"The Overcoat" Lesson One

 

 

Essay Options for Samuel Wilson Fussell’s Muscle and Gogol's "The Overcoat"

One. Develop a thesis that analyzes the manner in which Fussell’s memoir and Akaky from "The Overcoat" illustrate the Myth of Icarus.

Two. Develop a thesis that analyzes the manner in which Fussell’s memoir and Akaky from "The Overcoat" illustrate the fable from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning “Death in Tehran”:

A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,” said Death.

Three. Develop a thesis that compares maladaptation in Fussell’s memoir and "The Overcoat."

Four. Research Erik Erikson’s notion of intimacy vs. isolation and develop a thesis that applies this conflict to Fussell’s memoir and "The Overcoat."

Five. Develop a cause and effect thesis that compares the causes of grotesque transformation in Fussell's memoir and "The Overcoat."

Six. A wise man once said, having a chimera will kill you, but not having a chimera will also kill you. Apply this saying to Samuel Wilson Fussell and Akaky from "The Overcoat." Both have a chimera, his obsession, the overcoat, which both transforms them for the better and for the worse. We all have our own personal chimera. Using both the memoir and the short story, write an extended definition of a chimera. 

What Is a Chimera?

Chimera is an obsession that fills your imagination and fuels all your actions often leading to inflated expectations, self-destruction, but sometimes bringing you in touch with your Higher Self.

The chimera is based on loss of proportion and exaggeration. 

Often your imagination exaggerates the value of a chimera so that when you finally acquire it--if you should ever acquire it at all--you are left with grave disappointment. 

The Chimera as a Positive Force

One student defends the chimera as thus:

"The good news is that chimeras have at least five hidden benefits to them: one, they tend to push people out of their comfort zones; two, they help people explore their potential; three, they help promote creativity; four, they teach extremly painful lessons when the illusion if finally shattered; five, they redirect us to what we're really meant for in a roundabout fashion."

There Are 4 Major Types of Chimeras

One. The Simplistic Ideal That Blinds Us from Complex Reality of Others

People see me walking my babies and they think I'm a "great father." Really? I'm a good father, not great, in spite of myself. What am I? Petulant, malcontented, self-involved, neurotic, selfish, vain, etc. People see me with my babies and they idealize who I am.

People see my babies who are adorable and these people idealize my babies. One of my daughters, Natalie, almost killed me the other day. While I was changing her diaper, she jabbed me in the eye, pushing my tender orb deep into my brain. I was almost killed. As I screamed, she laughed spittle in my face. In spite of her huge cute factor, she's devious and feral and aggressive.

Two. We Project Exaggerated Grandiosity to Someone Or Something So That We Lose All Sense of Proportion

We buy an Apple product so we'll become more creative or become a member of the cool hipster class. We buy an Audi or a Mini Cooper for the same reason.

We buy a house because a house is a chimera for a sense of home but in making house payments, three times greater than our rent, we ruin our life.

Three. We Chase Something Because We're in Love with the Chase and the Idea of the Thing We're Pursuing, But We Don't Love the Actual Thing. Nor Do We Love Finding It.

Marriage, romance, the perfect soulmate, the perfect body, the ultimate sports car, the perfect watch (my chimera).

What we learn from the chimera is that we are in love with the IDEA of things, not the things themselves.

Four. An Inflated Self-Image That Doesn't Corrospond with the Facts

"I'm a vegetarian, but I do have to make some exceptions. For example, I eat barbecue tri-tip once a month. A gourmet cheeseburger 12 times a year. Buttermilk fried chicken 6 times a year. Barbecued steak 6 times a year at family events. Turkey and mashed potatoes 4 times a year when I'm at my grandmother's. Briscuit on Hanukkha if I'm invited to my cousin Sherry's house (her briscuit has destroyed the committment of many vegetarians). And if I'm in North or South Carolina and I'm a guest being served baby back pork ribs, I will eat what's on my plate in order to exercise politness and decorum. Apart from that, I feel really good about my vegetarian lifestyle. "

Here is a guy who eats meat at least once or twice a week and he calls himself a vegetarian. What he really is: a faketarian.

