N. V. Gogol, "The Overcoat": a summary

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

This story by Gogol was published in 1843. It is included in the author's collection "Petersburg Tales".

Below we will give a summary of the work "Overcoat". For better assimilation, events are described in terms of their importance in the plot construction (outset, development of events, climax, denouement). The beginning of the story, in which we get to know the main character Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, can be seen as an exposition.

The summary of Gogol's "Overcoat" also mentions an epilogue.

The beginning of the story. Meet the main character

The plot is preceded by our acquaintance with the main character of the story, whose name is Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin. He serves as a minor official in one of the St. Petersburg departments.

The story tells about the birth of a hero: Bashmachkin's unlucky star lit up whenthey began to look for a name for the newborn: no matter how they chose according to the calendar, all the names came out tricky and so bizarre that his mother was completely desperate and decided to give him the name of his father - and so he became Akaky Akakievich.

The main character is a typical, as they say, "little man". He does not shine with intelligence, there are not enough stars from the sky, he did not make a career and did not try. Bashmachkin loves his work to self-forgetfulness, namely, making copies, that is, rewriting various documents.

His whole life is about this. He writes at work. He comes home from work, has a quick meal - and again at the table, takes out a pen with an inkwell and again gets to work - rewrites what he did not finish in the department. However, if there was no work, Bashmachkin wrote some paper "just for himself." Among the letters, Akaky Akakievich even has his favorites.

He fell asleep with a smile, thinking:

God will send something to rewrite tomorrow?

Bashmachkin is zealous about his job. It cannot be said that he was not noticed at all in his diligence: once the authorities assigned a task that would help him in promotion. The whole point was to slightly change the content of the document, rewriting it. But for our hero, the task turned out to be overwhelming, and he returned with relief to a simple rewrite.

The appearance and costume of the hero

And Akaki Akakievich is no different in beauty: he is reddish, pockmarked, with a bald patch on his head, he sees unimportantly, he eats without appetite. Distracted, walking, notinterested in what is going on around. Sometimes, walking along the street, he thinks about his occupation in such a way that written lines seem to him everywhere. Then he comes to his senses, looking - and he is standing in the middle of the road.

Akaky Akakievich speaks little, and if he speaks, then mostly with prepositions, interjections and particles.

He has no friends, he doesn't go to visit, we often offend others and patiently endure the ridicule of office colleagues. Only sometimes, when they push him under the arm and prevent him from writing, he will say:

Leave me, why are you hurting me?

Ties

Wears Bashmachkin's uniform, which was once green. But for a long time already he turned red from old age. And the old overcoat, which others mockingly call the "bonnet", was completely worn out, and in places its material began to look like a sieve.

So, in the summary of "The Overcoat", we note that the plot of the story is the old clothes of the protagonist that have fallen into disrepair.

And the hero would be glad not to pay attention to his "skinny overcoat", but somehow the wind began to thoroughly catch it. He took off his overcoat, looked - and the cloth on the back and shoulders was completely full of holes, and the lining fabric had spread.

Bashmachkin then turned to the tailor, whom everyone called Petrovich. When he was not drunk, he successfully repaired all kinds of bureaucratic and other clothes - tailcoats, overcoats and pantaloons. However, Petrovich said that, they say, such a cloth cannot be patched up in any way, you can’t put a patch on rotten fabric - immediatelywill spread. So, you definitely need to sew a new overcoat.

This was a scary message for the hero. However, on reflection, Akaky Akakievich decided to go to the tailor on Sunday, when he would be kinder after a Saturday glass - maybe, and then he would get to work. However, on his next visit, Petrovich authoritatively stated that it was impossible to repair the overcoat.

The new overcoat, which the same tailor Petrovich undertook to sew, would have taken more than one and a half hundred rubles. Akaky Akakievich began to figure things out. He decided that the tailor, as usual, had broken the high price, and the overcoat would cost him eighty rubles.

But he only had forty rubles in his piggy bank. I should have dialed somewhere else forty.

Development of events

And Bashmachkin started saving: he doesn't have dinner,

banishes tea drinking in the evening

and doesn't buy candles. Poor Bashmachkin even walks, stepping softer and more carefully so that the soles of his shoes do not wear out quickly. And in order not to give laundry once again, he only wears a bathrobe at home.

Now the hero thinks about the greatcoat, about its style and matter all day long. He walks around the shops, asking the price of cloth and wondering. He is already used to sitting hungry in the evenings. Bashmachkin, as the author tells us,

became somehow more alive, even stronger in character, like a person who has already defined and set a goal for himself

All these habits of a new way of life take the hero, as should be mentioned in the summary of "The Overcoat", several months.

