Character Analysis: The Overcoat

In the short story “The Overcoat” the protagonist, Akaky, was portrayed as normal man who had a very simple job as a copier. Due to his stutter, he was singled out and picked on. In addition to his speech impediment he had an odd personality, which led to even more bullying. When he interacted with others, he would easily become flustered too. People would constantly talk badly about Akaya, to the point that he would scream, “Leave me alone, why do you do this to me!” It is saddening to see people getting bullied for their differences.
Akaky was portrayed as pitiful man, who people pitied but did not want to make contact with, unfortunately some people who harassed him often since he was an easy target. Especially since he was a middle aged old man, who did not amount to anything special but a person who just copies paper. The way he was portrayed in the story was a pathetic man who had no ambition to succeed in life. In one of scene in the story a supervisor wanted to do a different task. The task was to change the font of the paper. Akaky was nervous and told his supervisor that he was content with his position. Ever since that occurred, everybody just gave him paper to copy. Overall, the setting of the story was an urban setting in Russia. Everybody owned an overcoat due to the …show more content…
He spoke to a tailor name Petrovitch about his damaged cloak. He spoke in phrases and incomplete sentences, he would say, “A cloak, cloth, here you see, everywhere.” Akaky requested if it could be sewn and he was told no. Akaky started saving for a long time to buy a new cloak. Once he did everybody recognized him and started talking to him because of his new cloak. People invited him to a party, after having the cloak for a short period of time his cloak gets stolen. After his misfortune, people at his job heard what occurred and took it as an opportunity to ridicule