Dostoevsky Vs Chernevshyvsky

Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" versus Chernyshevsky's "What Is to Be Done?
"
Author(s): Jane Barstow
Source: College Literature, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), pp. 24-33
Published by: College Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25111196 .
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24
DOSTOEVSKY'S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
VERSUS CHERmSHEVSKY'S WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Jane Barstow
Dostoevsky's
Notes
from Underground
is one
of those
important
short
novels that
college professors delight
in
placing
on
syllabi
but abhor teach
ing.
It's so
easy
to note the
polemic
tone but
so hard to answer
those inevit
able
questions asking
who or what the narrator is
screaming
at. For
tunately,
for
once,
there is an answer which becomes "obvious" once stu
dent
or teacher
ploughs through Chernyshevsky's highly
didactic and
naively optimistic
What is to be Done?
Dostoevsky
was so
enraged by
the
simplistic
solutions to
complex
social and human
problems
this work
preached,
that instead of
writing
a
literary review,
he wrote a "bitter artistic
answer."1 Close examination of the two
works, then,
reveals the extent to
which both the
highly
discursive Part I and the
intensely
dramatic Part II
borrow from
Chernyshevsky, exploding by
inversion
many
of his ideas and
parables.
The
year
is
1864,
a
time of
great
social and economic
upheaval
in Russia
following emancipation
of the serfs. The
literary
establishment is
frantically
at work
looking
for "intellectual" solutions to
"political"
issues. Nowhere
are these issues so
passionately argued
as in the novels of the
country's
leading
writers.
Chernyshevsky
and his
ideological compatriots
demanded a
"literature of direct exhortation
seeking
to unmask
present
evils and to
urge
the
rising generation
to immediate action
on behalf of the
people."2
Dostoevsky responds
with
penetrating
sarcasm and denial.
The debate
begins
over the issue of
progress.
Both
Chernyshevsky
and
Dostoevsky
are concerned with the movement from
positive
to
negative
stages
within their
country's
social
evolution,
but each concludes he is
pres
ently living
in the
opposite age
from the other.
Chernyshevsky implicitly
asserts that his "new men"
are
ushering
in a
positive age:
"We did not see
these
men six
years ago;
three
years ago
we
despised
them: and now?but it
matters little what we think
now;
in a
few
years,
we shall
appeal
to them: we
shall
say
to them 'Save us!' and whatever
they say
then will be done
by
all.
A few
years more,
perhaps
even a
few
months,
and we shall curse
them;
they
will be driven from the scene
. . .
after them
things
will
go
on better
than before."3 He continues
by saying that, following
a
negative stage
de
void of the
inspiration
of such
men,
a new
phase
of
history
will
again give
birth to this
type,
this time in
greater
numbers. Goodness will
spread
through history culminating
in universal
rationality
when the ultimate and
DOSTOEVSKY'S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND 25
enduring positive stage
has been achieved.
Dostoevsky's Underground
Man not
only explicitly
asserts that his is a
negative age,4
but also denies the
possibility
that
men will ever
become
"good."
He does
agree
"that
man is
pre-eminently
a
creative
animal, pre
destined to strive
consciously
towards
a
goal" (p. 29),
but does not have
Chernyshevsky's
faith that he will reach it.
Rather,
he believes that
man is
afraid of
attaining
his
goal,
that he will
willfully
swerve
aside;
he will
keep
building roads,
but
they
will all lead in different directions.
Dostoevsky
himself,
we
know,
was
searching
for faith and believed
(or
tried to
believe)
that
a
positive stage
based on a
spiritual
life could exist.
Perhaps
divine love
could
bring salvation,
he
hoped,
but in the context of this
novel,
the kind of
regeneration Chernyshevsky
envisions is
rejected
and ridiculed.
History
is
anything
but
rational, says
the
Underground
Man. Total
rationality
for
Chernyshevsky may
lead to
self-affirmation, action,
and
progress; but,
for
Dostoevsky
it means
self-annihilation,
inertia and
stagnation.
The
Underground
Man is
basically
honest
(he
tells us
he would not take
bribes,
at
any rate),
he is
intelligent,
he is
logical,
he likes to talk about him
self,
he is
self-indulgent,
and he desires
freedom;
these are all characteristics
of
Chernyshevsky's
"new men." He does want more from life than the
mere
satisfaction of
necessity
and this is also true of
Chernyshevsky's per
sonae who are allowed such whims as
cigar-smoking
and
buying
beautiful
boots.
