Portrayals of Dissociated Subjectivity in Sartre’s Nausea and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground

Peer-Reviewed
The Criterion

The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN: 0976-8165

Open Access

Comparative Literature

Portrayals of Dissociated Subjectivity in Sartre’s Nausea and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground

Tiyas Mondal
Volume / Issue
Vol. 17, Issue 1 · February 2026

Pages
501-516

Article ID
2026V17N1044

Abstract

This paper examines subjectivity as a structural and ethical problem emerging from the destabilization of metaphysical substance. Departing from the classical conception of the subject as a reflection or modification of substance, the paper evaluates the reciprocal dependence between subjectivity and substance. Through close readings of Sartre’s Nausea and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, it traces the demystification of substance and the consequent dissociation of the subject. This analysis demonstrates how this collapse produces a form of subjectivity that is no longer anchored by the apodictic foundations of metaphysics – revealing an ethical condition marked by contingency, negation, and a narcotic constancy to nothingness.

Keywords

subjectivitymetaphysicsethicssubstancenegation

Article History

Received
16-01-2026
Accepted
11 February 2026
Published Online
3 February 2026

How to Cite

Tiyas Mondal. “Portrayals of Dissociated Subjectivity in Sartre’s Nausea and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 1, Feb. 2026, pp. 501-516. ISSN: 0976-8165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n1.35

Back to Vol. 17, Issue 1 · February 2026 The Criterion · ISSN 0976-8165

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