*** Note: The following work is solely that of Elizabeth Jordan.  Any attempt to copy it without permission from the author is plagiarism and not worth it since you will be caught.***

Notes From Underground: Philosophy Versus Life
Written for Existentialism
Freshman Year - Spring 1998

In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky’s narrator rants about his life and philosophical ideals. Part One of Notes from Underground consists of the narrator’s reflections on many aspects of human existence. Part Two attempts to show how these aspects have played out in the narrator’s life. One of the themes the narrator (from now on called the Underground Man) focuses on is the difference between the man of acute consciousness and the man of direct action. In Part One of the novel, the Underground Man delineates a distinction between the two that seems incredibly clear-cut, setting up a seemingly unbreakable dichotomy. He also implies in Part One that he is a man of acute consciousness. Although his autobiographical reflections are for the most part consistent with his philosophical discourse, I believe that his philosophical discourse is more a justification of his life and actions (or lack thereof) than an observation of human nature. In other words, I think the Underground Man’s philosophy comes from the way he led his life instead of his philosophy determining how he lived his life.

In Part One, the Underground Man defines the two types of men he claims exist in the world: the man of acute consciousness and the man of direct action. The essential difference between the two appears to be that the man of direct action is active and creative where as the man of acute consciousness is either inactive or (sometimes) reactive. The Underground Man never says outright which type of man he prefers or considers superior. He has praises and criticisms of both types of men but it seems that he prefers the man of acute consciousness to the man of direct action. He also tells the reader that he considers himself a man of acute consciousness. He says that he is "too conscious" and "it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human conscious" (Kaufmann 56).

Although he calls it an "illness," he believes that consciousness, and especially acute consciousness sets him above his fellow man. He considers the man of action "limited and stupid" because of his ease in activity. The Underground Man says that "to begin to act. . . you must first have your mind completely at ease and no trace of doubt in it" (Kaufmann, 65). It is impossible for the man of acute consciousness to remove all doubt from his mind because he is always questioning things. However, the man of direct action questions nothing and thus his mind is at ease and he can act upon any primary decision he makes. Acute consciousness leads directly to "inertia" because of the constant questioning and doubting of motives (Kaufmann 64). However, the Underground Man considers this inactivity more intelligent than the uninformed activity of the man of direct action.

The Underground Man envies the man of direct action because of his ability to act without questioning his motives. More precisely, he envies the man of direct action most in his ability to revenge himself the wrongs done him. The concept of revenge surfaces over and over again throughout the novel, in both the philosophical discourse and the autobiographical section. According to the Underground Man, the man of direct action is able to revenge himself because he lets the desire for vengeance consume his entire being. He rushes towards his goal of revenge without questioning it or doubting it for a second. The man of acute consciousness is not able to do that. The man of direct action sees his act of revenge "as justice pure and simple" (Kaufmann 59) but the man of acute consciousness cannot recognize the justice of it because he is constantly filled with questions about his potential actions. These doubts lead to spite for the person who insulted the man of acute consciousness. He’ll remember the insult for years to come and even dwell on it but for the most part will do nothing about it. This does not mean the man of acute consciousness will not attempt revenge but when he does it is largely "in trivial ways, from behind the stove, incognito" (Kaufmann 60) and not from the motive of achieving justice but solely from spite.

This type of insult and spite built up in the Underground Man during the episode with the officer that picked him up by the shoulders and moved him in a billiard hall. He says: "I could have forgiven blows, but I could not forgive his having moved me without noticing me" (Dostoevsky 34). He is further insulted by this officer on the streets of St. Petersburg when he is forced to constantly move aside for the officer. He feels degraded by always having to be the one to move aside and wants to establish himself on an equal footing with the officer. The Underground Man becomes obsessed with this insult and dwells on it for years afterwards. He even writes a novel about the insulting officer and writes a letter challenging the officer to a duel (Dostoevsky 35). These actions appear at first glance to be those of a man of direct action but the since he changed the name of the officer in the novel so that it could not be recognized and he never sent the letter it becomes clear that they are merely the inactivity of a man of acute consciousness. Many years later the Underground Man devises a plan to not move aside for the officer in order to get his revenge. After lots of planning and a few failed attempts, the Underground Man at last succeeds in keeping his footing when passing the officer in the streets. He feels that he has one a great victory but this is just the type of trivial revenge he spoke of in Part One; the officer most likely did not notice that the Underground Man didn’t move aside and most definitely wouldn’t even have recognized the narrator anyway.

