Dostoevsky's Memoirs from Underground describes a man deeply rooted in a lifestyle of misanthropy and bitterness. He is strongly governed by his burdensome philosophies. The Underground Man (as he will later be called) lives by the precedents of his own conceptions of how life should be lived. His understanding of how people should interact socially and how individuals should be emotionally engaged has been carefully studied. He is very contradictory in his rationalization of his own practices, but seems rather insulting in his own self-pity. The Underground Man has a penchant for feeling sorry for himself and instead of taking part in society naturally, he forces himself into encounters that will undoubtedly cause him distress or physical harm. If he found himself in Joseph K.'s position in Kafka's The Trial, he would probably feel happily unhappy. He would not be "happy" as such, but misery would seem familiar to him. The Underground Man would respond to the corrupt process by finding it as an outlet to exercise his despised misery which he believes to be the ideal state for all conscious and educated men. In Chapter VIII of "Underground" the Underground Man asks his imaginary audience: "Who wants to want according to a coffee table?" It alludes to a popular current of thought of the time according to which man's natural desires and actions could be statistically derived in full consideration of the fundamental needs of survival and entertainment satiation. The Underground Man is highly obsessed with free will. It is his habit to seemingly exercise his free will simply for the sake of benefiting from it. He decides to go to the table... middle of paper... because of his ability to influence their lives. It is not likely that the Underground Man would have wanted to whip them himself. He has no nerves. However, he would get some satisfaction from knowing he had some power at his side. The Underground Man's personality seems to be somewhat contradictory to what many readers might consider logical and reasonable. Yet, in his mind, he is justified in his senseless behavior. He is contradictory because he is more intelligent than most men, and he is unhappy because he is more aware than most men. He takes pride in his perceived intelligence and conscience and the misery that shows it. Put in Joseph K's position, he would be even more miserable because he is part of such a corrupt system and would see that misery as proof of his superiority...