Who Is The Underground Man
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Who Is The Underground Man?
The introduction to Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel Notes From The Underground gives an accurate description of who the Underground Man is. I am a sick manI am a spiteful manI am an unattractive man (Dostoyevsky 5). The Underground Man (UM) has lived a difficult life because of the high standards he had set for himself. These standards affected his work and home life, the friendships he had tried to have, the love he feels he had missed out on and the level of intelligence he feels is his crutch he inflected upon himself during childhood.
UM felt a sort of loneliness growing up because he considered himself not as beautiful or wealthy with the confidence of his fellow comrades but was of higher intelligence and more educated than them. Because the other schoolmates he compared himself to were seen as having handsome features and what they lacked in education they made up with in personality and humor, UM envied these schoolmates. Others were drawn to UM's comrades by their self-confidence and strong nature to be leaders. Feeling that he envied them for these reasons UM despised his schoolmates and himself for allowing this feeling of envy of wanting to not only be accepted by them but to be understood by them. The only thing UM felt he had to turn to for feeling so alone was reading, and putting himself intellectually first in his class...