Despite his envy of the man of direct action, I believe that the Underground Man would much rather be a man of acute consciousness. It seems throughout the novel that he is in a way happy with being acutely conscious but is disturbed by the way he feels when around men of direct action. When a man of acute consciousness is in the presence of a man of direct action, "he genuinely thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man" (Kaufmann 59) most likely because of his lack of an ability to accomplish anything. However, he still believes being acutely conscious is superior to being a man of direct action. The Underground Man even goes so far as to say: "I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything" (Kaufmann 65). This part of his philosophy seems a good justification as to why he is not a success in either the business or social worlds. To be such a success would to be in some way active and thus not a man of acute consciousness and therefore inferior. I think the Underground Man would be happiest if the men of direct action would recognize the superiority of his acute consciousness.

The Underground Man says at one point in Part One that the man of direct action, which he also calls the "normal man," is "stupid. . . . but perhaps the normal man should be stupid" (Kaufmann 59). This statement seems to me an attempt by the Underground Man to set himself above the rabble of the "normal man"; an attempt to make himself in some way better than the man of direct action. The normal man should be stupid so as to be distinguished from the intelligent man of acute consciousness. Throughout his life, the Underground Man appeared to be searching for a way to set himself above those people who believed they were superior to him. For example, he speaks of his school days during which he attempted to be better than others by studying more and understanding "things (not forming part of our school curriculum) of which they had not even heard" (Dostoevsky 47). Even his relationship with Liza is essentially an attempt by him to establish power over someone. The night he first meets her and talks to her about her life and how to change it he says: "It was the exercise of my power that attracted me most" (Dostoevksy 65). He did things to establish himself as superior to the "normal man" but realized that these other men would not recognize his superiority outright. In fact, these attempts to assert his superiority or even, in some cases, his equality led to either "derision" or "degradation" or largely his being ignored completely by the "normal man" as was the case with the officer in the billiard hall. So, perhaps the Underground Man began to equate this "derision" with a feeling of superiority.

In Part One of the novel, the Underground Man claims that the man of acute consciousness finds joy "from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation" (Kaufmann 57). This combined with the fact that he feels the man of acute consciousness is superior to the man of direct action, I think explains the Underground Man’s desire to put himself in situations in which he knows he’ll be humiliated. This humiliation and degradation are his sign that he is, in fact, a man of acute consciousness and this belief leads him to think of himself as superior to the man who humiliated him (the man of direct action). In Part Two he says: "if I feel impelled to do anything, I seem to be pitchforked into it" (Dostoevsky 48). This statement would seem to indicate that he is a man of direct action. However, if you examine the things he is impelled to do they are those very things that will serve to humiliate and degrade him.

The best example of this is when he invites himself to a farewell dinner for Zverkov, a former classmate who is now a successful officer. He knows very well that Zverkov and his other former classmates do not care for him and do not want him there but he seems determined to be a part of this dinner. This is a situation in which he knows that he’s going to be humiliated and degraded and yet he insists on going. He even insists on following them to the whorehouse despite the fact that they made it clear that they didn’t want him there. He says that this rejection is a source of suffering for him but still a source of enjoyment. I think it’s primarily a source of enjoyment because of his view that it sets him above the men of direct action.

When he invites himself to dinner and when he follows Zverkov to the whorehouse he sets himself a course of action that he is determined to follow but throughout the actions he questions his motives in performing them. After he invites himself to dinner he wrestles the rest of the evening and all of the next day about whether or not he should actually attend. " ‘What possessed me, what possessed me to force myself upon them?. . . . Of course I had better not go; of course. . . . but what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go’" (Dostoevsky 45). But even after declaring that he knew that he must go to the dinner he continues to doubt his actions. On the way to the whorehouse he stops his driver many times while he tries to decide whether or not to continue always in the end deciding to " ‘drive on, drive on!’" (Dostoevsky 59). He is full of doubt as to whether or not he is following the right course. So, even though he does eventually stick to his original plans, his actions are still those of a man of acute consciousness. If he carried out his plans like a man of direct action there would be no period of questioning; he would simply do what he had originally planned to do, no questions asked.

The Underground Man is largely consistent between his philosophy of a man of acute consciousness and the way he lived his life. However, his philosophy is a reaction to his life rather than a plan of how to live it. I think his philosophy serves mainly to justify what was called by one of my classmates, his "pathetic" existence. It’s unclear how much of his discussion on the man of direct action versus the man of acute consciousness is observation of the human condition as opposed to a way to prove his superiority to those who all his life claimed superiority to him; but, I believe it is primarily the latter.

Works Cited

Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism From Dostoevsky to Sartre. Notes from Underground. Meridian Books: New York, 1989.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. Dover Publications: New York, pp. 29-91.