In the first panel, a man is struggling to climb out from the underground. This is represented by the many lines of the wooden panels inserted around his arm. We will know the man by his green shirt. Then, in the second panel, the man has emerged from the underground and into the house, which is pitch dark. He sees light streaming out from the doorway, so he decides to be brave and venture outside, since he is craving freedom. Outside, in the third panel, the biggest and most significant panel, it is revealed that there is only more wood on the ground. The lofty dreams and ideals he has are only in his mind. There is even a hideous cockroach laying near him, paying homage to Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.”
These three panels are a reinterpretation of Dostoevsky’s philosophy mentioned in the text. While he wrote of a man hiding underground to express his free will, I re-imagined it to be a man escaping the underground, whether figuratively or literally, in hopes of finding something more beautiful outside. Both the novel and this comic panel end in disappointment.
This scene is a derivation, a riff, off of the original text. By making these three panels, I’ve given readers a small taste of the novel without them actually having to slog through the 136 pages of philosophy and whimsy. I’ve taken the core idea of the novel and found the easiest simplified example to convey it.
After reading Notes from Underground I agree that it is about an individual trying to find the courage to be free and to express himself. In the novel the Underground man is isolated himself by choice. He has is own philosophy that he crafts while living in his solitary apartment. His philosophy tries to contradict the work of scientists and mathematicians that try to explain the world around us.
The illustrations show the Underground man trying to return to the outer world. While I agree with the message of the illustrations , that he is trying to be free I would say that the his self-imposed isolation is how he wants to express himself. During his rants it becomes clear that he wants to be alone because he doesn’t see himself as compatible with the rest of the world. He justifies his approach by explaining that he is better than those around him. I would say that he underwent a transformation when he was able to leave his job and move into his apartment where he remained. My illustrations would show the Underground man as a king of his humble domain.