The Theme Of Isolation In Literature In Notes From Underground

Literature in Isolation in Notes from Underground
Literature in Notes from Underground is a prominent theme that controls the nameless character. He is an extremely well read man who lives life through books and his imagination. For him, literature is an alternative for a life he cannot or will not live. As a practice that is solitary in nature, reading isolates him from experience. He has a preconceived notion of life that has nothing to do with any life experiences. These conceptions are a product of the life he perceives from his reading list. In a way literature is stolen experiences from others. However, People are different and so are their reactions to certain situations and vicissitudes of fortune. Human beings also lie and that fact seems to slip the narrator's mind. …show more content…
Thus all he keeps acquiring is groundless knowledge from equally inexperienced authors. Life then becomes a cycle of inexperience disguised as fact, which turns people into underground men. Literature can be honest and truthful but it can also be embellished and exaggerated. It is not spontaneous like human actions and reactions but rather well thought out and dramatized. Literature is the weapon of a man who knows how to live. It is impossible for the Underground man, who lives in complete isolation emotionally and physically, to distinguish between reality and exaggerations of literature.
Literature is part and parcel with isolation. It has a huge part in transforming the narrator into an underground man. By basking into the experiences of other characters he has forsworn life. He has become mesmerized by the stories and books he reads; the glorious words, actions of the heroes and the cathartic acceptance of even the wretched