Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground Essay

The utopian society has a long custom in both philosophical and literary works. The image of a undefiled utter ruled exclusively by principles of intimately and righteousness has spurred the supposition of thinkers and writers over the centuries. Perfect accordance and sublime harmony and understanding overleap this state of things where evil is no longer known. In his famous sarcastic work, Gullivers Travels, Jonathan Swift identifies and censures the flaws inherent in pitying nature and the world-wide interests, prejudices and impulses that govern the human society.Although the traveler explores unknown and fantastical knowledge domains, the various societies he encounters are exactly different versions of the same human geography governed by priming but also by vice. The last visit moreover takes Gulliver to the land of the Houyhnhnms, a utopian society that lives in absolute harmony and that does non even comprehend the notion of evil or deceit. It is not by accid ent that this sample state is inhabited and ruled by horses endowed with the power of soil while man, or the Yahoo, is a cup of tea animal that deals the Houyhnhnms.Swift shows through this utopian representation that, however wondrous the power of reason and creativity in man, it will always devalued by vice. Human nature is and will always be ill-judged while reason has the ability to reveal the truth and weigh good and evil, mans passions and instincts often prevent him from choosing good over evil. In a very different way, Fyodor Dostoevskys Notes from the Underground delivers a quasi(prenominal) message regarding the possibility of a utopian human society.The crystal castle that the underground man speaks of is a symbol for the impractical, unreachable and vain ideal that the humanity chases. Paradoxically, the same humanity despises this lofty dream because it cannot laugh at it as it would. Moreover, Dostoevsky emphasizes that humanity is not satisfied with perfect harmony and happiness, although it covets impossible dreams. Sufferance is essential to the structure of the individual and, in Dostoevskys view, a secret wish of man. Therefore, both Swift and Dostoevsky give similar views of human race and the impossibility of utopian states.Reason, which gives man the ability to see the truth and have it outdoor(a) between good and evil, will always be blinded by passion and impulses. worldly concern is a complex and paradoxical being, endowed with a superior spirit but also with a passionate nature apt to lead him into temptations. Lemuel Gulliver travels through the world and lands on peculiar lands where the inhabitants still appear to be fantastical creatures. In fact, all of them prove to be wonderful mirroring of Swifts British contemporary society.Every state that the traveler encounters is governed by people who are the prey of numberless human impulses such as greed, prejudice, egotism, stubbornness, misconception, deceitfulness and violence. The dwarfs in Lilliput and the giants in Brobdingnag are only ii representations of humanity at a different scale. Through these two representations, Swift unmasks human vanity and malice. In both of these countries human reason is paired with cunning and vice. The absurd academies of Laputa mock the vain enterprises of the human reason to conquer nature and reality.Their complicated systems of thought and their absurd inventions and devices only serve to root them strongly in blindness and lies, keeping them farther away from the truth. At the end of the journey, the last of the stops is a utopian land that is antithetical to all the other societies the narrator has lived in. The simplicity of the Houyhnhnms society and impost contrasts sharply with the complexity of the human civilization. On the one hand, man is a noble being but also a vicious one. Man is haunted by passions and prone to subjective interpretation of life. Because of this, absolute harmony can never govern a human society.