Monday

The second half of the novel is shedding more light on the fact that the main character lacks the trait of reliability. In the beginning he just seemed like a rather odd man to me, but as I read further I am noticing that Dostoyevsky probably chose to make him unreliable on purpose. I may be going on a limb here, but I think the unreliability of the main character can be considered as representative of the unreliability of life. Though much of life is within our immediate control, so much of it is without the reach of our control as well, making it extremely unreliable.
The character goes back and forth between what he does and does not want. Nevertheless, his deepest want seems to be this desire for any sort of human emotion. The way he describes himself he seems void of any sort of feelings with the exception of spite. The main character's desperate need for these human feelings weren't coming in the form of "normal" desires. I thought it to be extremely strange that he walked passed  window and he wished to be thrown out of it during a fight. Aside from finding it weird, I found it to be ironic that this character longed for all the things that people with emotions wished that they could get rid off. I do not think Dostoyevsky meant to make this point but, the main character's desire for something that most do not care about at all relates to the lives of privileged people. All these privileges that we do not see as privileges, rather as burdens, are wanted by someone who actually appreciates and longs for them and its actually quite sad that nothing can be done about it. On a final note, I found the transition of the main character's mind set to be interesting as well. Before it seemed as if he made himself to be the superior figure/ person and now he makes himself seem like the weakling.
-Talia Akerman