Head in the Clouds, Heart Underground

If you’ve ever been in an argument and lost, you’ve probably found yourself imagining how it should have gone. For instance, arguing with your shampoo bottles as you shower or throwing both insults and the occasional punch at your pillow. Of course, when one dreams up these situations, the fight is never lost; one is always the victor of his own imaginary fight. There’s always time to consider a witty comeback, and your opponent never has anything clever to respond with. You, as the daydreamer, have complete control over the situation. While this supposed control may be appealing, most people are able to recognize that they cannot assert this same control over reality. The Underground Man from Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, however, struggles to acknowledge this truth. He craves ultimate control over his life and reality, as if he was the author of his own novel. The Underground Man suffers from a delusional control complex that stems from his unrelenting pride; and this vice, in turn, swallows him into the quicksand of despair and anguish.

The Underground Man has a misconception of reality that is greatly tainted by the books he constantly reads, and when he finally emerges into society, he struggles to adjust to the rocky unpredictability of it. He spends all of his time shut up in his house, experiencing ‘reality’ through the romanticized lens of a novel. He writes that “at home… [he] mainly used to read” because he “wished to stifle with external sensations all that was ceaselessly boiling up inside [him]” (Dostoevsky 48). When he actually leaves the house and is exposed to true society, he is thrown into fits of rage and fury. After all, life outside the underground is nothing like the life in his stories. He recalls a time when he was 24, wandering the streets of Petersburg out of dissatisfaction with his latest novel. He happens upon a bar, where he imagines “hav[ing] a fight… and get[ting] chucked out the window” (Dostoevsky 49). In order to try to experience this reality, the Underground Man enters the bar in an attempt to realize his daydream and get into a fight. However, when the time comes for this dream to be put into action, the brawl dies before it even starts. The police officer in the bar simply “move[s] [the Underground Man] from where [he] st[ands] to another place, and then passe[s] by as if without noticing” (Dostoevsky 49). 

In a dramatic novel, a fight would break out involving billiard sticks and crushed glass. The Underground Man, in fact, goes as far as to make the distinction that his brawl would not be a “regular quarrel” but instead one of a more “literary” nature (Dostoevsky 49). Even in the face of violent conflict, the Underground Man endeavors to live out the fantasy he has concocted for himself. He would be the center of the action in his own little reality, locked in a fight but still the main character. The police officer’s failure to even acknowledge the Underground Man at all brings the latter to great outrage, and he claims that while he “could have forgiven a beating… [he] simply could not forgive his moving [him] and in the end just not noticing [him]” (Dostoevsky 49). Though the typical daydreamer can discern the difference between reality and fiction, the Underground Man has difficulty separating the two. When true reality doesn’t line up with the fantasy inside his head, the Underground Man becomes inconsolable. His pride is injured, and his reaction is beyond the scope of any reasonable response.

When reality fails to meet the Underground Man’s fantastical expectations, he reacts viscerally and falls further into his own disillusionment. When he loses control of the situation, he begins to spiral. After the disappointing interaction with the police officer, the Underground Man becomes tormented by the incident. He obsesses over the officer, even going so far as to imagine a timeline in which he sends him a beautifully composed letter “entreating him to apologize to [him]” while simultaneously “hint[ing] quite strongly at a duel in the case of refusal” (Dostoevsky 51). It is important to note that by then, it has already been “two years since he had [originally] offended [him]”, and yet the Underground Man is still plagued by the incident in the bar. He concocts a plan to get back at the police officer: to simply bump into him on the street. While this might seem like a silly and inconsequential action to the average person, the Underground Man considers it to be one of much gravity. He convinces himself that, in knocking shoulders with the police officer, he could “achieve [his] purpose, preserve [his] dignity… and place [him]self publicly on equal social footing with him” (Dostoevsky 55). To cope with his lack of power in the real world, the Underground Man retreats to his mind in which he has the most power. The Underground Man believes that ‘confronting’ the officer will heal his ego and restore his dignity and control, giving him authority over the world around him. 

The Underground Man’s pride blinds him to reality, particularly in the case of the police officer. He is so deluded with his fantasy that he fails to see how insignificant and meaningless his interactions with the police officer were. Despite his belief that he has gained control over reality by ‘confronting’ the officer, he has actually done nothing but convince himself of a lie. The Underground Man would never entertain this idea, however, as he generally considered himself to be quite self-aware (despite being unaware of his own duplicity). He bemoans his intelligence at times, and writes that to “be overly conscious is a sickness” (Dostoevsky 6). While the Underground Mam might occasionally catch on to a bad idea here and there, he pulls the wool over his own eyes when it comes to his own incompetence. He refuses to accept the reality that he cannot control, and instead opts to live in his dream world in the underground. For instance, to accept that the officer just didn’t care about the Underground Man would be to admit that the world did not revolve around him, and the Underground Man could do no such thing. Instead of recognizing reality, he twists it to revolve around himself. His inability to let go of his pride and see the world for what it truly is prevents him from ever connecting with society, and he retreats further and further into the underground until even his dreams drive him insane.

Ultimately, the Underground Man falls victim to his own pride and refuses to relinquish his control for a life outside the underground. Instead of experiencing life for what it is with all its ups and downs, the Underground Man lives in his own fantasies. He sinks further and further into his books, and considers reality a “disgrace” and a “burden” (Dostoevsky 130) rather than a blessing. Of course, the Underground Man (as we all do) has the capability to leave the underground and start a life worth living, but he chooses instead to spare his pride and ego and never experience the real world. In the end, he convinces himself that an imaginary life which he can completely control is better than a real and meaningful life which he cannot. Although having ultimate control over his dreams is meant to free him from the hardships of life, it does nothing but ensnare him in a vicious cycle of disappointment and despair once he realizes that his dreams can never be brought to fruition. While daydreaming now and then is relatively harmless, one should take care not to dream one’s life away as the Underground Man does. Although his fantasizing head might be high up in the clouds, the Underground Man’s soul is buried far underground, and readers should take care to keep their feet grounded in reality lest they suffer the same fate as the narrator.