The Mantle

With his sense of humour and ability to observe, Nikolai Gogol presents the world with stories of the little, weak, and fragile people who try to hold on to life in the gloomy cities of Russia. "The Overcoat", which is listed among his masterpieces, describes how Russian bureaucracy turns everyone into a ghost of each other. It tells the tragicomic story of a poor low-ranking official named Akakiy Akakiyevich Bashmachkin, a faint character living on the margins of society who spends all his time diligently copying documents. Drawn into the bureaucratic mechanisms of modern life, humiliated and despised, he finds solace in his fondest wish: an overcoat that will protect him from the winter cold. This humble dream, however, will cost him far too much and will turn his life upside down. Adapted into a variety of stage and film interpretations, the story is a major milestone in Russian literature, as expressed in a quote often attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky: "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'."