(1864) is a milestone in Dostoyevsky's creation, the first of his important late works, a manifesto novella that links the past and the future, and it can be said that it is his five mature novels in the future. The general preface of the novel (, "The Idiot", "Youth",).Such a work, with its profound philosophy, deep thinking, and peculiar structure, cannot be overestimated.But this work, for a long time, has been neglected and even derogated by people. It is based on Gorky's report at the first All-Soviet Writers Congress.Gorky said that the hero of the novel is "a typical egoist, a typical social degenerate"; Dostoevsky created this character "with a sense of personal misfortune and suffering, for his own youth. The victorious mood of a man who is obsessed with vengeance insatiably."Then he added: "People insist that Dostoevsky is a seeker of truth. If he did seek—then he found the truth in man's beastly, animal instinct. And not for not to refute, but to find it for its defense."

First of all, we have to make it clear that "The Man in the Basement" is a literary image, and the viewpoint of "The Man in the Basement" is not exactly Dostoevsky's viewpoint.Although Dostoevsky also added some of his own thoughts and feelings to the character he created, he is not Dostoevsky after all.This is also the artistic feature of Dostoyevsky's "polyphonic novels": placing the characters in the main position and having a dialogue with them, so that the novel has many independent voices; the author is telling the story of the protagonist, but he uses completely The protagonist's own language and concepts.The equating of the "underground man" with Dostoevsky did not begin with Gorky, and there are many precedents in the history of Russian literature.

Secondly, what Dostoevsky created was not a "typical model of social degenerates", but a typical model of most Russian intellectuals at that time. In 1875, Dostoyevsky wrote in the draft of "Youth Preface": "I am proud that I was the first to shape the real Russian majority, and first to expose their ugliness and tragedy. Their tragedy consists in realizing their own ugliness.... I am the only one who has described the tragedy of the basement in the form of inner pain, self-punishment, awareness of a beautiful ideal and not being able to live up to it, and mainly these misfortunes who are convinced that everyone is like that, and therefore it's not worth changing!" Finally, he added, "what causes basement hikikomori" is "self-abnegation and a disbelief in common norms. 'There is nothing sacred.'"

The evil of the "basement man" and the despicableness of the "basement man" are not due to his nature, but because of the evil society.Look, "The Basement Man" finally says bitterly: "They won't let me...I can't be a...good guy!" What a heartbreaking wail! Lu Xun said it well: "The interrogator of a person's soul must also be a great prisoner. The interrogator impeaches his evil in the hall, and the prisoner expresses his own goodness in the steps; the interrogator exposes the filth in the soul. , the prisoner illuminates the buried brilliance in the filth revealed. In this way, the depth of the soul is revealed."

The "basement man" is poor and lonely, living in a basement in Petersburg.He was originally a frustrated poor official who had experienced ups and downs, suffered humiliation and discrimination, and accumulated too much resentment in his heart.He is thoughtful, insightful and cynical.But he is weak by nature, unable to change the world or himself.Therefore, all kinds of pressure from the outside world can only be submissive, or even go along with it.He longs for "beauty and sublime", but he does only evil things.He wants to show off his personality and pursue freedom of personality, but what he yearns for is to do whatever he wants and do whatever he wants.He realizes his despicableness, but is willing to degenerate.He has a rich mind, but belittles reason, preferring to be a lunatic without reason.Why?Perhaps it is still the old saying in our country: it is difficult to be smart, it is difficult to be confused, and it is even more difficult to turn from being smart to being confused.In his own words, it was "too much to be aware of—and a disease, a real, downright disease."

As a Russian scholar put it, the "underground man" is Russia's Hamlet.But this Hamlet is not a Danish prince, not a Russian landowner or aristocrat, but a poor Russian official or civilian intellectual, a "rat with strong consciousness", a "coward and slave". In addition, the "basement man" is also a deformation of the image of the "superfluous man" in Russia.Dostoevsky himself pointed out the connection between the two in a footnote to the first part of the publication of Time magazine, and called this type of superfluous people "anti-heroes".The so-called "anti-hero" is "non-hero", which combines the two poles of opposites into one.This is also a typical feature of the "carnivalized" character image.In my opinion, Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, and Ivan and Dmitry can also be called this kind of "anti-heroes".

The superfluous people described by Pushkin, Lermontov, and Turgenev all have a kind of spiritual beauty and noble behavior (although there is no shortage of arrogance), but Dostoevsky's "basement man" is morally corrupt and despicable .The redundant people are out of line with their words and deeds, but the "basement people" are constantly filthy, sleeping in flowers and willows, staying with prostitutes and whoring.He is full of "beauty and sublime", but he is doing bad things.In fact, it is "Confessions of a Superfluous Man". "The Man in the Basement" said of himself: "A decent man with a developed mind cannot have vanity if he does not demand himself infinitely, and sometimes despise himself to the point of abhorrence.  … …I am a sickly high-minded person, as is often the case with modern-day high-minded people.” Here is a great maggot who dared to call himself a maggot.For Dostoevsky, such tragic attitudes are typical of certain "good" superfluous human beings.In a letter to Turgenev, Dostoevsky said of the latter's novel: "...it is too realistic. This reality is a man living in our time with a developed mind and insight into everything. sorrow, a sorrow seen and felt." The same applies to his own.

A senior Russian scholar who studied Dostoevsky said: "It is one of Dostoyevsky's most explicit works. After that, he never disclosed his innermost feelings so openly and bluntly. This is the first time that Dostoevsky criticized socialism and publicly advocated self-centered and amoral individualism." ("Dostoevsky Biography", Foreign Literary Publishing House) these words are quite alarmist.Dostoevsky just said that the world is complicated, not as simple as two two makes four, and there is no all-encompassing and immutable law to follow; people are also complicated and cannot be changed by education alone. Because people have individuality, have their own independent personality, and sometimes have a rebellious mentality, knowing that it is not good, and it is not good for them, but they do it on purpose.Therefore, the "happiness system" formulated by some people "only based on scientific and rational principles" is just a fantasy and cannot be realized.Didn't we also say that Fourier's theory and Chernyshevsky's program are utopian socialism!Did Dostoevsky have the foresight to say what was on his mind, and make a big mistake? !

Finally, in , Dostoevsky prominently uses the "counterpoint" in music, that is, "polyphonic music" or "polyphonic novel" that expresses people's complex psychological feelings: in different ways, through Different characters, multiple voices expressing the same theme, agree and disagree with each other.The painful psychology of the prostitute Lisa is consistent with the cynicism of the protagonist in the novel because of being bullied by people, but his self-esteem makes him turn from resentment to hatred and becomes fierce, which is inconsistent with Lisa's pain.The human heart is as vast and unfathomable as the sea.

The depth of the human heart, the suffering of the human heart, the helplessness and tragedy of the human heart are beyond the comprehension of ordinary people.