One of the most revolutionary of Dostoyevsky’s novels, Notes from Underground was first published in 1864. Considered as one of the earliest existentialist novels, it explores the life of an unnamed narrator, an ex-official, who has retreated underground as a protest against the social utopia. Through one of the most celebrated characters in literature, the unnamed narrator, Dostoevsky brings forth the nuanced existence of the society’s moral expectations. In a complete fall out from the society, the novel’s anti-hero, or otherwise known as the underground man, writes a passionate, subversive and self-opposing account that examines the moral and intellectual fluctuations of the narrator and celebrates man’s inherently illogical nature.
