Nikolai Gogol's The Overcoat
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Nikolai Gogol was a major Russian novelist, dramatist, satirist, and founder of the so called school of critical realism in Russian literature. Gogol was born in Sorochintsi, Ukraine, and grew up on his parent's country estate. His real surname was Ianovskii, but his grandfather had taken the name "Gogol" to claim a noble Cossack ancestry. Gogol's father was an educated and gifted man who also wrote plays, poems, and sketches in Ukrainian. Gogol started writing while in high school. He attended Poltava boarding school (1819 21) and Nezhin high school (1821 28), and in 1829, he settled in St. Petersburg, with a certificate attesting his right to "the rank of the 14th class." Gogol worked at minor governmental jobs and wrote occasionally for periodicals. From 1831 to 1834, Gogol taught history at the Patriotic Institute and worked as a private tutor. In 1831 he met Alexander Pushkin, who became a major influence on Gogol on terms of his literary material. Gogol's "Dikinka Tales" were based on Ukrainian folklore. His friendship with Pushkin lasted until the great poet's death. After he failed as an assistant lecturer of world history at the University of St. Petersburg from 1834 to 1835, Gogol became a full time writer. His story "The Overcoat" contrasted humility and meekness with the rudeness of the "important personage" in society ("Nikolay Gogol").The themes and ending of the story have been subject to considerable argument, in part because the story itself is
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al character than to his situation (which, up to his death, has nothing fantastic about it)" (Fanger 147). Fanger further finds that the story and the central character carry a certain moral weight that separates them from the real world, so the story is not naturalistic but absurdist:
Akaky Akakievich's "life," then, is inseparable from the narrative that contains it and partakes of the radical novelty of that narrative. To call him a character is already to assume too much (Fanger 49).
Fanger further finds that the story is indeed about issues of social responsibility, for he says that "those who claim 'The Overcoat' is not about Christian charity and arbitrary authority, meekness and pride, poverty and comfort, justice, bureaucracy, city life, and even literature itself--why such readers are as mistaken as those who assert that it is about these things" (Fanger 63). For Fanger, the story can and is both things at once.
Peace also notes that the story is often seen as one that initiated a whole era of Russian realism, and he also notes that on its face, the story seems to evoke a whole tradition of Russian realism:
On the face of it the plot of "The Greatcoat" . . . does suggest a social theme and it cannot be denied tha
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2722
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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