Dostoevsky's Revolutionary Her
The fictional author of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground claims that he has all the traits of the anti-hero. He torments others out of spite; he is weak, petty, and spineless. His intelligence and self-proclaimed disease of hyperconsciousness have made him nihilistic; he is unable to believe in himself and has reasoned himself into inaction. Peterson states that nihilism is one logical evil consequence of heightened self-consciousness. This character had done what Buddha wanted to when he first faced the tragic awareness of mortality, and could no longer enjoy life's pleasures, that is to withdraw himself from the world, suffer and do nothing. This character has retired to his underground, where he avoids reality and fantasizes about a life, all the while unable to do anything productive for himself. He describes himself as a hyperconscious mouse that has reasoned past his motivations and can no longer believe in his own actions. Embittered by inaction, the mouse then creates around itself "a fatal brew, a stinking mess of doubts and unsettled questions. Then filled with half despair, half belief, he consciously buried himself alive for grief in the underworld for forty years, in hyperconsciou
Perhaps the author knows that presuming omniscience unconsciously underlies totalitarianism (that and a genuine cowardice regarding the unpredictable. So, our revolutionary hero, who appears to have nihilistically and evilly withdrawn from the world, to live forty years in his self-generated hell, has voluntarily exposed himself to chaos. His hyperconsciousness has led him to an intensely developed individuality, which involves his separation, loneliness and isolation. This man does seem to embody all things unheroic. ' Here the author has captured what Goethe was getting at in his novel Faust, that man is forever striving, forever erring, and will never be completely satisfied. (He has even learned to find enjoyment in his suffering. Dostoevsky's character indeed suffers in his individuality. In his pride, man would end up presuming omniscience, which would lead to certain fall. Laziness is choosing to be like everyone else. He has decided to confront the memories that he was afraid of, and do so with complete honesty. Although the demeanor of Dostoevsky's underground character strikes one as loathsome, he seems to truly be an exemplar of the vital revolutionary hero. This lesson, that awareness of man's vulnerability poisons existence, is also at the heart of the Christian myth of the fall of man and the story of Buddha. In writing down the past events, which he has always avoided with certain uneasiness, he thinks perhaps that he can get some relief. sness and doubtful hopelessness, in the hell of his unsatisfied desires.
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