Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A classic of Russian literature, Crime and Punishment relates to the realism of Gogol’s “The Overcoat.” Rodion Raskolnikov is a young man in St. Petersburg leading an impoverished life. He is in desperate need of money and decides to murder the pawnbroker to rob her. Unlike Akakiy Akakievitch, Raskolnikov is a brash and confident young man who believes he has the right to murder others. Dostoevsky was influenced by Gogol’s realistic portrayal of what it meant to be poor and without help in 19th-century Russian society.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

A modern novel published in 2003, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake uses Nikolai Gogol’s short stories as a framing device. The child in the story is given the nickname “Gogol,” and the name sticks throughout his life. The father was reading Gogol during a train accident, and a dropped page of the stories is the only reason he was found and rescued. The character named Gogol takes up reading Gogol’s short stories upon his father’s death.

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground is a novella about an alienated life in St. Petersburg in the 1860s. It is told from the anonymous perspective of a man who was a civil servant in the local government. The man is bitter and alienated after an early life of romantic idealism. The novella tracks a loss of faith in Russian society. This theme relates to “The Overcoat” since Akakievitch finds no help from the society he inhabits in St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky’s work also employs bitter realism in the face of romantic ideals which draws a direct line of influence from Gogol’s work.