Studies show that American high school students have high self-esteem about their math skills but score low on math; in contrast, Chinese students have low self-esteem but score high in math.

There are several chimera motivations based on natural human longing:

1. Enchantment: craving the beyond, otherness, mystery, the visions you might enjoy during a serotonin-rich dream. Some people believe in UFOs, unicorns, Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman, fairies, angels, etc. 

2. Ideal of perfection: beauty, a "six-pack," the perfect house, etc.

3. Security blanket, feeling protected by someone, the Earth Mother, Daddy, the Corporation, Steve Jobs Is Your Tech Daddy, Apple, etc. 

4. Hakuna Matata, a paradise where there are no worries, a life without responsibility, only pleasure. Hawaii and Tahiti are often assigned Hakuna Matata while people ignore the high alcoholism.

5. fame, the dream of the engorged ego in which the whole world loves you and can't get enough of you. You become a sort of demigod, a cult figure. You become drunk from your own grandiosity and adulation. 

6. vindication, proving your doubters that you are good and feeling validated

7. revenge: exacting "justice" on your enemy. 

8. Losing yourself, your sense of insignificance, in something larger than yourself and achieving transcendence and a sense of belonging. 

Examples

Some of us join religion.

Some of us fall in love.

Some of us sing songs about falling in love.

Some of us write songs about songwriters who write about being in love.

Some of us join the international club.

Some of us buy a Mini Cooper and go to "Mini Cooper events" with other Mini Cooper owners.

Some of us buy Apple computer products and think we're more creative than those who work with PCs.

Some of us buy tres chic designer clothes and we only hang out with other stuck up people who wear similar clothing.

Some of us become sports fanatics for our team. Our bedroom is covered with posters, souvineers, stuffed dolls, figurines, etc. We wear our sports hero's jersey, cap, etc.

Some of us join political movements and we act serious all the time and watch serious movies, usually with subtitles, about the pain of the human condition and we go to cafes with other "intellectuals" who share our political views and we talk about how crappy the world is.

Some of us join book clubs.

Some of us spend 24 hours a day on Facebook.

We become obsessed with something that makes us feel we've lost ourselves in something larger than us and gives us a sense of belonging and identity. 

Not All Chimeras Are Equal: Or Some People's Chimeras Are Better Than Others

 Our chimera is crucial to determining what path we take. 

A crackpot racist ideology is not the same as searching for the perfect six-pack abs or baking the perfect chocolate cake.  

For the most part, a chimera is a mirage, an illusion. It is the result of our imagination elevating something boring or stupid or banal to the supernatural because we are desperate to lose ourselves into something supernatural.

It could be said that this something could be a dangerous chimera or a worthy ideal. But even that distinction is often very difficult to make. 

Main Components of the Story

1.      Lugubrious name: Akaky Akakievich; his clothes have hay and trash sticking on them; he is ugly with wrinkled cheeks and inflamed complexion. He is a sad sack. His image is grotesque and cartoonish, maybe even super natural. A horse sneezes snot on him and he does not notice it. Because he is so lonely, he is vulnerable to falling into the trap of the chimera.

2.      Asperger Syndrome or as my Japanese students explain to me, Akaky is an example of "Otaku." He is ritualistic, anti-social; he takes an unnatural pleasure in copying with no varying activities to relieve the pressure. He takes pleasure in his self-induced prison, a place he feels free. He has anxieties when work is not given to him. He takes work home and copies for his own pleasure and relaxation. He eats soup with flies in it. His rituals and his compulsive need to lose himself in his work have created a wall around him that insulates him from his problem, namely, that he has never grown up as an evolved human being. He lives like an embryo, he has a certain innocence about him, but his innocence is based on ignorance and retarded development and is therefore not a virtue. Having a threadbare overcoat, refusing to clothe himself with necessitites, becomes a life of extremes, and a sort of overcoat, a facade to hide himself from his real problems.

