Biochemistry perspective Essay

Diabetes is an ailment which is caused due to high amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood. The main reason for high glucose levels in blood is due to the inability of body to utilize it properly. Glucose comes from the digestion of sugar and foods rich in carbohydrates that enable the liver to create glucose. The high concentration level of glucose in blood is termed as Hyperglycemia. In 1910, Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer suggested people with diabetes were deficient in a single chemical that was normally produced by the pancreas. He proposed calling this substance insulin. The term is derived from the Latin insula, meaning island, in reference to the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas that produce insulin. (Patlak, 2002) Insulin: An Introduction Insulin is a polypeptide containing 51 amino acids arranged in two chains. The chain A contains 21 amino acids and chain B contains 30 residues. These two chains are cross linked by two sulphur bridges by cysteine residues. Insulin is formed by proteolytic cleavage of its 84 amino acid prescursor Proinsulin. Insulin has a molecular weight of 5808 Da. It has the molecular formula C257H383N65O77S6. Insulin structure varies slightly between species. Its carbohydrate metabolism regulatory function strength in humans also varies. Porcine which is pig insulin is close to humans. The image above is computer-generated image of insulin hexamers. The zinc ions holding it together and the histidine residues are involved in zinc binding. Insulin Action A pharmacological action of insulin includes carbohydrate metabolism, protein metabolism, lipid metabolism and other actions. Insulin increases the use of sugar in the tissue and stimulates transportation of glucose into the cells. Insulin also stimulates protein synthesis and growth. It increases synthesis of messenger RNA and decreases gluconeogenesis. A gluconeogenesis is a formation of glucose from glycogen. It also increases amino acid uptake in the muscle. In adipose tissues, insulin increases fatty acid synthesis, glycerol phosphate synthesis and triglyceride deposition. Other action of insulin includes prevention of ketone boy formation and increases potassium uptake. After the release of insulin from the pancreatic beta cell into the interstitial compartment, it enters the circulation after crossing endothelial barrier. Insulin action effect at the cellular level is achieved by activating and suppressing the activity of enzyme. It can also be achieved by changing the rate of synthesis of enzymes at the level of transcription and translation. Insulin stimulate glucose uptake into fat cells by glucose transporters. Glucose transporters are small vesicles which contain specific protein macromolecules. Insulin increases the rate of fusion of these vesicles with the plasma membrane, and activates the transporters to transfer glucose across the plasma membrane into the cell. Insulin synthesize hoxokinase, an enzyme which phosporylates glucose as soon as it enters the cell. Insulin is an anabolic hormone. It encourages the storage of fats and the synthesis of proteins. Each receptor of insulin contain a pair of alpha subunits, which are located on the outer surface of the membrane, and a pair of beta subunits which crosses the membrane and stick out at both the outer and inner surfaces. Both alpha and beta subunits are held together by disulphide (S-S) bonds to form an aggregate. In humans, the insulin receptor gene is located on chromosome 19. Insulin binds to the receptor at a specific site on the alpha subunit. This causes increased phosphorylation of the receptor by ATP, mostly tyrosine residues of the intracellular portion of the beta subunit. Increased phophorylation of these tyrosine residues activates the beta subunit to function as a kinase enzyme. Some intracellular effects of insulin that occur after insulin-receptor binding may be mediate through nucleotide regulatory proteins (G proteins) a family of proteins associated with the inner surface of the plasma membrane. Cyclic AMP also has some intracellular effects of insulin. The major function of insulin is to counter the concerted action of a number of hyperglycemia-generating hormones and to maintain low blood glucose levels. Because there are numerous hyperglycemic hormones, untreated disorders associated with insulin generally lead to severe hyperglycemia and shortened life span. In addition to its role in regulating glucose metabolism, insulin stimulates lipogenesis, diminishes lipolysis, and increases amino acid transport into cells. Insulin also modulates transcription, altering the cell content of numerous mRNAs. It stimulates growth, DNA synthesis, and cell replication, effects that it holds in common with the insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and relaxin. Specific protease activity cleaves the center third of the molecule, which dissociates as C peptide, leaving the amino terminal B peptide disulfide bonded to the carboxy terminal A peptide. Insulin secretion from beta cells is principally regulated by plasma glucose levels. Increased uptake of glucose