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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2020
In attempting to make sense of the vacillating, inconsistent, and often bizarre behavior of the underground man, critics have employed two distinct modes of analysis, thematic and psychological. The psychological approach seems more appropriate; the novel is essentially a portrait of a character. As yet, however, critics have not approached the work with a psychological theory that is congruent with it and adequate to its complexities. The underground man's character structure, attitudes, and behavior can be understood in terms of Karen Horney's analysis of neurotic processes. In Horneyan terms, the underground man is a detached person whose aggressive and compliant trends are very close to awareness and rather evenly balanced. He experiences severe and almost continuous conflict between all three of his trends and is caught in a devastating crossfire of contradictory “shoulds.” He compensates for his feeling of worthlessness by self-glorification and then hates himself even more because he cannot live up to his idealized image. The novel's philosophic passages are an integral part of Dostoevsky's portrait of his character. The underground man's worship of freedom, will, caprice, and individuality, and his phobic reaction to anything suggesting coercion, conformity to law, or ordinariness are all aspects of his detached solution.
1 For typical thematic readings of Notes, see Joseph Frank, “Nihilism and Notes from Underground,” Sewanee Review, 69 (1961), 1–33; Edward Wasiolek, Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964), Ch. iv; Konstantin Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, trans. Michael A. Minihan (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ. Press. 1967), Ch. xii; Isidore Traschen, “Dosto-evsky's Notes from Underground,” Accent, 16 (1956), 255–64; and Robert Louis Jackson, Dostoevsky's Underground Man in Russian Literature (The Hague: Mouton, 1958), Chs. i–iii. The present essay was completed with the assistance of a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
2 On this point, see James Lethcoe, “Self-Deception in Dostoevski's Notes from the Underground,” SEEJ, 10 (1966), 9–21; Sacvan Bercovitch, “Dramatic Irony in Notes from Underground,” SEEJ, 8 (1964), 284–91; and Ralph E. Matlaw, “Structure and Integration in Notes from the Underground,” PMLA, 73 (1958), 101–09.
3 The rationale for a psychological approach is stated very well by both Lethcoe and Matlaw, though neither really provides the psychological analysis he calls for. “The problem,” says Lethcoe, “might be formulated thus: Is the paradoxical character of the underground man to be evaluated in the light of his philosophical theories about the nature of man, i.e., that man is free, arbitrary, many-sided, and irrational; or are we to see such theories as the kind of theories such a character as the underground man would naturally hold in order to rationalize his existence?” Lethcoe concludes that “a shift in critical emphasis is in order. Notes from the Underground, which is usually approached as a philosophical work, is perhaps best approached as a psychological study” (p. 17).
4 The most interesting psychological analysis of the underground man to date is Mark Spilka's “Playing Crazy in the Underground,” Minnesota Review, 6 (1966), 233–43. There are some good observations also in R. L. Jackson, Ch. iii; in Herbert Walker, “Observations on Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground,” American Imago, 19 (1962), 195–210; and in Bella S. Van Bark, “The Alienated Person in Literature,” American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 21 (1961), 186–89.
5 For other Horneyan analyses of literary works, see my articles, “The Psychic Structure of Vanity Fair,” Victorian Studies, 10 (1967), 389–410; and “The Inner Conflicts of Maggie Tulliver: A Horneyan Analysis,” Centennial Review, 13 (1969), 166–99. Part of the following account is taken from my essay, “The Inner Conflicts of Maggie Tulliver,” with the kind permission of The Centennial Review.
6 Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle toward Self-Realization (New York: Norton, 1950), p. 17. Hereafter referred to as NHG.
7 Pt. II, Sec. ii. I am using the Constance Garnett translation in the Laurel edition (New York: Dell, 1960). I wish to thank Denis Mickiewicz, of the Dept. of German and Russian, Michigan State Univ., for checking my quotations and my reading of Notes against the Russian text.
8 See Karen Homey, Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis (New York: Norton, 1945), pp. 74–75. Hereafter referred to as OIC.
9 New Ways in Psychoanalysis (New York: Norton, 1939), p. 272. Hereafter referred to as New Ways.