Notes from Underground is perhaps Dostoevsky’s most difficult work to read, but it also functions as an introduction to his greater novels later in his career.
2 hours and 56 minutes
How long does it take to read notes from underground?
2 hours and 56 minutes
What is the best translation of Notes from Underground?
Translating Russian to English is notoriously difficult. In the past, translators would capture bits and pieces correctly but not the entirety of Dostoevsky. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translations do the best at bringing them as they were truly written.
What is the point of Notes from Underground?
In his short 1864 book, Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a man who is “too conscious.” The man, whose name we never learn is so aware of his own thoughts and feelings as to cause him to be indecisive and overly self-critical.
How important is free will to the underground man?
If man always acts according to reason and the laws of nature, then we could predict everything man would ever think or do. The Underground Man argues that man will act against reason in order to prove his free will. He is willing to suffer, destroy, and abandon reason all for the sake of his own freedom.
What does Notes from the Underground mean?
The underground man (the title, in Russian, literally means “notes from under the floorboards”) addresses an imaginary audience whom he refers to as “you” or “ladies and gentlemen”—presumably a representative group of educated, Westernized Russians. He alternately teases, insults, and abases himself before them.
Why did Dostoevsky write notes from the underground?
Dostoevsky may have been prompted to write Notes from Underground in response to a revolutionary novel called What Is to Be Done? (1863), written by the “rational egoist” N. G. . Rational egoism held that life could be perfected solely through the application of reason and enlightened self-interest.
What best describes the reason why the narrator of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground rejects utopias?
The narrator explains that he opposes the utopian crystal palace because it satisfies only material needs. That in itself, however, does not make it desirable. For now, he prefers to keep the underground, since there at least he can have consciousness and make his own decisions.
Why is the underground man spiteful?
He is spiteful because he resents the direction of development he finds in his society, and his revolt against these unacceptable trends render him, in the eyes of his contemporaries, a spiteful being. But he is also physically sick and won’t consult a doctor, out of spite.
What does underground symbolize?
The “underground,” the “dark cellar” from which the Underground Man claims to be writing, is a symbol for his total isolation from society. He feels rejected and shut out from the society to which he is supposed to belong, and he imagines that he is viewing the world through cracks in the floorboards.
How many chapters are in Notes from the Underground?
nine chapters
Did Dostoevsky believe in free will?
Feodor Dostoevsky writes, “will is a manifestation of all life, that is, of all human life including reason as well as all impulses. . Therefore, free will does not seem the essential element of life; it is not necessary, because the same sort of life, it seems, can exist with or without it.
What does the Underground Man postulate as the most important aspect of life for mankind?
What does the Underground Man postulate as the most important aspect of life for mankind? « Man needs only one thing, his own independent desire, whatever that independence might cost and wherever it might lead. » . The Underground Man considers himself highly intelligent because: He never starts or finishes anything.
What do we know about the narrator of Notes from the Underground?
The anonymous narrator of Notes from Underground is a bitter, misanthropic man living alone in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the 1860s. He is a veteran of the Russian civil service who has recently been able to retire because he has inherited some money.
Is the underground man a nihilist?
First, the Underground Man is a nihilist, which means that he believes that traditional social values have no foundation in nature, and that human existence is essentially useless. The Underground Man despises the society in which he lives.
What does the Crystal Palace symbolize for the Underground Man?
The Crystal Palace For progressive thinkers of the era, the idea of a crystal palace represented the ideal living space for a utopian society based on reason and natural laws. The Underground Man says he despises the idea of the crystal palace because he cannot stick his tongue out at it.
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