Sure you could literally analyze the name, the "Underground Man", to mean a man that actually lives underground. I'd never really thought of why he is called the Underground Man until now. Maybe Dostoyevsky wants to symbolize the fact that he is so cooped up in his little, over-analyzed, psychotic-thinking world that he'd be just as well off living underground, rather than above ground, where every other person lives and interacts with society. I sort of agree with this proposal and think that the Underground Man should live underground and spare the rest of society his insults. Maybe if he lived underground he would come up with the idea that he is superior to every creature under there and be happy with himself, and quit over-analyzing everything he sees or thinks of.
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I meant for my title to be, "More like the "underground" man"
I think it's amusing that a character who considers himself to be so above everyone else - he criticizes them and considers himself to be smarter than them - is called the underground man. In that sense, he is beneath the ordinary people. Perhaps it is to his own advantage that he is apart from the rest of the world, since he despises them so much, or perhaps it is to the advantage of the rest of the world that he is apart from them.
Maybe he’s the “underground man” because we know the character from the inside- out. We see how, in isolation and the confines of his own mind, he perceives himself and his external world. How he personally views reality and humanity. Through his dramatic dialogue, the underground man expresses the inner workings of his mind that other people he encounters would never imagine. In most other novels, the readers learn about the character through their actions, speech and sometimes thoughts. Dostoevsky’s unconventional writing style lets the reader know who the underground man is from his private thoughts and psychological stat that he wouldn’t publically confess to. Parts 1 and 2, bust especially 1, shows us who the man really is underneath. It shows us all of his insecurities and perversities that he keeps hidden “underground”/ within himself.
I think the Underground Man's constant self contradiction and over-analysis is meant to parallel both our private thoughts and the outlook of the Russian intelligentsia. I think that to a certain extent we all think the way the underground man does. The only thing that separates him from us is that he has teh audicity to articulate those thoughts. I also think that the constant self doubt and contradiction is meant to parallel the mindset of the intelligentsia who would have felt ashamed of their own society.
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