Nihilism In Notes From The Underground

From the beginning of time, humans have questioned the validity of intrinsic duality of man. Are humans born with both pure goodness and pure evilness or is the latter cultivated? In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one man, a scientist named Henry Jekyll, concludes that all men are both good and evil, so he decided to separate the two natures within one body. The outcome of his experiment resulted in the formation of a somewhat different product than he had imagined a creature by the name of Edward Hyde. Although Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the souls of one body, there are differences and similarities in their appearance and personality that illustrate the natural duality of good and evil within a man.

The viewpoint of the world that the narrator has, completely alters as certain events take place throughout the story. His outlook on nature transforms into a wholly different standpoint as the story progresses. As his tale begins, the narrator sees himself as a tough guy or “bad character”. He believes he is invincible. There is nobody as cool as he

As humans, are natural instinct should be to remain cautious of the people and setting around us. However, despite not knowing the true personality of a person, people tend to blindly put their trust and faith into someone they are only acquainted with. In The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, Larson claims that there is corruption within people and the world, making it harder to distinguish between good and bad. To help elaborate on his claim, Larson employs different arguments supported with larger rhetorical structures.

Oscar Wilde, an acclaimed Irish Poet, novelist, dramatist and critic once aptly commented, “Men become old, but they never become good”. The philosophical aspect of this quote relies on the basis that human beings are inherently malevolent. Through his pessimistic perspective, Wilde clearly captures the ill-disposed mindset of mankind. Moreover, there are various deductive arguments that discredit the optimistic depiction of human nature. One of the prime examples can be found in Kurt Vonnegut’s literature. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat's Cradle, through the illustration of his characters, the author symbolizes the four elements of human fallibility.

The world as we know it is constantly moving and changing; events occur that can affect people’s lives even if they are thousands of miles away. Whether or not these happenings are good or evil can shape one’s mindset and outlook on the actions they take themselves. Both have distinct strengths and weaknesses; however, the real question one must ask is which side of the spectrum is more capable of influencing humanity. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson, a wealthy and well-respected doctor by the name of Henry Jekyll, who believes that man is not one but two separate people, constructs a potion which unearths his inner evil (Mr. Edward Hyde), and in the end is engulfed by the strength of his malevolent persona.

People are forced to by society’s views to be something they are not. The Invisible man is forced by society to be a well mannered boy, even after they treated him like black trash calling him things like “nigger”and made him undress, with other boys around his age, in front of them. Then when

The book’s main focus is on the gradual disillusionment of the narrator and his personal battles. In particular, the book develops the battle the narrator faces when he discovers the truth about the Brotherhood organization. He eventually realizes that they are using him for their own purposes and encouraged him to incite the blacks to a riotous level so they will kill one another. The narrator develops feelings of hopelessness when it becomes apparent that he is being betrayed by both white and black cultures. His overwhelming feeling of emptiness comes to a climax when he falls into a manhole during a riot. While hibernating in the underground black community, the narrator struggles to find meaning in his invisibility and to come up with his true identity. The seclusion allows the reader to realize the disillusionment of the narrator. Ellison does an incredible job of getting inside the narrator’s character and describing his emotional battle. At times it feels as if the text is purely his thoughts transcribed directly onto the page. The narrator traces back his history

The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright is full of symbols. The story is that of a man who after being accused of a murder starts living in underground sewers, in an attempt to escape the law. There are several themes in the story, however, underground life is a powerful major theme in it that has several meanings and implications in the context of the story. Underground can be seen as a potent symbol meaning an escape from the social institution and its bondage, as a relief from inequality and racial divisions, as solitude and self-discovery and many more similar things. Underground is also the stage for the most of the drama that takes place as a part of the story. However, underground also appears as a symbol of repulsion and revolt. Overall, the writer has used the symbol of underground to expose the corruption and chaos in the society in a brilliant manner.

This rejection of reasons as a basis for autonomy stems from his belief that freedom is virtually impossible in a largely deterministic and evolutionary universe, where everything is determined by the 'laws of nature' to which he constantly refers. The Underground Man believes that the feeling of freedom engendered by acting for a reason as opposed to acting blindly is an illusion. He says of men with limited consciousness that ìthey take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in this way they are more quickly and easily convinced than others that they have discovered an indisputable basis for their activityî (19). In other

The Underground Man did not criticize reason as much as he criticized the use of reason by his rationalist and utopian contemporaries. One of the things he criticized about them was their glorification of reason, which was not uncommon at the time. The Underground Man said, “but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature,” (Dostoyevsky, 19) This absolute remark showed the Underground man’s though on the limitations of the power of reason, which the rationalists and utopians of his time ignored. Additionally, he said: “I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of

antagonists of two classic literary works – Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – but also to analyze and explain how these villains represent human temptations and the dark side of a person’s character. Throughout this essay each section will serve to explain what the villains represent and how it ties back to human nature.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (pg. 39)

Ignorance , when voluntary, is criminal. A human who acts in this manner is just as guilty as the criminal doing the crime. Ignorance can be the will to not learn about certain subjects or choosing not to obtain the good in certain situations. Samuel Johnson is correct in ways, but not in the sense that it is morally wrong. Being close minded is to one’s personal decision and also being prejudice is also one. Choosing these behaviors might be beneficial to one, but also can be cruel to another. Judging before learning is a common mistake most people do. These types of ignorance causes not only dispute, but also leads to the height of the war. Ignorance is a part of human nature, but one is meant to learn from his or her own mistakes. Although

To Dostoyevsky, the Underground Man is alienated because of his ideological and intellectual positions: his inability to coexist his literary fantasies with real life. To Ellison, however, the Invisible Man is alienated because of historical and racial problems: the way society sees and feels about black men and culture after just having freed the slaves.

Consider a life underground. Reminiscent of darkness and disparity you might think. But not my life, I live underground, yet it is the most brightly lit place you shall ever enter. I live here alone, a humble existence, but I shall soon emerge. I consider myself an invisible man, wronged by both my own kind and by the white man. But that 's the way of things, in this world you 've got to fight and claw for what you want, and never know who you can trust. All I sought was acceptance and equality. I am a man of the darkness, yet a man of the light and the whole world will know my name. I refuse to be invisible. I shall be seen. Oh Lord I shall be seen.