Notes from
Underground
by
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Existentialism
• Notes from Underground is considered by many to be the
world's first existentialist novel.
• Existentialism is a philosophical movement that posits
that individuals create the meaning and essence of their
lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for
them.
• Existentialism emerged as a movement in twentiethcentury literature and philosophy, though it had
forerunners in earlier centuries.
• Walter Kaufmann described existentialism as "The
refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation
of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and
especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with
traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and
remote from life".
The philosophers Søren Kierkegaard
and Friedrich Nietzsche are considered
fundamental to the existentialist
movement, though neither used the
term "existentialism".
• Existentialism generally postulates that the
absence of a transcendent force (such as God)
means that the individual is entirely free, and,
therefore, ultimately responsible.
• It is up to humans to create an ethos of personal
responsibility outside any branded belief system.
• In existentialist views, personal articulation of
being is the only way to rise above humanity's
absurd condition of much suffering and inevitable
death.
Underground and What is to Be Done?
• What is to be Done? (alternatively translated as
What Shall we Do?) is a novel written by
Nikolai Chernyshevsky when he was in Peter
and Paul Fortress. It was written in response to
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.
• The novel's hero, named Rakhemtov, became
an emblem of the philosophical materialism and
nobility of Russian radicalism. The novel also
expresses, in one character's dream, a society
gaining "eternal joy" of an earthly kind. The
novel has been called "a handbook of
radicalism" and led to the founding of a Land
and Liberty society.
• The book is perhaps best known for the
responses it created than as a novel in its
own right. Leo Tolstoy wrote a different
What is to be Done? based on moral
responsibility. Fyodor Dostoevsky
mocked the utilitarianism and
utopianism of the novel in his Notes
from Underground.
• Vladimir Lenin, however, found it
inspiring and named a pamphlet for it.
• Remember that Lenin had also been
deeply moved by Chekhov's short story
“Ward No. 6”
Notes from Underground
Image taken from the poster for the film released on
March 6, 1998
• The role of man in a world in which the belief of God does
not exist.
• In Notes, Dostoevsky shows us the Underground Man, (a
new “type”)
– A despicable and pitiable creature who betrays himself
and is not even aware of it.
– “The Underground Man” becomes a common
character type in many of the works that followed
Notes. He is present in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in
the milder form of the character Nikolai Levin, in Anton
Chekhov's Ward No. 6, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man,
and in Joseph Heller's Catch-22 as Yossarian the 28year-old Army Air Corps Captain.
Written at a time of Great Difficulty
for Dostoevsky
• His wife was dying
• His business ventures as an editor of
journals were failing
• His own health was in difficulty with more
and more epileptic fits becoming a major
hindrance.
• In The Underground Man is Dostoevsky
attempt as a thoroughly anti-modern author
to implore his fellow Russians to resign
from the West and its atheistic liberalism
What was going on around him?
• To some extent, the bitterness of the novel is
traceable to the many personal misfortunes
Dostoevsky suffered while the novel was being
written.
• Much more important was the influence of his
maturing world-view with its ever colder and
more distant attitude toward the European
liberalism, materialism and utopianism of his
younger years.
• Dostoevsky had begun his writing career in the
1840's as a romantic idealist, even as a dreamer.
• At that time he had devoted a great deal of attention
to utopian socialism and its vision of a perfectly
satisfying, perfectly regulated life for humankind.
• This perfection of life was thought to be achievable
solely through the application of the principles of
reason and enlightened self-interest. In fact, it was
maintained that given the dominance of the rational
and the spread of enlightenment, perfection of life
must necessarily follow.
• Dostoyevsky is noted for his skill in interweaving
deep philosophical, psychological and theological
threads into his brilliant fiction.
• As a result, Notes for Underground is much more
than stimulating, entertaining stories but is an actual
representation of 19th century intellectual history.
• Notes from Underground wrestles with modern
existential questions which deal with Man's role in a
world where the idea of God was being rejected more
and more.
• The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries
espoused the value of reason, proclaimed the potential
improvement of Man and Society, and freed humanity
from superstition.
• By the 19th century, with the belief in God declining,
Dostoevsky saw mankind having lost its moral bearing,
wafting directionless in the tempest that is life. Instead
of liberating Man for the better, the Enlightenment had
renounced his spiritual connection.
• Where Dostoevsky saw a creature of God, his
contemporary philosophers were seeking a new
definition of modern man, out from under the
definition of God.
• “The Underground Man” is what he sees as their
final product.
Works and Sites Cited
• Lawall, Sarah. Ed. “Fyodor Dostoevsky.” The Norton
Anthology of world Literature Vol. E. New York:
Norton: 1301-1306.
• Marder, Jen, Mike Meyer, and Fred Wyshak
“Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground.”
http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/pre
vious/ru351/novels/UGMan/ugman.html 3 April 2008
• “Notes from Underground.” Wikipedia: the Free
Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_from_Undergr
ound 3 April 2008.