Summary
The narrator begins his story of the unfortunate clerk Akaky Akakievich by saying, “In the department of…” before stopping himself short - “but it would be better not to say in which department” (394). He notes that “nowadays” all the civil servants and bureaucrats are liable to feel personally targeted and offended by unflattering depictions of the government in literature, and so he decides it would be better to call it, more circumspectly, “a certain department” (394).
In this department, the narrator tells us, there was an unremarkable clerk named Akaky Akakievich: “short, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat red-haired, even with a somewhat nearsighted look, slightly bald in front, with wrinkles on both cheeks and a complexion that is known as hemorrhoidal,” a condition the narrator attributes to the climate of St. Petersburg (394). It is clear that Akaky comes from a humble background, and that he is a rather pathetic figure. His last name, Bashmachkin, derives from the word bashmak, for “shoe,” but it is not clear in what way (395). His rank is “titular councillor,” a role that the narrator emphasizes is lowly by noting that writers have often made fun of such figures (394). Furthermore, the narrator makes clear that his name is ridiculous, because he says, “The reader will perhaps find that [name] somewhat strange and farfetched, but he can be assured that it was not fetched at all, but that such circumstances occurred of themselves as made it quite impossible to give him any other name” (395). At his baptism, his mother rejects all the saints’ names that are pulled out of the church calendar, finding them ridiculous. Opening the calendar again only yields more unacceptable names. As such, his mother says, “I see now… it’s evidently his fate. If so, better let him be named after his father. His father was Akaky, so let the son also be Akaky” (395). The baby makes an ugly face “as if he anticipated that he would be a titular councillor” (395).
The narrator returns to this “certain department,” where Akaky Akakievich has been a copying clerk for an undetermined period of time. No one can recall who appointed him or when, such that people begin to feel that he must have simply been born as he is, in that exact position, with his uniform and balding head. He is utterly disrespected by everyone, regardless of whether his rank exceeds theirs or not. The caretakers do not stand when he enters, or even look at him. His bosses treat him with “cold despotism” (396). Colleagues “[shove] papers under his nose” without a word, and Akaky settles down to copy them without concern for whether the person who gave them to him has the right to order him around (396). The young clerks make fun of him as much as is possible, relaying stories they have fabricated about him and his old landlady. Akaky never responds to these taunts, except when he is forced to because the joke is insufferable or they actively obstruct his work by jostling him. Then he says to them, “Let me be. Why do you offend me?” (396) There is, the narrator says, something “strange in the words and in the voice,” something deeply pitiful. One young new clerk, who had allowed himself to make fun of Akaky because it was the fashion in the workplace, remains haunted by these words for the rest of his life. At joyous occasions, a vision of Akaky rises before him, and he hears him say: “I am your brother” (397). The man is haunted by “how much inhumanity there is in man,” including in men and societies considered to be “refined, cultivated… noble and honorable” (397).
Analysis
One of the notable features of “The Overcoat” is its self-reflexivity—that is to say, its awareness of itself as a work of art, and the declaration of this awareness. This is signaled almost immediately in the story by the narrator’s winking self-censorship: “In the department of…but it would be better not to say in which department” (394). The narrator references the offense that some members of the civil service have recently taken to portrayals of people like them, situating the story in a broader context: stories are written, readers react, and these reactions influence what writers produce in the future. Given the offense taken by this anonymous police chief, the narrator decides instead to proceed with the elliptical statement: “And so, to avoid any unpleasantness, it would be better to call the department in question a certain department” (394). This is an example of self-reflexivity because the narrator has referenced and reflected on literary tradition, convention, and how literature interacts with the world at large. This act of winking self-censorship, in which the narrator interrupts himself in the middle of a sentence, also connects “The Overcoat” to a tradition of oral storytelling. Indeed, the critic Boris Eichenbaum has noted how the original Russian that Gogol uses is a colloquial and informal kind directly connected to oral storytelling (269). (Incidentally this makes the story, and Gogol in general, notoriously difficult to translate into English). This moment of self-interruption that mirrors oral storytelling also establishes the story’s familiar and conspiratorial tone: at times it feels that the narrator is addressing us intimately, and is letting us in on a secret.
Another moment that connects “The Overcoat” both to oral storytelling and self-reflexivity is when the narrator references his own fallible memory: “Akaky Akakievich was born, if memory serves me, during the night of the twenty-third of March” (395). This clearly suggests, despite the use of the omniscient third person narrative style at other points, that the story is being told by a particular person with particular limitations.
The narrator describes Akaky Akakievich’s profession—that of titular councillor—as one at which “all sorts of writers have abundantly sneered and jeered” (394). In various ways, Gogol joins the ranks of these writers, because he constructs Akaky’s character with a heavily exaggerated and satiric eye. Akaky is not only pathetic, he is denied the dignity of being anything in particular (except, perhaps, absurd, or mistreated). He is not totally bald but “slightly bald,” not definitely pockmarked but “somewhat pockmarked,” not even obviously red-haired or properly nearsighted but “somewhat red-haired” and “somewhat nearsighted” (394). Gogol uses the indeterminacy of Akaky’s physical appearance to communicate forcefully Akaky’s complete lack of assertiveness. Somehow Akaky evades even having clear physical attributes. No one in his department can remember when he was hired or who hired him, and so instead it simply seems to them that he has always been there, reinforcing the hints in the story at fate and the idea that Akaky was always destined to be a titular councillor. Gogol uses sentence order to reinforce the degree to which Akaky is despised. The narrator says, “In the department he was shown no respect at all,” seemingly referring to the “directors and other superiors” the narrator has already mentioned (396). However, the narrator follows up by first mentioning the caretakers, who “not only did not rise from their places when he passed, but did not even look at him, as if a mere fly had flown through the reception room” (396). Only then does the narrator move on to Akaky’s superiors and finally his fellow clerks. By leading with the caretakers, the narrator reinforces the way in which Akaky is disrespected by even those at the very bottom of the departmental hierarchy.
One of the most significant moments in this section and in the story as a whole is the interaction between Akaky and the younger clerk. It is among a couple of events in the story—along with, for example, the surprising force of will and fervor that Akaky manifests when he is saving and planning for his coat, or when he returns later to haunt St. Petersburg—that suggest that even though Akaky is a pathetic figure who is bullied relentlessly by almost everybody around him, a certain latent power resides in him. This is, perhaps, his fundamental humanity. In a moment—indeed, in a phrase—the tables completely turn for this young clerk. Previously, he followed his colleagues in making fun of Akaky because he believed them to be “decent, well-mannered men” (396) and that this was what decent, well-mannered men do. But suddenly, he realizes that “refined, cultivated manners” are merely used as covers by mankind to justify inhumane treatment of others, hearing in Akaky’s plea other words: “I am your brother” (397). Although the end of the story, with its supernatural turn, can seem like an abrupt change, this section in fact foreshadows it. Akaky metaphorically haunts this young clerk in a way that presages his literal haunting of St. Petersburg later on.
