How Dostoevsky Show Existential Nihilism
Recluse. Spiteful. Insane. Whenever readers discuss Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, they generally use these words as a means of describing the Underground Man’s character. Contrary to popular opinion about the Underground Man’s eccentricity, Dostoevsky provides his audience with ample evidence to validate the Underground Man’s likeness to mankind. Although Dostoevsky creates a complex character, he seems to harness mankind’s nature by harporing on the contradictory tendencies man exhibits when searching for life’s meaning. Dostoevsky creates a character who believes in nothingness but also recognizes the unattainable somethingness. To put it in conceptual terms, the Underground Man embodies existential nihilism. Existentialism and
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The Underground Man admits, “Nature doesn’t ask your permission … You’re obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well. And so a wall is indeed a wall” (Dostoevsky 13). The Underground Man acknowledges the solidity of the laws of nature, apropos to reality. After all, a sturdy wall, especially one made of concrete components, provides a barrier that cannot be overcome by a man of mediocre strength. Upon further reasoning, the Underground Man rationalizes, “I won’t break through such a wall with my forehead if I really have not got strength enough to do it, but neither will I be reconciled with it simply because I have a stone wall here and have not got strength enough” (Dostoevsky 13). The Underground Man yields to his incapacity to overcome the laws of nature, thus admitting nature’s hold over man. Nevertheless, he also suggests that nature’s limit on man’s abilities does not utterly negate man’s power. The Underground Man reveals he would not be satisfied with the impossibility of overcoming the wall, permitting himself the power to reason, even if it proves futile. A “normal” man, as Dostoevsky words it, would accept the wall as a wall. Existential nihilism allows the Underground Man to be aware of the wall’s resoluteness, but it does not enable him to be reconciled with the wall’s
The Underground Man admits, “Nature doesn’t ask your permission … You’re obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well. And so a wall is indeed a wall” (Dostoevsky 13). The Underground Man acknowledges the solidity of the laws of nature, apropos to reality. After all, a sturdy wall, especially one made of concrete components, provides a barrier that cannot be overcome by a man of mediocre strength. Upon further reasoning, the Underground Man rationalizes, “I won’t break through such a wall with my forehead if I really have not got strength enough to do it, but neither will I be reconciled with it simply because I have a stone wall here and have not got strength enough” (Dostoevsky 13). The Underground Man yields to his incapacity to overcome the laws of nature, thus admitting nature’s hold over man. Nevertheless, he also suggests that nature’s limit on man’s abilities does not utterly negate man’s power. The Underground Man reveals he would not be satisfied with the impossibility of overcoming the wall, permitting himself the power to reason, even if it proves futile. A “normal” man, as Dostoevsky words it, would accept the wall as a wall. Existential nihilism allows the Underground Man to be aware of the wall’s resoluteness, but it does not enable him to be reconciled with the wall’s