After all, in order to act, one must be absolutely sure of oneself, no doubts must remain anywhere. How is this to be explained? Like this: in consequence of their limitations they take immediate, but secondary, causes for primary ones, and thus they are more quickly and easily convinced than other people that they have found indisputable grounds for their action, and they are easy in their minds and this, you know, is the main thing. … all spontaneous people, men of action, are active because they are stupid and limited. After all, the direct, immediate, legitimate fruit of heightened consciousness is inertia, that is, the deliberate refusal to do anything. The essence of all thinking and self-awarenessĪnd all out of boredom, gentlemen, all out of boredom I am crushed with tedium. The “fruit“ of his acute consciousness causes “inertia,” a deliberate refusal to do anything, which he believes is more intelligent than uninformed activity. but perhaps the normal man should be stupid.” Unlike them, he’s never able to remove all doubt and act he’s always questioning things whereas others question little and act easily. This acute sense of consciousness, he believes, sets him above his fellow man. Add in his belief that societal expectations are shaping his actions and you have quite the memoir. But no work of fiction ever made a stronger or more permanent mark on me.In his short 1864 book, Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a man who is “too conscious.” The man, whose name we never learn is so aware of his own thoughts and feelings as to cause him to be indecisive and overly self-critical. I'm going from memory here it's been 20 years since I reread it. And by becoming no more than his reactions (tormented reactions to every external stimulus, a bizarre pride in the logical processes that made him unable to do anything else), he did have kind of an ego-death. I don't think he had any free will left he was so consumed with righteous rage at every possible social convention, every phony interaction, every damn person he saw on the street, that all that was left for him to do was react. Most of us are Underground to some extent, but usually we carry around something less contrarian than that poor guy: self-doubt mixed with hipsterness, purity mixed with greed. Dostoevsky was a novelist of psychological extremes. To me, the Underground Man was a toxic mixture of self-loathing and pride. The way the story ends - in mid-sentence and a magnificent authorial slap (at least in the translation I read, which was part of a large and badly bound Harper Perennial called The Great Short Novels of Dostoevsky) - saved me a lot of grief, because for the first time in a couple of years I could laugh. The thing is, the Underground Man had spent his life jumping down every philosophical rabbit hole I had discovered on my own in the last year (my first at college) plus a few I hadn't gotten around to yet. I was visiting my parents and found a quiet room to finish this interesting book I had just started. I still remember the first time I read Notes from Underground. Check out /r/AskLiteraryStudies if you have questions about literature and literary studies that you'd like answered by experts! All are welcome.Spoilers must be marked by an alert and obscured with Reddit editor's spoiler masking system. Please do not seek feedback or instruction on your writing.ĭo not submit videos vaguely related to literature. This includes written work, social media, medium, youtube, apps, or any other channel/material you are associated with. This includes posting surveys.ĭo not submit any form of advertising or self-promotion. Content: Do not submit posts that contain questions and no other content.ĭo not request help on homework assignments (students) or curriculum content (teachers). Analysis: Submissions must include poster's own analysis in either the body or the comments of a post. Relevance: Submissions must relate to literature, literary criticism, literary history, literary theory, or literary news. We are not /r/books: please do not use this sub to seek book recommendations or homework help. Discussions of literary criticism, literary history, literary theory, and critical theory are also welcome. Welcome to /r/literature, a community for deeper discussions of plays, poetry, short stories, and novels.
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