The Underground Man

Thought is what drives the underground man. He thinks about every single thing that he takes part in. Int he first part of Notes from the Underground the Underground Man discusses the differences between active men and men of acute consciousness. The underground man decides that he is a many of acute consciousness. This fits his following actions to a t. The first time where the underground man over thinks things is when he has a run in with the police officer. He gets pushed out of the way, and after that he feels like the police officer didn't even realize he was standing there. Then he started thinking that everyone hates him, and that he wants people to realize him. All of these inward feelings brew until he decides to take revenge against the officer. Also, revenge was a topic that was discussed in part 1.

Another moment where he over thought about what was happening was when he went to the dinner. First off, everyone was late, so he was convinced all of the waiters were thinking he was an odd man for being there alone, waiting on all of the other guests. Then, when the other guests finally arrived, he spent half of the dinner passing around the dining room because everyone was ignoring him. If he was an active man, he would have just gotten up and left, but instead he sat there thinking about everything he thought the other guests were thinking about. It ended up getting him extremely upset. After everyone left dinner, and he decided to join them at the brothel, he spent the whole carriage ride playing out what was going to happen next. He went through all of the possibilities.

These actions that took place fall into exactly what he was talking about in part 1. He really isn't an active man, but a man who over thinks things instead.

Rooster

Mattie recruits Rooster to help her find the killer of her father. Rooster is a marshal who isn't afraid to use his powers and title. If he ever feels threatened, he shoots the man in his way, and then is easily able to justify it as self defense. When he is in the court room, he nonchalantly confesses to having killed 23 people within 6 years of being a marshal, and doesn't seem to think anythingg is wrong with it because it did them all in " self defense." In fact, he feels so strongly about it not being a big deal that he uses comedy in the middle of being questioned, even though his status of being a marshal is on the line.

I don't know how I feel about him yet, because when Mattie asked for his help he wasn't very kind to her. First he made fun of her carrying around a huge gun because he didn't think she was capable of it Secondly, he said he wouldn't help her, even though she has a reason for hunting this man down. He thought she was incapable of providing the 50 dollars she promised, and once she found the guy, he didn't think she could do anything about it. The only thing that caused him to change the mind was when she mentioned that hemight be able to find a guy he was looking for on the search. This makes it appear that he is very selfish because the only time he even thought about helping was when he had the opportunity to settle his revenge.

the Underground Man

From what we have read so far, we know that the underground man is a middle aged man, who used to be an officer. As of right now, he is sick with a liver disease, but he doesn’t want to get it fixed. Also, he is an educated man, and we know this because he talks about how his knowledge has taught him not to be superstitious.

So far, I think that he is very hard headed. Also, I think he is a wanna be. He gives off the impression that he is some tough guy who you don’t want to mess with, but I don’t think that is the case. Sometimes he contradicts himself, which makes it seem like he doesn’t know what he really wants. He tries to ask like he is intimidating by saying “sometimes I slap myself in the face”, and “I enjoy being rude to people,” but I think that is just a cover up for who he really is. The way he made a point of repeating the parts where he was being rude, and brave, gave me this impression. Sometimes when people want to believe something, they just say it a bunch of times, and sooner or later they will believe it.

The underground man is also hard headed. The first paragraph talks about how he has know he has been sick for 20 years, but he still refuses to go to the doctor. He made a point to say he didn’t want to live past 40, but I think that is because he is scared. He knows he is very sick and chances are he won’t live much longer, so the easiest thing for him to do is make living into old age an awful thing to do. Something that people would hate doing.