by pancreatic b-cells leads to a concomitant increase in metabolism. The increase in metabolism leads to an elevation in the ATP/ADP ratio. This in turn leads to an inhibition of an ATP-sensitive K+ channel. The net result is a depolarization of the cell leading to Ca2+ influx and insulin secretion. In fact, the role of K+ channels in insulin secretion presents a viable therapeutic target for treating hyperglycemia due to insulin insufficiency. Insulin, secreted by the beta-cells of the pancreas, is directly infused via the portal vein to the liver, where it exerts profound metabolic effects. These effects are the response of the activation of the insulin receptor which belongs to the class of cell surface receptors that exhibit intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity as shown in the figure. Insulin produces its action through specific insulin receptors which consist of two subunits ? and ?. Insulin receptor complex then initiates a chain of biochemical reaction involving cAMP, protein phosphorylase, protein kinase, phosphatase and lipase. A diabetic condition result when receptor of insulin is desensitization. Therefore, Insulin is used medically in diabetes mellitus. Patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus depend on insulin (commonly injected subcutaneously) for their survival because they make no hormone. Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus have either low insulin production or insulin resistance or both. Therefore, they require insulin administration when other medications become inadequate in controlling blood glucose levels. Actions of insulin-insulin receptor interactions at the level of IRS1 and activation of the kinase cascade leading to altered activities of glycogen phosphorylase and glycogen synthase. The insulin receptor is a heterotetramer of 2 extra cellular alpha-subunits disulfide bonded to 2 transmembrane beta-subunits. With respect to hepatic glucose homeostasis, the effects of insulin receptor activation are specific phosphorylation events that lead to an increase in the storage of glucose with a concomitant decrease in hepatic glucose release to the circulation. Only those responses at the level of glycogen synthase and glycogen phosphorylase are represented. This image shows Insulin-insulin receptor actions on glycogen homeostasis showing the role of protein targeting glycogen, PTG in complex formations involving many of the enzymes and substrates together. Also diagrammed is response of insulin at the level of glucose transport into cells via GLUT4 translocation to the plasma membrane. GS/GP kinase = glycogen synthase: glycogen phosphorylase kinase. PPI = protein phosphatase inhibitor. Arrows denote either direction of flow or positive effects, T lines represent inhibitory effects. In most nonhepatic tissues, insulin increases glucose uptake by increasing the number of plasma membrane glucose transporters: GLUTs. Glucose transporters are in a continuous state of turnover. Increases in the plasma membrane content of transporters stem from an increase in the rate of recruitment of new transporters into the plasma membrane, deriving from a special pool of preformed transporters localized in the cytoplasm. GLUT1 is present in most tissues, GLUT2 is found in liver and pancreatic b-cells, GLUT3 is in the brain and GLUT4 is found in heart, adipose tissue and skeletal muscle. In liver glucose uptake is dramatically increased because of increased activity of the enzymes glucokinase, phosphofructokinase-1 (PFK-1), and pyruvate kinase (PK), the key regulatory enzymes of glycolysis. Lack of Insulin Usually the inefficiency and lack of insulin are bracketed together, as both situations result in diabetes. There are two types of diabetes, diabetes insipidus and diabetes melitus, which is by far, the most common. Diabetes mellitus in turn has two types: Type 1, also known as insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, IDDM Type 1 is characterized by decreased productions of insulin so must be treated with insulin. It is most often found in children and adolescents. Type 2, also known as non-insulin dependent diabetes melitus, NIDDM Type 2 is caused by either decreased insulin production or abnormal cell sensitivity to the insulin that is present. It may be treated with diet alone, with oral hypoglycemic agents, or with insulin. It is more commonly diagnosed in adults. (Perspective Press, 240-43) Insulin does not cure diabetes. It is merely a treatment for the diabetes. Over time, many complications can occur in diabetic patients taking insulin. Some of these are coronary heart diseases, peripheral vascular diabetes, eye disorders, renal failure, and limb amputations. Because of reduced circulation and nerve damage, diabetic patients are essentially prone to developing foot ulcers, a major cause of amputations. They are able to feel foot infections, which allow it to grow and cause permanent damage. Proper foot care is essential and includes avoiding injuries oral restricting circulations, cleaning wounds, controlling infections, relieving weight from the ulcer area, and improving circulation. A new genetically engineered drug, becaplermin, promotes