Notes from Underground

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Notes from Underground

• Fyodor Dostoevsky

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(No Transcript)
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Freedom and Thinking

• Nothing is more seductive for man tha n his
  freedom of conscience. But nothing is a greater
  cause of suffering.
• Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
• consciousness is a disease, a real, actual
  disease -- NFU

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• one of the most influential pieces of fiction in
  Western European history (Brians)

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• Dostoevskys Great Question
• What explains us?
• Dostoevsky had been an idealist/Romantic as a
  young man.
• Later, he abandoned these notions.

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Challenges

• UM himself unpleasant, spiteful, bitter,
  annoying yet it is difficult to disagree with
  his ideas. A representative figure a
  collective personage who positively must
  exist. How is he representative of us?
• Structure. Fragmentary notes. No plot in the
  first part.
• Philosophy UM attacks the very foundations of
  our sense of whats important in life.

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Themes

• Attack on Victorian rationalism, progress, the
  idea that reason/science can eliminate suffering
  and bring about a perfect world.
• Man as irrational, contradictory we are
  simultaneously capable of the most noble actions
  as well as the most barbaric.
• Self-interest. Enlightened and real.

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• The influence of traumatic childhood events on
  adult actions.
• The modern/post-modern blend of a profound
  self-contempt with an exquisitely sensitive ego
  (Brians).
• The corrosive effect of anger and powerlessness.

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Concepts in the Novel

• the underground
• Consciousness A disease
• man of action
• hero
• insect
• beautiful and sublime

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• laws of nature
• wall
• tables
• organ stops
• 2 x 2 4 or 5
• free will

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• self-interest
• crystal palace
• inertia