Questions and problems of the mind have intrigued and baffled writers for more or less as long as people have been written. Some of these writers have explored the inner workings of the madman's mind, finding this type of character to be the most effective way to express a philosophical vision. Two of these writers include Fyodor Dostoevsky and Lu Xun. The unnamed protagonists of their stories Notes from Underground and "Diary of a Madman", respectively, show obvious signs of mental illness through the various things both characters do and say. Beyond that, the evidence of their "madness" is further strengthened by the use of literary techniques, such as perspective and syntax, as well as its relation to some of the central themes of the works. For and for these different reasons, the forms of madness can be observed as a compulsion to analyze in the case of the Underground Man and as paranoia in the case of the Madman, as both originate from their respective obsessions. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay However, while it's clear that both characters display some sort of mental illness, the two could hardly be more different; Dostoevsky's "Underground Man", for example, suffers from such an acute conscience that he naturally analyzes even the most banal events. This leads not only to the confusion commonly associated with this scope of awareness, but also to numerous thoughtful conclusions, which are contradictory to common sense. For example, the first sentence describes him as "a sick, spiteful man," but just two paragraphs later he states, "I could never become truly spiteful." These types of contradictions cause readers to feel the same agony as the narrator as they attempt to make sense of words whose coherence can only be understood by the man who wrote them. He also formulated a way to derive some sort of pleasure from pain and refused to seek help for his supposedly diseased liver in an attempt to spite doctors, which not only confirms his overly analytical thought process, but probably serves also as a justification for what can best be described as self-pity. It is also possible that he developed depression from being locked in his "dungeon". Indeed, he describes how this condition developed throughout his childhood, from his innate lack of emotion to the torment he faced against his unwanted thoughts, helpless in the face of his mind's obsessions, until he was eventually forced to give in to them rather than fight endlessly. against them. Rather than an overstimulated sense of consciousness, the obsessions evident in Lu Xun's "Madman" cause him to exhibit many of the symptoms of several forms of psychosis, including paranoia, hallucinations and eccentric changes in behavior. For example, he accuses the Zhao family's dog of giving him "dirty looks" and is convinced that those he passes while walking on the street also give him similar looks. He believes they are whispering and gossiping about him, and this prompts him to approach a group of children, who he accuses of doing the same thing, and shout, "Tell me, tell me!" until they decide to escape. He also experiences hallucinations, such as "the horrible group of people, with their green faces and protruding fangs", appearing, causing an episode that prompts an acquaintance of his, Old Fifth Chen, to lock him up. Furthermore, his initial reasoning for the alleged looks directed at him was not related to cannibalism at all, but rather to an incident that occurred twenty years ago in which he "stepped on booksaccountants kept by Mr. Antiquity." It was only when he heard the story of cannibalism at the Wolf Club Village that he developed incredible anxiety about the subject. This example not only provides evidence of the ease with which he was made paranoid, but also illustrates the amount of things that he invents, unintentionally, to justify his suspicions. Beyond the symptoms that both narrators have to endure, the general ailments from which they derive, or which are intensified in the case of The Underground Men themselves derive from a way. of obsessive thinking. This is demonstrated by his reaction towards a certain officer who, while walking, "simply trampled on people", which proved as proof, for the man from the underground, that he unfairly considered himself superior in this sense of insecurity from the Underground Man's point of view came from his idea about people being "spontaneous" or stupid (711). These people are so because of a significant lack of conscience; they, according to the Underground Man, believe wholeheartedly in something without truly analyzing it in all its complexities and, comforted by the lack of thought required to do so, are made arrogant by it. This officer, "spontaneous", walked the same street every day, and so, the underground man followed this path, initially hoping to enjoy the humiliation it entailed, which is already quite thought, but every time it turned out by the way. For most, this would have been a perfectly normal, and even intelligent, reaction, but the Underground Man would wake up at "three in the morning", worrying about this event. It can be observed that the Underground Man has a predisposition to acute awareness, which, in itself, predisposes him to obsessions, such as the one highlighted, which, in turn, intensifies the pain and confusion consistent with this disorder. He decided to go straight on his way and run into