Notes From The Underground or Letters from the Underworld

Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky also translated as Notes from the Underground or Letters from the Underworld) is a novella written in 1864 by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and is considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels.

The novella presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man), who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form through the Underground Man's diary, and attacks contemporary Russian philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?.

The second part of the book, called "Apropos of the Wet Snow", describes certain events that appear to be destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator and anti-hero.

The narrator observes that utopian society removes suffering and pain, but man desires both things and needs them in order to be happy. He argues that removing pain and suffering in society takes away a man's freedom. He says that the cruelty of society makes human beings moan about pain only to spread their suffering to others.

Unlike most people, who typically act out of revenge because they believe justice is the end, the Underground Man is conscious of his problems and feels the desire for revenge, but he does not find it virtuous; the incongruity leads to spite towards the act itself with its concomitant circumstances.

He feels that others like him exist, but he continuously concentrates on his spitefulness instead of on actions that would help him avoid the problems that torment him. The main issue for the Underground Man is that he has reached a point of ennui[4] and inactivity.[5] He even admits that he would rather be inactive out of laziness.