3.      Anal-retentive: This is part of Akaky's pathology, to live inward, to cling to his habits, to shield himself from the flux; he is very much like the scrivener in the great story "Bartelby the Scrivener," a copier who lives like a slave to his job, but his slavery is self-induced because he does not know how to live or to love; he lives in intractable isolation but knowing nothing better he persuades himself that he is happy.

4.      Supernatural in the story like the “unseen force” that stops people from going overboard in their teasing of him at the office. The Northern Cold of St. Petersburg is another super natural force. The wind returns at the end of the story to wreak havoc on the Very Importan Person. The wind accompanies the ghost.

5.      Akaky is content with his fate and enjoys ignorant bliss, but he is not truly born as of yet. This leads to philosophical question: Can we be happy and free if we live sequestered in embryonic ignorance?

And at an unconscious level, he has a lot of unresolved anger pertaining to his low station in life. In Korean, there is a word for this: "Hwatbyung," simmering anger that makes us behave in compulsive, self-destructive ways.

6.      Akaky is awakened from his ignorant bliss by a blast of cold while walking to work. Is his old overcoat ready to be mended or replaced? His overcoat is mocked and called the peignoir, a woman’s negligee. He is afraid to let go of his old tattered overcoat, which has become a security blanket; he is a man who hates change. For Akaky change is the great enemy, the great fear.

7.      Petrovich the tailor is a devil figure with tortoise shell toe nails, ammonia smells; the “one-eyed devil” who drinks vodka. He drinks more alcohol on holy days.

8.      Akaky’s encounter with Petrovich is analogous to Adam taking from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He will be expulsed from his ignorant paradise. Curiosity is the first step in being fully human.

9.      Petrovich's argument that Akaky MUST get a NEW overcoat inflames Akaky's imagination and he is never the same again. Hope is a new garment we have never worn; despair is not knowing it. Two lines from Kierkegaard. The word “new” intoxicates Akaky.

10.  It seems Akaky’s life of extreme repression feeds the life of extreme euphoria over an opposite, an extravagance. Here we face the Jungian Shadow.

11.     The overcoat has many symbolic meanings, all contradictory: chimera, hunger for life; increased consciousness, leaving the womb or the Mother; returning to the womb or the Mother; the libido ostentandi; love; consumer identity, a security blanket, an ideal that is larger than yourself and requires a sacrifice, consumer greed, hope, rebirth, regression; God as the Great Companion Who Never Abandons Us, all the facades and masks we wear. It means all these things.

12.  You must write an introduction of your own personal overcoat, your own security blanket, in your case your blanket Geekee, Dashiki, and The Man Who Loved Radios Too Much, Paul McCartney, Caveman Scream. Write one for every lecture. 

We all have an overcoat, a lifechanging experience from a chimera or non-chimera that transforms us dramatically.

What was my overcoat?

The Intellect.

In 1980 at the age of 19 I realized I was woefully ignorant and I was convinced that reading books, not ones the professors assigned but the ones I wanted to read, would develop The Intellect, my intellect, and this Intellect was desirable in that it would save me in the same way that Akaky obsessed over his Overcoat.

Was my Intellect a chimera?

Yes and no.

Yes, there were times when I overemphasized The Intellect and elevated it into a panacea so that I believed The Intellect would cure me of all my problems.

But there were other times when the Intellect was simply a good thing, a vehicle from leaving the darkness of ignorance, arrogance, and entropy.

Sometimes I would feed the Intellect too much so that it was an evil Beast rendering me introverted, anti-social and unbalanced.

Other times, the rigorous demands of the Intellect made me a better, more disciplined person.

The Intellect's greatest dangers are pride and arrogance.

The Intellect's greatest assets are humility (the more I know, the more I realized how much I don't know) and metacognition (thinking about thinking about thinking; also called The Third Eye).

Contradictions about the Chimera

It is an evil beast that destroys us.

It is an elevating creature that gives us a purpose and meaning in life.

We can't live with chimeras. We cannot live without them.

But I like to put it this way:

Having a chimera will kill you; not having a chimera will kill you. 

One of the Modern Age's Most Common Chimeras: Facebook

Is Facebook a Chimera? Yes and No

Facebook is a great vehicle for finding and meeting old friends and new acquaintences, but the idea of "friendship" can become a dangerous chimera.

