He became the most mysterious Russian writer. In this article we will look at the analysis of the story “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol, trying to penetrate into the subtle intricacies of the plot, and Gogol is a master at building such plots. Don't forget that you can also read a summary of the story "The Overcoat".
The story "The Overcoat" is a story about one "little man" named Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin. He served as the simplest copyist in an unremarkable county town, in the office. However, the reader can think about what the meaning of a person’s life might be, and a thoughtful approach cannot be done here, which is why we are analyzing the story “The Overcoat.”
The main character of "The Overcoat"
So, main character Akakiy Bashmachkin was a “little man.” This concept is widely used in Russian literature. However, what attracts more attention is his character, way of life, values and attitude. He doesn't need anything. He looks distantly at what is happening around him, there is emptiness inside him, and in fact, his slogan in life is: “Please leave me alone.” Are there such people today? All around. And they are not interested in the reaction of others, they care little about who thinks what about them. But is this right?
For example, Akakiy Bashmachkin. He often hears ridicule from fellow officials. They make fun of him, saying offensive words and competing in wits. Sometimes Bashmachkin will remain silent, and sometimes, looking up, he will answer: “Why is that?” Analyzing this side of "The Overcoat", the problem of social tension becomes visible.
Bashmachkin's character
Akaki passionately loved his work, and this was the main thing in his life. He was busy rewriting documents, and his work could always be called neat, clean, and done with diligence. What did this petty official do at home in the evenings? After dinner at home, having returned from work, Akaki Akakievich walked back and forth around the room, slowly living through long minutes and hours. Then he sank into a chair and throughout the evening he could be found writing regularly.
Analysis of Gogol's story "The Overcoat" includes an important conclusion: when the meaning of a person's life is in work, it is petty and joyless. Here is further confirmation of this idea.
Then, after such leisure time, Bashmachkin goes to bed, but what are his thoughts about in bed? About what he will copy at the office tomorrow. He thought about it, and it made him happy. The meaning of life for this official, who was a “little man” and was already in his sixth decade, was the most primitive: take paper, dip a pen in an inkwell and write endlessly - carefully and diligently. However, another goal in Akaki’s life nevertheless appeared.
Other details of the analysis of the story "The Overcoat"
Akakiy had a very small salary in the service. He was paid thirty-six rubles a month, and almost all of it went towards food and housing. A harsh winter has come - an icy wind blew and frost struck. And Bashmachkin wears worn-out clothes that cannot keep him warm on a frosty day. Here Nikolai Gogol very accurately describes the situation of Akaki, his old shabby overcoat, and the actions of the official.
Akaki Akakievich decides to go to the workshop to repair his overcoat. He asks the tailor to fill the holes, but he announces that the overcoat cannot be repaired, and there is only one way out - to buy a new one. For this thing porn calls a gigantic amount (for Akaki) - eighty rubles. Bashmachkin doesn’t have that kind of money; he’ll have to save it, and to do this he’ll have to enter a very economical lifestyle. Doing an analysis here, you might think why this “little man” goes to such extremes: he stops drinking tea in the evenings, once again He doesn’t give his laundry to the laundress, he walks around so that his shoes are washed less often... Is it really all for the sake of a new overcoat, which he will later lose? But this is his new joy in life, his goal. Gogol is trying to encourage the reader to think about what is most important in life, what to give priority to.
conclusions
We briefly reviewed the plot incompletely, but isolated from it only those details that are needed in order to make a clear analysis of the story “The Overcoat”. The main character is spiritually and physically insolvent. He does not strive for the best, his condition is poor, he is not a person. After another goal appears in life, other than rewriting papers, he seems to change. Now Akaki is focused on buying an overcoat.
Gogol shows us the other side. How callously and unfairly those around Bashmachkin treat him. He endures ridicule and bullying. On top of everything else, the meaning of his life disappears after Akakiy’s new overcoat is taken away. He is deprived of his last joy, again Bashmachkin is sad and lonely.
Here, during the analysis, Gogol’s goal is visible - to show the harsh truth of that time. The “little people” were destined to suffer and die; no one needed them and were uninteresting. Just like the death of the Shoemaker was not of interest to those around him and those who could help him.
You read brief analysis the story "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol. In our literary blog you will find many articles on various topics, including analyzes of works.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who left a mystical mark on Russian literature, for many writers of the 19th century century became the ancestor critical realism. It was no coincidence that catchphrase Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky in an interview with a French journalist: “We all came out of Gogol’s overcoat.” The writer implied an attitude towards the “little man”, which manifested itself very clearly in the story. Later, this type of hero will become the main one in Russian literature.
