Dostoevsky's Quotes From Underground

“almost Thou persuadest me”:
REDEMPTION AND NEW TESTAMENT ROLE REVERSALS
IN DOSTOEVSKY’S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

Dostoevsky makes it clear early on in his Notes from Underground that his main character, the Underground Man, is quite the scoundrel. He is paradoxical and pathologically indecisive. Though deeply insecure, he is arrogant – believing himself to be more intelligent and certainly more perceptive than everyone else. He is a thorough-going misanthrope who despises everyone, including himself. He is both bully and bullied. Though poor and weak, he is obsessed with dominating others with whatever semblance of power he can muster – if not for any other reason, to give the appearance of control. He greets both pride and kindness with
The other main character, Liza, though not as reprehensible as the Underground Man, is also fallen. Dostoevsky implies that she may have been sold into prostitution by her own parents, and the reader is compelled to great sympathy at her plight. But, even so, she continues to sell her virtue to male degenerates in a filthy brothel under cover of night. A wicked “paradoxilist”XX and a tragic prostitute – though these descriptions may represent the most obvious account of each character, it seems that both Liza and the Underground Man have been given additional roles to play in this story that may be less evident, but not less important. It is the contention of this paper that Dostoevsky is writing Notes from Underground with biblical and even messianic parallels in mind for his main characters even though, on the surface, they may seem to be the most unlikley candidates for such a comparison.
The Underground Man as Christ
The differences between the Underground Man and Christ are obviously many, but the limited number of parallels that Dostoyevsky draws here are compelling and enrich the way the reader interprets his relationship with Liza. unlike Christ, the Undergraound Man’s motivations are always suspect because he is an admitted
She understands and is prepared to love him” (Conradi, 37).

At first it seems Liza can reform him, but the Underground Man overpowers her.

By paying her for what she gave freely out of love and sympathy

Her response to the Underground Man, her forgiveness of his actions, “she sees in a flash of insight his unhappiness, and through the warmth of true love she momentarily breaks through the vicious circle of hurt and being hurt”

The one purely beautiful moment in the story culminates in the end when Liza accepts the underground man despite his abusive treatment of her.

In the second to the last chapter the underground man admits that he could not live without tyranny over someone, in reference to either Liza or Apollo. It is here when he begins to seal his fate because he won’t submit his obstinate free will to the one who has the power to save him.

Even though the UM tells us that his heart leapt within him. He tries to stuff down this beautiful moment. He resists the drawing of Liza and his