Still,
there is an essential
difference,
dramatized
by
the characters'
highly divergent
total
personalities;
the
Underground
Man insists in defense
of his own
self-destruction that man's
irrational,
his whimsical side is
pri
mary,
that this is his
"advantageous advantage,"
whereas
Lopukhov
says,
perhaps
in defense of his own lack of
passion,
that man's
rational,
utilitar
ian side is
primary,
that his whims are mere weaknesses that attest to man's
humanity
and his less than
perfect present
state.
Egotism
is not
only logical,
but
good,
he tells
us,
and the
pursuit
of one's own
interest
inevitably
results
in what is best for
everyone.
The
Underground
Man
objects
to this
assump
tion
believing
that
egotism
not
only
leads man to strike out at others in mere
assertion of his
whims,
but also leads to self-torture as
his own
life so
graph
ically
demonstrates.
Chernyshevsky
would
argue
that the
Underground
Man
belongs
to the
previous generation
in which the few
thinking
men that
existed were
exceptions
"and as
such felt their isolation and
weakness;
hence their
inertia,
their
ennui,
their
exaltation,
their
romanticism,
their
whimsicality" (p. 174).
From this statement it would seem that
Chernyshev
sky accepts
the
Underground
Man as an
historical
phenomenon
and the
product
of social circumstances.
Dostoevsky, however,
has no such
sym
pathy
for the "new men." The
Underground
Man is not
Lopukhov's
and
Kirsanov's
predecessor,
but rather the unfortunate victim of their ideas.
The difference in
personality
between
Lopukhov
and the
Underground
Man shows
up quite clearly
in a
comparison
of their reactions to a similar
incident.
Chernyshevsky openly
states that this
happening
will illustrate
26 COLLEGE LITERATURE
how bold and resolute
[Lopukhov was] knowing
what to do under all
circumstances,
and
doing
it with
a
strong
arm
when
necessary" (p. 174).
Thus, Lopukhov
refuses to turn aside when
a
presumptuous
man
gets
in his
way,
a small scuffle
ensues,
and
Lopukhov
throws the man in the
gutter,
then
helps
him
up
and
wipes
him off. The
Underground Man,
on
the other
hand,
is
anything
but bold and
resolute, though
he would like to be
just
that. Out of
pure masochism,
he tests himself to
keep
from
flinching
when
an
officer
by
whom he had
previously
been affronted
approaches
him on
the street. One side of him dreams of
a duel in which he will
romantically
prove
his
mettle,
the other
realistically imagines
that he will
only
be
laughed
at.
Still,
after months of
failures,
he
finally
and
unexpectedly
makes
up
his
mind and
successfully bumps
into the officer. He is
delighted
with himself
and feels that his human
dignity
has been
avenged.
Of
course,
the mood
soon
passes
as
he sinks back into
self-degradation.
Both incidents are absurd. If
Lopukhov
is so sure
of
himself, why
bother
to
prove it;
it would
certainly
be more reasonable to move and let the man
pass
in
peace. Dostoevsky
has taken this
suggestion
of
irrationality
and
carried it to the extreme. If one remembers that
Chernyshevsky
earlier
wrote that
a
man's actions are
determined
by
influences outside
himself,
then this
seeming
act of self-confidence becomes
entirely meaningless.
Dos
toevsky
seizes on this
irony
as
symptomatic
of the human
condition;
man is
both
a
fly
and an
individual,
a
realist and
a
romantic.
Lopukhov
would not
be
exempt
from this
analysis,
but
Chernyshevsky
is too blinded
by
his own
faith in reason to see the contradictions inherent in his own characters.
Another
apparent point
of
agreement,
from which
opposite judgements
are
reached,
is the
importance
of environment in
shaping
an
individual. Al
though
the "new men" arose in
spite
of their environment and were de
termined instead
by
the needs of the historical
process, they
themselves
excuse
others for their sins
by placing
the blame on the environment.
Chernyshevsky
devotes a whole
chapter
to such a
justification
of Maria
Alexevena's
wickedness,
then
optimistically prophecies that,
in
time,
all evil
will
disappear.
