The Overcoat

The Overcoat is the story of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, an impoverished clerk

who has toiled for a number of years in an unspecified department within the huge
government bureaucracy in St. Petersburg. The tale is told by an unnamed narrator with a
tendency to digress and editorialize. Critics have disagreed about how closely the narrator
should be identified with Gogol and about how much sympathy the author intended his
readers to feel for Akaky the clerk. In any case, the tone of the narration is at various
times condescending, compassionate, humorous and...

Summary
The story centers on the life and death of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (
), an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the
Russian capital of St. Petersburg. Akaky is dedicated to his job, taking special relish in
the hand-copying of documents, though little recognized in his department for his hard
work. Instead, the younger clerks tease him and attempt to distract him whenever they
can. His threadbare overcoat is often the butt of their jokes. Akaky decides it is necessary
to have the coat repaired, so he takes it to his tailor, Petrovich, who declares the coat
irreparable, telling Akaky he must buy a new overcoat.
The cost of a new overcoat is beyond Akaky's meagre salary, so he forces himself to live
within a strict budget to save sufficient money to buy the new overcoat. Meantime, he
and Petrovich frequently meet to discuss the style of the new coat. During that time,
Akaky's zeal for copying is replaced with excitement about his new overcoat, to the point
that he thinks of little else. Finally, with the addition of an unexpectedly large holiday
salary bonus, Akaky has saved enough money to buy a new overcoat.
Akaky and Petrovich go to the shops in St. Petersburg and pick the finest materials they
can afford (marten fur is unaffordable, but they buy the best cat fur available for the
collar). The new coat is of impressively good quality and appearance and is the talk of
Akaky's office on the day he arrives wearing it. His clerk superior decides to host a party
honoring the new overcoat, at which the habitually solitary Akaky is out of place; after
the event, Akaky goes home from the party, far later than he normally would. En route
home, two ruffians confront him, take his coat, kick him down, and leave him in the
snow.
Akaky finds no help from the authorities in recovering his lost overcoat. Finally, on the
advice of another clerk in his department, he asks for help from a "Very Important
Person" (sometimes translated the prominent person, the person of consequence), a highranking general. The narrator notes that the general habitually belittles subordinates in
attempting to appear more important than he truly is. After keeping Akaky waiting an
unnecessarily long time, the general demands of him exactly why he has brought so
trivial a matter to him, personally, and not presented it to his secretary (the procedure for
separating the VIP from the lesser clerks).

Socially inept, Akaky makes an unflattering remark concerning departmental secretaries,

provoking so powerful a scolding from the general that he nearly faints and must be led
from the general's office. Soon afterward, Akaky falls deathly ill with fever. In his last
hours, he is delirious, imagining himself again sitting before the VIP, who is again
scolding him. At first, Akaky pleads forgiveness, but as his death nears, he curses the
general.
Soon, Akaky's ghost (Gogol uses "corpse" to describe the ghost of Akaky) is reportedly
haunting areas of St. Petersburg, taking overcoats from people; the police finding
difficulty capturing him. Finally, Akaky's ghost catches up with the VIP who, since
Akaky's death, had begun to feel guilt over having mistreated him and takes his
overcoat, frightening him terribly; satisfied, Akaky is not seen again. The narrator ends
his narration with the account of another ghost seen in another part of the city, but that
one was taller and had a moustache, bearing a resemblance to the criminals who had
robbed Akaky earlier.

[edit] Interpretations
Gogol makes much of Akaky's name in the opening passages, saying, "Perhaps it may
strike the reader as a rather strange and farfetched name, but I can assure him that it was
not farfetched at all, that the circumstances were such that it was quite out of the question
to give him any other name..." In one way, the name Akaky Akakievich is similar to
"John Johnson" and has similar comedic value; it also communicates Akaky's role as an
everyman. Moreover, the name sounds strikingly similar to the word "obkakat'" in
Russian, a word which means "to smear with excrement,"[1] or kaka, which means
"poop", thereby rendering his name "Poop Son-of-poop". In addition to the scatological
pun, the literal meaning of the name, derived from the Greek, is "harmless" or "lacking
evil", showcasing the humiliation it must have taken to drive his ghost to violence. His
surname Bashmachkin, meanwhile, comes from the word 'bashmak' which is a type of
shoe. It is used in an expression " " which means to be "under
someone's thumb" or to "be henpecked".
Akaky progresses from an introverted, hopeless but functioning non-entity with no
expectations of social or material success to one whose self-esteem and thereby
expectations are raised by the overcoat. Co-workers start noticing him and
complimenting him on his coat and he ventures out into the social world. His hopes are
quickly dashed by the theft of the coat. He attempts to enlist the police in recovery of the
coat and employs some inept rank jumping by going to a very important and high ranking
individual but his lack of status (perhaps lack of the coat) is obvious and he is treated
with disdain. He is plunged into illness (fever) and cannot function. He dies quickly and
without putting up much of a fight. The Overcoat is a philosophical tale in the tradition of
a stoic philosopher or Schopenhauer.
The story's ending has sparked great debate amongst literary scholars, who disagree about
the existence, purpose, and disappearance of Akaky's ghost. Edward Proffitt theorized
that the ghost did not, in fact, exist at all and that Gogol used the ghost as a means of

