Notes From Underground Launchpad
NEH Seminar – Existentialism – Summer 2014
Introduction
It is perhaps no surprise that Fyodor Dostoevsky is known as one of the greatest
psychological writers of all time given his own dramatic history of suffering. After being spared
from the Tsar’s firing squad at the last minute, years in a Siberian gulag, and a life of plagued by
epilepsy, he went on to write some of the great psychological and existential novels in all of
World literature, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Notes from
Underground, written in 1864, presents one of the first anti-heroes in European literature. By
satirizing the rationalism and utopian sentiments of his time, the Russian novelist forces us to
confront some of the more uncomfortable facts of human psychology. Dostoevsky’s antiutopianism ended up predicting many of the horrors caused by Twentieth Century efforts to
systematically direct human behavior based on rational determinations of who we are and
what is good for us. Dostoevsky’s novels never give us final answers to these questions, but
show how the question of who we are cannot ever be answered with a simple formula.
Historical Context
While Notes from Underground can be seen as a critique of the progressive view of history and
perfectibility in general, the text is also a direct satire of the Russian novel What Is To Be Done
by Nikolai Chernyshevsky. In this novel, a poor, uneducated girl is saved from ruin by a series of
enlightened benefactors. This girl, Vera, goes on to herself found a series of workshops where
through enlightened benevolence, she is able to transform quite a few other poor women into
educated entrepreneurs. The novel directly suggests that through enlightened self-interest, we
would all arrive at the same conclusion: that working together in a spirit of harmony and openheartedness combined with scientific methods can lead to a total transformation of human
society. Chernyshevsky states "...you know what the future will be. It's radiant and
beautiful. Tell everyone that the future will be radiant and beautiful. Love it, strive for it, work
for it, bring it nearer...to the extent that you succeed in doing so, your life will be bright and
good, rich in joy and pleasure."
Questions to Consider 1. Why would Dostoevsky satirize this seemingly beautiful view of the future?
2. What danger can a utopian view of humans and their future hold?
3. How do you think that the Chernyshevskian worldview relates to later Soviet and fascist
ideologies?
Existentialism and Dostoevsky
Notes From Underground Launchpad
NEH Seminar – Existentialism – Summer 2014
The movement, identified by Jean Paul Sartre as existentialism, has its roots in the
nineteenth century in the works of such writers as Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and
Friedrich Nietzsche. As a novelist rather than an essayist, Dostoevsky’s relationship with the
movement is more complex and ambivalent. While clearly preoccupied with such existentialist
concerns as faith, death, meaning, the bureaucratization of society, and rational conceptions of
humanity, Dostoevsky himself rejected the existentialist viewpoint and, as a member of the
Russian Orthodox Church, identified faith as a resolution to existential angst. But his greatness
as a writer enabled him to articulate the existentialist vision of the world in such a manner so as
to make it persuasive and compelling.
Summary
In the opening lines, our unnamed narrator tells his audience “I am a sick man… I am a
spiteful man.” So begins a novella that presents a disturbing theory of human psychology and a
narration of the events that generated such a theory. In part one of the novella, the narrator
engages the reader directly in describing his existential worldview, calls into question scientific
claims that, as rational beings, humanity always follows self-interest. In opposition to these
claims, the narrator declares that “We sometimes want pure rubbish precisely because in our
own stupidity, we see this rubbish as the easiest path to the attainment of some preconceived
profit” (p. 27)— In part two, Dostoevsky attempts to show what this existential worldview,
translated into action, produces a life marked by cruelty and humiliation.
Guiding Questions
Part 1 – Pages 3-41
What theory of human psychology does our unnamed narrator criticize?
What is his own theory of human psychology?
How does Dostoevsky put forth this theory through the character of the unnamed narrator
himself?
What evidence does he give for his own theory?
How does the unnamed narrator speak to your own experience?
What is the relationship between vengeance and justice for the unnamed narrator?
Why might “a man of perception” have difficulty respecting himself?
Why does the unnamed narrator think pursuing self-interest threatens our freedom?
Have you ever knowingly acted against your own self-interest? Why did you do so?
Explain the metaphor of the piano key?
Notes From Underground Launchpad
NEH Seminar – Existentialism – Summer 2014
Are you like a piano key?
Part 2 – Pages 42-130
Why would the narrator have imposed himself on a group of friends who do not welcome his
presence?
Why is the narrator so cruel to Liza?
Why can’t he forgive Liza for hearing his confession about himself?
What does the narrator mean when he says, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am not justifying
myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme
in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and what’s more, you’ve taken your
cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves” (Peaver and
Volokhonsky, 130)?
How do you think episode in the narrator’s life led him to his ideas about human psychology, as
expressed in part 1?
REFERENCES:
Chernyshevsky, Nikolai. What Is To Be Done?. Translated by Michael Katz.
Cornell University Press. 1989.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Translated by Richard Pevear and
Larissa Volokhonsky. Vintage Classics. 1994.
Stephen Miller and Thomas Johnson