Summary
Summary of Notes from the Underground
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A confession argues with reason
An unnamed retired official lives alone in St Petersburg, writing for readers he both wants and despises. His confession begins as an argument against the belief that reason and self-interest could produce a perfect society. He wants to explain why people sometimes act against their own good.
The book then turns back to an episode from his younger life. Argument gives way to scenes of pride and shame, allowing his behavior to test the claims he makes about human freedom.
Key idea 2
Self-awareness becomes a private prison
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Key idea 3
Freedom can mean choosing harm
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Key idea 4
Being ignored becomes an obsession
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Key idea 5
Pride turns company into humiliation
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Key idea 6
Liza offers a different encounter
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Key idea 7
The story tests its own argument
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Key idea 8
Words and actions pull apart
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who love a bold, uneasy voice, ideas argued through a character, and stories of pride, shame and isolation, or anyone seeking an introduction to Dostoyevsky.
What this book is
Notes from the Underground is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, published in 1864 in St Petersburg. It is the confession of one man who never gives his name. He is a retired minor official, forty years old, living alone in a corner of the city and writing for readers he both wants and despises. Dostoyevsky wrote it as an answer to the fashionable belief that reason and self-interest could build a perfect society.
The book has two halves. In the first, the narrator argues, jeers and contradicts himself, laying out his view of free will and of why people act against their own good. In the second, he tells of an episode from sixteen years earlier, when he was twenty-four, and shows what his ideas looked like in real life. You get a strange, funny and painful voice, a sharp argument with the thinkers of its day, and a story of pride and shame. Let us begin with the voice itself and the room it speaks from.
In this summary
- 1A spiteful man speaks from his holeFree
- 2Two times two is four is not freedom
- 3A slight from an officer starts an obsession
- 4The dinner for Zverkov goes wrong
- 5A young woman named Liza listens to him
- 6What the book is about and how it works
Key point 1 of 6
A spiteful man speaks from his hole
The book opens with a confession in the narrator's own voice. He says he is a sick man, a spiteful man, and an unattractive man. He tells us he once worked as a minor civil servant in St Petersburg, and that he was rude to petitioners and took a small pleasure in it. Then an inheritance came to him, he left his post, and he withdrew into a shabby room.
He calls his place the underground. It is not a cellar so much as a state of mind, a place where he lives apart from everyone and watches the world with resentment. He writes as if answering an audience, and he keeps imagining what the gentlemen reading him will say. He answers their objections before they can make them, and he often contradicts himself in the next breath.
A central claim comes early. The narrator says that to be too aware of yourself is a kind of illness. A man of sharp intelligence sees every side of every question, and so he cannot act. He compares this with the plain, dull man of action, who charges ahead because he never sees the doubts. The narrator envies that man and hates him too.
This first part sets the tone for everything after. We do not know whether to trust him, laugh at him or pity him, and the book wants us to feel all three. He also hints that his pride and his shame are twisted together, so that he takes a bitter pleasure even in his own misery. Keep that in mind as he turns from his own life to a larger argument.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why does the narrator think people sometimes deliberately choose what harms them?
Right. “What a person wants most, he claims, is his own free wish, even if it is foolish and costly.”Not quite. “What a person wants most, he claims, is his own free wish, even if it is foolish and costly.”
What does the narrator's obsession with the officer reveal?
Right. “His wish for revenge is really a wish to be seen.”Not quite. “His wish for revenge is really a wish to be seen.”
How does the narrator feel after giving Liza his address?
Right. “He fears that she will come, and he fears that she will see how he really lives.”Not quite. “He fears that she will come, and he fears that she will see how he really lives.”
Who’s who
- The narrator
- An unnamed retired civil servant, he craves respect while treating acquaintances and strangers with suspicion and spite.
- Liza
- A young woman working in a brothel, she listens sympathetically to the narrator during their winter encounter.
- Zverkov
- A confident officer and former schoolmate of the narrator, he is the guest of honor at a farewell dinner.
- Simonov
- An acquaintance from school, he reluctantly allows the narrator to join the dinner being arranged for Zverkov.
- Apollon
- The narrator's servant, he maintains a dignified reserve that his master finds infuriating and interprets as scorn.
- The officer
- A tall stranger who casually moves the narrator aside, he becomes the focus of his wounded pride.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 45,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 3 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Notes from the Underground
Who is the underground man?
He is the narrator, a man of forty who has withdrawn from society and lives in a small room. He has no name in the book. He is intelligent, proud and self-defeating, and he addresses imagined readers.
What does the underground mean in the book?
It is a state of mind as much as a place. The narrator lives apart from others, nurses his resentments and watches the world from a distance. The word stands for isolation, spite and hyper-awareness.
What is the two times two is four argument?
The narrator uses this as a symbol of a world ruled only by reason and mathematics. He says people will rebel against such a world, because humans want free will and the right to choose even foolishly.
