The history of the creation of Gogol's work "Overcoat"

Gogol, according to the Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev, is "the most mysterious figure in Russian literature." To this day, the writer's works are controversial. One of these works is the story "The Overcoat".
In the mid-30s. Gogol heard an anecdote about an official who lost his gun. It sounded like this: there was one poor official who was a passionate hunter. He saved up for a long time for a gun, which he had long dreamed of. His dream came true, but while sailing on the Gulf of Finland, he lost it. Upon returning home, the official died of frustration.
The first draft of the story was called "The Tale of an Official Stealing an Overcoat." In this version, some anecdotal motives and comic effects were seen. The official bore the surname Tishkevich. In 1842 Gogol completes the story and changes the hero's surname. The story is being printed, completing the cycle of "Petersburg Tales". This cycle includes novels: "Nevsky Prospect", "The Nose", "Portrait", "Carriage", "Notes of a Madman" and "Overcoat". The writer worked on the cycle between 1835 and 1842. The stories are united in a common place of events - Petersburg. Petersburg, however, is not only a place of action, but also a kind of hero of these stories, in which Gogol paints life in its various manifestations. Usually writers, talking about Petersburg life, illuminated the life and characters of the capital's society. Gogol was attracted by petty officials, artisans, beggar artists - "little people". Petersburg was not chosen by the writer by chance, it was this stone city that was especially indifferent and ruthless to the "little man". This topic was first discovered by A.S. Pushkin. She becomes the leading one in the work of N.V. Gogol.

Genre, genre, creative method

Analysis of the work shows that in the story "The Overcoat" the influence of hagiographic literature can be seen. It is known that Gogol was an extremely religious person. Of course, he was well acquainted with this genre of church literature. Many researchers have written about the influence of the life of the Monk Akaki of Sinai on the novella "The Overcoat", including famous names: V.B. Shklovsky and GL. Makogonenko. Moreover, in addition to the striking external similarity of the fate of St. Akaki and the hero Gogol traced the main common points of the plot development: obedience, stoic patience, the ability to endure various kinds of humiliation, then death from injustice and - life after death.
The genre "Overcoat" is defined as a story, although its volume does not exceed twenty pages. It received its specific name - a story - not so much for its volume as for its enormous, which you cannot find in any novel, semantic richness. The meaning of the work is revealed by some compositional and stylistic techniques with the extreme simplicity of the plot. A simple story about a beggar official, who invested all his money and soul in 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 a huge philosophical implication. "The Overcoat" is not just an accusatory satirical story, it is a wonderful work of fiction that reveals the eternal problems of being, which will not be lost either in life or in literature as long as humanity exists.
Sharply criticizing the dominant system of life, its inner falsity and hypocrisy, Gogol's work prompted the idea of \u200b\u200bthe need for a different life, a different social order. The "Petersburg stories" of the great writer, including "The Overcoat", are usually attributed to the realistic period of his work. Nevertheless, they can hardly be called realistic. The sorrowful tale of the stolen greatcoat, according to Gogol, "unexpectedly takes a fantastic ending." The ghost, in which the deceased Akaki Akakievich was recognized, tore off the greatcoats from everyone, "without disassembling rank and rank." Thus, the ending of the story turned it into a phantasmagoria.

The subject of the analyzed work

The story raises social, ethical, religious and aesthetic problems. Public interpretation emphasized the social side of The Overcoat. Akaki Akakievich was viewed as a typical "little man", a victim of the bureaucratic system and indifference. Emphasizing the typicality of the fate of the "little man", Gogol says that death did not change anything in the department, Bashmachkin's place was simply taken by another official. Thus, the theme of a person - a victim of a social system - has been brought to its logical conclusion.
An ethical or humanistic interpretation was based on the pitiful moments of The Overcoat, a call for generosity and equality, which was heard in Akaky Akakievich's weak protest against clerical jokes: “Leave me, why are you offending me?” - and in these penetrating words other words rang out: "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.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe story "Overcoat"