“The Overcoat”, included in the cycle “ Petersburg stories", in the original editions wore humorous character, because it appeared thanks to an anecdote. Gogol, according to the memoirs of P. V. Annenkov, “listened to comments, descriptions, anecdotes... and, it happened, used them.”
One day he heard an office joke about a poor official: he was a passionate hunter and saved enough money to buy a good gun, saving on everything and working hard in his position. When he first went hunting for ducks on a boat, the gun got caught in dense thickets of reeds and sank. He could not find him and, returning home, fell ill with a fever. His comrades, having learned about this, bought him a new gun, which brought him back to life, but later he recalled this incident with a deathly pallor on his face. Everyone laughed at the joke, but Gogol went away deep in thought: it was that evening that the idea of a future story arose in his head.
Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, the main character of the story “The Overcoat,” starting from birth, when his mother, rejecting all the names in the calendar as too exotic, gave him his father’s name, and at baptism he cried and made such a grimace, “as if I felt that there would be a titular adviser”, and all his life, humbly enduring the cold, despotic treatment of his superiors, the bullying of his colleagues and poverty, “knew how to be satisfied with his lot”. Any changes in his life order were no longer possible.
When suddenly fate gives you a chance to change your life - to sew a new overcoat. Thus, the central event of the story becomes the acquisition and loss of the overcoat. At first, a conversation with an angry tailor, who claims that it is impossible to repair an old overcoat, plunges Akaki Akakievich into complete confusion. To raise money for a new coat, Bashmachkin has to not drink tea in the evenings, not light candles, and walk almost on tiptoe in order to keep his feet on the ground. All these restrictions cause terrible inconvenience at first.
But as soon as the hero imagined a new overcoat, he became a different person. The changes are striking: Bashmachkin “became more lively, stronger in character, like a man who has set a goal for himself”. The author’s irony is understandable: the goal for which the official changed is too insignificant.
The appearance of the long-awaited overcoat - "the most solemn day" in the life of a hero. Bashmachkin is embarrassed by the universal attention of his colleagues, but still accepts the offer to celebrate the new thing. The usual way of life is disrupted, the hero’s behavior changes. It turns out that he is able to laugh cheerfully and not write any papers after dinner.
Since Bashmachkin has not left the house in the evenings for a long time, St. Petersburg seems beautiful to him. This city is fantastic just because it appeared “from the darkness of the forests, from the swamps of blat”, but it was Gogol who turned it into a phantasmagoric city - a place where something out of the ordinary is possible. The hero of "The Overcoat", lost in the night Petersburg, becomes a victim of robbery. A shock for him is the appeal to the police authorities, the attempts of his colleagues to organize a team-up, but the most serious test is the meeting with "significant person", after which Bashmachkin dies.
The author emphasizes how terrible and tragic helplessness is “ little man" In Petersburg. Retribution, enhanced by intervention, becomes just as terrible. evil spirits. A ghost that appeared in a vacant lot after Bashmachkin’s death, reminiscent of a former titular councilor, tore down “all sorts of overcoats, regardless of rank and title”. This continued until "significant person" did not end up in the ill-fated wasteland and was not grabbed by the dead man. That's when the ghost said: “...your overcoat is what I need! ... If you didn’t bother about mine, now give me yours!”
This incident changed the formerly important official: he became less arrogant. And the appearance of the dead official stopped: “Apparently, the general’s overcoat suited his shoulders.”. For Gogol, what becomes fantastic is not the appearance of a ghost, but the manifestation of conscience even in such a person as "significant person".
“The Overcoat” develops the theme of the “little man” outlined by Karamzin in “Poor Liza” and revealed by Pushkin in. But Gogol sees the cause of evil not in people, but in the structure of life, where not everyone has privileges.
- "The Overcoat", a summary of Gogol's story
- “Portrait”, analysis of Gogol’s story, essay
"became one of the first works in Russian literature that revealed the problem of the “little man” in society. The story was first published in 1842. “The Overcoat” with a number of other stories was combined into the “Petersburg Stories” cycle.
The action of the story unfolds around the life of a small clerk in the office of Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin. The composition of the work can be presented in four parts: the birth of the main character, his service in the city office, the purchase of a new overcoat and the mystical ending of the work.
The main character is depicted as a pitiful man, short, about fifty years old, with a bald spot on his forehead and wrinkles on his cheeks. At birth, they could not find a name for him for a long time, because in the calendar there were only ridiculous names. Therefore, it was decided to name the child in honor of his father Akaki.
