Notes from the Underground study guide

The narrator

The narrator is an unnamed retired official whose account of himself repeatedly slips into contradiction. He defends choices that preserve individuality even through harm, yet Liza's comfort exposes how shame complicates his response to another person.

Liza

Liza is a young Russian woman from Riga who becomes emotionally engaged with the narrator and later comforts him despite his cruelty. Her departure without his insulting payment suggests that his attempt to define their encounter through money fails.

Key parts: 18, 19, 21, 22

Simonov

Simonov is a quiet former schoolmate whose company the narrator seeks despite expecting discomfort and dislike. The later payment and apology sent through him show his place in the narrator's uneasy efforts to manage relations with the others.

Key parts: 14, 20

Zverkov

Zverkov is a departing army officer who provokes the narrator's longstanding envy and hostility. The narrator's later wish to explain the insult at their gathering shows how strongly Zverkov continues to occupy his attention.

Key parts: 15, 16, 20

Ferfitchkin

Ferfitchkin is a former school enemy who admires Zverkov and openly opposes the narrator's participation in the dinner. His later appearance in the narrator's imagined confrontation suggests how social hostility continues inside the narrator's fantasies.

Key parts: 15, 17

Apollon

Apollon is the narrator's servant, and his unpaid wages become part of their strained relationship. His deliberate acceptance of payment and delivery of tea place ordinary household actions beside the narrator's struggle with shame.

Key parts: 15, 20, 21

The officer

The officer is a tall man whose unthinking movement of the narrator becomes an enduring insult.

Key parts: 1, 13

Consciousness and inaction

The narrator contrasts decisive action with a self-questioning mind that cannot settle on firm grounds for doing anything. This shows consciousness becoming an obstacle rather than a guide, as further reflection supplies more doubt instead of a way forward.

Where it shows: parts 3, 5

Limits of reason

The narrator challenges the idea that reasonable arrangements can satisfy people by giving them harmony and protection from harm. His defense of damaging choices suggests that individuality includes the wish to resist a rule, not merely the wish to benefit from it.

Where it shows: parts 7, 8, 9

Pleasure in suffering

Pain does not remain a simple misfortune in the narrator's account, because awareness can turn it into secret enjoyment. His example of malicious moaning suggests that suffering can also become a means of affecting others rather than something a person merely endures.

Where it shows: parts 2, 4

Humiliation and power

The narrator's response to humiliation moves from prolonged resentment toward attempts to exercise power over another person. His treatment of Liza shows how a wish to escape wounded pride can reproduce the very degradation that makes him suffer.

Where it shows: parts 13, 18, 21

Stone wall

The stone wall works as an image of unavoidable limits. The narrator's refusal to find comfort in such facts suggests that accepting a limit and feeling reconciled to it are different things.

Part 3

Toothache

The toothache makes the narrator's account of spite concrete through bodily pain and malicious moaning. It suggests that awareness of one's behavior does not necessarily bring either restraint or self-respect.

Part 4

The narrator, Part 1. The narrator retracts his description of himself while discussing his former work.

The narrator, Part 7. The narrator makes this claim while challenging promised social harmony. It shows that his defense of freedom includes choices that harm the person making them.

The narrator, Part 13. The narrator explains his resentment after an officer moves him aside without noticing him.

The narrator, Part 21. The narrator explains his cruelty to Liza by tracing it back to his own humiliation. Her answering comfort shows an alternative to the struggle for power he describes.