Notes from Underground

What it is

Notes from Underground is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in the journal Epoch in 1864. It is written as the confession of an unnamed, embittered narrator known as the Underground Man, a retired civil servant living in St Petersburg.

Why it matters

The novella attacks the rational egoism of contemporary thinkers like Nikolay Chernyshevsky, arguing that human beings will always act against their own interests simply to assert their freedom. It is widely seen as a founding text of existentialist thought, showing how Dostoevsky used fiction to argue with the ideas of his time.

Look closer

• Why might Dostoevsky choose an unnamed, unlikeable narrator to make his philosophical argument?
• What does the narrator's attack on logic and mathematics ('two times two makes four') suggest about his view of human nature?
• How does the double-headed eagle on the title page connect this book to the Russian state of its time?