“Why portray poverty ... and the imperfections of our life, digging people out of life, remote nooks and crannies of the state? ... no, there is a time when otherwise it is impossible to direct society and even a generation to the beautiful, until you show the full depth of its real abomination, "wrote N.V. Gogol, and his words contain the key to understanding the story.
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 poverty, which is deliberately emphasized by Gogol and brought to the fore. The second is the arbitrariness and heartlessness of those around in relation to the main character of the story. The ratio of the first and the second determines the humanistic pathos of the work: even a person like Akaky Akakievich has the right to exist and has a fair attitude towards himself. Gogol sympathizes with the fate of his hero. And it makes the reader involuntarily think about the attitude towards the whole world around him, and first of all about the feeling of dignity and respect that every person should evoke to himself, regardless of his social and material status, but only taking into account his personal qualities and merits.

The nature of the conflict

The concept of N.V. Gogol lies 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 life of the hero. The whole life of a person appears before us: we are present at his birth, given his name, we learn how he served, why he needed an overcoat, and, finally, how he died. The history of the life 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 cycle "Petersburg Tales", firmly entered the Russian literature of the XIX century.

The main characters of the story "Overcoat"

The hero of the story is Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, a petty official of one of the St. Petersburg departments, a humiliated and disenfranchised man "short in 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 grumble: he is already over fifty, he did not go beyond the correspondence of papers, did not rise above the rank of a titular councilor (a state official of the 9th class who does not have the right to acquire personal nobility - if he does not born a nobleman) - and yet he is meek, meek, devoid of ambitious dreams. Bashmachkin has no family or friends, he does not go to the theater or to visit. All his "spiritual" needs are satisfied by rewriting papers: "It is not enough to say: he served zealously, - no, he served with love." Nobody considers him for a person. “Young officials made fun of him and made fun of him, how much clerical wit was enough ...” Bashmachkin did not answer a single word to his offenders, did not even stop work and did not make mistakes in his letter. All his life Akaky Akakievich has served in the same place, in the same position; his salary is scanty - 400 rubles. per year, the uniform is no longer green, but a reddish flour color; The overcoat worn out to the holes is called the hood by the colleagues.
Gogol does not hide the limitations, paucity of the interests of his hero, tongue-tied. But something else brings to the fore: his meekness, uncomplaining patience. Even the name of the hero carries this meaning: Akaki is humble, non-spiteful, not doing evil, innocent. The appearance of the overcoat reveals the hero's inner world, for the first time the emotions of the hero are depicted, although Gogol does not give the character's direct speech - only a retelling. Akaky Akakievich remains wordless even at the critical moment of his life. The drama of this situation lies in the fact that nobody helped Bashmachkin.
An interesting vision of the protagonist from the famous researcher B.M. Eichenbaum. He saw in Bashmachkin an image that “served with love”, in rewriting “he saw his own varied and pleasant world”, he did not think at all about his dress, about anything else practical, he ate without noticing the taste, did not indulge in any entertainment, in a word, he lived in some of his own ghostly and strange world, far from reality, was a dreamer in a uniform. And it is not for nothing that his spirit, having freed itself from this uniform, so freely and boldly develops its revenge - this is prepared by the whole story, here is its whole essence, its whole whole.
Along with Bashmachkin, the image of an overcoat plays an important role in the story. It is quite consistent with the broad concept of "honor of the uniform", which characterized the most important element of the noble and officer's ethics, to the norms of which the authorities under Nicholas I tried to introduce commoners and all officials in general.
The loss of his greatcoat turns out to be not only material, but also moral loss for Akaki Akakievich. Indeed, thanks to the new overcoat, Bashmachkin, for the first time in a department environment, felt like a man. The new overcoat is able to save him from frost and disease, but, most importantly, it protects him from ridicule and humiliation from his colleagues. With the loss of his overcoat, Akaki Akakievich lost the meaning of life.

