Notes from Underground

The unnamed Underground Man is the story’s narrator. He is 40 years old, small in stature, and describes himself as “unattractive” (5). The Underground Man is a retired collegiate assessor—a petty bureaucratic official—who lives in a small apartment on the outskirts of town. In his later years, he has a servant who is an old woman. In his younger years, his servant is the elderly Apollon, whom the Underground Man thinks is haughty.

The Underground Man spends most of his time reading books. He likes people and the world in theory, but he is unable to deal with human emotions and any but the most cursory interactions. He socializes only when he can no longer bear his isolation, and when he does so, he always has a bad time. He grew up among distant relatives and fantasizes about having a family, but he is too cowardly to risk loving another person.

The Underground Man’s main characteristics are spite and self-loathing. His narrative voice is sarcastic, and he has a negative opinion about every facet of society. The worst of his vitriol he reserves for himself, and he acts in a self-defeating way, putting himself in situations that inevitably lead to his embarrassment. He complains that “to be too conscious is an illness” (8) because he suffers from understanding society’s ills, while men of action and “direct persons” (8) live their lives without obsessing over their decisions. The Underground Man consistently overthinks situations, blowing them out of proportion. The incident in which the officer bumped into him in the bar illustrates this tendency: He carries a chip on his shoulder and devotes money he cannot spare to arranging a so-called vengeance on which he ruminates for years because he primarily inhabits the twisted world of his imagination. Meanwhile, the officer appears to be entirely unaware of this situation.

The Underground Man is an antihero whose main challenge and opportunity for change is his acquaintance with Liza; she is willing to see his humanity and engage in a real relationship with him while most others are not. However, he is able to experience relationships only as a power struggle in which he must play the dominant role. As a result, he ruins his connection with her by throwing money at Liza in an attempt to humiliate her after they have sex. Given his inability to change, the Underground Man is a cautionary tale about the dangers of intellect without compassion.