Paradox for the sake of paradox

It occurred to me at the end of the novel that Dostoyevsky created a character riddled with contradictions simply to show us that the rest of us are all the same. Why, for example, are we brought up to believe we must stick to a moral ideal and never waver from it? Why are we encouraged to fit one group or another: the followers and the non-followers, the rebels and those that obey? Perhaps, through all his nonsense, Dostoyevsky is trying to prove to us that the narrator is much closer to being human than any of us readers.

Notes From the Underground reminded me of The Stranger around the middle of Part II. The narrator is rejected as a member of society because he does not follow their rules; rather he tries out every single rule and wavers in and out of them. He wants to be accepted, he wants to be seen, and yet he wants more than anything to hate everyone and live in complete selfishness. This goes back to what we talked about in the lecture about true altruism and selflessness. 

The narrator is brutally honest to Liza and tells her, “...I only like playing with words, only dreaming, but do you know, what I really want is that you should all go to hell” (p. 85). He admits that the justifications for his actions are most often lies, made up on the spot, simply to play with words. Like the Sophists in Ancient Greece, he is particularly good at legitimizing what he says by justifying it with an argument. No matter that he is not right; he lives to relieve his prominent inferiority complex by never admitting he is wrong. At times, he flips the other way and tries hard to gain the affection of others. 

In a way, the narrator is every single character in society all rolled into one. 

But perhaps this is not so far from what was written in Part I. We, as humans, sometimes self-destruct simply for that prime advantage: because we feel like it and because we can. The narrator does things that seem completely illogical and detrimental, but we all act that way sometimes. 

One of my favorite quotes toward the end was “Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate...” (p. 91). It is true that we have all somewhat decided that life is a toil and a place of suffering. Don’t we all seek refuge in our books, our movies, and in our dreams? We strive to achieve an ideal place in society, to become our own hero, and to fulfill our purpose. 

Why? Because what creeps underground is our greatest fear: that we should be buried in a coffin filled with wet snow and that no one will give a second thought to our miserable existence.