Notes from Underground

I came upon a quote from Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground that made me laugh. Sudden laughter while reading Dostoevsky at a bus stop in Baltimore may be a rare occurrence, but the my fellow transit patrons didn't think that it was--for none of them looked up or seemed to notice.

The quote opens chapter two:

"I would now like to tell you gentleman, whether you do or do not wish to hear it, why I never managed to become even an insect. I'll tell you solemnly that I wanted many times to become an insect."

The opening declaration, followed by the disclaimer, are rendered immediately sarcastic and cowardly by the bitterness at the end of the first sentence. However, the second sentence changes the tone so abruptly that the quote becomes ruefully funny.

Bitterness comes from reflection. By saying "I never managed to become even an insect" implies that the narrator has failed at life, at achieving person-hood, but he remains defiant in his solitude "Underground", holding contempt for the "gentlemen" he addresses. By contrasting "insect" with "gentlemen", the narrator is showing his resistance towards becoming small or contemptible by following a life path defined by others who "do or do not wish to hear it." By not becoming an "insect" the narrator is free to self define himself as whatever he wants--a rebel, an outsider.

However, the second sentence reverses all of this. By saying that he desired "many times to become an insect", the narrator reveals his own agency in not achieving even being small and contemptible. Therefore he entraps himself into being both as contemptible and at the mercy of those who can label him as such. The defiance is completely deflated. Mock seriousness has been replaced with serious self mockery. Cowardice has been replaced with defeated candor. The outward blame and self-delusion common in bitter and cynical characters is transformed into a self-aware self-hatred. The character is not redeemed here in a moral or sympathetic sense, but rather, in the moment-to-moment consciousness and contradictory nature of personal reflection, in a more living and embodied sense.