Portrayal of The Protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'Notes From Underground'.

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ABSTRACT

Di dalam Tugas Akhir ini, saya akan membahas tentang penokohan dalam

novel Notes from Underground karya Fyodor Dostoevsky. Tokoh dalam novel

tersebut tidak mempunyai nama; dia hanya disebut sebagai manusia bawah tanah.

Hal ini disebabkan karena dia tinggal di bawah tanah.

Setelah membaca dan menganalisis novel tersebut, saya mendapati bahwa

tokoh dalam novel ini cukup aneh; keanehannya dapat dilihat dari tempat

tinggalnya yaitu di bawah tanah. Selain aneh tokoh ini juga digambarkan sebagai

seseorang yang mempunyai karakteristik yang negatif yaitu rendah diri,

mementingkan dirinya sendiri, membenci orang sekitarnya, suka menyakiti

perasaan orang lain, dan mempunyai imaginasi yang tinggi. Tetapi dibalik semua

karakteristiknya dia juga seseorang yang mandiri yang tidak bergantung pada

orang-orang di sekitarnya.

Melalui penggambaran tokoh utamanya, Fyodor Dostoevsky ingin

menyampaikan bahwa, orang seperti tokoh utama dalam novel ini, dapat memilih

jalan hidupnya sesuai dengan pilihannya dan menerima konsekuensinya yaitu

hidup sendiri di bawah tanah. Meskipun begitu dia menjalani hidupnya tanpa

bergantung pada orang lain dan tidak menyusahkan orang lain, dan dengan

imajinasinya pun dia mampu membantu dirinya dalam bertahan hidup sendiri di

bawah tanah.

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Maranatha Christian University

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APPENDICES

Synopsis of Notes from Underground

Notes from Underground is sbout a man who lives alone in the little corner

in St. Petersburg, Russia. The protagonist of the novel has no name and is called

the Underground man. He is forty-year old man and has been living in the

underground for a long time. In the underground he likes to read books and write

to omit his boredom. Then he starts to write about his life. He describes himself as

a sick person because of liver problem. He is an orphan and he likes to live alone.

In his childhood, he has no friends at school because his appearance is untidy and

nasty, different from others. He is always silent when his friends humiliate him,

and he feels angry but it is only in his mind. In fact he cannot get angry at them

and he cannot do anything.

One day his friend wants to make a farewell party, but they do not invite

him. The Underground man believes that he should come to the party so he invites

himself. After that, he and his friends go to a brothel where he meets Liza. He

falls in love with her but then he thinks that Liza has a bad intention. As he is

highly imaginative, he thinks negatively about her and makes her upset. In the end

she leaves him forever. He regrets what he has done, but he still chooses to stay in

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Biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia on October

31, 1821. Growing up in a relatively happy home, he probably felt closest to his

elder brother, Mikhail. By the age of 18, both of his parents died. His father was

supposedly murdered by one of his serfs. Soon Dostoevsky was sent to an

engineering school in St. Petersburg, the setting of most of his future novels.

Dostoevsky graduated from the St. Petersburg Military Engineering

Academy at the age of 22. Soon afterwards, he became a government employee,

working as a draftsman of sorts. He quickly joined a socialist organization. His

participation in the group led to his arrest in 1849. Sentenced to death by a firing

squad, Dostoevsky firmly believed his life to be over. Then at the last moment, his

sentence was changed to four years at the Siberian prison, followed by another

four years of military service.

By 1858, Dostoevsky was finally released from service, and it was at this

time that his famous works, including Notes from Underground and Crime and

Punishment, were written. Yet the famous Russian author’s hardships were far

from over, for he found himself in an incredible amount of family debt which

eventually led to a gambling problem. When first wife died, Dostoevsky fell in

love with and soon married the nineteen-year-old Anna Grigorevna Snitkina, a

stenographer. Before he died, however, Dostoevsky, probably for the first time in

his life, finally experienced the material success he had earned over the years

through his writing. Dostoevsky died in the winter of 1881, having been plagued

his entire life by severe health problems.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Fyodor Dostoevsky is a Russian novelist in the nineteenth century. He is

also a short story writer and a journalist. He is quite famous in his era and he is

one of the existentialist thinkers, who emphasize on individual existence, freedom,

and choice. He also likes to create mysterious characters almost in all his novels.

One mysterious character is the protagonist of Notes from Underground, a

novel that I choose to analyse in this thesis. In my opinion the characteristics of

the protagonist are hard to understand, as they are different from normal people’s.

