A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' Is it so bad to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood." --"Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
How would the narrator of our text feel about this Emerson quote?
or Is our narrator misunderstood--and thus, is he great?
or ....
See you tomorrow.
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky is definitely misunderstood by his peers and others whose paths he crosses. However, it is debatable whether or not he is great, because of his own self-doubt and insecurities.
When Dostoyevsky first walks into Simonov (his former schoolmate’s) rooms, he describes the mens’ reaction to him: “Evidently they looked on me as something in the nature of a very ordinary fly” (62). To the other men, Dostoyevsky is nothing but an average housefly, a dimwitted annoyance. When Dostoyevsky speaks of the Officer that he frequently passes in the park, he makes clear his desire to prove his equality and worthiness by not stepping aside when passing the Officer and requiring the Officer, instead, to step aside for him. Dostoyevsky explains, “But is never happened like that: I was the one who stepped aside, and he never even noticed that I did so” (56). Not only is Dostoyevky an unimportant, minor annoyance, he is also nearly invisible to some who recognize neither his worthiness nor intelligence, never acknowledge that he too is a human being that deserves to be treated politely, civilly, or with respect. Dostoyevsky himself also admits to this misunderstanding when he says, “I am one person, and they are everybody,” completely separating himself from everyone else (49). The people’s misunderstanding of Dostoyevsky is summed up in a quote from Trudolyubov, one of the men from Zverkov’s dinner party: “Well, how is anybody to understand you?” (66). This clearly shows that the other men think that Dostoyevsky is ridiculous, that he is simply confusing in his crazy, unexplainable thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
Although Dostoyevsky is obviously misunderstood, it is very questionable that he is therefore great. His own self-doubt provides us with reason that he is not, however are his own insecurities an accurate and objective judgment of his character? Dostoyevsky reveals this doubt to us in several passages. He allows himself to be judged on by his appearance as if that is a measure of his greatness when he enters Simonov’s rooms: “they must now despise me for my unsuccessful career in the service, for having let myself go, wearing shabby clothes, and so on- things which in their eyes proclaimed my incompetence and unimportance” (62). Could a man who is great truly be bothered by the judgment of superficial former classmates? When speaking of Zverkov, he mentions how Zverkov no longer acknowledges him on the street and suspects “that he was afraid of compromising himself by having anything to do with such an insignificant personage” (64). In this quote, Dostoyevsky outright calls himself insignificant, therefore implying that Zverkov is, if not great, most definitely more significant than he. Perhaps Dostoveysky’s modestly is part of his greatness.
Perhaps he is great because he is a normal, feeling, experiencing man, who is able to share his bare emotions and reveal his seemingly insignificant insecurities which are so common in man but so carefully hidden behind a façade of confidence and stoicism.
-Frankie
Is our narrator misunderstood--and thus, is he great?
Dostoyevsky does not want his readers to understand him fully. In fact, he aims to confuse. His views of society are poignantly convincing, yet are imbedded with so little faith that a person can pick up Notes feeling confident about themselves and the society that they are a part of and put it down feeling as though the foundation has cracked beneath their heels. He leaves a reader confused, annoyed, and a little angry, which is entirely his goal. He does not do this because he is a confused or unbalanced man, and his ramblings are not built entirely upon obfuscated, twisted ideas. Dostoyevsky has succeeded in creating a narrator comprised mostly of confusion and self doubt because these qualities make a man realistic. Dostoyevsky does not romanticize human nature. As he says in his introduction, “this personage introduces himself and his outlook on life, and tries, as it were, to elucidate the causes that brought about, inevitably brought about, his appearance in our midst”. No person is constantly inhabited by one emotion or infinitely comfortable in his own skin. That is why he never christens this character with a name, nor establishes for him any sort of geographical location beyond Russia, and even that is just embodiment of the national liberty that Camus reminded us is simply an element in all authorship. He wants the reader to relate to this man and to understand that he who is the first to admit he knows not an inkling about himself or the world is the most honest man of all.