Dostoevsky
admits a certain amount of
determinism,
but derives from
this a
very
different
explanation
of wickedness. Man does not do evil be
cause he has
to,
but
merely
to
prove
that he can.
Actually,
evil is the man
ifestation of the
original
sin which
every
man
has inherited. The
rationality
of the "new
men," however,
is environmental and not
natural; they
are
the
products
of
Petersburg,
"the most abstract and intentional
city
in the
world"
(p. 6). Thus,
in each novel environment is held
responsible
for a
negative condition,
but the nature of the
negative changes.
In one case it is
irrational
evil,
in the other it is conscious
philosophizing.
What man is
by
nature in relation to what
society
makes of
him,
as assessed
by Chernyshev
sky,
is reversed
by Dostoevsky,
who
depicts
irrational man
forced into a ra
tionality
which conflicts with his natural inclinations.
Both
Chernyshevsky
and
Dostoevsky
use
the
example
of
a
potentially
good girl
driven to
prostitution by
circumstances
beyond
her control to
illustrate their theories on environment and man's natural
capacity
for love.
Chernyshevsky
tells the
simple story
of
a
young prostitute who,
through
the
influence of the
good
Kirsanov, gives up
her wicked
ways
and is even re
stored to
maidenly
bashfulness. With Kirsanov she finds love and
happi
ness,
but it is too
late;
the
damage
has
already
been done since she is
dying
of
consumption.
Dostoevsky
takes this so-called rational
story
and turns it inside out in
mockery
of its
irrationality
and romanticism. Kirsanov has
given
the
pros
titute
money
to
buy
her
way
out of the brothel and is thus
amending
the
specific
circumstance
responsible
for her
enslavement;
the
Underground
Man
gives
his
prostitute money
to
pervert
and humiliate her and is thus rein
forcing
her
position.
In this
relationship,
the
Underground
Man is the
diseased
party;
his
inability
to love is as incurable as Nastenka's
consump
tion. At
first,
the
Underground
Man
plays
the
part
of
savior;
he
spouts
off
romantic notions of love and
marriage
and
gets
so
caught up
with his own
sentimentality
that he cannot
stop
himself. But then
reality returns,
and he
realizes that such
eloquence
is all a lie. He wants to believe that he is able to
feel,
that he was
expressing
a truth in which he
actually
had
faith,
but he
cannot shut out the
recognition
that the ideas he
expressed
came
straight
out
of novels and
certainly
not out of his heart. When Liza comes to his house
the tables are turned. She offers him
love,
not "fine
sentiments,"
but he is
humiliated
by
the threat of her
power
over him and retreats into the
safety
of
cynicism. Theoretically,
he
agrees
with the books which
preach
that
"true salvation from
any
sort of ruin.
. .
is contained in love"
(p. Ill)
but
he's too afraid of
intimacy
to see
beyond
the threat of sexual domination.
Ironically, Chernyshevsky's
work better illustrates the
sustaining
force of
love, though
he
might argue
that reason could do the
job equally
well. Per
haps earthly
love can be effective
against
social
evil,
but the
profound
intel
lectual evil of which the
Underground
Man is a
victim cannot be reached
by
romanticism or
rationalism.
Only
an exalted
power
which transcends the
"cheap happiness"
that Nastenka finds can cure
the
Underground
Man's
sickness?the
"leap
of faith" which saves
later Dostoevskian
protagonists.
Environmental influence also relates to the
problem
of inertia. For
Chernyshevsky
there is a
distinction between the inertia of Maria Alexevna
and the
superfluity
of
Serge.
Both are
capable
of action
but,
in the one
case,
poverty precludes morally good activity, and,
in the
other,
wealth results in
a
preoccupation
with the useless.
Chernyshevsky
also
distinguishes
between
less than
good,
but
excusable, activity,
and the
problem
of boredom which
cannot be blamed on
environment and
is, therefore, unpardonable.
One has
only
to
keep occupied,
there are
"many things
to be done"
(p. 334),
Beaumont tells Katerina Vassilevna. How a man uses his time
beyond
the
fulfillment of
necessity
is
a
mark of his
individuality
and
an
exercise of his
free will. Work
protects
not
only against boredom,
but also
against sorrow;
it is the best
buttress, preaches Chernyshevsky, against
the
power
of
pas
sion.
