What It Is
The Stone Wall is the image with which the underground man names the limit that the laws of nature, the conclusions of the natural sciences, and mathematics set for man. Before it, the man of action yields sincerely and is reassured, because the wall seems to him a solution. The narrator does not yield and does not break through: he admits he lacks the strength to cross it and refuses to be reconciled merely for that reason. The formula that sums up the wall is twice two is four.
Where It Appears
In chapter II of Part One the word appears once, in the explanation of the pleasure of humiliation: it comes from feeling that one has reached the last wall, that there is no way out and that nothing will make him another man.
In chapter III of Part One the wall occupies the center. The man of action, with strong nerves, calms down before the impossible, and the impossible is the wall: the laws of nature, the sciences, arithmetic. If it is demonstrated to him that he descends from the monkey, he must accept it.
потому дважды два — математика. Попробуйте возразить., because twice two is mathematics. Try to argue back.
The narrator answers that he will not break the wall with his forehead if he lacks the strength, but he will not resign himself just because a stone wall stands before him.
Разумеется, я не пробью такой стены лбом, если и в самом деле сил не будет пробить, но я и не примирюсь с ней потому только, что у меня каменная стена и у меня сил не хватило., Of course I won't break through such a wall with my forehead, if I really don't have the strength to break through, but neither will I resign myself to it just because there is a stone wall before me and my strength was not enough.
In chapter IV of Part One, the one who suffers from toothache and protests has, he says, only the consolation of lashing himself or pounding his fist against the very wall. In chapter V of Part One, anger decomposes under the laws of consciousness, the offense turns into fate, like a toothache no one is to blame for, and the same exit remains: beating the wall.
In chapter IX of Part One the image changes its name and remains the same. Twice two is four appears with its hands on its hips, planted in the way, spitting, and the narrator declares it the beginning of death.
а ведь дважды два четыре есть уже не жизнь, господа, а начало смерти., and twice two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death.
In chapter I of Part Two the word returns in another sense, that of the limit of courage: every decent man of his time, he says, is a coward and a slave, and those who show themselves brave are asses, but only up to a certain wall.
What It Means
The wall marks what reason does not allow to change and what the narrator does not accept as good. The difference between him and the man of action lies in reaction, not in knowledge: both see the wall, one settles down and the other gnaws at it. The result is the smallest form of resistance he has, that of not being reconciled, which chapter III of Part One describes as grinding one's teeth in silence. Two readings: a minimal protest by someone who refuses to call good what is merely inevitable, or an excuse by someone who uses the wall to avoid acting. The text sustains both, and it is in them that one finds Reason, Action and Inaction, and Fate and Free Will in the work.
Relationships
- Themes: Reason, Action and Inaction, Fate and Free Will.
- Character: the underground man.
- Related symbols: the piano key, which brings twice two to man, and the crystal palace, the wall made into a home.