that man, which is a perfectly normal, even slightly annoying, experience for most. The Underground Man, however, thought so highly of such an action that he suspected great fame would result from it and bought new clothes for it. From this anecdote, the obsessive nature of the Underground Man is expressed, as well as its debilitating effects, which lead the reader further into his madness. Lu Xun's Madman also displays obsessions and, as consistent with different forms of madness, constitute the various reasons for this. This statement is strengthened above all by his reaction to the story of cannibalism told to him by the tenant farmer of the Wolf Club Village. Without any evidence, he reflects this case on the people who, according to him, talked about him and gave him strange looks. He writes: "Those people are cannibals!" with "a shiver running from the top of his head", as obvious expressions of his growing fear, expressing the extent of his irrational anxiety. However, it doesn't stop at emotions, but rather they force him to seek out ancient cannibalism to an unhealthy level until it consumes his life, and everything he hears and sees is interpreted as cannibalistic. He also remembers a conversation he had with his older brother when they were younger while teaching him the classics in which the older brother said, "it was okay to switch the children and eat them." This is certainly a strange thing to say, but, considering the context of the text, and that he was probably acknowledging the fact that it was a classic, this is hardly conclusive proof of cannibalism. He also confuses the stories as he confronts his brother about cannibalism while referencing the story of Yi Ya boils his son and states that this is proof that "people have always practiced cannibalism", when in reality it was an eventsingular mentioned in Guan Zi, a philosophical text. He even admits that cannibalism wasn't even mentioned most of the books he read said that "between the lines... the entire volume was filled with just one sentence: EAT PEOPLE, not only can you see he was discarding the evidence , seeing". only further evidence of his obsession with cannibalism, but also that this factor was inflamed by his resulting lack of mental clarity. The reason for this, obviously starting from his predispositions, was triggered by such an alien story. These patterns of obsession over such irrelevant topics to the point of considerable anguish, as shown by both characters, can be read as obvious signs of madness. Their ailments, however, although real and realistic would have appeared on their own, were reinforced and strengthened. by the individual styles used by both authors, such as perspective, as well as diction and syntax. Both chose the first-person point of view, Dostoevsky in the form of "notes" and Lu Xun as "diary". This technique, like the one used in Notes from Underground, for example, allows Dostoevsky to use a very passionate and irregular voice. His repetition of the phrases "organ shutdown" and "twice two equals four" allows the Underground Man to appear almost manic as he overthinks the problems of his day. The Madman, much like the Underground Man, constantly uses exclamations, such as when he says, "They were trying to kill me," as if he were actually reliving the horrible hallucination. This adds to the effects it exhibits consistent with paranoia. Lu Xun's manipulation of colloquial language, unlike Dostoevsky's, makes his narrator appear even more frenetic than he would otherwise. He says, in a series of short, seemingly unrelated sentence fragments, "Black out. I can't tell if it's day or night. The Zhao family's dog is barking again," displaying informally disorganized speech patterns, even for conversational standards. He also creates a naive and seemingly ignorant dialect for the Madman so that the reader has to reconstruct his incoherent speech, although he truly has no idea what is going on. This is the case when Old Fifth Chen locks him in the study; the narrator has no idea why and, without careful examination, the reader will be too. In direct contradiction to this, the Underground Man's more complicated language creates the same effect, while allowing the use of seemingly nonsensical and thoughtful metaphors and ideas that must be deciphered, such as "twice two is four", . Writing in the first person and using a courageous choice of diction and irregular syntax, the authors, through the voices of their respective protagonists, manage to attempt to "solve life's problems through a logical tangle". In other words, I am able to use a fast-paced voice to express complex ideas in all their detail through the use of crazy. Besides that, selecting the specific type of mentally disturbed protagonists would prove to be the best means by which the central themes of the two can be expressed respectively. On an individual level, the Underground Man discusses the advantages and disadvantages of consciousness, concluding that "being overly conscious is a disease", but encourages his audience, which he claims will never exist, reducing his work to casual mutterings . of a bitter old man, think. This however is a contradiction, but it is a perfect metaphor for humanity; through this method the underground man embodies all humanity. It does this by expressing the contradictory nature of humanity and how humans are capable of creating things that they themselves have not.