Spiteful Man

I find it interesting that the Underground Man is taking the path he is in this sequence. For a man who said he could never act, we see him taking action. He invites himself to, attends, and then basically ruins the party of his friends. He borrows money and chases them into the night. He even initiates a conversation with a whore he meets. All from the man who is now frozen in inaction, contemplating potential paths he could choose.

And yet, in another way, his actions meet exactly with his claims in part one. The underground man is fulfilling his role as a mouse, being taunted and humiliated by stronger and better people, bearing the assault in order to hold some vain hope of vengeance. He is taking pleasure in his own degradation, one of the common themes of his discussions in the first part. He is driving himself into humiliation and shame simply because he can, and seems to find some perverse pleasure in the process. When he finds his friends have left the house of ill fame, the Underground Man’s sedentary nature asserts itself in his happiness at their departure. Throughout he had wished for vengeance, but was relieved when he did not actually have to follow through.

The Underground Man is living through the terrible shame that drove him underground, and we see in his choices leading to that fall the character traits he assigns himself in part one. He is feeble, weak, and jealous. Even more than that he is a spiteful man, degrading himself and others in a pathetic attempt to revenge himself for a perceived wrong.

Rooster

Rooster is a federal marshal. A lawman. He is employed by the government to search out, capture, and bring into custody criminals of all sorts. When he first appears in True Grit, he is just returning from an apparently very successful raid, having captured a great deal of criminals. Obviously he is very successful, though his methods are called into question in the next scene when an attorney questions Rooster while he is on the stand. The viewer learns that in his nearly four years as a federal marshal, he has killed twenty-three men, and presumably shot many more. He is accused of murdering the family of the defendant at the trial in cold blood, though Rooster claims he only killed them in self-defense. Either way, Rooster is suspect.

His personality and appearance do not endear Rooster to the viewer any more than his suspicious conduct. Rooster is large, rough looking, and wears a large eye patch that makes him appear vaguely sinister. His personality matches his less than refined appearance. He is rude, ignoring Mattie Ross when she attempts to get his attention while he brings in prisoners. He is gruff at the trial, almost refusing to answer the questions of the attorney questioning him. He also appears unrepentant about the many lives he has taken.

Despite all of the factors that suggest Rooster is a very unsavory character, we know he is a noble man by his profession (and the synopsis of the plot). He is an anti-hero, doing good using methods that are at the very least questionable. He is, regardless of anything, a powerful man and a powerful character.

The Underground Man

The underground man is an outcast, an anathema, driven to a decrepit hovel on the outskirts of Petersburg where he sits and maligns the world around him. He no longer works, and is sustained by an inheritance he received from a dead relative. Before he quit working he was a worker in the government service, where he was intentionally rude to the petitioners who came to see him. To all appearances he is a grim and hateful man who finds enjoyment only in his own degradation. He believes himself cleverer than everyone around him, and yet he envies the stupid, direct men and women who can single-mindedly and peacefully take action.

However, the underground man is brilliant, and has made real discoveries about the human condition. He has also realistically approached himself, stripping away false pride and seeing himself for what he truly is, a mélange of a hero and an insect. He sees himself as a mouse, a man who is not truly a man because he refuses to answer injustice, but merely bears ignominious (haha) insults and despises the world from a corner, content to attempt petty revenge that is doomed to injure the one seeking revenge than the one he is seeking revenge upon.

The underground man is a recluse and a hermit, but he is one honestly seeking to understand himself and the world around him. He has been hurt by the cruelties of the world, but is accepting and understanding of his pain. He seeks retribution, but he knows this is petty, and accepts that. He is above all a man who understands and accepts himself. I like him, the underground man. He is not a man I would want to know, but he is a man I desperately want to hear the thoughts of. This book will do.

Catharsis

Now that we have finished Othello, I must say that I have indeed learned something from the play. First, though, the characters. Othello is a fool for letting Iago deceive him, though his folly is not as great as it could have been. His trust in Iago is obviously his downfall, and he should have foreseen Iago’s jealousy for Cassio. Othello is a prime target for manipulation, and with a bit more forethought he could easily have avoided the entire issue. Desdemona, I pity. She was nothing more than a pawn in Iago’s plot, and held none of the fault that Othello did, but more just as much of the burden. Iago is a cold man indeed to have caused her such misery when she is the only moral center of the play, and had done nothing to harm him.

In this, I cannot sympathize with Iago. His betrayal of Othello I can at least comprehend, and it is fair to say that Iago betrayed Othello for the same reason Othello betrayed Desdemona. In vengeance for being cuckolded both men did great damage to someone they should have cared for, and so one could argue that Iago is simply smarter than Othello and no less noble. However, when Othello lets his vengeance fall on Cassio, one starts to question. Cassio is, after all, blameless. However, Cassio’s punishment, too, can be understood because of the jealousy that is eating away at Iago. The nobility of Iago completely breaks down when he pushed Othello to kill Desdemona, a true innocent who had not engendered Iago’s hatred in any way. Emilia and Roderigo, too, are innocents slaughtered. These deaths more than Othello’s suicide and Cassio’s wounding turn Iago into the wretch he is.

This play has taught me the dangers of jealousy, and of letting any one person, however trusted, completely command your actions. At hints from Iago, a man he barely knows, Othello is willing to question the chastity of and even murder Desdemona, a woman he loves and cherishes. This speaks both of his lack of trust in Desdemona and a surfeit of trust in Iago. If one lets jealousy into one’s heart, it will grow and feed on happiness until there is nothing left. One must trust as far as one can and not let doubt cloud love. However, one must also beware of trusting too much, because anyone can be out for your death, and trusting them completely, without checking their words against your own heart and the thoughts of others, can lead to damnation. Ironically Othello has pushed me to trust less and more simultaneously, a consequence of good literature, I suppose.