the healing process in diabetic foot ulcer. Lack of insulin or ineffectiveness of it may trigger some response from the body. The predominant tissue responding to signals that indicates fluctuating blood glucose levels is the liver. One of the most important functions of the liver is to produce glucose for circulation. Both elevated and reduced levels of blood glucose trigger hormonal responses to initiate pathways designed to restore glucose homeostasis. Low blood glucose triggers release of glucagon from pancreatic Alpha-cells. High blood glucose triggers release of insulin from pancreatic Beta-cells. In elderly people pancreas either fails or does not secrete right amount of insulin. In this patient insulin per injection becomes drug of choice when oral antidiabetics have failed. Insulin was also used to induce shocks in schizophrenics. Insulin secretion is controlled by concentrations circulating glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids, various hormones and neuron-transmitter agents. In the fasting state, when glucose concentrations are low, insulin secretion is minimal. As glucose concentrations rise after the utilizing carbohydrates meal the raised glucose concentration stimulates insulin secretion. Insulin resistance develops over time. Therefore, doses have to be increased. This occurs because of the development of insulin antibodies in the blood. This also can be somewhat corrected by changing the type of insulin injection and by giving cortiscosteroids which are immunity suppressant drugs. Yet, it also produces negative effect by increasing blood sugar and this is why they are not used. Types of Insulin There are many types of insulin and many salt forms of it. It can be derived synthetically of from different animal sources such as beef and pork. There is now genetically engineered human insulin available. Different insulin differs in the onset of action and the duration of action. Some are mixed together to achieve a desired effect such as a quick onset but a longer duration of action. The most common mixtures is regular insulin with NPH insulin (70units NPH and 30 units regular insulin per milliliter) The different categories of insulin’s are: 1. Short-acting insulin types: regular insulin (crystalline zinc insulin), semilente insulin (prompt insulin zinc suspension), insulin lipsor; 2. Intermediate – acting insulin types: NPH (isophane insulin suspension) and linte insulin (insulin zinc suspension); 3. Long-acting insulin types: PZI (protamine zinc insulin suspension) and ultralente insulin (extended insulin zinc suspension). Administration Insulin is injection instead of giving orally because it is destroyed in the gastrointestinal tract. Also, the molecule is too large to be absorbed by the intestinal membrane. Therefore, injection of soluble crystalline insulin is given by subcutaneous injection which is quickly absorbed. Peak effects of insulin are achieved quickly and also excreted quickly within a few hours. However some insulin such as simelente is absorbed slowly. The peak is reached slowly and is sustained. This type of insulin excretion is also very slow and sometimes partly destroyed by insulinase enzyme in the liver. Controlling glucose level with insulin injections is a complex task since: a) Glucose concentrations fluctuate based on food ingestion. b) Cell sensitivity to insulin changes. Exercise increases sensitivity while stress, pregnancy, and some drug decrease insulin sensitivity. As a result some diabetic patients take multiple injections for a short-acting insulin preparation to produce peaks in insulin concentrations and a long acting formulation to establish a baseline concentration. Variable rate infusion pumps are also used. Patients who use insulin need to be instructed on the rotation method of taking their medication. Insulin is absorbed more rapidly with administration in the arm or thigh, especially with exercise. The abdomen is used for more consistent absorption. Glucose levels should be checked as per physician orders. All insulin must be checked for expiration date and clarity of the solution. Insulin should not be given if it appears cloudy. Vials should not be shaken but rotated in between the hands to mix contents. If regular insulin is to be mixed with NPH or lente insulin, the regular insulin should be drawn into the syringe first. Unopened vials should be stored in the refrigerator, and freezing should be avoided. The vial in use can be stored at room temperature. Vials should not be put in glove compartments, suitcase, or trunks. Humulin is a new type of insulin and is often the patient’s preference because it can be taken orally. It is imperative that the physician be called if any adverse reactions to the medications are observed. (Jahangir Moini, P 150-154) Undesirable Effects Insulin The main undesirable effect of insulin is hypoglycemia. This is common, and can cause brain damage. Intensive insulin therapy results in a threefold increase in severe hypoglycemia. The treatment of hypoglycemic is to take a sweet drink or snack, or, if the patient is unconscious, to give intravenous glucose (50% w/v solution) or intramuscular glucagon. Rebound