|
位于第四章的开始,指出从地下探索现代社会对于一个孤立的人的影响，导致他可能无法接受现实，展示了与世隔离的地下人的痛苦。这种影响了整个欧洲的思想已在俄罗斯盛行并开始影响俄罗斯人的整个人生观。为了充分理解这篇文章的目的和它所代表的理想,重要的是要注意它的上下文。他怀恨在心,任性的话激起了他的欲望，反驳那些仅仅依赖原因的人的话语只为证明他们的行动,,作为一个完全依赖原因的人不会相信有人能找到快乐而不是痛苦。地下人不相信法律的原因是因为他们觉得法律限制了他们自由的意志。他们愿意做的事情是完全非理性的,比如毁掉一个社会互动的机会，茹尔科夫的生日晚餐,只是为了锻炼他的自由意志。同样,人们牙疼时呻吟,即使是没有目的性，只是因为他们可以。这很重要,因为自由主义者是用理性主义的方式管理他们的生活。陀思妥耶夫斯基背弃他的自由思想,在监狱里,他得知百姓认为知识分子被人厌恶的,因为他们和统治阶级一样。
Modern society and the effect his inability
Notes from the Underground explores the mind of a man isolated by modern society and the effect his inability to accept reality has on him. This passage, located at the beginning of chapter four, demonstrates the Underground Man's bitterness about his isolation and the influence European culture in Russia has on overall outlook on life. In order to fully grasp both the purpose of this passage and the ideals it represents, it is important to note its context. His spiteful, petulant words are provoked by his desire to refute anyone who relies solely on reason to justify their actions, as one who relies solely on reason would not believe that someone could find pleasure out of pain. The Underground Man does not believe in the laws of reason because he feels they restrict free will. He is willing to do things that are completely irrational, such as ruin the one chance at social interaction he has, Zverkov's birthday dinner, just for the sake of exercising his free will. Similarly, people moan when they have a toothache, even though it has no purpose, simply because they can. This is important because for the liberals of this time, rationalism was a way of governing their lives. Dostoevsky turned his back on liberal ideas when, in jail, he learned that the common people viewed the intellectuals with as much abhorrence as they did the ruling class.
In the preceding chapter, the Underground Man discusses the shame that accompanies accepting the fact that nature's laws make certain things impossible, for example, using his head to break through a stone wall. Because he is not able to do this, just as one is not able to cure a toothache, he feels hopeless and ashamed, and has no one to blame because that is simply the way it is; there is nothing he can do about it. However, the Underground Man relishes his own shame, and is therefore able to justify finding pleasure in a toothache.
The toothache represents more than just an irritation, it represents the ideals the European culture was impressing upon Russian society. Just as it does not make sense to enjoy a toothache, European literature and philosophies did not make sense when applied to Russia. The Underground Man tried to make his life like the lives of the heroes in Romantic literature, but he was unsuccessful in this endeavor because he lacked the ability to act. Like someone with a toothache who complains even though it does not help, he spends countless hours analyzing and complaining about his life, but never does anything to improve it. Instead, he makes it worse for himself and others, just as one does by moaning.
The passage begins with the Underground Man's basic explanation of how people react to a toothache, “…people don't nurse their anger silently, the moan aloud; but these are not frank, straightforward moans, there is a kind of cunning malice in them, and that's the whole point. Those very moans express the sufferer's delectation; if he did not enjoy his moans, he wouldn't be moaning” (Dostoevsky 14). What is ironic about this is that in his attempts to dispute reason, he is using a very logical argument. He goes on to say, “these moans express, to begin with, you awareness of the whole humiliating purposeless of your pain; your recognition of the whole array of nature laws” (14). This is both a comment on the laws of reason and the concept of shame. The inability to fight nature's laws and quell your toothache is humiliating. In some situations, such as his encounter with the policeman later in the story, he does not retaliate because he is too nervous and constantly finds excuses not to, as, according to him, any conscious man would. On the other hand, in a battle with the forces of nature, even someone classified as an unconscious man with the nerve to retaliate, has no defense and will never come out a winner. Ultimately, the moans are not a reaction to the pain that the toothache causes, but a sign of defeat, recognition that you cannot fight it. Feeling the pain is purposeless because no matter how long you moan, it will not go away, nor will the moans alleviate it at all.
He then specifically addresses the educated:
Listen carefully sometimes to the moans of an educated nineteenth-century man who suffers from toothache- say, on the second or third day; that is, not simply because his teeth ache, not like some crude peasant, but like a man who has been touched by progress and European culture, a man who has ‘divorced himself from the soil and from the popular elements', as people say nowadays. His moans acquire a kind of nastiness, they become mean and malicious, and continue day and night. And yet he himself knows better than anyone else that it is merely lacerating and irritating both himself and others to no good purpose. (15)
The Underground Man's bitterness about his alienation as an intellectual becomes apparent here. The Europeanized way of thinking separated the Russian intellectuals from the common people, who represented the true heart of Russian culture. He sarcastically condemns those who have been influenced by Western ideas by saying that the “progress” they have been touched by simply makes them more malicious because they are consciously irritating others for no reason. Simply put, as elite members of society they should know better.
Shortly after this passage, the Underground Man declares that he has this grim outlook on life because he does not respect himself. He questions the reader, “can a man of conscious intelligence have any self respect to speak of?” (16). This is because consciousness of his actions draws attention to his powerlessness and shows him that he must always submit to nature's laws. His consciousness convinces him that every decision he makes is fundamentally flawed, which is why it is so hard for him to act. And the more he does not act, the more ashamed of himself he becomes.
Dostoevsky's style of writing gives additional insight into the Underground Man's thoughts and emotional state. This entire passage is a hyperbole. The Underground Man takes his ideas to extremes because he is attempting to make a radical argument. For example, he says “…you are in total slavery to your teeth”, and “his moans acquire a kind of nastiness, they become mean and malicious, and continue day and night”, both of which are obviously overstatements (15). This use of exaggeration is also attributed to his desire to make his reality mirror Romantic literature, in which every action is grand. The same writing style is used later in the story in his speeches to Liza and his descriptions of his anger with the policeman, both situations that demonstrate this desire.
Because Notes from the Underground is the Underground Man's journal, it is written as a stream of consciousness. He speaks in long sentences composed of several dependent clauses. For example, the following sentence, along with almost all of the other sentences in the passage, has four dependent clauses:
And yet he himself knows that his moans won't do him any good at all; he knows that the audience, for whose benefit he is exerting himself, and his whole family are sick to death of listening to him, that they no longer believe him and know that he could moan quite differently, more simply, without all those flourishes and trills, and that he's merely indulging himself out of spite and meanness. (15)
These short, choppy thoughts gradually get more intense and are a sign that he may be going crazy due to his inability to cope with society. In the beginning, the moaner is described as having “awareness of the whole humiliating purposeless of [their] pain”. Towards the middle of the passage, the moaner is said to experience a “kind of pleasure which may reach the utmost heights of voluptuousness”, and by the end, the moaner is “merely indulging himself out of spite and meanness”(14-15). Generally, when people speak in this way, it is associated with anxiety. In this case, it is likely that as the Underground Man thinks more and more about both nature's laws and the Western ideas prevalent in Russia, he feels increasingly more angry with society and more dissatisfied with his own life.
Both the content and writing style of this passage help explain the Underground Man's actions throughout the rest of the novel. His inability to cope with society and accept reality grows, as does his lack of self respect, ultimately leading him to drive away the few acquaintances he has and his one chance at love, forever locking him into his self imposed isolation.#p#分页标题#e#
|
 |
|||
| 网站地图 |
