Review: "The Overcoat," by Nikolai Gogol
... " And St. Petersburg was left without Akakiy Akakievitch, as though he had never lived there. A being disappeared who was protected by none, dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly, and examining it under the microscope. A being who bore meekly the jibes of the department, and went to his grave without having done one unusual deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his life appeared a bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily cheered his poor life, and upon whom, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune descended, just as it descends upon the mighty of this world! " ... I have Questions ... I had them 5 years earlier ... I had them 10years earlier ... I will ask them 5 years later if I'm alive... the same questions of living ... the same questions of survival ... the same questions of existence ... Does the significance of life lie in names or coats ... / ... / ... ? Or, is it the value of majority surrounding the person themselves that makes a person significant to themselves? How does an individual set his own value?Does he set it copying or following his own tradition? How does a man calculate his own advantages? How does he calculate the cost of risk or the trending value of social cycle for collective advantage? Is it the feelings of superiority that makes us happy when we ridicule the stupid one in our scale? Or, is it the pride of our invested hard passion/labor for the jobs? If we make value on our investment then how do we welcome others smarter than ourselves? How do people find out/ acknowledge his own stupidity? Does psychological torture exist?
When people are vulnerable and afraid of the unknown they try to justify their chained cycle life/jobs/tradition/rules by anything even sometimes they accept flowers from the torturer to forget and continue. The rules are often made by the power maker on the side of swallowing everything they offer to sell. The cycle of feeling into existence ( alive) continues ... When we ignore something for their mundane properties, they are unnoticed by the majority, they aren't appreciated ... but isn't it the word unappreciated/ dull/boring itself that delivers value to the word appreciation? Finally, The story reminds me of the beautiful poem by William Butler Yeats. "Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams" - ( "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven") My first encounter with Nikolai Gogol builds a thriving memory through the reading " The Overcoat"! ... This is real good!