Then the director, as if sensing that Bashmachkin needed new clothes, gave him as much as sixty rubles of salary instead of the prescribed forty.

And Akaki Akakievich and the tailor went to the shops to buy cloth. We got a good cloth and an excellent lining calico. And they didn’t buy martens for the collar - the road turned out to be a marten. But they bought cat fur, which seemed quite decent in appearance and looked like a marten.

New overcoat

The tailor delivered a new overcoat to the hero early in the morning - just when he had to go to work. Akaky Akakievich went outside in a new dress, and Petrovich even saw him off to admire his work once again.

The news that Bashmachkin had a new overcoat suddenly quickly spread throughout the department, and

hood no longer exists.

Everyone congratulates him - the official is burdened by increased attention - and insist,

that a new overcoat should be sprayed and that at least he should give them all an evening,

to celebrate this occasion.

Bashmachkin doesn't know how to refuse. It's good that there was an official who said that he had a birthday today, and therefore invites everyone to his place tonight.

This day becomes a holiday for Akaky Akakievich. When he returned home, he looked at the old and new overcoats and laughed, comparing and rejoicing at the new thing. After dinner and lying on the bed, which was generally not in his rules, Bashmachkin went to visit.

The official lived in the best part of the city, where the lights shone brighter and the streets werenot so deserted as near his house. At first he felt uncomfortable at the party, but then, after drinking champagne, he cheered up. And yet, among the people playing cards and chatting cheerfully, he became bored, and, seeing that it was already after midnight, Bashmachkin quietly left the celebration.

Climax

In the summary of the story "The Overcoat" we come to the main event of the plot.

On one of the deserted streets, some people appeared in front of the main character. One of them, showing him his fist, ordered him to be silent and shook him out of his overcoat. Then he was given such a kick that he fell into the snow and lost consciousness.

The next day, on the advice of his landlady, Akakiy Akakiyevich visited a private bailiff, hardly got an appointment, but he, having asked some ridiculous questions, did not say anything sensible.

He had to go to the service in his old "hood". Many of his colleagues, having heard the sad story of the robbery, sympathized with him, and someone advised him to ask for help from a "significant person".

The "significant person" was the general. Bashmachkin waited a long time in the waiting room while he was talking with a friend. After hearing the story of the "inhuman robbery", the general became angry with Akaky Akakievich, shouting at him, partly out of a desire to show off in front of an acquaintance who was still here. Frightened and almost fainting, Bashmachkin returned home.

Decoupling

Akaky Akakievich came down with a fever. All his morbid delirium revolved around the stolen overcoat andshameless thieves.

The doctor came, but prescribed nothing but a symbolic poultice. And he told the landlady that in a day and a half the end would certainly come.

And Akaki Akakievich is dying. His property left behind - only a bunch of goose feathers, several sheets of paper, a couple of buttons and his old "hood".

And in the service of the absence of official Bashmachkin, they did not immediately notice, but missed it only four days later, when he was already buried.

One of the most significant elements of the story - the epilogue, which gives it a fantastic shade and additional interesting meaning, must be mentioned in the summary of "The Overcoat".

Scary epilogue

Anxious rumors are creeping around St. Petersburg that a ghost allegedly wanders around Kalinkin Bridge at night, pulling off everyone's greatcoats, regardless of what kind of overcoat they are, poor or rich. One of the officials was able to see the dead man and recognized him as Akaky Akakievich.

And the general, who treated Bashmachkin so rudely, felt remorse, remembering the unfortunate visitor. He even sent to him, wishing to give him some help. When the courier reported that the previous visitor had died of a fever, the general became upset.

Wishing to unwind, he went to a party with his friend, and at the end, quite in a good mood, he decided to visit his familiar lady Karolina Ivanovna. He rode to her in a sleigh, comfortably wrapped in a warm overcoat.

Suddenly someone pulled him by the collar. Turning around, the general saw with horror thatthe deceased official in the old uniform. Akaky Akakievich was as white as snow. But the general was even more frightened when his former visitor said:

Ah! so here you are at last! finally I caught you by the collar! I need your overcoat! didn’t bother about mine, and even scolded it, - give me yours now!

The frightened general unquestioningly carried out the order of the ghost and gave him his overcoat himself, and then ordered the coachman to rush home. He forgot about Karolina Ivanovna. And the dead man has since disappeared - probably, the general's greatcoat fit him.

The story is not divided into chapters, due to the lack of such, we could not give a summary of the chapters of Gogol's "Overcoat".