hypergly (Somogyi effect) can follow excessive insulin administration. This results from the release of the insulin-opposing or counter-regulatory hormones in response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia. This can cause hypercemia before breakfast following an unrecognized hypoglycemic attack during sleep in the early hours of the morning. It is essential to recognize this possibility to avoid the mistake of increasing (rather than reducing) the dose of insulin in this situation. Allergy to insulin is unusual but may take the form of local or systemic reactions. Severe insulin resistance as a consequence of antibody formation is rare. A high tire of circulating anti-insulin antibodies is more likely to occur with bovine than with porcine insulin. Note, however, that virtually all patients treated with animal insulin have antibodies against the hormone, albeit usually flow. Human insulin is less immunogenic than animal insulin but may still evoke an antibody response, since the source of the hormone is not the only determinant of immunogenicity; insulin undergo physical changes before and after injection which can increase their potential for provoking an immune response. (HP Rang et al, 200-270) References 1. Patlak M. 2002. â€Å"New weapons to combat an ancient disease: treating diabetes†. Available on http://www. fasebj. org/cgi/content/full/16/14/1853e 2. Perspective Press. 2003. â€Å"The Pharmacy Technician† 1st edition: Morton Publishers. P 240- 243. 3. Jahangir Moini. 2005. â€Å"Comprehensive Exam Review for the Pharmacy Technician†: Thomson Delmar. P 150-154 4. H. P. Rang, M. Maureen Dale, James M. Ritter, Philip Moore. 2001. â€Å"Pharmacology†: Churchill Livingstone. P 200-270

Benjamin D. Powell

Benjamin D. Powell makes an argument in his paper â€Å"Exploring Mirror Neurons: Rethinking Performance and Communicative Processes† that will make every self-avowed video game dork ecstatic. The concept that by observing an action repeatedly our mirror neurons learn to perform the action will appeal to thousands or even millions who spend their days in front of a television or video screen rather than out experiencing life. Powell adds the caveat that without practicing the action, the body will not be able to perform it with the skill of a trained athlete, but argues that the presence of mirror neurons explains why he was not more injured when hit by a car. The paper claims that the presence of mirror neurons may indicate that more study is needed regarding how our bodies develop skills and what effect activities like playing video games have on our neurological development. At worst, Powell’s theory is an interesting pipe dream. At best, it is hope for the people who spend too much time playing â€Å"World of Warcraft†. Unfortunately, the reality is it seems to be something of a pipe dream. It is much more likely that he simply got lucky when the car hit him and instinctively tucked and rolled. And, the car, which he described as barreling toward him, probably was not moving with the speed he believed it to be.   Writing for the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Kathleen Wilkes seems to echo parts of Powell’s basic thesis. (Wilkes 111). She argues that the possibility exists that people are capable of learning simply through observation, but there is no hard science to defend either her statement or Powell’s. The reality is that this is some odd combination of philosophy and science, with people speculating on something that science has yet to be able to measure or prove. In the end, while the philosophy of a mind-body link so deep that the mind can control the body’s actions after merely observing an action seems plausible there is no science to back it up. Powell’s evidence is merely a corollary, coincidental and not direct proof of a tie. To actually prove Powell’s theory would be difficult and complicated. One would have to prove that there was simply no other way, short of mirror neurons that the test subject could have learned to complete a specific action. And, the researcher would have to be able to determine how much of the action and the response to it is based on intellectual knowledge versus muscle knowledge. In short, the researcher would have to prove that simply watching someone swing a bat repeatedly would equate to the ability to do it and that the ability is more than the intellectual knowledge of where to place one’s hands on the bat. He would have to prove that Powell’s escape from injury was more related to his ability to tuck and roll than his knowledge that tuck and roll was the right way to minimize the force of impact of an oncoming car. Ultimately, Powell’s problem becomes in determining what actions are effective because of the mental processes telling us how to do them and which ones are effective because of the muscle knowledge of when to flex or release. Even making the differentiation there could take years. WORKS CITED Powell, Benjamin D. â€Å"Exploring Mirror Neurons: Rethinking Performance and Communicative Processes.† Wilkes, Kathleen V. â€Å"Brain States†Ã‚   The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 31, No.2. June, 1980. pp. 111-129.   