parodying literary convention. Proponents of the view that the story is a form of social
protest prefer to see the ghost's attack on the Very Important Person as a reversal of
power from the oppressor to the oppressed. Yet another view states that Akaky's return
from the grave is symbolic of society's collective remorse, experienced as a result of
failing to treat Akaky with compassion.
The appearance of the second ghost is similarly unexplained. A logical inference,
considering the time of its publication, would be that the second ghost represents Russian
society and the fact that all criminals were mere responders to the mistreatment and
malnourishment suffered at the hands of their leaders. Others disagree. Was it the
mustachioed robbers who stole Akaky's coat originally? Does this mean that Akaky was,
himself, robbed by ghosts? Was he, perhaps, not robbed at all, or possibly never had the
new overcoat at all? Akaky's deteriorating mental state, brought about by fever and
malnourishment, may have been responsible for many of his sufferings, including the
existence of an overcoat far superior to his own.
Another interpretation is that the story is a parable. Akaky's job, as a copier, can be
compared to that of a monk, whose main job is to copy the Word, as Akaky does. He is
taunted much by his fellow worker, much as Jesus was, and also like Jesus tempted by
the devil, or the drunk, smoky, and harsh coat maker, marked as the devil by his habit of
drinking on the sabbath. However, unlike Jesus, Akaky accepts the coat and becomes
popular, until he has the coat stolen. One scene that shows what the coat has done to
Akaky can be seen as he leaves the party, returning to his plain district before he has his
coat stolen. As he returns to this area, he looks around and very much dislikes his living
area. Before he had the coat, he was completely fine with his living area and completely
fine with his life. With the overcoat, he finds he wants more. And after he loses his
overcoat, he cannot function and simply dies.

[edit] Critical assessment

Vladimir Nabokov, writing in his Lectures on Russian Literature, gave the following
appraisal of Gogol and his most famous story: "Steady Pushkin, matter-of-fact Tolstoy,
restrained Chekhov have all had their moments of irrational insight which simultaneously
blurred the sentence and disclosed a secret meaning worth the sudden focal shift. But
with Gogol this shifting is the very basis of his art, so that whenever he tried to write in
the round hand of literary tradition and to treat rational ideas in a logical way, he lost all
trace of talent. When, as in the immortal The Overcoat, he really let himself go and
pottered on the brink of his private abyss, he beca

The story centers on the life and death of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (
), an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the
Russian capital of St. Petersburg. Akaky is dedicated to his job, taking special relish in

the hand-copying of documents, though little recognized in his department for his hard
work. Instead, the younger clerks tease him and attempt to distract him whenever they
can. His threadbare overcoat is often the butt of their jokes. Akaky decides it is necessary
to have the coat repaired, so he takes it to his tailor, Petrovich, who declares the coat
irreparable, telling Akaky he must buy a new overcoat.
The cost of a new overcoat is beyond Akaky's meagre salary, so he forces himself to live
within a strict budget to save sufficient money to buy the new overcoat. Meantime, he
and Petrovich frequently meet to discuss the style of the new coat. During that time,
Akaky's zeal for copying is replaced with excitement about his new overcoat, to the point
that he thinks of little else. Finally, with the addition of an unexpectedly large holiday
salary bonus, Akaky has saved enough money to buy a new overcoat.
Akaky and Petrovich go to the shops in St. Petersburg and pick the finest materials they
can afford (marten fur is unaffordable, but they buy the best cat fur available for the
collar). The new coat is of impressively good quality and appearance and is the talk of
Akaky's office on the day he arrives wearing it. His clerk superior decides to host a party
honoring the new overcoat, at which the habitually solitary Akaky is out of place; after
the event, Akaky goes home from the party, far later than he normally would. En route
home, two ruffians confront him, take his coat, kick him down, and leave him in the
snow.
Akaky finds no help from the authorities in recovering his lost overcoat. Finally, on the
advice of another clerk in his department, he asks for help from a "Very Important
Person" (sometimes translated the prominent person, the person of consequence), a highranking general. The narrator notes that the general habitually belittles subordinates in
attempting to appear more important than he truly is. After keeping Akaky waiting an
unnecessarily long time, the general demands of him exactly why he has brought so
trivial a matter to him, personally, and not presented it to his secretary (the procedure for
separating the VIP from the lesser clerks).
Socially inept, Akaky makes an unflattering remark concerning departmental secretaries,
provoking so powerful a scolding from the general that he nearly faints and must be led
from the general's office. Soon afterward, Akaky falls deathly ill with fever. In his last
hours, he is delirious, imagining himself again sitting before the VIP, who is again
scolding him. At first, Akaky pleads forgiveness, but as his death nears, he curses the
general.
Soon, Akaky's ghost (Gogol uses "corpse" to describe the ghost of Akaky) is reportedly
haunting areas of St. Petersburg, taking overcoats from people; the police finding
difficulty capturing him. Finally, Akaky's ghost catches up with the VIP who, since
Akaky's death, had begun to feel guilt over having mistreated him and takes his
overcoat, frightening him terribly; satisfied, Akaky is not seen again. The narrator ends
his narration with the account of another ghost seen in another part of the city, but that
one was taller and had a moustache, bearing a resemblance to the criminals who had
robbed Akaky earlier.