Plot and composition

“The plot of the Overcoat is extremely simple. The poor little official makes an important decision and orders a new overcoat. While it is being sewn, it turns into the dream of his life. On the very first evening, when he puts it on, thieves take off his overcoat on a dark street. The official dies of grief, and his ghost roams the city. That's the whole plot, but, of course, the real plot (as always with Gogol) in the style, in the internal structure of this ... anecdote ", - this is how V.V. Gogol retold the plot of Gogol's story. Nabokov.
A hopeless need surrounds Akaki Akakievich, but he does not see the tragedy of his position, as he is busy with business. Bashmachkin is not burdened by his poverty, because he does not know another life. And when he has a dream - a new overcoat, he is ready to endure any hardships, just to bring the implementation of his plan closer. The overcoat becomes a kind of symbol of a happy future, a beloved child, for the sake of which Akaky Akakievich is ready to work tirelessly. The author is quite serious when he describes his hero's enthusiasm for the realization of his dream: the overcoat is sewn! Bashmach-kin was completely happy. However, with the loss of Bashmachkin's new overcoat, real grief overtakes. And only after death is justice done. Bashmachkin's soul finds peace when he returns to himself a lost thing.
The image of the overcoat is very important in the development of the plot of the work. The plot of the plot is associated with the emergence of the idea to sew a new overcoat or fix an old one. The development of the action - Bashmachkin's trips to the tailor Petrovich, an ascetic existence and dreams of a future greatcoat, buying a new dress and visiting a name day, on which Akaky Akakievich's greatcoat should be "washed". The action culminates in the theft of a new overcoat. And, finally, the denouement lies in Bashmachkin's unsuccessful attempts to return the greatcoat; the death of a hero who caught a cold without a greatcoat and yearned for it. The story ends with an epilogue - a fantastic story about the ghost of an official who is looking for his greatcoat.
The story of Akaki Akakievich's "posthumous existence" is full of horror and comic at the same time. In the deathly silence of the Petersburg night, he rips off the overcoats from officials, not recognizing the bureaucratic difference in rank and acting both behind the Kalinkin bridge (that is, in the poor part of the capital) and in the rich part of the city. Only having overtaken the direct culprit of his death, "one significant person" who, after a friendly bossy party, goes to "a lady friend Karolina Ivanovna," and having ripped off his general's overcoat, the "spirit" of the dead Akaki Akakievich calms down, disappears from St. Petersburg squares and streets. Apparently, "the general's overcoat fell on his shoulder completely."

Artistic originality

“Gogol's composition is not determined by the plot - his plot is always poor, rather, there is no plot, but only one comic (and sometimes even not comic in itself) position is taken, which serves as a mere impetus or reason for development comic techniques. This story is especially interesting for this kind of analysis, because in it a pure comic tale, with all the methods of language play characteristic of Gogol, is combined with pathetic declamation, which forms a kind of second layer. Gogol does not allow his actors in The Overcoat to speak much, and, as always with him, their speech is formed in a special way, so that, despite individual differences, it never gives the impression of everyday speech, ”wrote B.M. Eichenbaum in the article "How Gogol's Overcoat was Made."
The "Overcoat" is narrated in the first person. The narrator knows the life of officials well, expresses his attitude to what is happening in the story through numerous remarks. “What can we do! the Petersburg climate is to blame, ”he notes about the hero's deplorable appearance. The climate makes Akaky Akakievich go out of his way to buy a new overcoat, that is, in principle, directly contributes to his death. We can say that this frost is an allegory of Gogol's Petersburg.
All the artistic means that Gogol uses in the story: a portrait, the depiction of details of the environment in which the hero lives, the plot of the narrative - all this shows the inevitability of Bashmachkin's transformation into a “little man”.
The very style of narration, when a pure comic tale, built on wordplay, puns, deliberate tongue-tied language, is combined with sublime pathetic declamation, is an effective artistic tool.

