured in his novel Notes From Underground. Despite everything that Underground man says he is lost and has no sense of his identity. When the character of Liza is introduced the reader gains some hope that the Underground man can find love. Although Underground man ultimately pushes Liza away, he really loved her through his own idea of love. Underground man shows this love for her through his first conversation with Liza, his trying to save Liza, and, ironically, through his cruelty towards Liza.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel, Notes from the Underground Man, uses the idea of a modern dystopia by depicting a story that revolves around a distressed older man. Throughout the novel, the main character has a narcissistic belief that he is better than everyone else because of his acute sense of consciousness. His awareness however, also causes him to believe not only are people ignorant to the world around him but that they are also against him. In contrast, critics believe that the main character, the underground man, actually suffers from psychological disorders that causes him to reason this way. Psychological disorders are defined as a wide range of conditions that can affect mood, behavior and thinking, and based on his conduct in the novel, the underground man presents himself as an individual who is subjected to obsessive compulsive behavior, social repression and paranoia.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is a Russian author who writes novels that revolve around psychology. He demonstrates his ability to communicate with the reader by applying his in-depth knowledge and analyzing human behavior of people. By expanding his knowledge into different works he provides a mean for the public to understand psychology at works of literature. For example, in Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky, uses motifs to help illuminate the action of characters.

office, but Algiers would do for him as well; he was willing to marry Marie,

The spiritual life of each person in the world is as individual as a fingerprint. Thousands of different religions create a myriad of outlines for worship, but every personal belief system is unique. “The Three Hermits” by Leo Tolstoy tells of three holy men living a silent life of prayer on an island by themselves. When an Archbishop catches word of them, he insists on diverting his own travel route so that he may visit the hermits. With diligence, he teaches the men the Our Father and departs to return to his ship. Later, the three hermits chase after the ship as if they were running on ground, for they forgot the Our Father and wished to be retaught by the Bishop. Crossing himself, the Bishop assures the hermits that their prayers will be heard by God and asks that they pray for him and other sinners.

The critically acclaimed American author, William Faulkner, once said, “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” The concept of free will has been a widely discussed topic that presents both end of the spectrum to bring forth their own point of views. In Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the idea of freedom is argued against a deterministic view that actions and decision are predetermined and can be calculated using advancement of humanity through “present day” technology. The debate between the two-opposing side will be analyzed through a recount on the deterministic point of view, an exploration about free will with its connection to the provided text, and an opinion piece of the matter.