The Overcoat

Meanings and Indeterminacy in Gogol's â€Å"The Overcoat† Author(s): Victor Brombert Reviewed work(s): Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 135, No. 4 (Dec. , 1991), pp. 569-575 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: http://www. jstor. org/stable/986817 . Accessed: 25/01/2012 04:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www. jstor. org/page/info/about/policies/terms. sp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email  protected] org. American Philosophical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. h ttp://www. jstor. org Indeterminacy Meanings and in Gogol's The Overcoat* VICTOR BROMBERT Henry Putnam University Professorof Romanceand ComparativeLiterature Princeton University kaky Akakyevich is the central characterof Gogol's story TheOvercoat. Although Dostoyevsky gave common currency to the term â€Å"antihero† in Notes from Underground,it is Gogol's Akaky Akakyevich who is the genuine, unmitigated, and seemingly unredeemable antihero. For Dostoyevsky's anti-heroic paradoxalist, afflicted with hypertrophia of the consciousness, is well-read, cerebral, incurably bookish, and talkative. Akaky Akakyevich is hardly aware, and almost inarticulate. Gogol's artistic wager was to try to articulate this inarticulateness. The story, in its plot line, is simple. A most unremarkable copying clerk in a St. Petersburg ministry-bald, pockmarked, short-sighted, and the scapegoat of his colleagues who invent cruel ways of mocking himdiscovers one day that his pathetically threadbare coat no longer protects him against the fierce winter wind. The tailor he consults categorically refuses to repair the coat which is now beyond repair, and empts Akaky Akakyevich into having a new overcoat made, one totally beyond his means, but which by dint of enormous sacrifices, he manages to acquire and wear with a newly discovered sense of pride. But his happiness lasts only one short day. Crossing a deserted quarter at night, he is attacked by two thieves who knock him to the ground and steal his coat. Drenched, frozen, deeply upset, brutally reprimanded by a superior whose help he dared seek, A kaky develops a fever, becomes delirious, and dies. One can hardly speak of an interesting plot line. Yet this simple story lends itself to orgies of interpretations. In fact, there may be as many interpretations as there are readers. The Overcoatcan be read as a parable, a hermeneutic puzzle, an exercise in meaninglessness. But to begin with, there is the temptation to read it seriously as satire with a social and * Read 9 November 1990. PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, VOL. 135, NO. 4, 1991 569 570 VICTOR BROMBERT moral message. In The Nose, Gogol had already made fun of the rankconsciousness and venality of civil servants. In The Overcoat, he seems to deride systematically the parasitical, lazy, phony, world of Russian officialdom, whose members are the impotent mediators of a hierarchy of ineffectual power structure in which every subordinate fears and apes his superior. Early Russian critics, convinced that literature must have a moral message, read such a denunciatory and corrective satirical intention into the story even though it is clear that Gogol constantly shifts his tone, defends no apparent norm, and systematically ironizes any possible â€Å"serious† message. There is of course the temptation to read The Overcoatas a tale of compassion, as a plea for brotherhood. The pathetically defenseless little clerk, taunted and persecuted by the group, remains blissfully oblivious to the cruel pranks of which he is the butt, intent on his humble copying activity. Only when the jokes become too outrageous, or interfere with his work, does he protest ever so mildly. But here the tone of the story seems to change. For Gogol introduces a young man, recently appointed to the same office, who is on the point of sharing in the general fun, and who is suddenly struck by the strange notes in Akaky's voice which touch his heart with pity and make him suddenly see everything in a very different light. A true revelation emanating from an â€Å"unnatural† (neestestvennyi) power allows him to hear other words behind Akaky's banal entreaty to be left alone. What he hears are the deeply penetrating, unspoken words echoing with poignant significance: â€Å"I am thy brother. And with this voice from behind the voice comes the shocked awareness of how much â€Å"inhumanity† there is in human beings, how much brutality lurks in what goes as civilized society and civilized behavior. The apparent lesson in humanity given by the scapegoat victim seems, in the immediate context, to have an almost religious character, especially if one relates it to the narrator's comments, after Akaky's death, on ho w a man of meekness who bore the sneers and insults of his fellow human beings disappeared from this world, but who, before his agony, had a vision of the bright visitant (svetluy gost). The man of meekness, the man of sorrows, like the unspoken but clearly heard â€Å"I am thy brother,† seems to have a Christian, if not Christological, resonance. But we forget Akaky's name, and that we are not allowed to do. For the patronymic appellation not only stresses the principle