The
Underground
Man's inertia does not fit in
any
of the above
catego
ries,
for it
posits
an
inability
to act.
Dostoevsky places
action and
hypercon
sciousness in
opposition
and
argues
that inertia is the direct result of the na
ture of
contemporary thought. People
who think
recognize
that
they
are
facing
a wall built out of the irrefutable laws of materialism and common
sense. If one
knows that this wall is
insurmountable,
one will not bother to
act, says
the
Underground
Man. The normal
men
who do not
think,
how
ever,
are
nonplussed by
the
wall,
because
they
do not realize that their ac
tions
are
predetermined. Naively believing
that
they
are
free,
such
men can
act,
while the
thinking
man is enslaved
by
his own
knowledge. Chernyshev
sky,
who believes that
thinking
is the natural act of a normal
man
living
in a
healthy
utilitarian
environment,
stands in direct
opposition
to the Under
ground Man,
who believes that
thinking
is the abnormal act of a
hypercon
scious
man
living
in an unnatural and abstract environment.
Thinking
is
essential to
positive
action
according
to
Chernyshevsky;
it
precludes
it
according
to
Dostoevsky,
who insists on the inevitable
gap
between reflec
tion and action.
The
thinking
man
may
also be a
suffering
man
floundering
in a sea of
doubts. Such
suffering actually
takes the
place
of action and
gives
a
purpose
of sorts to the life of the
Underground
Man. For the "new men" who are
incapable
of
doubting, suffering
is the most useless and
stupid
of human
activities.
They argue
that
suffering,
sacrifices and
privations
are absurd for
the
average man;
the desire to be
happy
is sufficient and
indispensable
to a
good
life. This is the sum of
Chernyshevsky's opinion
on this
subject.
Dos
toevsky, however,
has a
great
deal more to
say
about it. "Man is sometimes
fearfully, passionately
in love with
suffering
and that is
a
fact."
Moreover,
and this is
a
direct refutation of
Chernyshevsky, "suffering (not reason)
is
the sole
origin
of consciousness"
(p. 31).
Consciousness will
bring
man to
the laws of reason but it will also allow him to hit his head
against
the wall a
few times
just
to make
sure
that he is alive. The
surety
and faith in reason
exhibited
by
the "new men"
represents sterility
to the
Underground
Man.
To him it seems
the end rather than the
beginning
of life. Man needs to stick
a
pin
in himself
every
now and then to know that he is awake.
Suffering
for
the
Underground Man,
like work for
Katerina,
is an exercise of freedom in
that it is a
consciously
chosen alternative to boredom.
Man's freedom is limited
by predetermined
forces both internal and ex
ternal. This tenet of
empiricism
is
accepted by Chernyshevsky
and Dostoev
sky. However, Dostoevsky
finds
a
paradox
between this fact and the im
plications
of
individualism,
while
Chernyshevsky
works out a neat
system
to account for the contradiction.
According
to
Chernyshevsky,
man must
work to feed
himself,
he must have
pleasure
to fulfill other natural and
organic needs,
but he is free to do what he wants with the time that remains.
He can
spend
it alone or in
company,
or
he
can even
sleep excessively
as
Vera does. For
Dostoevsky
the answer cannot be so
simple;
such a
pat
solu
tion evades the real issue and does not come to
grips
with
reality.
The
ques
tion of freedom versus
authority is,
in a
sense,
"the"
question
for Dos
toevsky.
Freedom is the more
terrifying alternative;
it throws immense re
sponsibility
on the individual so that he
eventually
feels that he has been
condemned to be free. And
yet,
to
accept authority
is to be a
slave,
not a
man. In Notes
from Underground
the
problem
of freedom is
pitted against
the
particular authority
of science
(in
other of
Dostoevsky's
novels the
authority
of the Church
or
of the Tsar is at
issue).
Man is faced with
being
an
organ stop.
He
can rebel
against
such a state and live in
self-torment,
or
accept
it and live in
tranquillity.
The
Underground
Man
recognizes
no
authority;
he is aware of the laws of
materialism,
but he will not allow them to limit his freedom. His
ultimate
self-annihilation and realization that he himself is
nothing,
"neither
spiteful
nor
kind,
neither
a
rascal nor an
honest
man,
neither
a
hero nor an
insect"
(p. 5),
undermines the value of his freedom. The
petty
acts of rebellion he
performs
and his own
masochism, only
result in
solipcism
and exhaustion.
