Suffering in Notes From Underground

After reading the first eleven chapters of Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I noticed many themes that the speaker cyclically develops including the implications of contradiction, the detriment of hyperconsciousness, the complications of revenge, the assignment of blame, the actions of normal men, the opposition of desire and rationality, and, of course, the accumulation of spite. I would like to address, however, the underground man’s affinity for suffering and the ways in which he inflicts the suffering upon himself.

First, there’s no question that the underground man has deleterious tendencies and habits. Initially in the novel, the underground man complains about his liver and his course of action involves nothing actionable and consists entirely of resentment. Actually, he literally challenges his liver to worsen when he states, “My liver is bad, well then – let it get even worse” (3)! With his challenge, underground man invites adversity and therefore more suffering, and he leaves readers asking “why?” Readers wonder why a man so concerned with what’s advantageous in life invites excess complication and struggle, and the underground man addresses this inquiry.

In a following chapter, the underground man explains that when a man has a toothache, “his moans become nasty, disgustingly spiteful, and go on for whole days and nights… He knows better than anyone that he is only lacerating and irritating himself and others in vain… he is only indulging himself like that out of spite, out of malice” (14).  With the example of a painful toothache, underground man implies that suffering allows indulgence in the form of pity, and when pity expires, the man with a toothache can still feel sorry for himself and evoke emotion in others, even if that emotion is bitterness inspired by the moaning man’s moans.

Finally, in the ninth chapter, underground man makes the concession that “perhaps suffering is just as great an advantage to [man] as prosperity? Man is sometimes fearfully, passionately in love with suffering and that is a fact” (32). In this statement, readers can see that while underground man resents most things in life, he has the capacity to value suffering. Because of his values that contradict those of most individuals, underground man inflicts suffering on himself by living in poor conditions and allowing himself to feel an excessive amount of shame for minor offenses. Consequently, underground man perpetuates a circle of suffering underground where he becomes exponentially more sick, more spiteful, and more unpleasant.