All his life he held the post of clerk in one of the city offices. The main character liked this monotonous and routine work. He even took the work home, and when she was not there, Akaki Akakievich “deliberately, for his own pleasure, made a copy for himself...”.
In addition to the image of the “little man,” Gogol, in the person of Bashmachkin’s colleagues, creates the image of an official. These people act like soulless creatures who constantly make fun of the main character and overwhelm him with papers. These people are devoid of human pity and compassion.
With the arrival of cold weather, the life of Akaki Akakievich changes dramatically. And his old overcoat was to blame for it all. It was so worn out that the tailor Petrovich did not undertake to patch it up. He insisted on buying a new thing. The meager salary did not allow Bashmachkin to immediately shell out the required amount of money, and he begins to save. At this moment, another problem raised by Gogol in the work can be traced - poverty and misery. For the sake of the required amount money, Akakiy Akakievich refuses to have evening tea, he doesn’t even light candles in the dark, and he began to take his linen to the laundress less often. When the required amount was collected, the tailor sewed him a new overcoat. It is worth noting that Petrovich was the only person who supported the main character and helped him.
The new overcoat seemed to transform Akaki Akakievich. He went to work with a smile. And his colleagues began to treat him differently. Unfortunately, the happiness did not last long. The next evening, when Bashmachkin was returning home, he was robbed and his new overcoat was taken away. This became a real tragedy for the main character. No one could understand or share his grief. He decides to contact the authorities, but remains unheard. " Significant person" simply shoos him away. Akaki Akakievich dies in delirium. It is characteristic that the death of the “little man” is noticed only on the fourth day. But this news does not sadden anyone; a replacement is quickly found for him.
Towards the final part of the story, we learn that the ghost of an official is wandering around the city, tearing off the greatcoats from the shoulders of “significant people.” The ghost of Akaki Akakievich calms down only after he tears off the greatcoat from the shoulders of his offender, the general who drove him away.
By using mystical ending Gogol's story shows us how powerless "little people" are in real life. And only after death can they declare their rights and restore justice.
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Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who left a mystical mark on Russian literature, is “the most mysterious figure in Russian literature". To this day, the writer’s works cause controversy.
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“The Overcoat,” which was included in the cycle of “Petersburg Tales,” in the original editions was of a humorous nature, because it appeared thanks to an anecdote.
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One day Gogol heard an anecdote about a poor official: he was a passionate hunter and saved enough money to buy a good gun, saving on everything and working hard in his position. When he first went hunting for ducks on a boat, the gun got caught in dense thickets of reeds and sank. He could not find him and, returning home, fell ill with a fever. His comrades, having learned about this, bought him a new gun, which brought him back to life, but later he recalled this incident with a deathly pallor on his face. Everyone laughed at the joke, but Gogol went away deep in thought: it was that evening that the idea of a future story arose in his head.
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The first draft of the story was called “The Tale of an Official Stealing an Overcoat.” The official's last name was Tishkevich. In 1842, Gogol completed the story and changed the hero's surname. It is published, completing the cycle of “Petersburg Tales”. This cycle includes the stories: “Nevsky Prospekt”, “The Nose”, “Portrait”, “The Stroller”, “Notes of a Madman” and “The Overcoat”.
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The writer worked on the cycle between 1835 and 1842. The stories are combined by common place events - St. Petersburg. Gogol was attracted to petty officials, artisans, and poor artists - “little people.” It was no coincidence that St. Petersburg was chosen by the writer; it was this stone city that was especially indifferent and merciless to the “little man.”
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Genre, creative method The genre of “The Overcoat” is defined as a story, although its volume does not exceed twenty pages. It received its specific name not so much for its volume as for its enormous semantic richness, which is not found in every novel. The meaning of the work is revealed only by compositional and stylistic techniques with the extreme simplicity of the plot. Simple story about a poor official, who invested all his money and soul into a new overcoat, after the theft of which he dies, under the pen of Gogol found a mystical denouement, turned into a colorful parable with enormous philosophical overtones. "Overcoat" is beautiful piece of art, revealing eternal problems existences that will not be translated either in life or in literature as long as humanity exists.
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It is difficult to call the story realistic: the story of the stolen overcoat, according to Gogol, “unexpectedly takes on a fantastic ending.” The ghost, in whom the deceased Akaki Akakievich was recognized, tore off everyone’s greatcoat, “without discerning rank and title.” Thus, the ending of the story turned it into a phantasmagoria.