At
forty,
he is an old man
out of breath.
Despite
these
traits,
the Under
ground
Man
emerges
as a
hero.
Though
he knows that
independence
does
not free
man,
but
only
makes him
cry
louder for
controls, and,
that he him
self,
in
trying
to
get
at his own
reality,
is
rotting away
in a corner
divorced
from
reality; still,
he cannot
complacently accept
this
plight.
He feels that
he is better than other
men,
because he has carried to an extreme what
they
have not even
dared to
attempt.
To
him,
their
good
sense seems
cowardly
and
self-deceiving;
his own
rebellion
is,
if
nothing else,
a
sign
of life and a
paradoxical
affirmation of man's
dignity.
Chernyshevsky,
on the
contrary,
believes that in a
totally
rational world
ordered
by
natural
laws,
man will have
complete
freedom.
However,
this is
freedom from
want,
not freedom to act. In
addition, Chernyshevsky
reasons that all action is
entirely
dictated
by
the force of events and the
influences under which
they
occur. Even in
turning
the leaves of a music
book free will is
meaningless,
"if
you
turn
without
thinking
about
it, you
turn with the hand which it is more convenient for
you
to use. There is no
good pleasure
in that. But if
you say:
T am
going
to turn with the
right
hand,' you
will turn with the
right
hand under the influence of that
idea;
now that idea
sprang
not from
your good pleasure
but
necessarily
from an
other
thought" (p. 84).
Circumstance
plus
the laws of one's own na
ture?there is
nothing
more to human action than that.
Chernyshevsky
does
not find
any
contradiction between this materialism and human
freedom;
Dostoevsky
does. He would
argue
that the conscious decision to turn the
page
with the inconvenient hand
might
be
an
assertion of freedom and that
such willfulness is much more than circumstance. Freedom from
necessity
is
not true freedom
according
to
Dostoevsky;
conscious
irrationality may
be:
. . .
give
him such economic
prosperity
that he would have
nothing
else to do
but
sleep,
eat cakes and
busy
himself with
ensuring
the continuation of world
history
and even then
man,
out of sheer
ingratitude,
sheer
libel,
would
play
you
some loathsome trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliber
ately
desire the most fatal
rubbish,
the most uneconomical
absurdity, simply
to introduce into all this
positive rationality
his fatal fantastic element. If it is
just
his fantastic
dreams,
his
vulgar folly,
that he will desire to
retain, simply
in order to
prove
to himself
(as though
that
were so
necessary)
that men
still
are men and not
piano keys,
which even if
played by
the laws of nature them
selves threaten to be controlled
so
completely
that soon one will be able to de
sire
nothing
but
by
the calendar.
And,
after
all,
that is not
all;
even if man
really
were
nothing
but a
piano key,
even if this were
proved
to him
by
na
tural science and
mathematics,
even then he would not become
reasonable,
but would
purposely
do
something perverse
out of sheer
ingratitude, simply
to have his own
way. (pp. 27-28)
Dostoevsky
not
only negates Chernyshevsky's
faith in the
inevitability
of
his
Utopia,
he also attacks the
very desirability
of such a world. In her
fourth
dream,
Vera Pavlovna
sees a
crystal palace (not
unlike that of the
1861 London
exhibition) representing
the culmination of man's technical
achievements and the
perfectability
of his world. In this
Utopia only
the
memory
of free and
willing work,
of
satisfaction,
of
good
and of
enjoyment
will
exist;
here
only
the
expectation
of the same
things
in the future will
exist. The
people
will have a
healthy
and
strong
desire for
merriment,
and
powerful
health and
physical
labor will be united with
delicacy
of
feeling.
This will be the
reign
of
Chernyshevsky's goddess. Everything
will be done
for
her,
as she becomes the
goal
of life itself.
And,
in this
world, governed
by
"Love of
Mankind," everything
will be radiant and
beautiful;
this
crys
tal will allow of no
imperfections. Dostoevsky manages
to deflate this
golden
dream with
one
sharp
stab: "Of course there is no
guaranteeing
that
it will not
be,
for
instance, terribly boring
then"
(p. 22).
