Notes from Underground: A Horneyan Analysis

In attempting to make sense of the vacillating, inconsistent, and often bizarre behavior of the underground man, critics have employed two distinct modes of analysis, thematic and psychological. The psychological approach seems more appropriate; the novel is essentially a portrait of a character. As yet, however, critics have not approached the work with a psychological theory that is congruent with it and adequate to its complexities. The underground man's character structure, attitudes, and behavior can be understood in terms of Karen Horney's analysis of neurotic processes. In Horneyan terms, the underground man is a detached person whose aggressive and compliant trends are very close to awareness and rather evenly balanced. He experiences severe and almost continuous conflict between all three of his trends and is caught in a devastating crossfire of contradictory “shoulds.” He compensates for his feeling of worthlessness by self-glorification and then hates himself even more because he cannot live up to his idealized image. The novel's philosophic passages are an integral part of Dostoevsky's portrait of his character. The underground man's worship of freedom, will, caprice, and individuality, and his phobic reaction to anything suggesting coercion, conformity to law, or ordinariness are all aspects of his detached solution.