Spirituality and Symbolism in Gogol's "The Overcoat"

by Max Levine

When Nikolai Gogol wrote “The Overcoat” there was a lot going on in his life. Many think that the influence of “The Overcoat’ is largely due to a religious and spiritual event that occurred in Gogol’s life (Hippisley 121). “The Overcoat” was written by Gogol in Vienna in the summer of 1840. Before that it is thought that Gogol wrote this story just after he fell extremely ill to the point where he thought he was going to die. When he survived he took this as a sign that God wanted him to fulfill a mission. V. Zenkovskij stated that Gogol’s religious beliefs were so bound up with his concept of aesthetics which led him to conclude that Gogol’s first stay in Rome attained his highest spiritual tranquility (Hippisley 122). He believes that Gogol’s tranquility is due to the fact that he was highly involved with the Roman Catholic Church. Gogol was impressed with how calm everything was inside the churches of Rome and the feeling it gave him due to the architecture and services. Sadly his tranquility shattered one day in 1839 when a close friend of Gogol’s, Count V’el’gorskij, was falling very ill. His perfect spirituality which he had in Rome was now gone due to this traumatic experience. It is thought that since this traumatic experience happened just before this book was written that it would leave a large impact on “The Overcoat” (Hippisley 123). Anthony Hippisley states in his article, that “a spiritual crisis is the real substance of the tale and that to express it the author drew upon the symbology of clothing with which he was familiar both through the Bible and through Orthodox Liturgy” (Hippisley 123). This brings us to the symbol of the overcoat itself. Hippisley describes that there is a parallel between the actual overcoat in “The Overcoat” and the clothing that is talked about in a religious work, “Meditation on the Divine Liturgy” which is also written by Gogol (Hippisley 123). In an excerpt from this story the parallel can be seen clearly:

The priest completes his vesting by putting on the chasuble (phelonion), the upper most vestment, convering all the others and symbolizing the all-embracing justice of God, and says: ‘Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let Thy saints shoud for joy, always, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen’ (Psalms 123:9). Thus invested with the divine instruments, the priest is now another man. (Gogol 13)

From this quote we can clearly see how similar this is to the character Akakij Akakievic because he exchanges his dirty old coat for a brand new coat and becomes a new man (Hippisley 123). This gives the idea that Gogol really has a connection with using clothing as symbols. Another idea about this given by Vladimir Nabokov, who says that “Akakij Akakievic’s clothing process is really a disrobing that brings him back to his original ghostlike state of nonbeing”(Hippisley 122). What this is really saying is that when Akakij is going around stealing overcoats from other people all he is doing is sneaking around where nobody can see him which in turn, is similar to how he was when he was alive, nobody really noticed him or the work that he was doing. In relation to what was just said, Cyril Bryner states that “The Overcoat” was less respected than many of Gogol’s other works mainly due to the fact that it does not relate to “his purely humorous or his purely fantastic stories.” She also states that it is less representative of Gogol’s style than “Deal Souls”, “The Nose”, and “The Inspector-General” (Bryner 499). The reason for this can be explained by the traumatic experience that happened to Gogol when he was first in Rome. It makes sense that “The Overcoat” might not be as good or even related to this other works due to this experience that may have altered the thoughts of his mind during this period in his life. With all of this said, the facts come together as to the symbols used, the direction of the story, and perhaps even the quality of the story which Gogol produced during this time in his life. As a reader, do you care if a work is based on a particular event in real life or would you rather have a story be entirely made up?

Works Cited

Bryner, Cyril. "Gogolľs "The Overcoat" in World Literature." The Slavonic and East European             Review 32.79 (1954): 499-509. JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.             <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4204570>.

Gogol, Nicolas. "The Overcoat." The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed.             Ann Charters. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 474-96. Print.

           

Hippisley, Anthony. "Gogol"s "The Overcoat": A Further Interpretation." The Slavic and East             European Journal 20.2 (1976): 121-29. JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.             <http://www.jstor.org/stable/305820>.