Dying to not suffer in “The Overcoat”
“The Overcoat”, by Nikolai Gogol, is a story about class structure in St.Petersburg, Russia and the suffering it produced in the lower classes. Suffering is inescapable in the story, especially for the main character, Akaky Akakievich, a ninth-class clerk. Akaky only escapes the suffering of existing in the class structure by dying.
Much of Akaky Akakievich’s time is spent at work, where he is near the bottom of the class structure. He is what, in modern terms, one might call a “loser”.
“Directors and all sorts of chiefs came and went but he was always to be found at the same place, in the same position, and in the same capacity, that of copying clerk. Until, after a while, people began to believe that he had been born just as he was, shabby frock coat, bald patch, and all”(Gogol 923).
Akaky Akakievich is described by the class structure only through his status. One can say this because there is no distinction made in the above passage between Akaky’s position in the class structure and other defining elements of his person. Therefore, the class structure makes no distinction between status and personality. However, Gogol does make that distinction between the two, especially in the character of Akaky Akakievich.
In the story, there is a difference between personality and status. “As to his civil-service category, (for first a man’s standing should be established), he was what is called an eternal pen pusher, a lowly ninth-class clerk”(922). This passage makes a distinction between status and personality by talking about status as a single thing. Furthermore, later on in the story, there is a clerk who used to be of the same level as Akaky Akakievich. However, now this clerk has been promoted. “They say that one ninth-class clerk, when he was named section chief in a small office, immediately had a partition put up to make a separate room”(935). The clerk immediately separates himself from his peers. “Actually, he was a kindly man, a good friend and obliging, but promotion to a high rank had gone to his head”(935). The use of status as an explanation as to why the clerk’s personality and disposition changed separates status and personality. This is because causal reasoning requires two separate entities, a cause (in this case the promotion, or change in status), and an effect, (the change in personality).
The cold represents the class-structure. “In Petersburg, there’s a formidable enemy for all those who receive a salary in the neighborhood of 400 rubles a year. The enemy is none other than our northern cold”(925). This passage shows a direct correlation between the amount of money made per year, which is a measure of status within the class structure, and the physical cold of St.Petersburg. “And when the cold pinches the brows and brings tears to the eyes of those in high positions, ninth-class clerks are completely defenseless. They can only wrap themselves in their threadbare overcoats”(925). This shows that the cold is a force acting against those with a lower status. Those with a lower status, like Akaky, only have threadbare overcoats. They must survive and deal with the cold with only their threadbare overcoats.
The general idea of overcoat in the story is that it is a measure of status. Those who are of a lower status have a thinner and less warm overcoat.
“And when the cold pinches the brows and brings tears to the eyes of those in high positions, ninth-class clerks are completely defenseless. They can only wrap themselves in their threadbare overcoats and run as fast as they can the five or six blocks to the office”(925).
If the cold is only affecting one’s face, then one can say that the rest of their body is being kept warm, perhaps by a coat of some sort. From the background knowledge in the story, one can assume that this warm coat is an overcoat. The higher one’s position is in the class structure, the higher the quality and price of their overcoat. Conversely, the higher the quality of one’s overcoat, the higher they are in the class structure. Those with threadbare coats are in the lower classes.
At the beginning of the story, there is no tension. This is because Akaky wears his old, threadbare overcoat, which is what the class structure demands of ninth-class clerks like him. “He began to wonder whether the fault did not lie with his overcoat. When he gave it a good looking-over in his room, he discovered that in two or three places- the shoulders and back- it had become very much like gauze”(926).
Akaky’s overcoat is threadbare, and is in accordance with his low position within the class structure. Whether or not he personally suffers from the cold because his coat is so thin does not matter, because in the class structure, status comes first in importance over anything, and his status dictates that he must wear a threadbare coat that does not keep him warm. Also, even if status were to not be the single most important thing within the class structure, it still would not matter if Akaky were personally cold, because the class structure makes no distinction between personality and status.
Later on in the story, tension occurs when Akaky attempts to possess something he cannot have. Akaky attempts to possess a means to protect himself from the cold. However, Akaky cannot be protected from the cold because the class structure dictates that he must suffer from the cold. A ninth-class clerk has to be a ninth-class clerk, because that is what the class-structure demands, that no one try and be anything that they are not, and to only do what people tell them to do. Therefore, any coat besides a threadbare one that a ninth-class clerk possesses “belongs” to someone else whose position in the class structure dictates that they must wear said coat. One might ask how a clerk would come to possess a coat that belongs to someone else without stealing it. The only logical explanation is that such a coat would be a copy of a coat that belongs to someone with a higher status. Akaky’s coat is a copy of a much nicer coat that a ninth-class clerk could not ever wear. “Instead they got cat, the best available-cat which at a distance could always taken for marten”(930). The use of a less expensive material so that the coat will look nicer and like it has been made from a more expensive material shows that the coat is a copy. Since a copy of something is essentially the exact same thing as the original, the copy belongs to the owner of the original. This is why the mustached man says, “Why there’s my overcoat”(933), before taking it from Akaky Akakievich. The new overcoat that Akaky bought is not really Akaky’s overcoat, it is the mustached mans. Therefore, it was not stolen when it was taken from Akaky. This is why Akaky’s coat is not returned to him by the police commissioner, because there can be no theft of an object that one does not rightfully own, which is the case with Akaky and his new overcoat. Akaky never does get his new overcoat back, and from the moment it is taken, he is cold once again.
Akaky Akakievich is cold the moment his coat is taken. “When he came to a few minutes later and scrambled to his feet, there was no one around. He felt cold…”(933). Akaky Akakievich is suffering from the cold that represents the class structure. Therefore, Akaky Akakievich is suffering from the class structure. This is just like at the beginning of the story, when Akaky suffers from the cold while running to work. No matter what he does, Akaky Akakievich always seems to be suffering from the cold, and thus suffering from the class structure. Akaky has no way to end his suffering from the cold because he cannot take someone else’s warmer coat, because he is not allowed to be warm due to his status.
As a ghost, Akaky Akakievich scares people. “After that, watchmen were so afraid of the ghost that they felt reluctant to interfere with live robbers”(939). Even the watchmen of St.Petersburg are scared of the ghost of Akaky Akakievich. Akaky Akakievich frightens the important personage as well. “Terrified, he recognized Akaky Akakievich, his face as white as the snow and very ghostly indeed… He was even very helpful in peeling off his coat”(939). Akaky’s ghost has scared the important personage into giving him his overcoat. Akaky could never have caused this to happen while he was alive.
After Akaky Akakievich takes the coat of the important personage, he disappears. “Akaky Akakievich’s ghost was never seen again. The important personage’s overcoat must have fitted him snugly”(940). The literal implication here is that Akaky Akakievich is warm in the important personage’s overcoat. If Akaky is warm, then he is not cold, and thus is no longer suffering from the class structure. Therefore, Akaky has finally escaped suffering,
In conclusion, Akaky Akakievich had to die in order to be warm, and therefore not cold, hence escaping the suffering of existing in the class structure of the story. Other interesting elements of this story were allusions to other works by Gogol, as well as the universal archetype of suffering.
Works Cited
Gogol, Nikolai. “World Masterpieces.” The Overcoat. Trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991. 922-40.
“The Overcoat: Introduction.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 29 November 2009. <http://www.enotes.com/overcoat/introduction>.
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A note on the second citation: The website was used only for research on what the allusions to other works in the novel were, because I was curious. Then I mentioned them in the conclusion, so naturally I had to cite the source. It was not used for analytical purposes in any way whatsoever.
