W: LP: LG: FD: NFU: Part 2

In Part II of “Notes from Underground”, Fyodor Dostoevsky (FD) effectively uses the lost/redeemed harlot archetype then in vogue in the European literature of early and mid-nineteenth century AD. This European literature, along with philosophical and scientific ideas, was to have a profound effect on the intelligentsia of the Russian Empire. Reactionary suppression at certain moments in the last century of the czars, begins to warp the shape of Russian Literature. The psychological impact on the Russian writers is shown in the characters and stories of the literature of Russia in the late nineteenth century and seen here in the work we are here studying. In this part of the book, the life of the Underground Man, and the life of Liza and others around him, reveal the mind of the writer.

In Notes from Underground, we have seen in Part I the internal stream-of-consciousness of those suppressed. The writer uses a narrator, the Underground Man, whose internal dialectic reflects this struggle of thought. How this is done polyphonically has been previously discussed. In a way, the writer’s thoughts are lived out in the life of the Underground Man. The heartbreaking portrayal of this man’s sordid life is on display in Part 2 of “Notes…”.

In Apropos of Wet Snow we see two incidents from the life of the Underground Man. The first incident of the test of the man’s social invisibility shows us how completely the man is suppressed. In the second incident of the old classmate’s dinner party, we see not only the mental suppression of the Underground Man, but the empty vanity of trying to reconcile Romantic Ideals with life as it is. Even despairing Liza is caught up in the vision of how it could be and then brought low in the face of reality. In the loss of the dream before a fallen world, Liza sees clearly the despair, hopelessness, and suppression of the Underground Man and her heart goes out to him.

But the Underground Man is no longer capable of true love warped as he is. The story shows us the love that is missing from the lives of these characters, and this lack hides God’s love. Without God’s love there really is no hope. The ultimate irony is that with God you can have a better ideal, a better vision of the sublime and beautiful that accords with reality. Without redemption there is only the seedy, hopeless, existence of futile suppressed lives like those portrayed in the book.