Essay Questions

Why does Fred Daniels become the man who lived underground?

The story opens in the middle of an action scene. A man has been running from the police for long enough that he realizes he needs to find somewhere he can hide and get some rest. The only logical possibility at that particular moment in that particular place is through an open manhole and down in the sewer. Sirens ring in the distance as he peers down through the manhole into an abyss too dark to see anything, but filled with the sound of rushing water. He literally faces the worst of possible options: fear of the unknown versus fear of the known. The piercing shrill of a cop car’s siren suddenly seeming almost on top of him clarifies the greater of these two fears so he takes a gamble on an angel he doesn’t know rather than the devils he does know. After all, he’s a black man who has just been coerced into falsely confessing to the murder of a white woman.

What foundational philosophical text is alluded to in the cinema scene?

Published the same year as Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger and two years before Sartre’s play No Exit, “The Man Who Lived Underground” has come to be regarded as one of the seminal examples of 20th century existential literature. In other words, the experience that Fred Daniels undergoes while underground is a labyrinthine search for the meaning of man’s existence in a world that he comes to realize is utterly absurd. One of the earliest entries into the canon of philosophic texts which every student of the discipline must expect to study is the Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” Boiled down to basic, the thrust of the parable is that most people spend their entire lives exploited into an existence devoice of authentic meaning because they are like people chained to the floor forced to watch images from behind projected as shadows onto a wall. When Fred’s journey through the underground labyrinth brings him into the movie theater and he gazes down upon the faces laughing enormous optical illusions projected onto a silver wall he is spurred to an epiphany: "These people were laughing at their lives, he thought with amusement. They were shouting and yelling at the animated shadows of themselves.” It is an observation that could have been lifted right from Plato himself.

What is the thematic significance of the references to the underground man’s actual name?

Wright makes some very precise calculations regarding the standard literary markers of identification of his protagonist in this story. His actual name is mentioned just once and even then it appears in an off-model way. The moment occurs when he comes across typewriter on a desk during his subterranean adventures and takes the time to type his name. Not really experienced with the intricacies of how to operate the machinery, not only do his first and last names come out as one word, but they are all in lower case: freddaniels. In addition to the unusual distinction of not regularly reminding readers of his character’s name, Wright also goes much lighter than might be expected on descriptions affirming the race (or any immediately obvious physical indicator, for that matter) of his protagonist. In essence, this man living underground ceases to become a black man because he’s not described as a black man just as he doesn’t become a short man or a bearded man or a bald man. The point is that when one isn’t routinely characterized through a specific reference, those specifics eventually fade away in meaning. The case of Fred ceasing to remember his own name indicates this reality isn’t limited to how others see a person, but can also impact how they view themselves. If no one is around to pejoratively refer to him as “boy” or worse, then Fred will no longer ever stop to think of himself in those negative, prejudicial terms just as if no one is around to remind him of name, he can forget he was ever even call that.