The narrator is also created to be easily loathed. At one point, he begs the question, “What can a decent, respectable man talk about with the greatest pleasure? Answer: himself” (17). How arrogant! we proclaim. How self-centered! The average human, though, could not answer this question in any other way without lying. What we loathe in this narrator is his honesty and how closely it touches with the parameters of our own psyches. It is confusing to think that this man is so apparently mad is also so frustratingly accurate, and that is exactly how Dostoyevsky wants us to feel. He brings up the equation two times two equals four but insists that the same equation could equally result in five, but that isn’t what we want to hear. It is painful to discover that someone thousands of years ago merely decided that the product of those numbers would be so and therefore we believe it, but it is not necessarily what must be true. This is mind-boggling, especially when we realize we have been culturally duped yet again by listening to this author instead. Just because he says two times two does not equal four isn’t necessarily true either. If we are absorbing and adhering to any alternative point of view, aren’t we yet again allowing our personal constitutions to be handed to us in a nice, neat package? Just because this point of view is radical doesn’t make it one’s own, nor does it make it original or accurate. Confused? Good. Dostoyevsky has succeeded.
Our narrator, Fyodor Dostoyevsky is indeed misunderstood by his peers. In my mind he is a brave, and great soul.
My reasoning for believing Dostoyevsky is misunderstood is his level of intellegence, his unrashional, and whitty actions, and his level of stuberness, and shyness. Dostoevsky is so greatly misunderstood for his stange actions. He doesn't like to be around people, and has only one friend. Dostoyevsky goes on to explain on pg. 51 " Generally speaking, i was allways alone. For he never really wanted any contact wiht his colleagues, or school mates. he believed they were stupid, and cowards. " I did not, of course, keep up my friendships with my colleagues, but soon washed my hands of them."
People are so misunderstood with Dostoyevsky for the "waves" his emotions rolled in. At one time he would be friends wiht them going as far to "becoming really intimate with them; I began visiting their homes, playing whist, drinking vodka, talking about promotions..." and then there were times when Dostoyevsky would say he " It became disgusting to go to the office; things reached such a pitch that I returned home physically ill" (49)
On a more personall note, one night Dostoyevsk ywas relluctantly invited to dinner wiht some fellow school mates. In spite of them Dostoyevsky went to dinner just becasue he knew everyone didn't want him there. "everybody hated me there." (62) "You'd be glad if I left gentelmen. Nothing will make me." (77) I believe that this just added to level of misunderstanding people have of dostoyevsky. He does what no other sane man would do. To me this makes him great and very brave.
Emerson and Dostoyevsky would have been friends.
Our narrator plays a great deal with the fact of being misunderstood. Toward the beginning of the narrator’s stream of consciousness he states, “The main point, and supreme nastiness, lay in the fact that even at my moments of greatest spleen, I was constantly and shamefully aware that not only was I not seething with fury, I was not even angry” (16). The narrator talks of the emotions he shows on the outside, anger, and states it is a great contrast from what he feels inside. Inside he feels no anger, but outside he shows fury. One emotion that the “crystal palace” sees and one emotion that only the underground is exposed to. Going with the flow of emotions of the people around one’s self is the easy thing to do. It takes strength to stand up and disagree with the common opinion, the common emotion, and live for just oneself. Forget the walls. One’s inner nature must shape life the way one wants to live it. Not the way the “crystal palace” wants it lived.
Time never stops, nor does exponential growth, therefore lists of how one wants to live life, and things one wants to accomplish are useless; simply do them. One must forget the walls and live strictly from one’s inner nature. Yet classes are continually attended each day. Backpacks are overloaded with books of lives that have already been lived or invented, and one forgets to invent his or her own. The man who is misunderstood, follows these same patterns, and picks up these same books but he does one important thing differently; he brings the books’ knowledge to the underground, and becomes a man of thought, and a man of action, and picks up the pen.
