"The Overcoat" and The Namesake

I looked up some of the allusions to Nikhil Gogol’s works that were mentioned in the movie The Namesake. One of the stories the father mentions is called “The Overcoat.” Several times, the father says to his son Gogol “We all came out of Gogol’s Overcoat. One day you will understand.”

I don’t understand what the father meant.

So.

I’ve done a bit of searching for literary criticism on The Namesake (as a novel) and have found that the book contained more depth to its allusions to Nikhil Gogol’s story. In fact, from what I gather, The Namesake (the novel) seemed to revolve around the story “The Overcoat” much more than the film did. In one essay which compares “The Overcoat” and The Namesake, Megan Tharpe writes: "The most important allusion to the story is the way that Gogol Ganguli changes his name just as Akaky Akakievich changes his overcoat. And the wearting of both of these things greatly changes these two characters in very similar ways" (2005). In another essay, I found a good summary of the short story "The Overcoat." Hopefully this deepens our understanding of the characters:

"The Overcoat" is about identity, among other things. The protagonist's name, Akaky Akakyevitch, suggests a contradictory identity in itself, being a saint's name and yet sounding like a Russian baby-talk word for feces; and of course the name is also simply a repetition of his father's name. Akaky is a non-entity. A scrivener, he delights in copying out other people's writing, and yet is strangely unable and unwilling to try to write anything of his own, or even to change a word in the original text when he is specifically asked to. As a text, he isn't anyone; he is simply copies of what is written by others. But this copying is bliss. His very lack of identity is the source of his happiness. This changes when is obliged to buy a new overcoat, a costly overcoat, and becomes another person. Or rather, he becomes his overcoat. He and his new overcoat are even invited to a party in its honor by the assistant head clerk of his department. He becomes a new man, noticing women, for instance, when before he would forget where he was while crossing the street. As he is coming back from this uncharacteristic outing, his overcoat is stolen. When he reports the loss to a local dignitary (on his co-workers' advice--no idea is his own), he is bullied and insulted for his temerity in approaching such an important person. Tellingly, the Very Important Person demands, "Do you realize, sir, who you are talking to?" (Gogol 263), as if he didn't know who he was himself, without its being reconfirmed by other's fear of him. Exposed to the cold once again, the overcoatless Akaky then catches a fever and dies, but this is not the end of the story. Shortly after Akaky's death, a "living corpse" who looks like Akaky begins haunting the same square in which Akaky was robbed, but this time as a stealer of overcoats rather than as a victim. One of this Akaky's victims is the same Very Important Person who bullied him, who had been mildly regretting his harshness, and who is now frightened into real repentance. The last we hear of Akaky and his ghost is when a policeman sees a burly man whom he takes to be the ghostly overcoat thief, accosts him, and finds instead a man who is clearly not Akaky, but may be the original thief who robbed him. (Caesar, 2007)

Sources:

Caesar, J. (2007). Gogol’s namesake. Ann Arbor District Library. Retrieved from http://www.aadl.org/files/bctg/bctg_guide-namesake.pdf

Tharpe, M. (2005, Mar. 29). The overcoat and the namesake: The changes. Palimpset. Retrieved from http://megans-palimpsests.blogspot.com/2007/01/overcoat-and-namesake-changes.html