The second section of DostoevskyÆs Notes From Underground amount to retellings of experiences the narrator experienced in his youth. The final chapter is one of the most important in the book, the narratorÆs recanting of his failed interaction with a prostitute named Liza. Perhaps more than at any other time in his existence, the narrator is able to achieve human contact with another human being through Liza. Lying in bed with her he lets down his ego, abandons his notions of romanticism, and disengages his superficial learning. Absent these defense mechanisms, he actually engages in dialogue with another human being and invites Liza to share her feelings with him. Instead of being tormented by his own personality tensions, the narrator actually becomes involved in his own deeper feelings. However, even this moment of unconscious breakthrough from the limitations of his personality will amount to futility. This is primarily because the underground man treats Liza just like he has every other human being. He will exert his superiority, flee from his deeper feelings, and attempt to justify his actions once more through a shallow and self-serving generalization. As his mature self, he justifies the situation by expressing the belief that his actions were for the best in the long run, both for Liza and him. As he tells us, ôI have never conceived of love as anything but a struggle; I always began with hatred and ended with moral subjugation, after which I could not even imagine what to do with the conquered objectö (Dostoevsky 1992, 147-148).
Although the narrator abandons his defense mechanisms and is able to achieve with Liza more interpersonal communication and contact than with any other human being, when he actually recognizes his deeper feelings of love he cannot tolerate the emotions it creates in him. The narratorÆs lack of self-confidence and his inability to define himself other than how o
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