The meaning of the work

The great Russian critic V.G. Belinsky said that the task of poetry is "to extract the poetry of life from the prose of life and to shock souls with a faithful depiction of this life." It is precisely such a writer, a writer who shocking souls with the depiction of the most insignificant pictures of human existence in the world, is N.V. Gogol. According to Belinsky, the story "The Overcoat" is "one of the deepest creations of Gogol." Herzen called "The Overcoat" "a colossal work." The tremendous influence of the story on the entire development of Russian literature is evidenced by the phrase recorded by the French writer Eugene de Vogue from the words of “one Russian writer” (as is commonly believed, FM Dostoevsky): “We all left Gogol's“ Overcoat ”.
Gogol's works have been staged and filmed many times. One of the last theatrical performances "The Overcoat" was staged in the Moscow "Sovremennik". The Overcoat was staged by director Valery Fokin on the new stage site of the theater, named "Another Stage", intended primarily for staging experimental performances.
“To stage Gogol's Overcoat is my old dream. In general, I think that Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol has three main works - the Inspector General, Dead Souls and the Overcoat, - said Fokin. - The first two I have already staged and dreamed of "The Overcoat", but I could not start rehearsing, because I did not see the leading actor ... It always seemed to me that Bashmachkin is an unusual creature, not feminine or masculine, and who- then something unusual had to play here, and really an actor or actress, ”says the director. Fokine's choice fell on Marina Neelova. “In the rehearsal and in what was happening in the process of working on the play, I realized that Neelova is the only actress who was able to do what I thought of,” says the director. The premiere of the performance took place on October 5, 2004. The scenography of the story, the performance skills of the actress M. Neyelova were highly appreciated by the audience and the press.
“And here again Gogol. Again "Contemporary". Once upon a time, Marina Neyelova said that sometimes she imagines herself as a white sheet of paper, on which every director is free to depict whatever he wants - even a hieroglyph, even a drawing, even a long tricky phrase. Maybe someone will plant a blot in the heat of the moment. The viewer who looks at the "Overcoat" may imagine that there is no woman named Marina Mstislavovna Neyelova in the world at all, that she was completely erased from the Whatman of the universe with a soft eraser and a completely different creature was painted instead of her. Gray-haired, liquid-haired, evoking in everyone who looks at him, and disgusting disgust, and magnetic pull. "
(Newspaper, October 6, 2004)

“In this series, Fokin's“ Overcoat ”, which opened a new stage, looks like just an academic repertoire line. But only at first glance. Going to the performance, you can safely forget about your previous performances. For Valery Fokin, "The Overcoat" is not at all where all humanistic Russian literature came from with its eternal pity for the little man. His "Overcoat" belongs to a completely different, fantastic world. His Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin is not an eternal titular advisor, not a poor scribe, unable to change verbs from the first person to the third, this is not even a man, but some strange creature of the neuter gender. To create such a fantastic image, the director needed an actor that was incredibly flexible and plastic, not only physically, but also psychologically. The director found such a universal actor, or rather an actress, in Marina Neyelova. When this gnarled, angular creature with sparse matted tufts of hair on his bald head appears on the stage, the audience tries unsuccessfully to guess in him at least some familiar features of the brilliant prima of Sovremennik. In vain. Marina Neyelova is not here. It seems that she has physically transformed, melted into her hero. Somnambulistic, cautious and at the same time awkward old man's movements and a thin, plaintive, rattling voice. Since there is almost no text in the play (Bashmachkin's few phrases, consisting mainly of prepositions, adverbs and other particles that have absolutely no meaning, serve rather as a speech or even sound characteristic of the character), the role of Marina Neyelova practically turns into a pantomime. But the pantomime is truly mesmerizing. Her Bashmachkin comfortably settled in his old gigantic overcoat, as in a house: he fumbles there with a pocket flashlight, relieves his needs, settles down for the night.
(Kommersant, October 6, 2004)

