Notes from Underground: Part 1, Chapter 1

Brief summary

The narrator, referred to as the Underground Man introduces himself. He describes himself by saying "I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am a most unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased" (1255). He goes on to express his refusal to treat this ailment out of spite, with the superstition of doctors and medicine that keeping his problems from doctors does the doctors themselves no harm. The Underground Man explains that, during his many years in civil service, he was wicked; "I used to be in the cvil service. But no more. I was a nasty official" (1255); but that he considers this wickedness a kind of compensation for the fact that he never accepted bribes. He almost immediately revises this claim, however, admitting that he never achieved genuine wickedness toward his customers, but only managed to be rude and intimidating as a kind of game. Writer Caolan Madden suggests that "we learn that the Underground Man has retired early from his civil service job after inheriting a modest sum of money" and that "the Underground Man only held onto his low-ranking job so that he would be able to afford food, not because he got any satisfaction from it". The Underground Man later notes that he is filled with conflicting impulses: wickedness, sentimentality, self-loathing, contempt for others. His intense consciousness of these opposing elements has paralyzed him. "Not only couldn't I become spiteful, I couldn't become anything at all: neither spiteful nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect" (1256). He has settled into his miserable corner of the world, incapable of wickedness and incapable of action, loathing himself even as he congratulates himself on his own intelligence and sensitivity. He adds that the weather in St. Petersburg is probably bad for his health, but that he will stay there anyway, out of spite. (Madden)