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Notes from Underground: Difference between revisions
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===Money=== | ===Money=== | ||
Money, for the Underground Man, represents power. In the second part he is cross-examined and is asked his salary. He tells his 'friends' what he makes. "'It's not very handsome,' Zverkov observed majestically. "'Yes, you can't afford to dine at cafes on that,' Ferfichkin added insolently. "To my thinking it's very poor,' Trudolyubov observed gravely (Nabokov 123). All these men scrutinize the Underground Man for his lack of wages.The UM borrows money from a friend, Simonov, but he repays him the next day plus more. Having to borrow money makes him feel incapable of providing for himself and embarrassed of his poverty, making him feel inferior to his 'friends'. The Underground Man offers Liza, the woman he met at the prostitution house, money. She refuses his money. | Money, for the Underground Man, represents power. In the second part he is cross-examined and is asked his salary. He tells his 'friends' what he makes. "'It's not very handsome,' Zverkov observed majestically. "'Yes, you can't afford to dine at cafes on that,' Ferfichkin added insolently. "To my thinking it's very poor,' Trudolyubov observed gravely" (Nabokov 123). All these men scrutinize the Underground Man for his lack of wages.The UM borrows money from a friend, Simonov, but he repays him the next day plus more. Having to borrow money makes him feel incapable of providing for himself and embarrassed of his poverty, making him feel inferior to his 'friends'. The Underground Man offers Liza, the woman he met at the prostitution house, money. She refuses his money. He gave her money to demonstrate moral dominance. | ||
===Human Insect=== | ===Human Insect=== | ||
The Underground Man talks of how he wishes he could be an insect. | The Underground Man talks of how he wishes he could be an insect. "I'll tell you solemnly that I wished to become an insect many times. But not even that wish was granted."(pg. 1257) After this the Underground Man talks about being overly conscious is a disease in its self. Like being to aware of your surroundings will lead to bad things. Later in the writing the Underground Man tells of how some classmates said he looked like a fly. George Steiner conluded that this held the same premise from Franz Kafka's [http://mchip00.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/kafka98-des-.html Metamorphoses]. "In them, and in the narrator's whole vision of himself as a bug trapped in the crack of a damp wall, Dostoevsky embodies the perception of a new helplessness and beastliness of the human species."(Steiner xi) | ||
==Critical Perspectives== | ==Critical Perspectives== | ||
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*Steiner, George. "Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and The Gambler." Norwalk, CT: The Heritage Press, 1967 and 1997. | *Steiner, George. "Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and The Gambler." Norwalk, CT: The Heritage Press, 1967 and 1997. | ||
*Madden, Caolan. SparkNote on Notes from Underground. 17 Apr. 2006 <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/underground/>. | *Madden, Caolan. "SparkNote on Notes from Underground". 17 Apr. 2006 <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/underground/>. | ||