What Does Gogol Teach The Overcoat

Popularity and status are the core of all pieces of literature today. It is the focus of books, TV shows (Downton Abbey), movies (Mean Girls), and plays (Wicked). From when we are little, we are shown that one of the most worthy stories is the story of the unpopular underdog become the popular, rich, beautiful person that they always knew they would be. This is NOT the truth. As we grow, we learn that oftentimes popularity and status changes people because they become focused on staying popular and retaining their high status. In The Portrait and The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol taught me that the moral corruption that permeates through many levels of society comes from the search and the working to retain that popularity and status. Gogol teaches
Gogol created Akaky Akakevich as a character who is devoted to his work as a clerk who copies letters and other written works. In this story, Akaky is the character who receives the brunt of the abuse that is created when a person needs to show their superior status and their level of perceived popularity. In The Overcoat, Akaky does not have many friends and is often taunted and pestered by the other clerks whom he works with but Akaky wants to be friends and be a part of the group that these clerks make
As a teenage girl, I am affected by these social constructs everyday. They surround me because they are often the center of the literature I read and in lots of the media that surrounds me the story of the underdog who becomes the rich person is the story that seems to be the one most retold and these characters seem to go unaffected and unchanged when they experience all the abuses that force them to become who they were. In my life, I have experienced the abuse, like Akaky, when it comes to being popular and having a higher status. In eighth grade, I had two of my greatest friends turn into my bullies because they had the chance to hang out with the popular squad if they made fun of their old friends, myself included, because we did not fit into the popular group’s idea of what is good enough. It broke my heart because I trusted those friends with secrets and they used those secrets against me. It corrupted their character, the quest for their popularity because the allure of being a part of the popular group was one so great that they left years of friendship and trust behind without a second thought. Recently, they have tried to even rebuild a relationship with me but I cannot trust them and I have to tell them no. I also feel that the story of the The Overcoat applies very much to life