Kass's 'Underground': A Narrative Fiction

One word that has come to represent the mid-18th century Enlightenment movement is “Reason”. The French philosophes believed that reason could provide critical, informed, scientific solutions to social issues and problems, and essentially improve the human condition. Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground is one of the most famous anti-Enlightenment novels for its rejection of these very notions. Through this novel he showed what he believed were gaps in the idea that the mind could be freed from ignorance through the application of reason, and the rejection of the idea that humankind could achieve a utopian existence as a result.

It seems that throughout the novel there is an extended metaphor of Snowman as various figures from the Christian bible. The first figure that Snowman can be said to represent is that of Adam, the first man, though the similarities between the two characters do not follow the same chronology. Just as Adam is given the animals as companions to look over, similarly Crake has ensured that the Crakers and Jimmy are both left

The book I read for my Political Science class was In God's Underground, by Richard Wurmbrand.

It’s a blizzard! Snow falls in an excerpt from Roger Ascham’s book Toxophilus. Toxophilus was written in 1545, and was the first book ever written about archery in the English language. The author, Roger Ascham, was an English scholar and a private tutor for Queen Elizabeth I. In this excerpt from his book, he talks about how the winds unpredictably blow the snow, and how it further affects the sport of archery. He states “I learned perfectly that it is no marvel at all though men in a wind lose their strength in shooting, seeing so many ways the wind is so variable in blowing (Ascham 35-37). Ascham goes into comprehensive detail when describing the sights of the snow— a noticeable pattern in this excerpt. Because of that, his purpose

The snowman's interaction with the child is clear, and he wants to protect them from the harsh realities of life they are unfamiliar with. When they picked up sporadic items from

It was December and the day was cold. The wind blew rapidly and incoherently as the village folk worked on the crops and attend to their many cattle. Then, something started falling from the sky...it was snowing. Normally this isn’t a big deal,

In the story, The Man Who Lived Underground, Fred Daniels, a young black male falsely accused of murdering a white woman. The police assume him to be guilty, beat him up and force him to sign a confession. In a white society, Daniels knows chances are low of receiving justice, especially being a black man. Constantly disrespected called a boy and nigger, so he decides whether to flee or turn himself in. At this point, he realizes that he is guilty because of his skin color and not him as a person, especially when the news reads “HUNT NEGRO FOR MURDER” (p. 1447). Immediately, he escapes from the police, take off to a manhole and goes into hiding in the sewers. In isolation, he discovers the basements are connected. Daniels stumbles across

Snowflakes danced in the biting breeze, almost obscuring the near-solid wall of people shuffling past. From what their silent, mostly hidden observer could see, their noses and cheeks were red from cold, but they were smiling. Probably in anticipation of some gift or cheerful reception when they returned to their warm apartments. Figures.

"The desk man at the hotel gave him a press packet when he registered, checking his name off a list, but J. hasn't bothered to look at it so he doesn't know what time dinner is," (p. 693).

The Underground Man often writes that he considers himself superior, in an attempt to compensate for his own self-loathing. He regards himself as highly intelligent because of his lack of goals and ambition. He states, “...An intelligent man cannot seriously become anything and that only a fool can become something.” (469). He suggests that in order to be a successful man, he would have to have something solid to justify his cause. Because there are infinite possibilities as to what that cause may be, he simply does not act at all (SparkNotes Editor). He only regards himself as superior in the sense that he is more aware and intelligent than most, but that is the only thing he likes about himself. He describes himself as “vain” and he does

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.

Adaptation plays a large role in “The Overcoat” and “The Man Who lived Underground”. Bureaucracy does not affect Akaky because he is used to constant oppression. Daniels initially is oppressed by his surroundings until he learns to interact with them beneficially. Daniels, unlike Akaky, mentally transcends all forms of oppression by believing that he is a God. Daniel’s transcendence from social restrictions allows him to live ignorantly in his oppressive world. Akaky and Daniels both interact with oppressive environments; however, they only experience subjugation from their environments when they are aware of the oppression. Ignorance of their circumstances allows the two to avoid experiencing the oppression unless there is a change in their status quo.

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.

Notes from Underground, also translated as Notes from the Underground or Letters from the Underworld, is an 1864 novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Notes from Undergroud is considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels. It was one of the first novella’s that had an anti-hero as the main character. The Underground man alienates himself from society. He wants to have some social interactions, but most of his knowledge comes from the books he reads. Throughout the novella, the Underground man constantly refers to the wall and the idea of free will.

I am shocked by the underground man’s inability to feel kindness and gentleness in any way at all. He tends to cherish the misery of others and despise the societally accepted good things in life. The underground man proposes reasons for this hate but it really is simply because of a plagued and evil heart. Men are generally not like this in their hearts and I tend to believe in all men having greatness in their hearts and that all men do only what they believe to be right when tasked with making difficult decisions. Perhaps this man is playing a game to tempt his sanity like the extraordinary man but I believe that he actually is evil inside. To say that this man is an outcast is an understatement. Everyone that I have ever met wants to do