Paradoxical Writing of Morbid Consciousness: The “Mirror Dilemma” of Self-Awareness and the Crisis of Subjectivity in Notes from Underground
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Abstract
In the context of 19th-century Russian modernity transformation, Dostoevsky’s “Notes in the Basement” reveals the paradoxical structure of the protagonist’s self-awareness and the crisis of subjectivity through first-person monologue. Starting from Lacan’s mirror theory, the article analyzes the protagonist’s self-misidentification in the “mirror stage” and the beginning of alienation under the gaze of the other, and then turns to explore the ineffective transformation of his discourse dictatorship and anti-gaze strategy. Through the analysis of Menipic forms, dealienated language, and emotional paradoxes, demonstrate how morbid consciousness writes paradoxes to deconstruct the promised harmonious subject of enlightenment rationality. The conclusion points out that the excessive consciousness, paralysis of action and identity anxiety of the basements constitute the archetypal metaphor of the spiritual predicament of modern people, and the crisis of subjectivity is not a fault to be solved, but an irreducible existential truth in the process of modernity.
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