He then turns
Chernyshevsky's
beautiful linear
progression
into a circle
by suggesting
that
in the midst of all this
rationality people
will start
sticking gold pins
into
each other out of sheer boredom. With this
blow,
the rational world is de
stroyed,
and
man is restored to his own foolish self.
Dostoevsky objects
to the
very
idea of
a
crystal palace.
He
points
out that
utilitarians
say
that a
building
should serve to
keep
man from
getting
wet. If
this is so a chicken
coop
would be as useful
as a
palace.
Dostoevsky
then
attacks it
as a false
ideal,
for instead of
satisfying
man's most basic desire
for
freedom,
it deludes him into
thinking
he is free
merely
because he is no
longer hungry.
The
Underground
Man has no
gratitude
for
food;
he wants
something
more;
he wants to be able to stick out his
tongue
at whatever he
pleases
and believes that the freedom to do
so is more
important
to man
than the most "sublime and beautiful"
pleasures
attainable
through
mod
ern
technology.
If the
Underground
Man seems
overly
vehement in his
negation
of a rule
of
reason,
one must remember that he is a
tormented soul and that his
words are not
necessarily Dostoevsky's
own. It is
possible, however,
to re
gard
the "new men" as
mouthpieces
for
Chernyshevsky's
ideas. Both
authors,
in
writing
the
types
of works
they have,
reveal a
degree
of self-con
sciousness which makes it difficult to isolate them
totally
from their char
acters. This awareness of themselves is a direct effect of their
environment;
both would
agree
that the times
are,
in
fact,
characterized
by
a "mania for
undressing [one's] feelings" (p. 278), though
the
Underground
Man also
says
that
hyperconsciousness
is a
disease and turns a man's life into
a
hell of
unsatisfied desires.
Ironically,
it is
Chernyshevsky
who has not been self
conscious
enough,
who has not
fully
tested his ideas
against
his own
experi
ence as a
writer;
whereas
Dostoevsky
has been
overly
self-conscious and
has,
as a result of his
skepticism,
undermined his own faith.
Perhaps
the
Underground
Man is more of a
self-portrait
than
Dostoevsky
intends and
perhaps Chernyshevsky
is less like
Lupokhov
and Kirsanov than he thinks.
At
any rate,
there is a
side of both authors that
emerges
in
spite
of their
intentions and it is this factor that
qualifies Dostoevsky's spiritualism
as
well as
Chernyshevsky's logic.
What is to be Done?
was written
as a manifesto of
rationality,
an outline
of what would
happen
as historical
inevitability,
and also
as a
guideline
for
what should be done to
help
the
inevitability along. Chernyshevsky
tries to
account for the
paradox by referring
to the men he describes
as
exceptions;
they
form a
kind of
elite,
a
chosen few. This still does not account for the
creation of
Rakhmetov,
the Christ-like
figure
whose self-sacrific and as
ceticism follows the tradition of the Russian orthodox monk. "No
luxury,
no
caprices, nothing
but the
necessary" (p. 231) might
be the motto of
a
utilitarian as well
as a
hermit,
but the self-trial of
sleeping
on a bed of nails
is
something inexplicable
in a world
governed by
self-interest.
Chernyshev
sky attempts
to
justify
the existence of Rakhmetov
by talking
of his critical
role:
through
men like him the life of all mankind
expands,
without them it
would be
stifled; they
are the best of the best. The real
explanation
un
doubtedly
lies in
Chernyshevsky's
own
religious upbringing
and education.
Franco Venturi tells us that
even as late
as
1848
Chernyshevsky
was fearful
"of
following
the
logical consequences
of his
philosophic
studies and
abandoning
the
religious
life which
was so
closely
bound to his
family
and
childhood."5
Moreover,
the concern and love for mankind which his
political
activities and his
willingness
to risk exile
(he
did
spend twenty years
in
Siberia) demonstrate, argue
for less
egotism
and a more altruistic
spirit
than the writer admits.
Dostoevsky,
of
course,
does
acknowledge
his own desires for faith.
Through
the tormented
utterings
of the
Underground
Man one hears
a
lim
ited human
being crying
for divine
guidance
that will lead him out of his
corner
(as
Vera's first dream showed her the
way
out of her
cellar),
but one
whose excessive
rationality prevents
him from ever
finding
true faith. Dos
toevsky
believes that
man cannot
rationally
choose God. If one tries to do
so,
one will be answered with the humanitarian
arguments
of an Ivan Kar
amazov or a
Dr.
