The underground man believes that he is intelligent and this ability makes him conscious of the things around him. His analysis of things around him enables him to realize that a certain nihilist is creating a program that regards people as puppets. This makes him to think that he is a piano key or just an organ. “And that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the stop of an organ” His analytical nature causes him to wonder why other people are not self-conscious. For instance, he wonders why one of his co-workers puts on smelly clothes. He believes that his co-workers are inferior and himself superior. He likens them to sheep, “and as like one another as so many sheep”
He also believes that he is superior to many other people like the police in the streets. “I . . . was triumphant over everyone; everyone, of course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously to recognize my superiority, and I forgave them all”. He constantly thinks of what other people considers him to be. If his former classmates do not pay attention, he concludes that they most probably they think that he is a common fly. "Evidently they looked upon me as something on the level of a common fly,"
One day while on the streets he fell after stumbling, instead of being helped up, people just pass over him. This act made him to think of himself as a ball. “He very calmly stepped over me, while I flew on one side like a ball,” in another incident at a dinner party, the underground man disagrees with the views of others and even challenges one of his friends for a fight. He believes that his friends think that he is as insignificant as an insect. The Underground Man compares himself to these creatures.