The 10 Signs That Facebook Has Become a Self-Destructive Chimera and You Should Probably Delete Your Facebook Account

1. You start “sharing” increasing gradations of meaningless trivia with your “friends” like what kind of dog food you purchased, what kind of nail polish you’re using before vacationing in Maui, how taking Omega-3 fish oil capsules makes you burp, etc.
2. You’re spending 18 hours a day “managing” your friends’ comments ("No one has commented on my juicy entry that was posted almost 30 minutes ago. Damn them all!") and losing more perspective on what’s important in your life like getting out of the house, making real friends, and embarking on something truly creative.
3. You become paranoid as to why a “friend” deleted you from his or her friends list and start losing sleep over why more and more Facebook people are deleting you from their existence.
4. You become jealous and resentful when you see a “friend” commenting on someone’s “boring” post but that same person ignored your more “interesting” post.
5. You start competing with your other  Facebook “friends” for amassing more and more friends and comments.
6. You fret when none of your Facebook friends wish you Happy Birthday.
7. You obsess over the fact that one of your lifelong friends is engaging in more Facebook activity with a new Facebook acquaintance who has demoted your friendship ranking.
8. You lose Facebook friends because you don’t reciprocate their offers to play Bubble Shooter, Pokemon Tower Defense, Trollface Launch, Whack Your Boss, and other games that require too much time for anyone who is gainfully employed.
9. You become a Facebook snob, rejecting friend invitations from people who have fewer than 300 Facebook friends.
10. You become a Facebook elitist only accepting friend invitations from people who have a bare minimum of a Masters Degree, share your political beliefs, and have published or produced a work of art that was reviewed by a major publication.

Example of an Introduction, Transition, and Thesis

Billy and I rode our bicycles around in circles tirelessly on our street, taking breaks only to grab a quick lunch and dinner.

It was July. Without warning, an evening rain hit us. The tropical winds, wet and refreshing, excited Billy and me and we wanted to stay outside on our bikes forever.

Around twilight in our rain-soaked clothes, we noticed something in a distant field, a solitary house or shack with lights beaming from it. Blue and pulsating, the lights blazed through the early evening mist. What could the source of light be? Then one of us—I don’t remember which—realized that the flickering glow could be no other than Christmas lights. Someone had put up Christmas lights in preparation for an early Christmas. We’d circle Venado Court and when we’d look across the field every few minutes or so, one or both of us would scream, “Christmas lights!”

The idea of Christmas in July filled us with longing and a tingle filled my chest and stomach. We ached for Christmas, more so on this wet summer evening than we ever had in December perhaps because it was so implausible that it seemed like a miracle, a divine gift that defied all normal expectations. 

Dad came out on the front porch and told me it was too dark and wet to be riding my bike. I ignored him. Billy and I continued to circle the court and shout, “Christmas lights!”

We continued our vigil of the twinkling house in the distant house the with Dad coming out to call me a couple of more times before he lost his patience and walked out to get me. He pulled me off my bike with great force and rolled it home while pinching my ear. All the while, I kept shouting “Christmas lights!”

At night I thought of the magical house in the distant field and cried myself to sleep. I was no more consoled the next morning. For the next several days all Dad heard about was my obsession with the Christmas lights. He was sick of it. Finally, he decided to put an end to all this Christmas light nonsense once and for all, so he told me to get in the car. We were going to confront this imaginary house in the field that had been the source of so much uproar. The damn house with the Christmas lights.

We drove across the field and I discovered that the house was no house at all but a bait and tackle shop. And what I had thought were Christmas lights were actually neon beer signs. Dad stopped the car and told me to go inside. He approached the cold box, picked up a bottle of beer and looked at me. Gloating, he seemed to relish in seeing me lose my illusion, my pathetic little chimera.

Indeed, as we read in Gogol's masterpiece "The Overcoat," the chimera dooms us to disappointment evidenced by its power to ____________, ___________, _______________, and ______________. 

In-class Activity

In one or two sentences, explain a chimera that possessed you and transformed your life, for better or worse.