of repetition (Akaky's first name being exactly the same as his father's), but the funny sound repetition is even funnier because the syllable kak = like (tak kak = just as) embeds the principle of sameness in Akaky's name, determining, it would seem, his single-minded, life-long activity of copying and implicit condemnation to sameness. Regarding the many years Akaky served in the same department, Gogol observes that he â€Å"remained in exactly the same place, in exactly the same position, in exactly the same job, doing exactly the same kind of work, to wit copying official documents. † But there is better (or worse) especially to Russian ears, for kakatj GOGOL'S THE OVERCOAT 571 (from the Greek cacos = bad, evil) is children's talk for defecate, and caca in many languages refers to human excrement. To be afflicted with such a name clearly relates to the garbage being regularly dumped on Akaky as he walks in the street, and to his being treated with no more respect by the caretakers than a common fly. The cruel verbal fun around the syllable kak extends beyond the character's name, and contaminates Gogol's text. Gogol indulges in seemingly endless variations on the words tak, kak,kakoi,kakoi-to,kakikh-to,vot-kak,neekak,takoi, takaya,kaknibut, (just so, that's how, in no way, somehow, and so on) which in the translation disappear altogether. The exploitations of sound effects or sound meanings clearly correspond to a poet's fascination with the prestigious cacophonic resources of ordinary speech. 1 One last point about the choice of Akaky's name, specifically the Christian act of â€Å"christening†: according to custom, the calendar was opened at random and several saints' names (Mokkia, Sossia), including the name of the martyr Khozdazat, were considered, only to be rejected by the mother because they sounded so strange. Akaky was chosen because that was the name of the father. But Acacius, a holy monk of Sinai, was also a saint and martyr, and we find ourselves-especially since the Greek prefix a (Acacius) signifies: not bad, therefore good, meek, humble, obedient-back to the religious motif. If Akaky continues to copy for his own pleasure at home, this is in large part because the bliss of copying has a specifically monastic resonance. Gogol does indeed refer to his copying as a â€Å"labor of love. † Here a new temptation assails the reader. Should The Overcoatnot be read as hagiography in a banal modern context, or at the very least as a parody of hagiography? A number of elements seem to lend support to such a reading of the story in or against the perspective of the traditional lives of the saints: the humble task of copying documents, reference to the theme of the martyr (muchenik),salvational terminology, sacrificial motifs or communion (â€Å"I am thy brother†), Akaky's visions and ecstasies, his own apparitions from beyond the grave. But the most telling analogy with hagiographic lore is the conversion-effect on others, first on the young man who has a revelation of a voice that is not of this world (svet), and toward the end he self-admiring, domineering, Very Important Person on whom Akaky's ghost-like apparition makes a neverto-be-forgotten impression. 2 The overcoat itself can take on religious connotations because clothing, in the symbolism of the Bible and orthodox liturgy, often represents righteousness and salvation. The only trouble with such an interpretation-and Gogol has written Meditations on the Divine Liturgy wh ich 1 Boris Eichenbaum speaks of Gogol's â€Å"phonic inscriptions† and â€Å"sound-semantics† in â€Å"How ‘The Overcoat' is Made,† in Gogol from the Twentieth Century, ed. Robert A. Maguire, Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 280. 2 See John Schillinger, â€Å"Gogol's ‘The Overcoat'as a Travesty of Hagiography,† Slavic and East EuropeanJournal, Spring 1972, 16, 1: 36-41. 572 VICTOR BROMBERT refer to the priest's robe of righteousness as a garment of salvation3-is that the coat can have an opposite symbolic significance, that of hiding the truth. Hence the traditional image of disrobing to reveal the naked self. In addition, there are many other possible meanings quite remote from the religious sphere: the metonymic displacement of the libido (the Russian word for overcoat- shinel- is appropriately feminine), the effects of virilization (in his new coat, Akaky surprises himself in the act of running after some woman in the street! ), loss of innocence and loss of â€Å"original celibacy. â€Å"4 The coat itself thus turns out to be a form of temptation (material acquisition, vanity, pride), and the devilish tailor is the agent of this temptation just as the writer or narrator (who in fact is he? â€Å"tempts† the reader into a succession of vacuous and mutually canceling interpretations. This provocative writer-reader relationship, sustained throughout the narration, casts a special light on Akaky's fundamental activity of copying- the act of writing in its purest form. It does not take much imagination (our modern critics discover self-referentiality everywhere) to see in Akaky's c opying an analogue of the writer's activity. And like the proverbially absorbed writer or scholar, he is obsessed by his writing to the point of finding himself in the middle