The Overcoat is my favorite story by Gogol. He writes in the absurd genre so sometimes it seems weird, but he also draws out human emotions to make his characters seem so real and makes such great commentary on life that he makes me want to read and re-read his books. There is a paragraph that talks about how all the people in Akaky’s (yep, that’s his name!) office mock him that stands out as one those passages that sticks with a person for the rest of their life:

“Only when the jokes were too un
The Overcoat is my favorite story by Gogol. He writes in the absurd genre so sometimes it seems weird, but he also draws out human emotions to make his characters seem so real and makes such great commentary on life that he makes me want to read and re-read his books. There is a paragraph that talks about how all the people in Akaky’s (yep, that’s his name!) office mock him that stands out as one those passages that sticks with a person for the rest of their life:

“Only when the jokes were too unbearable, when they jolted his arm and prevented him from going on with his work, he would bring out: “Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?” and there was something strange in the words and in the voice in which they were uttered. There was a note in it of something that aroused compassion, so that one young man, new to the office, who, following the example of the rest, had allowed himself to mock at him, suddenly stopped as though cut to the heart, and from that time forth, everything was, as it were, changed and appeared in a different light to him. Some unnatural force seemed to thrust him away from the companions with whom he had become acquainted, accepting them as well-bred, polished people. And long afterward, at moments of the greatest gaiety, the figure of the humble little clerk with a bald patch on his head rose before him with his heartrending words: “Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?” and in those heartrending words he heard others: “I am thy brother.” And the poor young man hid his face in his hands, and many times afterwards in his life he shuddered, seeing how much inhuminity there is in man, how much savage brutality lies hidden under refined, cultured politeness, and my God! even in a man whom the world accepts as a gemtleman and a man of honor…”
…more