Russian Recluse

Russian Recluse Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Notes From Underground, takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia in the 1860s. He portrays his nameless main character, the Underground Man, as a recluse who dislikes people and avoids human society. The novel is written as a memoir from notes that the man writes, recounting his life, as he isolates himself off from society. His misery and inability to interact with others only pushes him further away from society into a world of self-loathing and despair. Dostoevsky continually emphasizes Russian Romanticism through out the novel by depicting the main character as able to see everything more clearly.
The story, Notes From Underground, is divided up into two parts. The first part opens with the Underground Man expressing his thoughts aloud, addressing the audience about his glum life. He contradicts himself and is very indecisive with his feelings on conflicts. We learn that the man has a bad liver but will not go see a doctor simply out of spite. He also states that he once had worked for civil service job though he only …show more content…
The man consistently contradicts himself in the way he thinks and in the actions that he takes. The underground Man sees himself as a romanticist which means that he is able to see things more clearly that the normal person. Dostoevsky does not give the man a name in order to create a sense of similarity between the readers and the Underground Man. The author also relies on the use of a protagonist, Liza, who needs to feel a sense of worth as opposed to the Underground Man and his manipulative attitude. Dostoevsky uses the ideas of Russian Romanticism in order to depict the Underground Man as being someone who is and outcast in a society and that he feels the need to compensate for something that he has lost over