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Topics The story raises social, ethical, religious and aesthetic problems. Public interpretation emphasized the social side of “The Overcoat.” The ethical or humanistic interpretation was built on the pitiful moments of “The Overcoat”, the call for generosity and equality, which was heard in Akaki Akakievich’s weak protest against office jokes: “Leave me alone, why are you offending me?” - and in these penetrating words other words rang: “I am your brother.” Finally, the aesthetic principle, which came to the fore in the works of the 20th century, focused mainly on the form of the story as the focus of its artistic value.
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The idea “Why depict the poverty and imperfections of our life, digging people out of life, the remote corners of the state?... no, there is a time when otherwise it is impossible to direct society and even a generation towards the beautiful until you show the full depth of its real abomination,” wrote N.V. Gogol, and in his words lies the key to understanding the story.
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The author showed the “depth of abomination” of society through the fate of the main character of the story - Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin. His image has two sides. The first is spiritual and physical squalor, which Gogol deliberately emphasizes and brings to the fore. The second is the arbitrariness and heartlessness of others towards the main character of the story. The relationship between the first and second determines the humanistic pathos of the work: even a person like Akaki Akakievich has the right to exist and be treated fairly. Gogol sympathizes with the fate of his hero. And it makes the reader involuntarily think about the attitude towards the entire world around him, and first of all about the sense of dignity and respect that every person should arouse towards himself, regardless of his social and financial situation, but only taking into account his personal qualities and merits.
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The nature of the conflict The basis of N.V.’s plan Gogol lies in the conflict between the “little man” and society, a conflict leading to rebellion, to the uprising of the humble. The story “The Overcoat” describes not only an incident from the hero’s life. The whole life of a person appears before us: we are present at his birth, the naming of his name, we learn how he served, why he needed an overcoat and, finally, how he died. The life story of the “little man”, his inner world, his feelings and experiences, depicted by Gogol not only in “The Overcoat”, but also in other stories of the “Petersburg Tales” series, firmly entered into Russian literature of the 19th century century.
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The main characters The hero of the story is Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, a petty official of one of the St. Petersburg departments, a humiliated and powerless man “of short stature, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat reddish, somewhat even blind in appearance, with a small bald spot on his forehead, with wrinkles on both sides of his cheeks.” The hero of Gogol's story is offended by fate in everything, but he does not complain: he is already over fifty, he has not gone beyond copying papers, has not risen to a rank above the titular one. Bashmachkin has neither family nor friends, he does not go to the theater or to visit. All his “spiritual” needs are satisfied by copying papers. Nobody considers him to be a person. Bashmachkin did not answer a single word to his offenders, did not even stop working and did not make mistakes in the letter. All his life Akaki Akakievich serves in the same place, in the same position; His salary is meager - 400 rubles. per year, the uniform has long been no longer green, but a reddish flour color; Colleagues call an overcoat worn to holes a hood.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a special, colorful figure in Russian literature. His name is associated with a lot of mystical, strange and even scary things. What is one of the most mystical stories XIX century - “Viy”! In fact, Gogol has several even stranger and instructive works, one of which is “The Overcoat”. The history of Gogol’s creation of “The Overcoat” is rooted in problems society XIX century.
Plot
The petty official Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin leads a very quiet, modest and inconspicuous life. He works in the office, rewrites any papers, and only in this activity does he find some kind of outlet. Colleagues laugh at him and openly mock him, his bosses don’t notice him, he has no family or friends.
One day Bashmachkin realizes that his old overcoat has completely fallen into disrepair and urgently needs a replacement. To save up for a new coat, Akaki Akakievich takes unprecedented measures; he saves on food, candles, and even walks on tiptoes so as not to tear his shoes. After several months of hardship, he finally buys a new overcoat. At work, everyone - some maliciously, some kindly - admires the old man's acquisition and invites him to one of his colleagues for the evening.
Akaki Akakievich is happy, he spent a wonderful evening visiting, but when the hero returned home late at night, he was robbed and his new overcoat was taken away. In despair, Bashmachkin runs to the authorities, but in vain, he goes to see a “high” person, but he only shouts at the petty official. Akaki Akakievich returns to his closet, where he soon dies, and the residents of St. Petersburg learn about a mysterious ghost who tears off the greatcoats from rich citizens and shouts “Mine!”
The history of the creation of Gogol's "Overcoat" reflects an entire era from special problems, shows the unusual and distant history of our country and at the same time touches on eternal questions humanity, still relevant today.
Theme "little man"
In the 19th century, a direction of realism emerged in Russian literature, covering all the little details and features real life. The heroes of the works were ordinary people with your daily problems and passions.
