Karl Heinrich Marx and Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky were both born and lived roughly at the same

time and for nearly the same number of years. While Marx was a theorist, Dostoevsky was a Novelist, but it is well known that these are just forms, and that truths within each exist and are expressed differently, here as ideology, politica, and social theory, there as a narrative in fragments forming a short novel. In 1864 Dostoevsky published his novella, that in English is translated as Notes from the Underground, which will be the focus text for this essay, and I will focus on the undeground mans theory of himself in light of Marxist theory, which has helped in elucidating in part the novella. The goal of this essay is to show how Marxist theory, which in historical terms emerged at around the same time as Dostoevskys novels of which Notes from the Underground will be the focus, helps elucidate certain areas of the text. In isolation the novel is more than capable of standing alone, but with the intention of delving deeper into it, Marxist theory and the person of Karl Marx is undeniably at the foreground. Common interpretations of Dostoevskys novel include the underground man (thereafter referred to as UGM) as a spiteful man, based on his own testimony of himself, a bored, oppressed member of a society, which, in the most part, ignores him and that he is alienated to. The UGM is always focusing on the darker side of things, spite, remorse, moaning, filth, being trappes; the things he is complaining about and those which bother him most and he is stuck amidst all of it with no way out and no alternatives. This is simply his human condition, which he is at times acutely aware of and in revolt to and at others just floating on amidst it all, continually banging against an immaterial wall. The UGM is writing these notes in order to explain his situation, , according to the author, as well as, I believe, to simply state, I am, I exist acknowledge me. This is his socially symbolic act. Seen from anothers perspective it is also a cry for help, and acceptance as is. The novel is therefore dubbed an Existentialist novel, the traditions first according to many scholars. (citation) His experience of philosophy, or even being over-philosophical, is a result of repression, as he puts it, a result of 40 years underground! (19).

Marxist ideas are apparent throughout, including alienation, class struggle, and above all the concept of false consciousness or, as it has later come to be known, bad faith. (cite sartre and marxist sources). The UGM is evidently, and in accordance with his own view of himself, an educated man with a clear idea of what is going on around him, in his immediate circle of contacts as well as in the rest of the world. Evidence of this is found in his awareness overseas issues such as the SchleswigHolstein question occuring in Denmark, and he makes many remarks with regards progress and European civilisation, besides his love for all which is sublime and beautiful (citation from notes from the underground). ( My first reading of the novel was when I was in my late teens. At that time my interpretation of it was in terms of my own life and experiences. And I read it again and again over the past couple of months, each time discovering new depths to it and what can be called causes for its emergence at the time it was published. ) The UGM talks about the pain, hurt, contempt, and endless spite of a mouse. He mentions the example of a man with a toothache whose moans of pain are humiliating to himself and to others, besides being intentionally abusive and spiteful, though this in my view is best interpreted as his revenge, if only symbolic, on his societal sphere and, through the novel, on the world at large. The UGM is neither a man with a toothache nor is he a mouse, yet he includes these as examples with which he corresponds on an entirely different level, farther removed from an immediate relation. From one perspective they all share a false concsiousness, as well as an experience of frustration and alienation. The mouse looks on himself as a mouse; no one asks him to do so. He is afflicted by nature itself, which the UGM finds to be rather insulting as well, and compares the laws of nature to a stonewall. Unlike Marxists who make use of nature and begin to make use of it as raw material, foundation, workspaceetc this mouse adds to its predicament, its already unfavourable state as mouse in the world, and the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that

there inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts, emotions, and of the contempt spat upon it by the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their healthy sides ache. (7). In short the mouse is the UGMs prime example of obsession and yearning. The only way out for the mouse really is through rebirth, if such a concept actually exists and goes beyond the realm of hope and motivation. The mouse continues to wallow while the man with a toothache moans not only as a man suffering from physical pain, but as a man affected by progress and European civilisation. (10) His moans resonate with those whose moans are caused by what he describes as the affectations of progress and European Civilzation, but who do not have an experience of physical pain as he does. Tis all moaning albeit of different causes. This man, like the UGM, is already in pain, in hurt, in negligence, and his toothache is only making it worse. As negative attention, his toothache and moaning thereof serve as a slap in the face which may bring him to sobriety with a hope of jumpstarting him into realising his true faults and the real causes of his pains and undesirable situation, his actual position in society, such that he may be able to locate the real root of the problem, the source of his pain, heal and rise with the tide. The UGM describes a certain man of action, also calling such a man the normal man. He envies the latters position in society and course of life, and while wishing he could be one, he continues to act as a mouse and suffers of that.

What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply INDEPENDENT choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice. (18) This is in contrast to Marxist ideas, which are, considering the very nature of a theory and its political implications, and

considering this particular theory and the rise, in its wake, of the communist party and of communism generally as a way of life, an alternative way of living than has previously been adopted, a system nonetheless, and it is with the very concept of system that the undergound man has his issues. Perhaps Engels would sympathise with the UGM whose existential position demands that his life is lived as he lived it and whos hope lies not in this life but, as he is offered by being the protagonist of a novella which has survuved to this day, in the course of history as it looks back in retrospect and put everything in its right place. Quoting Engels from a letter to Franz Mehring, history will set all this right in the end and by that time one will be safely round the corner and know nothing more about anything. (citation) The UGM, however, makes even this lifeline more inaccessible by seeing himself not as an undefined member but as a spiteful, diseased, sick man.

Lets take a look at Marx now, bones in a coffin six feet under; himself an undeground man in spite of his philosophy that lives on. With reference to Derridas Spectres of Marx, it is clear that Marx himself started off in a very similar position to Dostoevskys UGM. But, instead of wallowing and accepting his situation, seeing it from an existential point of view, Marx molded himself, rather, and more in accordance with his own ideas, accepted the mold he was in and worked from there to a philosophy, while also living a life more desirable than that of the UGM. The circumstances differ but similiarities exist nonetheless at least on an ideological (philosophical (?)) level. Marxs living conditions are far better, but still he was risking marginalization, and if it wasnt affecting him directly it would soon get to him too as the winds of change might have blown in different ways had Marx not harnessed them while chasing the specter that was haunting Europe (citation of specter haunting Europe) The UGM is aware of false consciousness and in the course of the novel discusses such attitudes as romanticism, yet another tradition whose participators (?) he envies. In fact he is so aware of false consciousness and insisits on holding his

ground, his beloved-but-stinking corner of a room in a city he is advised not to live in on an economical basis. His awareness of such false consciousness is on the basis that while he may be living a mess of a life this is no justification for someone else to go around poking their nose in it, as is already the case with the affects of progress and the European civilization, let alone to direct it for him thus denying him of the most minute of pleasures that he finds amidst the muck and tumult of his ongoing struggles.