Title significance “The Overcoat”:

The overcoat is the central symbol of the story. It represent both banal and
fantastic. It is a useful and necessary piece of clothing, meant to protect the
harshness of the elements. It is also a thing of beauty when well made.

Having the protagonist obsess over something as mundane as a coat highlights the
story’s Critique of Bureaucracy. The life of Akaky before new coat is lonely. His
superiors treated him in coolly despotic fashion. No respect was shown him in the
department. “The porter not only did not rise from his seat when he passed,
but he never even glanced at him.” Gogol has unfolded tragedies as well as
satirical jokes by imagining wide range of roles, an overcoat can fulfill with an
oppressive, bureaucratic, and heavily materialistic society.

“You must know that Akaky Akakievitch’s cloak served as an object of

ridicule for the officials: they even refused it the noble name of cloak, and
called it a cape”

Without the loss of humor, he has shown his reader different perception of
overcoat as simple necessity of a decent life. The overcoat represents security,
status, and protection. It protects in a material sense by insulating its wearer from
the cold. It's also a token and costume, allowing the wearer to play a role. “In fact,
there were two advantages, one was its warmth, and the other is beauty.”

Akaky’s old overcoat, or "cape," provided the security of a familiar identity.

Change discomfort him. He was comfortable in the garment that represented what
he knew himself to be: lonely, poor, and mocked constantly. This was a world he
knew. When Petrovitch calls the old coat "wretched" and "impossible to mend,"
“Akaky’s Akakievitch heart smack at this word”; “At the word new, all grew
dark before Akaky Akakievitch’s eyes.” the words resonate with Akaky. Is it
impossible to improve his life and place in the world?

The new coat, however, elevates the status of both the tailor and the wearer. The
tailor is impressed by his own craftsmanship. Akaky sees himself for the first time
as someone who owns warm, beautiful clothing. The coat protects Akaky from
bullying and propels him into a world where others seek out his company. “It is
impossible to say precisely how it was that everyone in the department knew
at once that Akaky had a new cloak, and the cape no longer existed. They
congratulated him and said pleasant things to him.” Gogol shows how
seemingly rigid class boundaries can be transcended by a costume.

Akaky can’t imagine anything more wonderful than a new coat, and his mind is
soon absorbed by its details. “He was conscious every second of the time that he
had a new cloak on his shoulders; and several times he laughed with internal
satisfaction.”

A simple coat which no one take that much attention has that much effect on a
personality of a man. He feels comfort. Attitude of others change towards him. His
own confidence increases. Before the cloak he expressed himself chiefly by
prepositions, adverbs and scarps of phrases which had no meaning whatever. “If
the matter was a difficult one, he had a habit of never completing his
sentences.” After having a new coat, “for once in his life Akaky felt an
inclination to show some spirit, and said curtly that he must see the chief in
person.”

The language and imagery with which Nikolai Gogol writes allows the reader to
further identify with the plight of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachin and his need to
buy a new coat. This story really discusses how class affected how people
interacted with one another and how people had to behave in order to live
according to the social norms of the time. Akaky believed that by having a proper
coat, he would be more successful in his job, however his need to conform to this
social norm that results in his death. However, Gogol introduces the true cause of
Akaky’s death, the drastic differences between the social classes and those trapped
in the middle. Akaky was not in the lowest class nor was he in the upper class; this
put him in a bit of a limbo, especially when one reads of the interactions between
him and the Important Personage. The greatest difference between the two
characters is their standing in the social hierarchy and what one finds to be more
important. To Akaky the coat represented the hours he worked and the things he
and his family had to forgo in order to afford that coat, while to the Important
Personage it’s simply a coat. The ghost of Akaky’s new goal is to take the coats
from others to compensate for his own stolen one. “Ah, here you are at last! I
have you, that- by collar! I need your cloak; you took no trouble for mine. But
reprimanded me; so now give up your own.” The final scene in which the
Important Personage gets his own coat stolen almost seems to symbolize the rise of
the lower class over the higher ranked officials.

Just as the coat is the only defense against deadly cold, costumes and appearances
are essential to survival in a cutthroat, competitive world. The loss of the coat
eventually leads to Akaky’s death by fever. Without the coat, Akaky is also subject
to the rudeness of his superiors and the futility of any attempts to find help.