ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION.

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Moral Ambiguity in “Notes from Underground”
"Notes from Underground" is a novel written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a renowned Russian novelist of the mid-1800s. His works mainly circled themes of deep psychological and emotional reflection of main characters and existentialism. Existentialists are people who embrace philosophical free will, hence are not bound by any societal expectations of conduct. Often, such people are alienated from humanity which makes them morally ambiguous. Moral ambiguity occurs when a person makes ethical decisions that are difficult to term right or wrong. The essay discusses instances when the Underground Man in “Notes from Underground” is considered to be morally ambiguous through ideologies like existentialism, egoism, free will, and nihilism.
As mentioned earlier, the idea of existentialism estranges people from civilization, making them see societal rules of life as null and void. For instance, such people seldom partake in political and social conversations, often due to having witnessed social injustices. Therefore, the Underground man may be considered an existentialist because his actions are solely inspired by his level of self-consciousness and point of view rather than what is ideally right or wrong. An example is when he encounters a policeman that pushes him out of the way in a crowd, he is convinced that the act was intentional, thus plots revenge on the officer (Dostoevsky 9). Dostoyevsky characterizes the Underground Man as an existentialist who only conforms to his sense of righteousness.
Egoism is a theory in which morality is based on personal interest, regardless of other people's emotions. The Underground Man has a high sense of self and acknowledges that his ego can be his greatest strength of a disease as it prevents him from interacting normally with people. Upon comparing himself to others, he gives himself the power to criticize and manipulate people such as Liza, whom he regards as inferior due to c...