The Mouse Under the Floorboards

      Today’s discussion covered the idea of a “mouse under the floorboards”. The lengthy paragraph that we read was characteristic of the narrator’s beliefs. Dostoyevsky directly alludes to the idea of a mouse and argues that the mouse is both superior and inferior to the people above. Because we can make the generalization that the mouse and the narrator are one in the same, we can conclude that the passage indicates that the narrator is superior in knowledge which in turn makes him inferior. In other words, because the narrator is so intelligent, the result is his analysis of nearly everything that he comes across. This constant criticism is something that he is “guilty” about and he envies the people above the floorboards that are “normal” because of their natural stupidity. The normal people do not have to worry about all of the things the narrator worries about because they are not intelligent enough to even think about them. In a sense, I found the passage to be relatable because I often find that overanalyzing things just makes you miserable.