Emerson states, “speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today”. By living in the moment, and doing strictly what one believes is the correct thing to do at that moment in time, one will live with inner peace, have no regrets, and have no long list of things wished to do. Yes, one will have times of contradiction, but it’s ok to be misunderstood. Contradictions of nature are what fascinate the mind and provide the passage to the underground.
From the start of the book, Dostoyevsky has given the reader many reasons to believe he is misunderstood by the people around him. He finds that his own thoughts and ideas don’t fit into the “Palace of Crystals” around him resulting in him not fitting in. The society that surrounds him is so closed minded that until they step into their own “underground” they will not understand where Dostoyevsky is coming from himself. Even if they pretend they do understand they still are incapable of understanding it from Dostoyevsky view since, of course, his “underground” is a radical change from everyone else’s.
In the beginning of the book, he says, “The main point, and the supreme nastiness, lay in the fact that even at my moments of greatest spleen, I was constantly and shamefully aware that not only was I not seething with fury, I was not even angry; I was simply scaring sparrows for my own amusement...that was my way.” (16) In this short passage Dostoyevsky explains his need to scare others and make them upset for no apparent reason, most people would not understand this, but at a closer look Dostoyevsky is trying to admit that he does this because of his own self-doubt and self-deprecation. Most would misunderstand this as Dostoyevsky simply being rude and ignorant to the world and others.
Dostoyevsky’s self-doubt is a probable reason for him not to fit into Emersons old of “To be great is to be misunderstood.” In class the other day, we spoke of how one would know when he or she is ready to fall in love. The answer the most people agreed on and found the most plausible is when the person loves themselves first, this way they are able to let another person in and not let who they are change because the other persons beliefs ect. Dostoyevsky is not completely self-confident, and because of this can not be great in his own eyes. Until he see’s the highest ability in himself he can not find himself truly great, and no one else’s opinion matters but his. The reasoning for this might come from his confusion in “his real interests.” When a man “has opened his eyes to his own and best and normal interests, man will cease to do evil and at once become virtuous and noble.” (29) Until Dostoyevsky finds who he is, others may think he is great but he is incapable of thinking the same.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and the narrator of Notes From the Underground would get along great; they share the same ideas and are willing to go outside the walls. Doing this will cause them to be misunderstood, but that is what makes them great. Inside these walls everything is a lie that we are forced to believe, its only when the box is broken that we can begin to understand the truths.
To be great is to be honest. We learn early to believe the lies we are told, not because they are realistic but rather they are easier to stomach than the truth. These lies are believed because they do not interrupt our lives and keeps it going smoothly. We are the little minds that Emerson talks about, and we listen to the “statesmen, philosophers and divines” because they feed us lies and we listen because it easy. Their lies put us at ease so we do not think we need the truth.
This is the point the narrator is trying to achieve when he says, “golden pins get stuck into people.” (p.33) The golden pin poking us is the lies getting painfully stuck into us. The pin is gold demonstrates how as a society how we try to make the truths look better by painting over them, sugar coating them, making them lies. No matter the color or size of the pin or the lie, a pin is a pin and the truth is the truth.
To be great is to be misunderstood. The walls that are put up around us are something the narrator and Emerson would also agree. “He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.” The people in this society are too wrapped up in themselves they can not seem to be bothered by someone who is outside of their box. Therefore the greats who have broken from their boxes end up becoming shadows with no one to talk to but their own shadows. The narrator has “settled down in my own little corner” (p.17) where his only company his thoughts and his shadow.
To be great is to be bold. “Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again.” You must speak your mind in order to be noticed. The narrator constantly speaks his mind, which tends to get looked down upon, although it does get their attention if only for a minute or two. “Silently watched me for about two minutes, attentively and seriously… But nothing happened: they did not speak to me after two minutes, they ignored me again.” (p.79) This shows if you are bold today and get any ones attention for even just two minutes, maybe tomorrow when you use those harsh words again they will listen for a little longer.
To be great is to be rejected. All the greats the Emerson refers to “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton.” Those who could not understand the thoughts of these greats rejected them and ridiculed them before their words could even be heard or understood. Society was so afraid of how radical these men were that in order to stop them for spreading their thoughts they were murdered or shut away. The reason they were shut away was because the people knew if they kept talking their ideas could change the world.
