The Overcoat

Summary

The Overcoat is a short story by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842 in the third volume of his collected works. It is the best known of his Petersburg tales and tells of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, a poor copying clerk in a government department. Akaky is a perpetual titular councillor, low in the official ranks, mocked by younger clerks and content with his task of copying documents, which he performs with love; when he is given a slightly more demanding assignment, he cannot manage it. The bitter St. Petersburg winter makes his old, thin overcoat unwearable, and the one-eyed tailor Petrovich declares it beyond repair. A new coat will cost eighty rubles, an enormous sum for Akaky. He saves for months by going without tea and candles in the evening and walking carefully to spare his shoes, and the thought of the coat fills his life with a new purpose. When the coat is finally made, his colleagues celebrate it, and a senior colleague gives a party in its honor. On the way home through a deserted square late at night, two men rob him of the coat. Akaky seeks help from the police and then from an official described only as a 'person of consequence', who, eager to impress a visitor, berates him for his presumption. Akaky leaves in terror, catches a fever in the freezing wind and dies within days. The department simply replaces him. Soon rumors spread that a ghost is seizing overcoats from passers-by at night near the Kalinkin bridge. The ghost finally pulls the coat from the person of consequence himself, who is chastened by the experience, after which the apparition stops; another ghost is reported, but it is taller and has a moustache. The story combines comedy, pathos and the fantastic. Its narrator digresses, jokes and pauses on absurd details, but also includes a moment in which a young clerk hears in Akaky's plea to be left alone the words 'I am thy brother'. Later Russian writers saw it as a founding work of their tradition, and a remark that 'we all came out from Gogol's overcoat', often attributed to Dostoevsky, expresses its influence on the fiction of the 'little man'.

Plot or Argument

• Akaky Akakievich

  The narrator introduces the poor copying clerk, explains his odd name and describes his devotion to copying and the teasing of his colleagues.

• The old coat and the new

  Winter forces Akaky to the tailor Petrovich, who refuses to patch the old coat; Akaky saves for a new one, which becomes the center of his life.

• The theft

  After a party given in honor of the coat, Akaky is robbed of it at night; the police are no help, and a 'person of consequence' rebukes him harshly.

• Death and the ghost

  Akaky dies of fever; a ghost begins snatching overcoats in the city and finally takes the coat of the person of consequence.

Characters

• Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, protagonist

  Meek, poor copying clerk whose life is transformed and then destroyed by a new overcoat.

• Petrovich, major

  One-eyed tailor, fond of drink, who makes the new coat.

• The person of consequence, major

  Recently promoted official who bullies Akaky to impress a friend.

• The young clerk, minor

  Newcomer who joins in the teasing until Akaky's words move him.

• The narrator, major

  Digressive, joking storyteller whose tone shifts between comedy and pity.

Lessons

• The 'little man'

  Akaky is insignificant to everyone around him. The story invites readers to notice people whom institutions overlook.

  • How do Akaky's colleagues and superiors treat him?
  • Why does the young clerk remember Akaky's words for years?

• Comedy and pathos

  Gogol's narrator jokes about Akaky even while showing his suffering. Students can examine how tone shapes a reader's sympathy.

  • Find a passage that is both funny and sad. How does Gogol achieve this?
  • Does the humor make Akaky more or less sympathetic?

• Rank and power

  The person of consequence treats Akaky harshly to display his own importance. The story examines how hierarchy affects behavior.

  • Why does the person of consequence shout at Akaky?
  • What changes in him after the ghost appears?

Context

In Nicholas I's Russia, the Table of Ranks divided the civil service into fourteen grades, and St. Petersburg was crowded with clerks of modest income. Gogol himself had worked briefly in a ministry office in the capital.

Composition

Gogol drafted the story from about 1839, reportedly starting from an anecdote about a poor official whose cherished gun was lost, and published it in 1842 in the third volume of his Collected Works, the same year as Dead Souls.

Reception

Critics such as Vissarion Belinsky saw in the story a humane protest on behalf of the downtrodden; later readers, including Vladimir Nabokov and the Russian Formalist Boris Eikhenbaum, stressed its verbal play and grotesque comedy. It has been adapted for film, stage and animation.

Comparisons

• Notes from Underground

  Dostoevsky's resentful clerk-narrator is another St. Petersburg 'little man', but one who speaks for himself and rebels against his insignificance.

• The Double

  Dostoevsky's early novella about a timid titular councillor in a Petersburg office owes much to Gogol's clerks and their humiliations.

• Billy Budd and Other Stories

  Melville's Bartleby, in the same collection, is another copyist whose quiet life in an office ends in a mysterious and sad death.

• The Death of Ivan Ilyich

  Tolstoy's official faces death after a life shaped by rank and appearances, a darker treatment of the bureaucratic world.

• A Christmas Carol

  Dickens also uses a ghost and a cold city to awaken a powerful man's conscience.

• The Metamorphosis

  Kafka's clerk, transformed and discarded by his family and employer, continues Gogol's mix of the absurd and the pitiful.

• The Nose

  Gogol's comic tale of an official whose nose runs off and outranks him is the other great Petersburg story; read the two together.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The narrator's digressions and jokes.
• How the new coat changes Akaky's habits and feelings.
• The scene with the person of consequence.
• The ghost story at the end and its last twist.

Key terms and names

Titular councillor

Ninth of the fourteen grades of the Russian civil service, a low rank.

Table of Ranks

Peter the Great's system of grades for officials and officers.

Grotesque

Mixing the comic and the horrible or absurd.

Skaz

A storytelling style that imitates an oral narrator's voice.

Little man

Russian literary type of the poor, humble person overlooked by society.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why does Akaky need a new overcoat?
2. Comprehension What happens when Akaky visits the person of consequence?
3. Interpretation What does the overcoat come to mean to Akaky?
4. Interpretation Why does Gogol end with a ghost story rather than with Akaky's death?
5. Big Question Do institutions make people indifferent to one another?
6. Big Question What do we owe to people others ignore?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 25:40 (Scripture)

  'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me': the young clerk's sense that Akaky is his brother echoes this teaching.

• Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (Great Conversation)

  Dickens's ghost story likewise uses the supernatural to awaken a powerful man's conscience toward the poor.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Through a clerk whose whole life is bound up in a coat, the story suggests that a hierarchical society can reduce a person to insignificance, and that compassion begins with recognizing such a person as a brother.

Rhetorical device: digression. The narrator interrupts the story to discuss Akaky's name, the Petersburg frost and the habits of officials, creating a comic voice that makes the moments of pathos more striking.

Debate: Resolved: The person of consequence is more to blame for Akaky's death than the thieves.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain how Gogol balances comedy and pity in his portrait of Akaky Akakievich.

Comparison with Notes from Underground: Compare Gogol's Akaky with Dostoevsky's Underground Man as two versions of the Petersburg 'little man'.

Medical Lens

Akaky's death follows a fever caught in the freezing wind after his humiliation; the story links shock, exposure and fatal illness in a period before germ theory.

• The Cloak

  Akaky's fever, delirium and death after the visit to the person of consequence.

  Fever Infection Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Retell the theft and its aftermath from the point of view of the young clerk who remembers Akaky's words.

• Essay

  Is the ghost at the end justice, comedy or both? Support your answer from the text.

• Classroom

  List every person Akaky asks for help. What does each response show about the society around him?

Further Reading

• Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol

• The Nose, Nikolai Gogol

• Nikolai Gogol, Vladimir Nabokov

• Poor Folk, Fyodor Dostoevsky