How the theme of retribution is revealed in the story. Who is the main mountain of the Overcoat story? What is his character and lifestyle? What the story is directed against and how it tells the theme of retribution
1. Who is the main character of the story "The Overcoat"? What is his character and lifestyle? What could you say about the author's attitude to the hero? What is the story directed against and how does it reveal the theme of retribution?
The protagonist of the story "The Overcoat" is Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, a minor official. He lives extremely poorly, although he gives a lot of time and energy to work and sincerely loves rewriting documents. However, Akaky Akakievich is not capable of doing more difficult work, although there was an episode in his life when a kind boss tried to raise Bashmachkin in office and instruct him to make extracts from documents.
Akaki Akakievich leads a half-beggarly existence, he can barely pay for the most meager food and poor housing, but buying clothes becomes an insoluble problem for him. For an overcoat, instead of completely worn out, he is forced to save up for a long time, denying himself the essentials.
The overcoat becomes a supervalue for the hero. Therefore, Bashmachkin perishes, having lost her, because she was already the meaning of his life.
Gogol, of course, is very sympathetic to the hero, showing that even a beggar and stupid person is still a person, and one must treat him like a human being. At the same time, the author condemns the hero for making an inanimate thing - an overcoat - the meaning of his existence.
Isn't this the reason that after death the official becomes a ghost, tearing off the greatcoats from passers-by. He expects his offender - a "significant person" who once scolded poor Bashmachkin. This is how the idea of retribution is realized. It is interesting that retribution is realized only in a fantastic plane: the author, it seems, did not believe in the reality of retribution.
2. What stories were included in the "Petersburg Tales"? think about how St. Petersburg appears in the story "The Overcoat". Illustrate with passages from the text how Gogol describes winter, wind, blizzard. Why do they get symbolic meaning?
The "Petersburg Tales" included several works: "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospect", "Portrait", "The Nose", "Notes of a Madman"; sometimes the stories "The Carriage" and "Rome" are added, although they were written later. All of these works depict the city in a more or less fantastic style. In the "Overcoat" the city is terrible and cruel in its winter relentlessness. The cold is deadly for those who are poor, who do not have warm clothes and shoes.
Gogol writes: “There is in St. Petersburg a strong enemy of all who receive four hundred rubles a year of salary or so. This enemy is none other than our northern frost, although, incidentally, they say that he is very healthy ”; “The wind, according to St. Petersburg custom, blew on him from all four directions, from all the lanes”; “... a gusty wind, which, suddenly snatching out from God knows where and for whatever reason, and cut in the face, throwing pieces of snow there, slamming like a sail, a greatcoat collar, or suddenly throwing it over his head with unnatural force and delivering it, thus, the eternal troubles to get out of it. " These descriptions also have a symbolic meaning: the frost and wind, which forced Bashmachkin to sew a new overcoat and then killed the official, who had lost his consolation, are now allies of the ghost, carrying out retribution with him.
3. In the book "Gogol in St. Petersburg" we read: "The" Overcoat "and" The Tale of Captain Kopeikin "realistically captures the irreconcilable social contrast of St. Petersburg. It was not for nothing that Dostoevsky wrote about subsequent Russian writers: "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat." The theme of the humiliated and insulted, the theme of people downtrodden and tortured by eternal need, huddling in the damp basements of St. Petersburg houses, begins its genealogy in the works of Pushkin and Gogol. "
How do you understand this statement of scientists? Support your thoughts with examples from the books you have read or prepare your own reasoning on this topic based on what you read (optional).
I think the scientists meant that Pushkin in "The Station Superintendent" and Gogol in "The Overcoat" for the first time portrayed a poor official, whom anyone can offend. Their helplessness stops some of the scoffers (those who still have a conscience) and spurs at the same time others who are no longer burdened with conscience and mercy. Following these writers, many other writers turn to the theme of the "humiliated and insulted". For example, V. Korolenko in his work "In a Bad Society" or F. M. Dostoevsky in the stories "White Nights" or "Netochka Nezvanova". Russian writers have always sought to urge people to love and pity those to whom fate has given a harder share than them. The thought of suffering and unhappy people should compel those who can, at least in some way, to help those in need. Now there are also many who need our help, and it is good that many are striving to do something for others.
1. The hero of the story is Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, a petty official of one of the St. Petersburg departments, a humiliated and disenfranchised person "of short stature, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat reddish, somewhat blind in appearance, with a small bald spot on his forehead, with wrinkles on both sides of his cheeks." 2. 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 was 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 Akaki 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; Co-workers call the overcoat worn out to the holes a hood. 3 Gogol does not hide the limitations, paucity of 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, gentle, not doing evil, innocent. The appearance of the greatcoat 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. Akaki Akakievich remains wordless even at the critical moment of his life. The drama of this situation lies in the fact that no one helped Bashmachkin. 4. “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 wanders the city. 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 acquaintance Karolina Ivanovna", and, having ripped off his general's coat, 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."
