Fyodor Dostoevsky The Underground Man Essay

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s existentialist novel Notes from Underground, heteronormativity is heavily ingrained in society. The narrator, the Underground Man, tries to embrace these ideas through his intake of heteronormative literature and by immersing himself in his fantasies. This is seen when the Underground Man is influenced by the literature of the time, as seen in several of the man’s lectures. The man uses opportunities to try to fit into society, for he is considered an outsider, hence his name. Through the use of literature and the attempts of embracing societal norms, the Underground Man seeks to solidify his own sexuality, and ultimately rejects heteronormative relationships and fitting into them.
Queer theory can be used to understand

Dostoevsky uses sexual repression and dread in his works, which are characteristics that the Underground Man portrays. The main source of these character faults come from the man over thinking. When he over thinks, he contradicts himself, making what he wants unclear. He wants to be part of this normal society and occasionally takes the right steps towards it, but then when he is faced with the reality of it, he takes a step back, making little to no progress. He is the overly conscious mouse that hits his head against the wall when he can’t get his way. The Underground Man states that “To be sure, I won’t break through such a wall with my forehead if I really have not got strength enough to do it, but neither will I be reconciled with it simply because I have a stone wall here and have not got strength enough” (Dostoevsky 13). The man means that he as the mouse will continue to whack his head against the wall, even though he knows he will get nowhere with it, where as a regular man would stop and forget about the problem. An exception is seen when the man got drunk before he went to the brothel. As he was drunk, he acted loosely, not overthinking the situation as he would if he were sober. He just went straight passed the wall, because he did not let his mind stop him from acting. After the man wakes up sober, he registers what had happened between him and Liza, he states that “A sullen thought was born in my brain and passed through my whole body like some vile sensation…” (Dostoevsky 88). The man did not want to confront reality, for it was something that he had rejected for so many years while living in isolation. As he made sense of the situation, he felt sick, but he would not leave just yet. These actions show how the man is not in touch with society, and initially feels sick in having to confront this