Parallels Between Notes from the Underground and Crime and Punishment

          Now that I have read Notes from the Underground, I can see a lot of constants in Dostoyevsky’s writing and the characters he creates. Especially this notion of over-consciousness and insanity that seems to carry across almost all of Dostoyevsky’s characters. Raskolnikov has many parallels to the actual underground man in the way that he acts and in many of his theories throughout the book. First of all, the seemingly insane actions that Raskolnikov goes through in his story are very reminiscent of the over conscious nature of the underground man. Raskolnikov seems to be aware of absolutely every detail of what is going on around him, and he also goes through way too many steps to prepare for one thing, and even when it is done he is not deviating from trying to plan his way through everything. Another interesting parallel is the idea of “great men” in crime and punishment and the whole page on how religion is now useless and how evolution has stopped because of humanity in the underground man. Even though these sentiments are not explicitly mentioned in the underground man, they are heavily implied in the way that the character talks about the fact that humanity is constantly working against themselves and gaining advantages in the way that they are rejecting the natural ideas that seemingly separate us from animals. This whole idea seems to be leading to the idea that some people in society cost more to society than they help, therefore they should not exist. The whole idea that the elderly should not be kept alive based solely on the fact that it uses so much more resources than it saves. This is reflected by the idea that certain people in society should be able to avoid the rules of society because they have an idea or goal that is truly great towards society and will eventually end up benefiting society greatly. The fact that sometimes if an individual has an idea that might be worth killing people, then they should be allowed to is very reminiscent of the idea that Dostoyevsky has across these writings. It is the idea that I am better than everyone else, therefore the rules that apply to everyone else should not apply to me. Personally I think this is some of Dostoyevsky’s ego showing through, and the fact that he was probably a social outcast which made him despise those who were able to actually succeed in society, and shun their rules.