1. Who is the main character of the story. - The official's name is Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin.
2. What is his character and way of life.
Gogol Bashmachkin "had what is called an eternal titular adviser, over whom, as you know, a lot of different writers have tried and sharpened their temper and have a commendable habit of leaning on those who cannot bite." The author, of course, does not hide his ironic grin when he describes the spiritual limitations and squalor of his hero. Akaki Akakievich was a timid, wordless creature who resignedly endured the "clerical ridicule" of his colleagues and the despotic rudeness of his superiors. The mind-numbing job of a scribe paralyzed any spiritual interests in him.
3. What could you say about the attitude of the author to the hero.
The author seems to be treating the hero without scrupulousness. He shows his inner squalor, limited and meager interests, inability to think logically, striking tongue-tied. But at the same time, he seems to move away from these negative properties of his, muffles them, does not emphasize them. But in close-up it demonstrates the spiritual gentleness, the uncomplaining patience of the poor man who is downtrodden by life.
4.What is the story against and how it reveals the theme of retribution
The story is directed against the soullessness of the bureaucratic world, its impersonality, against the identification of a person with things belonging to him, which inevitably leads to slavery of things. Generally speaking, the author protests against the removal of the center of a true personality outside this personality and its transfer to a position ("significant person" as an object of fear and fetish), into an object (overcoat).
Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin
outwardly unremarkable person, which N. V. Gogol immediately openly declares (“I cannot say that he is very remarkable”). In the dull appearance of the hero, there is nothing memorable, special, striking. Hence, in the verbal portrait, there are repetitions of the indefinite “several”, which means a small amount of something, the diminutive suffix -enk-, which negates the large prefix not-.
The facelessness of Bashmachkin's appearance seems to be compensated by a reverent attitude towards the service. Akaki Akakievich lives only by his work: "It is not enough to say: he served zealously, - no, he served with love." He does not leave the clerk's studies at home, goes to bed, “smiling in advance at the thought of tomorrow: will God send something to rewrite tomorrow? “Even to the ridicule of officials, the hero reacts only when they prevent him from“ doing his own thing ”.
The maximum convergence of personal life and service turns into indifference to oneself. And such indifference to his own person is always fraught with the miserable look of Akaki Akakievich we observe, his irresponsibility and humiliation, which for the time being he does not feel.
The dream of a new overcoat transforms the hero. With the appearance of her, the inconspicuous appearance and behavior of Bashmachkin change: "From his face and from his actions, doubt, indecision disappeared by itself - in a word, all hesitant and indefinite features." The character changes: “... he has become somehow more alive, even harder ...” Life itself changes: “... his existence has become somehow more complete, as if he had married ...”
In Akaki Akakievich, the proud dignity of a respectable official wakes up, dressed as befits, and feeling very comfortable in his clothes. Therefore, having come to the department, the hero entrusts the overcoat, contrary to custom, “to the special supervision of the doorman,” demanding due respect for himself and his clothes.
about retribution --- Akaki Akakievich is beaten on the way home and his new overcoat is taken away. He goes to the private bailiff for the truth, hardly gets to the reception, but realizes that there is little hope of returning the overcoat. The department advises to go to a "significant person". Akaki Akakievich makes his way to an appointment with the general. To the general, the visitor's address seems familiar, he stomps his feet and pushes it out. Frightened Akaki Akakievich leaves, on the way he catches a cold, lies in a fever.
In his delirium, he sees Petrovich, who sews him an overcoat with traps for thieves, and the general, scolding him. Dies. In the department they come to their senses only on the 4th day.
Soon, rumors spread around the city that a ghost began to appear at the Kalinkin Bridge - "a dead man in the form of an official looking for some kind of stolen greatcoat and, under the guise of a stolen greatcoat, ripping off all sorts of greatcoats from all shoulders, without disassembling rank and rank." After Akaky Akakievich left, the general felt something like regret, sent him to him, learned about his death, was somewhat upset, but quickly dissipated at a friend's evening. Once, going to visit a friend, he feels that someone grabbed him by the collar. He turns around, recognizes Akaki Akakievich (a ghost), who demands an overcoat for himself and takes it away from the general. From that day on, the general changed, became less arrogant in relation to his subordinates. The appearances of the dead official have ceased.