2 November

Tonight, choose a topic and write an outline. It should include specifics and page numbers.

The first draft of the paper is due on Thursday.

Choose one of the following essays topics and write a 4 page paper. It should be typed and double-spaced. Use parenthetical citation, with a works cited page.

1. Explain why the underground man is a product of the Industrial Revolution.

2. Explore the underground man’s dialogue with the Romantic poets. Use the poems and poets we read in class. How does he break from them? What does he admire about them? What relationship do they have to the Russian romantics?

3. How does Dostoevsky use the style of realism to convey his arguments in the novel?

4. Prove that Dostoevsky’s antihero could live today. Give evidence that parallels his experiences and observations.

5. Explore his materialism vs. freedom polemic. Why does the underground man attack rationalism? What style does he write in to attack it?

6. How did events from the 20th century prove the underground man’s prediction that human instinct was still predatory and cruel, in spite of rationalism? (Look at his refutation of Buckle’s and Chernyshevsky’s ideas.)

7. How did Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (1905) prove the underground man’s “two times two equals four” argument prescient?