of the street while thinking that he is in the middle of a sentence. This self-absorbed and selfreferential nature of Gogol's act of writing might be seen to imply a negative attitude toward the referential world, toward all that which is not writing. Much like Flaubert, who dreamt of composing a â€Å"book about nothing,† and whom contemporary critics like to view as an apostle of self-referential, intransitive literature, Gogol yearns for monastic withdrawal. Flaubert was haunted by the figures of the monk and the saint. Similarly, Gogol explained in a letter: â€Å"It is not the poet's business to worm his way into the world's marketplace. Like a silent monk, he lives in the world without belonging to it . . . â€Å"5 Pushed to a logical extreme, this sense of the radical deceptiveness of life calls into question worldly authority, and leads to a destabilizing stance that challenges the principle of authority, a subversive gesta of which the real hero is the artist himself. There is indeed something devilish about Gogol's narrative voice. It has already been suggested that the devil makes an appearance in the figure of the tailor who tempts Akaky into buying the coat. This caricature of the sartorial artist who quite literally is the creator of the overcoat, this ex-serf sitting with his legs crossed under him like a Turkish pasha, has diabolical earmarks: he is a â€Å"one-eyed devil† living at the end of a black staircase; he has a de3 See Anthony Hippisley, â€Å"Gogol's ‘The Overcoat':A further Interpretation,† Slavic and East EuropeanJournal, Summer, 1976, 20, 2: 121-129. Hippisley points out (p. 123) that Gogol, in his Meditations on the Divine Liturgy quotes Psalms 132:9: â€Å"Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness .. † 4 The expression is Charles Bernheimer's, in his fine essay â€Å"Cloaking the Self: The Literary Space of Gogol's ‘Overcoat,†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ PMLA, January 1975, 90, 1: 53-61. 5 Letter to Pogodin, quoted by Charles Bernheimer (op. cit. , p. 53) and Donald Fanger, The Creationof Nikolai Gogol, Harvard University Press, 1979. GOGOL'S THE OVERCOAT 573 formed big toenail, hard and thick as a tortoise shell; he handles a thricereferred-to snuff box on which the face of a general has been effaced (the devil is faceless); he seems to be nudged by the devil and charges â€Å"the devil knows what prices. 6 This verbal playfulness seems to extend to the narrator himself, who undercuts his own narration in truly diabolical fashion by means of grotesque hyperbolizing, mixtures of realistic and parodistic elements, sudden shifts from the rational to the irrational, and elliptical displacements from epic triviality to unrestrained fantasy. Indulging in a game of mirages and fog-like uncertainties, the narrator subverts the logical progression of his story. Ultimately, even the ghost is debunked, and we are back in the blackness of quotidian reality. In the Russian text, these shifts in tone and textual instabilities are even more insidious, since everything seems to blur into the undifferentiated flow of seemingly endless paragraphs. This merging of discontinuities undermines any sense of plot, undercuts the notion of subject, and suggests at every point that what is told is another story, thereby teasing the reader into endless interpretations that can neither be stabilized nor stopped. Some of this is the inevitable result of a mimesis of inarticulateness, a narrative style that is the imitative substitute for Akaky's manner of communicating mostly through prepositions, adverbs, and â€Å"such parts of speech as have no meaning whatsoever. † But the strategy of destabilization and fragmented diction also has a deeper subversive purpose. The non sequiturs and hesitations reveal the arbitrariness of any fictional structure, and in the last analysis subvert any auctorial authority. The concluding page of The Nose represents an authorial critique of the story as incomprehensible and useless. The mediating self-negator is the fictionalized narrator identified in The Overcoat as the raskazyvaiushyi-the narrating one. And this narrator, occasionally pretending to be ignorant or semi-ignorant (like Cervantes's narrative voice as of the very first sentence of Don Quixote) does not know in what town, on what day, on what street the action takes placein fact, complains of loss of memory. All this, however, only accentuates the possible importance of the unknowable and the unsayable, while protecting the protagonist's sacred privacy. The narrator clumsily speculates on what Akaky might or might not have said to himself as he stares at an erotic window display in the elegant quarter of St. Petersburg, and he concludes: â€Å"But perhaps he never even said anything at all to himself. For it is impossible to delve into a person's mind [in Russian, literally: to creep into a person's soul]. The Overcoat is thus marked by conflicting and enigmatic signals, pointing to oxymoronic textures of meanings. Inversions hint at conver6 Dmitry Chizhevsky, who stresses the presence of the Devil in â€Å"The Overcoat,†writes: â€Å"As someone who was well read in religious literature, as a connoisseur and collector of folklore materials-from popular songs and legends-Gogol of course knew about the Christian and folk tradition that the Devil is faceless† (â€Å"About Go gol's ‘Overcoat,†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ in Gogol from the Twentieth Century, p. 20). 