Nikolai Gogol

¶ … Diary of a Madman" versus "The Overcoat" Gogol's "Diary of a Madman," tells the story of an oppressed man in a confined life who dreams that he is a great tyrant and ruler. One of its unique features is not only the atmosphere of paranoia that pervades the work, but the fact that the essay is told from the first person perspective of the madman himself.

In contrast, "The Overcoat," which is also a tale of a clerk living in confined occupational and residential circumstances, is told from a more ironic, third person omniscient narrative perspective. The hero of "The Overcoat" is not a fashion victim. Rather, he is a poor man who wishes to buy a coat that will keep him warm in the dead of winter, in his cold office. When he finally succeeds in his goal, his coat is cruelly stolen from him. His one great dream is thwarted.

Not unlike the hero of "Diary of a Madman," the clerk becomes mentally unbalanced, and eventually the thief of the coat his haunted by the specter of the man, still vainly searching for the pilfered coat.

The tone of "The Overcoat" is both funny and tragic -- funny, because of the single-minded determination with which the protagonist pursues his dream of acquiring the warm coat of the title, but sad as well, because the clerk's ambitions are so limited for himself, all he can do is dream of warmth rather than love or fortune, and even this small, solitary bit of happiness is taken away from him.

In contrast, the hero of "Diary of a Madman," dreams of a future that is so grandiose for himself it is mad and absurd. The hero of one tale has ambitions that are ridiculously small as much as the ambitions of the hero of the other tale are ridiculously large. The humor of "The Overcoat" comes from the irony of the third person omniscient narrator, who fully appreciates the absurdity of the main character's situation and the subsequent theft.