To be true to yourself is the most valuable virtue you can possess. If you can lie even to yourself, all is lost. You are better off physically dead for this is what you already are mentally. You need not to make sense to yourself or others to be true, only to think without restriction. Face your greatest fears and embrace those thoughts and memories that disgust you. Those degrading regrets stuffed into the darkest regions of your sole. Think less of yourself if it will allow you to remain true. Change your mind in a day if, each day, you honestly think differently. This is the message Emerson portrays and the idea that our narrator absorbs. Throughout his story, the narrator follows his mind in its wild movement. He allows himself to be consumed by his thoughts and swallowed in his rash actions as he leads with his mind and follow with a foot. Often, he shifts his position over a matter of slapping yet consistently and whole-heartedly pursues his current objective. Is it so rotten to be a man of contradiction? A man of contradiction seems favorable over a man of lies, a man of untrue passion, or one of indecision.
Be understood by none so that you can study yourself. Take action in ways people of society frown upon. Do this so you may learn who you truly are. You are not a stockbroker, a father, a friend, or a landowner. You are yourself and can never trade in for a new soul. You are, for now, your boss, your own parent and child, best friend, and sole owner of your mind. Misunderstanding can be great or tragic. Greatness shines through ingenuity and ‘genius’ so it is called. Genius, however, appears to be simply a term used to express uniqueness. Who are you to say that mentally retarded child is not genius in his own right? It is not yet clear if our narrator is great but he is surely misunderstood. Tragic misunderstanding is born from a belief that all uniqueness is great. Hitler was both misunderstood and a genius. Does this make him great? Some may argue yes. Some may offer his skills of oration as evidence of his greatness while others point out his beliefs. Are both characteristics good for society? One appears not to benefit numerous people of the world.
Unable to lucidly express his current thoughts, our narrator sways between a land of greatness and doom. He would seem to very much appreciate Emerson’s words in his struggle. Angled in a different manner, Emerson offers “To be great is to be misunderstood”. Different than its reverse, this phrase appears to hold true. It is only when you are able to climb out of a hellish society and separate yourself from the mainstream thoughts society broadcasts that you can take your place among other outcasts whom we call the Greats. Being misunderstood attracts far more attention than a person who walks in step with society. By breaking from overly accepted thoughts believed by most, you can recommend a new path less trodden on (idea from The Road less Traveled by Robert Frost). This earns you greatness accompanied by a misunderstanding from a vast majority of the people. Our narrator reaches, in the story that he recounts of his earlier life, for the highest ledge dropping into hell yet slips numerous times. Resilient, he attempts again and again to overcome this ledge and walk a cooler land. Finally, by the time he writes this story, he has achieved salvation, greatness, and, with it, misunderstanding.
At this time in his life, our narrator would best relate to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both transcendentalists in their own geographical region, these men would endlessly discuss the honor and cost of being great. Our narrator would agree with Emerson’s words: “with consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do”. Only when the soul acquires the ability for spontaneity can is it busily at work. Until then it is bored and restrained.
Is our narrator misunderstood and thus - is he great?
