Final Reaction

The last section of NFTU brought to light the extremity of the narrator’s brutal honesty. His encounter with his old classmates, as well as his “date” with the prostitute, show that the underground man is a shameless, spiteful, repulsive, and socially awkward man. The entire time he is with his old classmates, he knows that the way he is acting is crazy, and that many of the things he says or does are unnecessary, yet he does not hesitate to act the way he acts. His thoughts are scattered, analytical, and senseless, despite the fact that he claims to be a reasonable man. I noticed that the narrator is very different when he interacts with people than the way he is inside his brain. He has no idea how to act, and makes the situation with the men at the restaurant painfully uncomfortable for everyone, including the readers. Evidently he is the opposite of a pleasure to be around, and the men cannot wait to get away from him.

Once the narrator wakes up the next morning, next to the prostitute, he cannot come up with a better conversation than one about how her job is basically pathetic and bound to end in a destructive manner. He is not reluctant to tell her that she has no way out of her “profession,” and does not worry about whether or not he hurts her feelings. The narrator has serious internal issues and lets them out on other people.

I came to the conclusion that this man hates himself so much as a person that it makes him hate everyone and everything that surrounds him. He is envious, ill hearted, arrogant, and spiteful. The underground man wants the worst for everyone and all of his actions are based on spite. He is simultaneously proud, and shameless; he is a walking paradox. I almost feel sorry for him, because he knows just how spiteful and miserable he is yet he does nothing to change it.

I don’t agree with a lot of things the narrator does, and the way he treats others. What I do agree with, though, are his basic views; what he said to the prostitute about her job, and about her being a slave, made so much sense to me. Though I find it very intense that he was telling her all of this, knowing that she could do nothing to escape it, I sort of admire his honesty. We see during this conversation that he actually has a romantic, genuine, and “good” side. He speaks of love like it is something he truly desires, and we see a side of him that was never fully developed before, but soon enough he catches himself being sentimental and hates himself for it.  It was during this conversation that I realized just how unhappy this many actually is. Not only are all of his thoughts contradictory, so are his actions. As soon as he does something, it goes against his beliefs and then his thoughts go against his actions. The underground man is the most inconsistent, conflicted, and paradoxical character I have ever read about.