He likes to be alone and avoids talking to others. I am challenged to find out the

reason behind his uncommon behavior, thus I will focus on the portrayal of the

protagonist.

The protagonist has no name; he is just referred to as the Underground

man. He is portrayed as a man who lives in a little corner of St. Petersburg,

Russia. I personally think that analysing the protagonist is a challenge for me to

know this character deeper, so that I can understand more what kind of a man he

is and whether his characteristics change or not. The reasons mentioned above

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encourage me to analyse the portrayal of the protagonist thoroughly because

“analyzing characters are not easy, as they are complex, variable, and ambiguous”

(Perrine 67). By analysing the protagonist in Notes from Underground more

deeply, I hope I can understand the purpose of the author in creating such

character.

Statement of the Problem

In order to analyse the topic chosen, I state the problems as follows:

1. How does the author portray the protagonist in this novel?

2. What is the purpose of the author in creating such a character?

Purpose of the Study

Based on the statement of the problem above, the purposes of the study

are:

1. To show how the author portrays the protagonist in the novel.

2. To show the purpose of the author in creating such a character.

Method of Research

The method I use in analysing the protagonist in Notes from Underground

is library research. First, I read Notes from Underground as the primary text. I also

read and collect some texts which support my topic from the library and the

Internet. Then, I analyse the novel using the information that I have gathered and

draw some conclusion of what has been discussed.

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Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of three chapters, preceded by the Acknowledgments

and the Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which consists of the

Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study,

the Method of Research, and the Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two is the

discussion on the portrayal of the protagonist of Notes from Underground.

Chapter Three is the conclusion of the discussion. My thesis ends with the

Bibliography and the Appendices, which present the synopsis of the novel and the

biography of the author.

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CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

After analysing Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, I would

like to draw some conclusions. The protagonist in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes

from Underground is called the Underground man. His characteristics remain the

same from the beginning until the end of the story. Throughout the story, he is

portrayed as strange. His strangeness becomes the main reason why he has no

friends, gets bad treatment from other people and thus he hates and avoids other

people.

His strangeness also makes him become inferior and introverted. Because

he feels that he is different from other people, sometimes he is afraid when he

faces someone. This weakness makes some of his friends not only in his school

but also in his office like to humiliate him. The humiliation that he gets makes

him hate them and spend his time in the underground, the place he spends his life.

Misanthropic is another characteristic that he has; he hates people around

him because he feels he only gets humiliation from them. This characteristic

appears because of some bad treatments that he gets since he is a child. His

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childhood also gives effect for him to become spiteful. In my opinion, he wants to

take revenge on other people because he gets so many bad treatments that he

becomes spiteful by making other people feel upset.

Living in the underground for a long time makes the Underground man

like to spend his time reading and day dreaming, which causes him to become

highly-imaginative. With his imagination he can create his life and decrease his

boredom. Living in the underground alone without anyone also forces him to

become independent. He can survive and endure his life although he does not

have a good career.

It is obvious that the Underground man is portrayed as a man who cannot

socialize with other people and prefers to live alone in the underground. By

creating the protagonist as a man with such characteristics the author is actually

dealing with choices and consequences. The Underground man has made a choice

to live alone and he accepts the consequences.

From this novel I learn that a man like the Underground man is a unique

character. How he lives his life and how he interacts with other people make him

unique. Almost all his characteristics are not usual and the way he lives his life is

strange enough because I do not think that as a social being one can live alone

without anyone’s helps. However, with all his characteristics that he has he can

still survive living alone. He can get a job to endure his life, and he does not

depend on other people.

I find that Dostoevsky has portrayed the Underground man realistically; he

has bad and good characteristics. His characteristics that I have mentioned above

are almost negative but there is one positive side from him, being independent.

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His being independent is a good side that I get from the protagonist. Moreover, I

am of the opinion that the Underground man would never become strange if he

got some love and care from the people around him. What he needs is more

attention and no humiliation. Bad experience that he passes is a background how

he becomes strange and which makes him have some negative characteristics.

Last but not least, from what the protagonist experiences, I learn that

family is very important not only to give some helps when needed but also to

build one’s characteristics. Love and affection from one’s family will give good

impact on the person. He or she will surely grow up possessing positive

characteristics.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Text:

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. London: Penguin Red Classic, 2000.

References:

Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1974.

Hornby, A. S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Sixth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Internet Website:

“Notes from Underground Analysis”. Novel Guide. 1999-2009. 4 May 2008

<http:www.novelguide.com/notesfromunderground/biography.html>