ASEBL Journal – Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2014
Consciousness, Ethics and Dostoevsky’s Underground Man
Tom Dolack
Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head – that is, these nerves are
there in the brain . . . (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the
little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering . . . that
is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin
quivering, those little tails . . . and when they quiver, then an image
appears [. . .]That’s why I see and then think, because of those tails,
not at all because I’ve got a soul, and that I am some sort of image
and likeness.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov1
Few authors are more renowned for their insight into human psychology than Fyodor
Dostoevsky. It is ironic that while he is most well known for his portrayals of the dark
side of human nature in characters such as Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment,
Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov, or most of the characters in Demons, Dostoevsky
only portrayed the dark as a means of showing how to get to the light. It can be too
easy to focus on the Grand Inquisitor and to forget about the humble Zosima or to let
Raskolnikov take away from the example of Sonya. There is perhaps no better
example of this disconnect between good models and bad than Notes from
Underground. It is one of his shortest n