Please click on the Comments link below, and spend five minutes writing your response to the following question: What does "The Overcoat show us about the world as it really exists?" Write in roughly the form of an introduction paragraph for an essay you could write about the topic. Write the best answer you can in five minutes, and submit your answer.
Then, read your classmates' responses to the exercise, and complete a three minute peer review of one of their five minute papers, borrowing from any of the styles of peer review we have used in class.
[This was originally going to be a chatroom, but the chat tool seemed to be losing the responses, learned after the tragic loss of a five-minute paper. I'll make another post with the chatroom in case anyone wants to experiment.]
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3 comments:
What does "The Overcoat show us about the world as it really exists?”
Akakii Akakievich is a perfectionist. He works in a department in St. Petersburg as a copier of documents in about 1850. He is dedicated to his work which is nearly flawless. Akakii takes his unfinished work home and works on it by candlelight. He turns up for work on time and everyday he is supposed to be there. He is a gentle person and never bothers or harasses anyone. Akakii is a frugal man living by his means and not asking or expecting of anyone. He dresses in worn and sometimes tattered clothing but nonetheless he turns up for work. Russia has bitter winters and the cold driving winds are unforgiving. Akakii’s overcoat was full of holes, the seams were starting to unravel and he was coming down with a cold. He went to see about getting the coat patched, but after discussion with the tailor, Petrovich, decided to save and have Petrovich build a new one for him. After receiving his coat, he was off to the department where he worked proudly wearing his new overcoat. When he arrived many came to see his new coat and dote over it. They all wanted to celebrate and christen the new garment so they all gathered later that evening. My things have turned around for Akakii, no longer being gawked at about his attire and his eccentric personality is now celebrated by the same peers that looked down on him, if even to acknowledge his existence prior to this new overcoat.
Things never change as time attests. Here is a person that is no burden to society, he is a meek man that endeavors to be the best at what he does, after all he is a copier and his work must be flawless to be a true copy. His peers pick at him and make jokes about his ragged clothing. He is weird little individual in his fifties but give him a shiny new expensive overcoat and how that can miraculously transform him into something far more superior. His transformation is celebrated by his peers and now he has finally become “one of them”, promoted up from his inferior status in society. We see that every day all around us. The magazines, the TV shows, the storefronts, the contests… “Who’s Who” “The best dressed celebrity-and the worst dressed”
Then the turn of events, Akakii is robbed and seeks help. No one really cares nor wants to be bothered to help him. He doesn’t have his miracle coat, he is now just an inferior, less than ordinary little balding man in his fifties. The official sees this pathetic person and takes pleasure into bullying him and breaking him down into this shivering, speechless person and sends him on his way, gratified in what he did to Akakii.
We see scenarios like this on in our modern day news reports. A perfect example is the school shootings that happen and never seem to end. The inferior “have nots” snapping and striking against the superior ones that have it all. The ones that leisurely pick, harass, beat up, take things from, force into some sort of servitude at times, and this list doesn’t end here. They come to the officials with their problems and like in this book, more times than not, are just fobbed off as some insignificant whining and complaining dork. After all, who are these little geeky people? They aren’t the glorious people, who are they to bother us with all of the crying and complaining. Take these same inferior people and do a “Complete Makeover” and we love and celebrate you…until the make up wears off…or we become bored with you and remember where you really come from…dork. What are you doing in our neighborhood? Some should call the police. Go away.
Hanketh
The overcoat shows us that the world as it really exists can be cruel and unaccepting.
Akakii Akakievich was a simple man who did not have a lot of money. He had an old overcoat that was torn and ragged. He did not want to spend the money for a new overcoat because he had his money slated for other things. He took his old coat to the tailor and asked if he could fix it. He replied that he could not and he would need a new overcoat. He saved his money and bought a new overcoat.
Before he had the new coat he was not accepted from his peers. Once he had the new coat, everyone praised him and his coat and invited him to a party, which had not happened before.
When leaving the party, he was robbed of his new coat and in turn become very ill and ended up dying.
Society can be cruel if you are not up to their standards, whatever they think that might be.
I know people in my own experience who go through similar things to this nature. SOmetimes you have to be knocked down before you realize that not everyone is as fortunate as you may be. I used to be one of those people.
I have had a lot of things in my life that has changed my views as far as how people are and how unfortunate some people are.
Not everyone has money and some of them need help and not criticism for what they do not have. I believe I have become a better person for the things that have happened in my life. I think everyone should have something happen to them that can knock them down and then bring them back up if they are constantly looking down on those less fortunate.
Linda,
I found your claim to be strong and to the point. You substantiated your claim with different statements about events that took place in the story of the “Overcoat”. You have shown how cruel the “in” people in society can be and how if one’s conditions change or revert back to the way they were how they can suddenly be ex-communicated from society. The story is set well for the reader’s imagination to build a mental “scene” of what your are trying convey.
You have a good analytical opinion about society’s propensity to be cruel and uncaring.
I appreciated the personal reflection on the story about events that you have experienced to change your perspectives about other people, to see who and what they are and not the superficial façade of how well they dress.
Something that might add to the bite of your essay is how the authority treated him when he went to get help.
Hanketh
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