The
protagonist in “The Overcoat,” by Nikolai Gogol, exemplifies a model Russian
citizen. During the time when the short story was written, early nineteenth
century, the social system in Russia was extraordinarily hierarchal. The strict
hierarchy leads to competitiveness amongst the citizens. Our story’s
protagonist, Akaky Akakievich, is the ideal citizen because he is devoid of any
ambition and is heedless of how he appears in public. Additionally, he is
unoriginally unoriginal.
Akaky’s
name is a copy of his father’s and translates to something resembling “crap son
of crap on a boot.” Before making any decisions, he has already been set on a
very difficult course in life. A course destined for stagnation, and at best,
failure.
Akaky
managed to find a career that fits his criteria. His criteria being; requiring
no original thinking, linear, planned-out, and simple. A copier. He sits at a
desk and copies papers for the duration of his life. After he finishes at work
he moves to his shabby apartment where he lives alone and proceeds to copy even
more papers for pure pleasure.
Eventually,
Akaky encounters a taste of ambition. At first he is hesitant, but once he sets
a new goal for himself he pursues it with zeal. That particular goal is
scraping together enough rubles to pay for a new overcoat. As before mentioned,
he is initially put-off at the prospect of change (as Akaky fears change) but
then he wholeheartedly embraces it. He turns the goal to fund a new overcoat
into his singular ambition in life.
In the type
of society Akaky lives in, it is considered normal to covet your superior’s
position, while expressing the utmost condescension to those ranked beneath
you. Akaky throws this idea upside down by exhibiting a distinctly socialist/communist
attitude. He is a worker ant. Akaky is unoriginal, bland, simple, but the kind
of man who makes the world go round.
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