If we talk briefly about the history of the creation of Gogol’s “The Overcoat,” then the theme of the “little man” in a large and alien world is especially acutely reflected here. A petty official floats with the flow of life, is never indignant, experiences neither strong ups nor strong downs. The writer wanted to show that a real hero life is not a shining knight or a smart and sensitive romantic character. But here is such an insignificant person, crushed by circumstances.
The image of Bashmachkin became the starting point for further development not only Russian, but also world literature. European authors of the 19th and 20th centuries tried to find ways for the “little man” to escape psychological and social shackles. This is where the characters of Turgenev, E. Zola, Kafka or Camus were born.
The history of the creation of "The Overcoat" by N. V. Gogol
According to researchers of the great Russian writer, the original idea for the story was born from an anecdote about a petty official who wanted to buy himself a gun and had been saving for his dream for a long time. Finally, having bought the treasured gun, he lost it while sailing in the Gulf of Finland. The official returned home and soon died from his worries.
The history of the creation of Gogol’s “The Overcoat” begins in 1839, when the author was just making rough sketches. Little documentary evidence has survived, but fragments indicate that it was originally comic story without much morality and deep meaning. Over the next 3 years, Gogol took up the story several more times, but brought it to the end only in 1841. During this time, the work almost lost all its humor and became more pathetic and deep.
Criticism
The history of the creation of Gogol’s “Overcoat” cannot be understood without taking into account the assessment of contemporaries, ordinary readers and literary critics. After the publication of a collection of the writer’s essays containing this story, at first they did not pay due attention to it. At the end of the 30s of the 19th century, the theme of a distressed official was very popular in Russian literature, and “The Overcoat” was initially classified as one of the same pitifully sentimental works.
But already in the second half of the 19th century, it became clear that Gogol’s “The Overcoat” and the story of the creation of the story became the beginning of a whole movement in art. The theme of the crushing of man and the quiet rebellion of this insignificant creature have become relevant in Russian authoritarian society. The writers saw and believed that even such an unfortunate and “small” person is a person, a person who thinks, analyzes and knows how to defend his rights in his own way.
B. M. Eikhenbaum, “How the “Overcoat” is Made”
A great contribution to understanding the history of the creation of Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” was made by B. M. Eikhenbaum, one of the most famous and honored Russian XIX critics century. In his work “How the Overcoat is Made,” he revealed to the reader and other authors the true meaning and purpose of this work. The researcher noted the original, fabulous manner narrative, allowing the author to express his attitude towards the hero during the story. In the first chapters, he mocks Bashmachkin’s pettiness and pitifulness, but in the last chapters he already feels pity and sympathy for his character.
The history of the creation of Gogol’s “The Overcoat” cannot be studied without interruption from the social situation of those years. The author is indignant and indignant at the terrible and humiliating “Table of Ranks” system, which puts a person in certain limits, from which not everyone can get out.
Religious interpretation
Gogol was often accused of playing too freely with Orthodox religious symbols. Someone saw his pagan images of Viy, the witch and the devil as a manifestation of lack of spirituality, a departure from Christian traditions. Others, on the contrary, said that in such ways the author is trying to show the reader the way of salvation from evil spirits, namely Orthodox humility.
Therefore, some researchers saw the history of the creation of Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” precisely in a certain religious context. internal conflict author. And Bashmachkin no longer performs as collective image a minor official, but as a person subjected to temptation. The hero invented an idol for himself - an overcoat, lived and suffered because of it. The religious interpretation is also supported by the fact that Gogol was very fanatical about God, various rituals and carefully observed everything.
Place in literature
The movement of realism in literature and other forms of art created a real sensation in the world. artists and sculptors tried to depict life as it is, without embellishment or gloss. And in the image of Bashmachkin we also see ridicule of something that is fading into history. romantic hero. He had high goals and majestic images, but here a person has the meaning of life - new overcoat. This idea forced the reader to think deeper, to look for answers to questions in real life, and not in dreams and novels.
The history of the creation of N. V. Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” is the history of the formation of Russian national thought. The author correctly saw and guessed the trend of the times. People no longer wanted to be slaves in the literal and figurative sense; a rebellion was brewing, but it was still quiet and timid.
30 years later, the theme of the already matured and more courageous “little man” would be raised by Turgenev in his novels, Dostoevsky in his work “Poor People” and partly in his famous “Pentateuch”. Moreover, the image of Bashmachkin migrated to other forms of art, to theater and cinema, and here it received a new meaning.