The Pathological Protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Notes from...

The Pathological Protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground Dostoevsky’s vision of the world is violent and his characters tortured; it is no wonder that many have viewed his work as prophetic of the 20th century. However, though Dostoevsky, in his unflinching portrayal of depravity, gives the Devil some of his best arguments, the Gospel often triumphs. Ivan Karamazov is at least offered the possibility of repentance when kissed by his saintly brother Alyosha. Raskolnikov, the nihilistic antihero of Crime and Punishment, is eventually redeemed through the love of the pure prostitute Sonja. Notes from the Underground, however, breaks this pattern. The protagonist of this novel, who, uncharacteristically for Dostoevsky,†¦show more content†¦Notes from the Underground, despite its unpolished narrative and paradoxical narrator, is a coherent whole, a subtle portrait of a man in conflict with himself. The first portion of the Notes is â€Å"a revelation of personality,† according to J. M. Coetzee, whereas the second is â€Å"a revelation of a shameful history† (219). The two cannot be separated from each other; both are necessary to complete the underground man’s portrait. Though he may put on a bold front in the ideological jabs of the first section, the second shows his ineffectual character, the seemingly irresolvable paradoxes of his personality. The underground man is paralyzed by indecision, governed by spite. His inability to â€Å"live life† is a malady that has grown prevalent in the â€Å"educated nineteenth century† (Dostoevsky 296, 191). As Dostoevsky writes in a footnote at the beginning of the work, â€Å"such persons as the writer of these notes not only may, but positively must, exist in our society, when we consider the circumstances under our society was formed† (179). The true philosophical lessons of the Notes are implicit, hidden within the narrative, and condemn the underground man as much as they do his rationalist opponents. Any satisfactory analysis of Notes from the Underground must keep in mind the singular consciousness and