If he can't justify going outside, he ends up staying in – he's still deciding to stay in, though. He's so paralyzed by having to choose what to do that his decision is to not choose. His reasoning is that there is no justification for any action – so he remains inert (taking no action). Let's start with the Underground Man's early claim that he has never been able to act. Oh, lastly, the Underground Man has no readers. To prove free will, man will intentionally cause destruction and harm. Rational egoism (the theory that man will always act according to his best interests) is wrong because it ignores free will. We also get an attack on Chernyshevsky and the Crystal Palace.

We also learn that the Underground Man sometimes fakes living because he doesn't know how else to be a person he has 'phases' of wanting friends, but these are short-lived. According to the Underground Man, Russian romantics are better than the French and German for their grounding in reality and traditional values. If he's very conscious of his misery, then it's pleasurable. Once he's in the mire of suffering, he alternates between being a hero and being miserable. Next, we hear about his attacks of the sublime and beautiful (the aesthetic pleasures and awe-inspiring elements of our world) which lead him to misery. The result? He can't be or become anything. Why? Because there are no primary causes (no basic motives he can justify). (This means he's too aware and too analytical.) This leads to inertia (the inability to act or change). Ready? First, the Underground Man is hyper-conscious. Key terms are italicized, and definitions in parentheses. But if you're good with the basic tenets and want to jump right to the analysis, feel free. We're going to give you the quick and dirty here in what we hope to be a delightful 60-seconds of reading. The Underground Man goes through a ton of arguments in Notes, each one building on the last.

The underground man fyodor dostoevsky