Dostoevsky’s Notes from Undergound - Reactions to an Overdeterministic

Dostoevskys Notes from Undergound - Reactions to an Overdeterministic ExistenceSome of the pretends cited are missingDostoevsky presents his Notes from Undergound as the fragmented ramblings ofan unnamed narrator. On the surface, the characters tale appears disjointed andreaches no conclusive end ing until the author intercedes to end the book. However, aclose examination of the underground mans language reveals a advance in hiscollected ravings. After expressing dissatisfaction with the notion of determinism, theunderground man perceives the irony of his ultra-deterministic reality. Through hisnarrative, the underground man discovers the truth about his predestined, fictionalexistence.Dostoevskys work is divided into two sections throughout the first section,Underground, the narrator discusses and resists determinism. The underground mancompares deterministic life to a mathematical formula, two times two equals four. Hesuggests that, according to the deterministic model, life con forms to a set of predestinedevents and actions, and its outcome is inevitable. The underground man condemns theformula, asserting, After all, two times two is no drawn-out life, gentlemen, but thebeginning of death(24). In his essay Narrative and Freedom, critic Gary Saul Morsonelaborates upon the narrators statement, adding, For life to be meaningful and for workto be more than robotic, there must be something not just unknown but still undecided(Morson 196-7). According to the underground man, the pre-existence of the solutionimplies that no other conclusion may be reached once one embarks on life, one cannotescape the inevitable outcome of death. Morson emphasizes the underground mansres... ...nd man ab initio believes that by identifying the cause of hisdefectiveness, he will be able to correct his seemingly doomed life.Instead, he discovers that his real defect, his existence as fiction, preventshim from ever neutering his circumstances. After heralding self-awarenessas t he key to controlling his own life, he finds that self-awareness onlyallows him to perceive how little control he could ever have.Works Cited and ConsultedBerger, Peter L. The unutterable Canopy Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.New York Anchor Books, 1990.Escher, M.C. Drawing Hands. Cover of Norton edition of Notes from Underground.Katz, Michael R., ed. Notes from Underground. New York W.W. Norton & Company,2001.Chernyshevsky, Nikolai. What Is to Be Done? Katz 104-123.Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Katz 3-91MorsonTodorov