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Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Apollon's Position:
In Part 2, Chapter 8, The Underground Man describes his servant, Apollon, treating him quite poorly in a moment of situational irony. As Apollon is the servant, the reader would expect him to defer to The Underground Man, but The Underground Man describes it as being the other way around:
[Apollon] treated me quite despotically, spoke to me exceedingly little, and, if he happened to look at me, cast a steady, majestically self-assured, and constantly mocking glance that sometimes infuriated me. He carried out his tasks as if he were doing me the greatest of favors.
The Underground Man can't fire him, and Apollon holds this power above him, being in control in their relationship. The narrator feels out of place in contemporary society and thinks he is entirely too intelligent and unfit to live as most people do. Ironically, the place that he seems to be the most subservient is his own home, where his servant controls his actions, instead of the other way around. This situational irony signals a role reversal of typical society in The Underground Man's home. In the one place where The Underground Man is supposed to find respite from the world (in his eyes), he is again seen as lesser.
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