Our narrator is misunderstood, but this quality does not reflect any sort of greatness. Surely we, as readers, find him to be confusing at times and seemingly disillusioned, but this isn’t a sign of his greatness. Those same walls in which society has caged him are the walls that he uses to keep us, the reader, as distant as is comfortable for him. On the opening page, he even tells us that, “When people used to come up to the desk where [he] sat, asking for information, [he] snarled at them, and was hugely delighted when [he] succeeded in hurting somebody’s feelings” (15). This comment is almost a disclaimer to the reader to inform them that their narrator intends to remain as distant as he can with the outside world. He wants to remain misunderstood. When he gives us a glimpse of some interactions he had had with what he may have considered friends, he shows the reader that he was seemed to be an utter failure at staying in good terms with acquaintances or even temporary friends. When he embarrassedly arrives an hour early for a dinner party, he comments that he should not be, “subjected to [that] indignity in [his] own eyes and other people’s, even if it was only the servants” (71). His narcissistic sense of himself is so great that he even thinks he is above waiting for others to arrive and is humiliated to have to do so. Such arrogance is derived from the fact that he lives within his own little world because he has for so long kept other people pushed out to the edges of his own existence. Wallowing in his own thoughts for such a long time has left him with a twisted sense of reality and a fear driven hate of human interaction. After inviting himself to dinner with a group of men who he initially considers his own friends, he confesses to the reader that he “was trying with all [of his] might to show that [he] could do without them” (78). For so long our narrator has “done without” the sort of human contact one needs to have strong relationships, and this avoidance has sent him into a perpetual state of solitude. He no longer knows how to allow people into his life, and it may be that he never actually knew how to. Being misunderstood is the narrator’s first successful step in holding together the walls by which he is gladly surrounded. As readers, we will never know if he is great or not, because we cannot base this judgment solely on his being misunderstood. In order for us to really judge whether or not this man is great, our narrator has to be willing to take down those walls and be vulnerable to us. So far, our narrator has indicated no willingness to do so.
I believe that Dostoyevsky is missunderstood by society. Furthermore I believe that he is great and that his work should be celebrated. The fact that he is missunderstood sets him apart from others. Any individual who has the bravery to write down their flaws and plights is brave. It is one of the hardest actions in life to admit your mistakes and your flaws. but, that is one step closer to relsolving them and that makes you great.
Speaking with harsh words is what great thinkers like Socrates, Newton and Jesus have all done. Hard words are the words that question society, debunk religion, destroy the common ideas and push common belief into a corner where it is tested. Socrates spoke harsh words by questioning the world around him, he made the citizens of Greece uncomfortable because he was speaking truths about problems with in Greek society and questioning modern beliefs. Newton spoke harsh words by pushing scientific thought to the point where it solved the questions of man and took power away from the church forcing people to think more openly about questioning why the world is as it is. Jesus spoke harsh words against the Romans by arguing religion, his emphasis morals and virtues which replaced old Roman values with his new enlightened ones. We know these stories because they men who risked everything for their beliefs, the men who had the courage to stand against the common idea. These men, and many others, were not concerned with how large their shadow appeared to be, they couldn’t give a damn if their shadow even appeared, instead they were concerned with questioning common beliefs and shedding light on truths about this world and its inhabitants.
It is the mind of the foolish, self serving statesmen and egotistical cowards, fearful of change, who are more concerned with where their shadow lies than helping others. These men fit in with society, no better yet, they are the puppeteers of the masses, they control the mob to obey every law and belief that they have by oppressing unorthodox views. It is the enlightened thinkers who push back against the oppressors, who cast the largest shadow and who are remembered by future generations for their actions.
The great thinkers, Dostoyevsky included, are ridiculed and misunderstood. By putting their ideas and beliefs out to the world, they became the chicken in the slaughter house, with the norms of society being the chopping block. Masses of people ridicule the thinkers because their new ideas bring fear and change which dissolves the beliefs of the known world. The thinkers rattle on the cage of the sleeping lion in order to awaken the giant to the truth about society, the masses devour the great thinker for their beliefs because it is easier to follow a group rather than to be an individual and go against many opposing view points.
People always ridicule someone who is better than them, it is jealousy and fear which take control of a person and cause such animosity and hostility. Those men who look for their shadow against the wall are complacent, they are always going with the flow instead of pushing against it as a result they try and justify fear by searching for their own greatness instead of knowing in their heart that they have already achieved it. What separates these men, the great thinkers, is that they don’t look for their shadow because they have the biggest ones, searching for it is not needed when you know that your shadow is always in front of you larger than life. A shadow is composed by light, its size is dependent on the person’s awareness and enlightenment, and paintings depict this light over the heads of the righteous. Great thinkers are the righteous, they are the misunderstood but more importantly they are the martyrs who show us the “path less traveled”.
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