In his “Overcoat” Gogol pays attention to and covers the topic of person’s misery and smallness. However, the idea of Gogol’s “small personality” is not only a social status and psychological type; it is the essence of a human being, which is hidden under the rank, status, achievements, and, under a very expensive cloth – under the overcoat. In his story Gogol is trying to reveal these people who are trying to hide from the society, he is giving a bright example of the personality, as well as describes consequences to which such internal isolation leads.
The basis of “The Overcoat” by Gogol is the cult of the overcoat as some case where Akaky can hide; it physically as well as emotionally covers the main character from the scaring world. From the very beginning of the story we feel nothing but sympathy to the main character: starting from his appearance, manner to speak, walk, as well as his worship to a thing. The main trait of Akaky’s personality in “The Overcoat” by Gogol is some particular ‘smallness’: Akaky Bashmachkin is a ‘small person’, abused and insulted by each and everyone, he is short, a bit speckled and red-haired, and even a bit weak-sighted. In the very beginning his essence fits in his shabby, carefully darned clothes. He is a martyr, and he wants him to be, he considers it to be his main mission. We can recognize in Bashmachkin a form of social phobia – an illness many ‘small people’ suffer from, and want to close themselves in their case, or, as in this very story, under an overcoat. Social phobia is a fear of having friendly, love, family and any other relations. Bashmachkin can hardly communicate with everyone around him, at the same time nobody ever pays any attention to him.
However, we can see Akaky progress from a hopeless introverted personality with no goals and no chance to succeed to a character with raised self-esteem, achieved by a new overcoat. He is finally noticed by his co-workers, he has finally become a part of the society. Nevertheless, all his hopes vanish with the theft of the coat. He again feels miserable and small without his overcoat; he is again disdained and underestimated. He is unable to overcome this loss: neither emotionally nor physically, and we can see him fading away with no hope for happy and successful future. Akaky Bashmachkin disappears just like his overcoat, leaving only scary stories of some mysterious ghost who is stealing overcoats from people.
Akaky Bashmachkin is not only the character of Gogol’s story. He is actually an embodiment of a huge class of people even in the contemporary world. Thus, we can recognize the role of overcoat in the internet, which also helps such ‘small people’ as Bashmachkin hide and close from the world. Gogol raised one of the main topics of all the times – a problem of the personality, inability to communicate and find contact with others. The result of such seclusion is death, either physical or mental.
Works cited
Gogol, Nikolai. The Overcoat and Other Short Stories. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Print
