Deep Boredom in the Underground

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the problem of boredom articulated in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. Boredom has two principal types: (1) the boredom that results from being unable to commit oneself to any final position; and (2) the boredom that results from complete commitment to a final position, thereby foreclosing consideration of other possibilities for thought and action. Both kinds of boredom prove to be ways of illusion insofar as they imply a freedom that human beings, gripped by the humiliating necessity of nature, likely do not and cannot have. Boredom ends up as a palliative call to action and suffering.