Today in class we were assigned to read pages 7 through 9 silently. Although I feel that class discussions are more helpful, it was interesting to compare my previous annotations to the ones I did in class today. I find that I understand the reading more clearly now.
Dostoyevsky's symbol of the wall is repeated throughout these couple of pages in correlation with what he considers to be the stupid man and the acutely conscious man. The stupid man might view this wall as a source of comfort whereas the acutely conscious man views this wall as an obstacle dividing us from the unknown- the truth.
The long paragraph on page 7 is filled with contradictions regarding the narrator's need for validation. After being ignored and invalidated, the narrator compares himself, his self worth, to that of a mouse. He retreats to "the underground" to avoid invalidation, however, his shame accumulates. The narrator describes this accumulation of shame to be a strange enjoyment for him. I am not sure how the narrator somehow develops a sense of enjoyment from suffering from shame. Hopefully the discussion in class tomorrow will clear this up for me.
As the reading progresses, the narrator continues to explain how the stupid man instinctually builds a wall; a wall based on science and numbers in which we create concepts such as 2+2=4 because everything must have a name and an answer. He argues that the wall we create defies the laws of nature, but that we must "accept her as she is".
What I found to be particularly interesting was that he indirectly refers to the stupid man as a bull and to himself as a mouse.
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