Saturday, January 12, 2013

A More DRAWN OUT Contradiction

We all remember when the underground man states that he loathes the city he lives in: St. Petersburg, because he feels it to be "too abstract and premeditated." Well, focusing here on the premeditated aspect, I find it hypocritical that he says this. By premeditated, he feels that it is too boring for him, because he is an overly analytical person. However, the fact that he is an overly analytical person is what makes his statement hypocritical when considering his long and monotonous (boring if I may) plan to bump into the officer. He is shunning a city for being too boring when he himself is oddly enough (considering how he is both a complex and simple or rather, to say the least, interesting, person at the same time) boring as well.  That example just happened to jump out at me, but I'm sure there are others that only reinforce this point. Feel free to state them at your leisure fellow bloggers.

1 comment:

Madeline Davis said...

I agree with Grant's point on the hypocrisy of the UM's criticism of St. Petersburg. He felt that the city was too premeditated, yet the Underground Man often gets caught up in over-analyzing and excessively planning his every move.

However, I do believe the UM often strays from his own premeditation. When he confronts Liza, he lashes out at her without a second thought, ruining his chance at a normal human relationship. Although he's aware after the fact of his self-destructive motives, he continually has outbursts of emotion and overreaction, constantly followed by the thought, "I don't know why I just did that."