ASEBL Journal – Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2014
oversensitivity to several things.23 He becomes too conscious of outside influences on
his actions, which leads him to doubt his ability to act as an independent agent. This in
turn makes him doubt free will and consequently makes him that much more
desperate to prove that he has free will, even if it means acting opposite to his own
best interests. He is also all too cognizant of the ideals of love and beauty put forth by
art and literature and how far short he falls of them. The doubt impedes him from
doing anything at all while the ideals drive him to increasingly desperate acts in an
attempt to gain the love and respect of his fellow man.
The purest example of this dilemma is the Underground Man’s description of the
toothache. For a man afflicted with hyper-consciousness there is (in a time before the
advent of modern dentistry and anesthesia) nothing that can be done about a toothache
and nobody to blame for it. It is simply a result of the mechanistic laws of nature. The
only thing one can do (according to the narrator) is moan, and in so doing inflict some
share of one’s own pain on other people. This solves both conundrums in that it is an
act of free will (even if, or even because of the fact that it is, an irrational act) and it
establishes some relationship with other people, even if the relationship is sadistic. It
is a spiteful act of a spiteful person, but it is what is left to him because of his
hyperconsciousness.
Part II of the novel is the practice of the theory of Part I. It also shows, if obliquely, a
way out of his vicious circle, even if he doesn’t take it. Succumbing to his periodic
need for substantive human companionship, he goes to see an old school friend (who
barely tolerates him). While there he invites himself along to a farewell party for
Zverkov, another classmate. The Underground Man cannot stand Zverkov, but he is
too self conscious to renege. His classmates drink and discuss everything from art to
Zverkov’s future amorous exploits. All the Underground Man can do is pace back and
forth in an attempt to gain some form of recognition.
I had the forbearance to pace like that, right in front of them, from eight
o’clock until eleven, in the very same place, from the table to the stove and
from the stove back to the table [. . .] my head was spinning from all those
turns; there were moments when it seemed that I was delirious. During those
three hours I broke out in a sweat three times and then dried out [. . .] It was
impossible to humiliate myself more shamelessly or more willingly, and I
fully understood that, fully; nevertheless, I continued to pace from the table to
the stove and back again.24
The Underground Man, as with the toothache, makes others take notice of him by
means of his own pain. It may be excruciating for him, but others have no choice but
to acknowledge his existence, even if that acknowledgement takes the form of
intentionally ignoring him. It is the best he can hope for. It is also through telling such
painful stories that he can force himself into the consciousness of his readers, the
“gentlemen” that he continually addresses. But we must remember that we the readers
are also among these “gentlemen” and we experience some of this anxiety in reading
as well. Just as his “enemies” are forced to deal with him through his self-injury, so
the reader must deal viscerally with the Underground Man’s plight because of the
anxiety his tale causes.
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