Chapters One and Two (Underground Man)

• Blog - Who is the ‘underground man’? What are your first impressions of him?

After reading the first two chapters of Note From Underground I got a sense that the underground man is a very depressing person. The underground man doesn’t put a whole lot of faith into his life because he doubts himself all the time. For example in chapter two he says he is not even good enough to become an insect. “Whether you can hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect.” (Pg. 6) He feels that his life will stay just the same as it is now and will never get any better. He talks about all of the diseases he has including all of the liver problems he has had. I really don’t feel all that sorry for the underground man because all I have gotten from reading this book is that he complains about everything, yet he does absolutely nothing to try and improve it. He talks about seeing a doctor for his liver problems but he is superstitious about seeing doctors, so he won’t go visit one. The strange thing is though that the underground man said that he likes and supports the medicine. “And never have, though I have respect for medicine and doctors.” (Pg. 3) He lives in poverty and enjoys making people miserable. The underground man is a very complex, strange man and it is very hard to make since of what he thinks is right.