Negative Nancy or Negative Narrator?

             Throughout Fyodor Dostoevsky’s book, Notes from Underground, the narrator has a hard time interacting with the people that surround him. He is constantly in a state of isolation. From the beginning of the book, the narrator says that he is more intelligent than everyone. He says, “I’m to blame, first, because I’m more intelligent than everyone around me” (Dostoevsky, 9).  He also thinks that he has a heightened consciousness than everyone else. This heightened awareness in some ways tortures the narrator by allowing him to see things that the people around him misses. It also prevents him from being able to live a normal life. It changes the way that he interacts with people and makes it a challenge to make friends because he tends to isolate himself, has bad social skills, and has a bad perspective of himself.

            The narrator has not been a fan of interacting with people. He has constantly been in a state of isolation. The narrator says, “I resigned at once and settled into my corner. I lived in this corner before as well, but now I have settled into it” (Dostoevsky, 6). This passage seems to suggest that he has always been a fan of being in this corner by himself and not having to interact with other people. Even at work, he does not like to interact with the people around him. He says, “I did not associate with anyone, even avoided speaking, and shrank more and more in my corner. At work, in the office, I even tried not to look at anyone” (Dostoevsky, 42). This is another example where he makes no attempt to talk to anyone or interact with anyone. The narrator also isolates himself in his own mind from other people. He says, “One other circumstance tormented me then: namely, that no on e else was like me, and I was like no one else. ‘I am one, and they are all,’ thought I and ¾I’d fall to thinking” (Dostoevsky, 45). He not only isolated himself in the real world but also fully thought that was unlike anyone else around him. By thinking that it is him against everyone else, it makes him more reluctant to try and interact with people. This is one way that the heightened awareness effects the way that the narrator lives.

            The narrator also has extremely bad social skills. He has no idea how to interact with people around him. One instance that shows this is his interaction with the police officer. He wants to get attention from people but this officer just moves him out of the way like he was not even there and this infuriates the narrator. He says, “I left the tavern confused and agitated, went straight home, and the next day continued my little debauch still more timidly, downtroddenly, and sadly than before, as if with a great tear in my eye ¾ yet I did continue” (Dostoevsky, 49). He was so distraught about this interaction that he starts to follow around this officer so that he can plan to get the police officer’s attention. He could not just settle the argument at the time like a normal human would but he had to draw out a specific plan to run into the man so that he could get his attention. Whenever he finally runs into the officer, the officer does not even acknowledge the narrator but he still acts like he finally got his attention. The narrator says, “I did not yield an inch and passed by on perfectly equal footing! He did not even look back and pretended not to notice: but he only pretended, I’m sure of that… The point was that I had achieved my purpose, preserved my dignity, yielded not a step, and placed myself publicly on an equal social footing with him” (Dostoevsky, 55). The narrator thinks that he was finally gotten revenge for the officer putting to the side like he did not mean anything but he really never got the attention of the officer in the first place. His heightened consciousness makes him think that people notice things that they really never do and this makes it very difficult for him to interact with other people.

            Another way that the heightened consciousness prevents him from living a normal live is that it makes the narrator think badly of himself. Throughout the book, he thinks that all of his friends or coworkers think badly of him. He says, “I noticed very well that my colleagues not only considered me an odd man, but ¾ as I also kept fancying ¾seemed to look at me with a certain loathing” (Dostoevsky, 43). He always thinks that his acquaintances think of him in a bad way even though he knows that he is intelligent. He even tries to think of reasons why these people think badly of him. He says, “Of course, I understood that they must scorn me now for the unsuccess of my career in the service and for my having gone too much to seed, walking around badly dressed and so on” (Dostoevsky, 61). He even makes excuses for these people to think badly of him. This is another way that his heightened consciousness effects him.

            The narrator has a completely unique way of living his life. Rather than living around people, he would rather live in his corner away from others. He also would rather not interact with people and when he does interact with people they are not aware that he is trying to interact with them. I think that the reason that he lives his life like this is because of his heightened consciousness. His heightened consciousness makes him not understand the way that other people think and the how they act. This effects the way that he interacts with people and the way that they interact with him.