Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
5124620 Russian Literature 2016 12 Pages PDF
Abstract

This article considers Dostoevskii's story 'Gospodin Prokharchin' (1846) as an early expression of the “underground” motif most fully represented in Zapiski iz podpol'ia (1864); key features of the archetypal image of “underground” man embodied in the character of Mr. Prokharchin, a low clerk, are analyzed. The author explores the specific type of “underground”, the “underground” of a miser, who protests against God's world by accumulation of wealth, who realizes disparity between himself and his Man-god ideal, torturing himself for this and, at the same time, for living in isolation from society, and finally dies in his “underground” isolation.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities Language and Linguistics
Authors
,