NovelGuide: Notes from the Underground: Novel Summary: Part 1 Chapter 9-Part 1 Chapter 10

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Part 1 Chapter 9-Part 1 Chapter 10

Part 1 Chapter 9: Next, the UM uses the analogy of the road to present his conclusion that man is afraid of completing his goal.  Man, he argues, loves the act of building, or constructing the road, but not the final product of the finished road.  It then follows that humans fear the law of determinism-that two and two makes four.  The UM dreads the prospect that humans will find this reason-this crystal palace, because then there will be nothing left for mankind to seek, nothing else for which to strive, nothing else for which to live.
Part 1 Chapter 10: In this chapter, the Underground Man explains his refusal to accept the crystal palace, for the very reason that he wouldn't be able to stick his tongue out at it.  He would much rather live in his self-acclaimed underground.