In Chapter II, the Underground Man essentially divides
the world into two groups. The first group contains people who are both
“disingenuous” and “active.” These people are not necessarily stupid,
but they are at most half as “conscious” as the Underground Man.
Because they are unable to analyze every decision they make, they
are able to make these decisions painlessly. They do not analyze obstacles
any more than they analyze their own motives, so when they come
to an obstacle they stop in their tracks without any concern. The
second group that the Underground Man envisions contains educated,
conscious people like him. These individuals spend all their time
contemplating their own degradation.
This distinction between the two groups foreshadows the
existentialist philosophy of writers like Jean-Paul Sartre, who
considered Notes from Underground the first existentialist
novel. Sartre believed that every human being is totally free and
completely responsible for every choice he makes. In Sartre’s work,
those characters who become aware of the terrible responsibility
that accompanies every choice they make often are unable to bring
themselves to do anything. Like the narrow-minded men in the first
of the Underground Man’s two groups, the only people who act with
total confidence in Sartre’s works are those who are not conscious
of their freedom and responsibility. Nonetheless, Sartre believes
that the conscious man must act, however little
the idea appeals to him.
It may seem odd that the Underground Man aligns the laws
of science and mathematics with the less intelligent men, as we
usually think of those disciplines as requiring education and intelligence. However,
for the Underground Man, a conscious man is someone who questions
and analyzes everything, even the validity of so-called natural
laws. Someone who has blind faith in everything, even in logic and
reason, fits the Underground Man’s definition of an unconscious
man. This definition allows the Underground Man to include some
of the most prominent intellectuals of the era in his criticism,
and paves the way for his upcoming critique of the “rational” theorists
in Chapter VII.
Of course, the Underground Man considers his consciousness
a curse even as he takes pride in it. This masochistic idea becomes
literal when he discusses the pleasure that a cultured man can find
in a toothache. Though the Underground Man is ashamed of this pleasure,
as he is ashamed of anything he finds enjoyable or worthy of pride,
he believes it is the only kind of pleasure available to the truly developed
man in the nineteenth century. This moment is one of several instances
in the novel when Dostoevsky’s message likely differs from the Underground
Man’s: we see the toothache as an example of the absurdity that
arises when intelligence and sensitivity are unaccompanied by action.
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