It is interesting

“Within the framework of the Chekhov Festival, on the Small Stage of the Pushkin Theater, where puppet shows are often on tour, and there are only 50 spectators, the Chilean Theater of Miracles played Gogol's“ Overcoat ”. We do not know anything about the puppet theater in Chile, so we could expect something very exotic, but in reality it turned out that there is nothing specifically foreign in it - it's just a small good performance, made sincerely, with love and without any special ambitions. Perhaps it was funny that the heroes are called here exclusively by their patronymic, and all these "Buenos Diaz, Akakievich" and "Por Favor, Petrovich" sounded comical.
The Milagros Theater is a social business. It was created in 2005 by the famous Chilean TV presenter Alina Kuppernheim together with her classmates. Young women say that they fell in love with “The Overcoat”, which is not very famous in Chile (it turns out, “The Nose” is much more famous there), even during their studies, and they all studied to be actresses of the drama theater. Having decided to make a puppet theater, for two whole years they composed everything together, adapted the story themselves, came up with scenography, and made puppets.
The portal of the Milagros theater, a plywood house where four puppeteers are just being placed, was placed in the middle of the Pushkinsky stage and a small curtain-screen was closed. The play itself is played in the "black office" (the puppeteers dressed in black almost disappear against the background of a black velvet backdrop), but the action began with a video on the screen. First, there is a white silhouette animation - little Akakievich grows, he gets all the bumps, and he wanders - long, thin, nosed, hunching more and more against the background of the conditional Petersburg. The animation is replaced by ragged video - the crackling and noise of the office, flocks of typewriters are flying across the screen (here several eras are deliberately mixed). And then through the screen, in a spot of light, the red-haired Akakievich himself, with deep bald patches, gradually appears at the table with papers that everyone brings him and brings him.
In fact, the most important thing in the Chilean performance is precisely the thin Akakievich with long and awkward arms and legs. Several puppeteers are leading him at once, someone is responsible for the hands, someone for the legs, but the audience does not notice this, they just see how the doll becomes alive. Here he scratches himself, rubs his eyes, grunts, with pleasure straightens his stiff limbs, kneading every bone, here he attentively examines the network of holes in the old greatcoat, ruffled, tramples in the cold and rubs his frozen hands. It is a great art to work so harmoniously with a puppet, very few people own it; quite recently, at the Golden Mask, we saw a production by one of our best puppet directors, who knows how such miracles are done, - Evgeny Ibragimov, who staged Gogol's The Players in Tallinn.
There are other characters in the play: colleagues and bosses looking out of the doors and windows of the stage, a small, red-nosed fat Petrovich, a gray-haired Significant person sitting at a table on a dais - all of them are also expressive, but they do not compare with Akakievich. With how humiliatingly and timidly he huddles in Petrovich's house, how then, having received his lingonberry-colored overcoat, he giggles in embarrassment, twists his head, calling himself beautiful, like an elephant in a parade. And it seems that the wooden doll even smiles. This transition from exultation to terrible grief, which is so difficult for "live" actors, comes out very naturally for the doll.
During a festive party arranged by colleagues to "sprinkle" the hero's new overcoat, a sparkling merry-go-round was spinning on the stage and small flat dolls from cut-out old photographs spun in a dance. Akakievich, who was previously worried that he could not dance, returns from a party, full of happy impressions, as if from a disco, continuing to make knees and hum: "boo-boo - too-too". It's a long, funny and moving episode. And then unknown hands beat him and take off his greatcoat. After that, a lot will still happen with the scurry of the authorities: the Chileans unrolled several Gogol lines into a whole anti-bureaucratic video episode with a city map showing how officials drive from one to another a poor hero trying to get his greatcoat back.
Only the voices of Akakievich and those who are trying to get rid of him are heard: “For you on this issue to Gomez. - Be kind Gomez. - Do you want Pedro or Pablo? - Do I need Pedro or Pablo? - Julio! - Please, Julio Gomez. - to you in another department.
But no matter how inventive all these scenes are, the meaning is still in the sad red-haired hero who returns home, lies down in bed and, pulling on the blanket, for a long time, sick and tormented by sorrowful thoughts, turns and tries to nestle comfortably. Alive and desperately lonely. "
("Vremya novostei" 24.06.2009)

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