Throughout Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work, Notes from Underground, the protagonist, the underground man, portrays himself as a spiteful, self-contradictory, and overly conscious melancholy man. He continuously over analyzes and questions everything, and this prevents him from taking any real action. The underground man is lonely and constantly vacillates between wanting society’s acknowledgment or to be socially desired and wanting to be completely isolated from society. He gives off the impression that he is miserable because he seeks empathy; however, the underground man is an unsympathetic character because he refuses to help himself indicating his laziness to improve.
In the first sentence of the book, the underground man states “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man” (Dostoevsky 3). He introduces himself as a sick, wicked, and unattractive man that is …show more content…
As pessimistic as the underground man is, the reader is almost immediately forced to dislike this man from the beginning of the novel. Moreover, we observe that the underground man never asks for sympathy, but often looks for empathy when outlining his struggles. Out of context, in the first part of the book, we perceive the underground man as a sad man in the way he analyzes his thoughts and the way he believes other people perceive him. However, as we read his narrative in the second part of the book, we begin to see how he socially interacts with others in society and we cannot sympathize for him since he chooses not to help his miserableness out of his spite. Overall, we can conclude that the underground man is an unsympathetic character since he refuses to help improve himself, not only out of spite but out of his conscious laziness as
In the first sentence of the book, the underground man states “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man” (Dostoevsky 3). He introduces himself as a sick, wicked, and unattractive man that is …show more content…
As pessimistic as the underground man is, the reader is almost immediately forced to dislike this man from the beginning of the novel. Moreover, we observe that the underground man never asks for sympathy, but often looks for empathy when outlining his struggles. Out of context, in the first part of the book, we perceive the underground man as a sad man in the way he analyzes his thoughts and the way he believes other people perceive him. However, as we read his narrative in the second part of the book, we begin to see how he socially interacts with others in society and we cannot sympathize for him since he chooses not to help his miserableness out of his spite. Overall, we can conclude that the underground man is an unsympathetic character since he refuses to help improve himself, not only out of spite but out of his conscious laziness as