Rieux,
who condemn God's existence in a
world where
innocent children are allowed to die.
Dostoevsky
wants the
Underground
Man's
tragic plight
to demonstrate our need to choose God over
self;
man
must suffer and be humiliated while
plagued
with doubts before revelation
comes,
he teaches. The
danger is, then,
that one will be
tempted by
the
easy
solution offered
by
reason and will
accept knowledge
in
place
of
God,
a
temptation against
which
Dostoevsky
himself
was not
wholly
immune. Dos
toevsky's
entire career as a
writer
was
plagued by
confusion created
by
his
once
passionate acceptance
of atheistic socialism and his
equally passionate
experience
of Christ's radiant and marvelous
image.
In 1854 he wrote to a
friend,
"I will tell
you
regarding myself
that I am a child of the
age,
a
child
of nonbelief and
doubt, up
till
now and even
(I
know
it)
until
my
coffin
closes."6 Yet we know from his
biographers,
his novels and his
Diary of
a
Writer that a
highly mystic
and
tormenting religiosity
was
always
a
part
of
him even as a child and
especially
after the trauma of his father's violent
murder at the hands of his own
peasants.
On the other
hand, though
the fa
mous mock execution and four
years
of
penal
servitude
triggered
a
spiritual
regeneration,
he never
absolutely rejected
his
previous religious
renuncia
tions.
Dostoevsky's
and
Chernyshevsky's
beliefs form a dialectic of
faith;.they
also form
a
dialectic of socialism. And
though
we must
qualify
their
per
sonal
convictions,
their
public,
if
fictional,
voices
place
in direct
opposition
secular and
religious Utopias.
Each of these "authors"
strongly
believes
that the other's
position
is
pernicious
in
regard
to the welfare of mankind.
Thus, Chernyshevsky
is most
polemic
when
insisting
on the
stupidity
and
absurdity
of
self-sacrifice,
as
Dostoevsky
is when
attacking
the
perverted
values idealized
by
the
prophets
of
reason,
the builders of the
"crystal pal
ace."
Dostoevsky
believes that human
dignity
is the most
precious
and
impossible
of human
dreams,
and that human
happiness
cannot be defined
in material terms.
Chernyshevsky
believes that a
well-paying job,
a com
fortable
life,
and freedom from economic and social evils will liberate man
and make him content.
Chernyshevsky
insists that
good
sense,
egotism
and
a
rationally
based environment will
prevent
human
suffering
and doubt.
Dostoevsky
insists that man
enjoys suffering
and rebellion for its own
sake,
that he would rather live in a dark and
dingy
corner than
a
well-planned
lovely palace, perhaps
so he can fantisize about
a
better world.
Cherny
shevsky
finds the "farther
we
advance in
life,
the better it becomes"
(p.
354). Dostoevsky equates progress
with a
greater
refinement in human
maladies and
cruelty (p. 21).
NOTES
1 Konstantin
Mochulsky, Dostoevsky:
His
Life
and
Works,
tr. Michael A. Mini
nan
(Princeton University Press, 1967), p.
243.
2 Martin E.
Malia,
"Adulthood Refracted: Russia and Leo Tolstoi" in Daedalus
105
(Spring 1976), pp.
169-183.
3 N. G.
Chernyshevsky,
What is to be
Done?,
tr. E. H. Carr
(New
York: Random
House, 1961), p.
175.
Subsequent
references to this edition will
appear
in the
text.
4
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Notes
from Underground,
tr.
Ralph
E. Matlaw
(New
York:
Dutton, 1960), p.
18.
Subsequent
references to this edition will
appear
in
the text.
5
Quoted by
Franco
Venturi,
Roots
of
Revolution
(New
York: Alfred A.
Knopf,
1960), p.
134. Venturi's work offers the best account in
English
of
Chernyshev
sky's
life and work.
6 Letter to the wife of the Decembrist Fonvizin in 1854
quoted by Mochulsky, p.
119. See
Mochulsky pp.
114-133 for
an
excellent account of
Dostoevsky's
revolutionary
activities as an
atheist socialist.
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Dostoevsky Vs Chernevshyvsky

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Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" versus Chernyshevsky's "What Is to Be Done?

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