The Overcoat
Introduction + Context
Plot Summary
Detailed Summary & Analysis
Themes
All Themes Bureaucracy and Selfhood The Insignificance of the Everyman Materialism, Material Goods, and Art Social Status and Fate
Quotes
Characters
All Characters Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin Petrovich The Important Person The District Police Superintendent The Narrator The Young Official The Assistant Head Clerk
Symbols
All Symbols The Overcoat
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The Overcoat

by

Nikolai Gogol

The Overcoat Symbols

The Overcoat

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s comment, “We all come out of Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’,” may indicate how broadly the symbol of the overcoat can be interpreted. The coat represents a number of different ideas, and its meaning also shifts…

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