574 VICTOR BROMBERT sions. What is seemingly up is in fact seen to be down, while the reverse is equally true. The downtrodden creature turns out to be capable of heroic sacrifices, while the powerfully constituted VIP with the appearance of a bogatyr(hero) is cut down to human size by fright. On the other hand, when Akaky's fall is likened to a disaster such as destroys the czars and other great ones of this earth, one may well feel that Gogol is ironic about all heroic poses, heroic values, and heroic figures. When Akaky wears the new coat, his pulse beats faster, his bearing seems to indicate a newly discovered sense of purpose (tzel), his eyes have an audacious gleam, he appears somehow to have almost become virile. Yet the overcoat is also the emblem of false values, of trivial passion, of a silly reason for a human downfall. One might wish therefore to read a deeper significance into these mutually canceling interpretations. In English, the word passion is fraught with a multiple significance: in the ordinary sense, it denotes intense and even overwhelming emotion, especially of love; yet etymologically, it signifies suffering. Love and suffering are of course linked in a grotesque manner in The Overcoat. Whether such love and such suffering are commensurate with any objective reality remains unresolved in this story which seems to say that any love is great no matter what its object, that love is all-powerful; and conversely, that any passion can drag one down, that the more intense it seems, the emptier it is. Gogol's style is in itself an admirable instrument of ambivalence: enlarging trivia, and thereby trivializing what we may for a moment be tempted to take as significant. What complicates Gogol's text for the reader is that it is not a case of simple ambivalence. It will not do to praise Gogol as a compassionate realist with an ethical message or to see him as a playful anti-realist indulging in overwrought imagery and in the reflections of distorting mirrors. The hard fact is that Gogol is a protean writer whose simultaneity of possible meanings allows for no respite and no comfortable univocal mess age. If the narrator is center stage, it is because ultimately he becomes a performer, a buffoonish actor mimicking incoherence itself. Intelligent readers of Gogol-Boris Eichenbaum, Vladimir Nabokov, Victor Erlich, Charles Bernheimer, Donald Fanger8-have in varying degrees and with different emphases, understood that rather than indulging in a feast of ideas to be taken seriously, Gogol delighted in verbal acts as a game-a game that implied the autonomy of narrative style, a declaration of artistic independence, and a thorough deflation of l'esprit de serieux. I am largely indebted to Dmitry Chizhevsky who has admirably shown how the repeated and incongruous use of the adverb â€Å"even† (daje) breaks up the logical train of thoughts, enlarges trivia, and frustrates the reader by making the insignificant seem significant, and vice versa. Such a narrative strategy is related by Chizhevsky to the semantic oscillations of the text (â€Å"About Gogol's ‘Overcoat,'† in Gog ol from the Twentieth Century, pp. 295-322). 8 Boris Eichenbaum, op. cit. Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol, New Directions, 1944; Victor Erlich, Gogol, Yale University Press, 1969; Charles Bernheimer, op. cit. ; Donald Fanger, op. cit. GOGOL'S THE OVERCOAT 575 Perhaps there is an underlying autobiographic urge in The Overcoat, and the verbal clowning and narrative pirouettes are telling a story in which the irrational takes on an exorcising and liberating virtue-much as the idiosyncrasies of Dostoyevsky's Notes from Undergroundpresent a vehement protest against spiritually deadening rationality. What is certain is that Gogol needs to wear a mask. Haunted by the monsters born of his imagination, afraid to be unmasked, Gogol literally disappears in his writing by becoming a multiplicity of voices. 9 But there is a danger in depicting Gogol as an escape artist struggling against his own demons at the same time as he struggles against the repressive reality he wishes to deny. Similarly, there is the risk of considerable distortion in the determination of formalist and post-structuralist critics to draw Gogol to the camp of radical modernity by seeing him exclusively concerned with speech acts and sheer rhetoricity. Polyvalence does not mean the absence of meaning. The real problem, much as in the case of Flaubert, who complained of the plethora of subjects and inflationary overfill of meanings, is that over-abundance and multiplicity become principles of indeterminacy. Excess is related to emptiness. Similarly, Gogol seems torn between the futility of experience and the futility of writing about it, between the conviction that writing is the only salvation, and that it is powerless to say the unsayable-aware at all points of the gulf between signifier and signified. Nabokov may have come closest to the heart of Gogol's dark playfulness when he wrote: â€Å"The gaps and black holes in the texture of Gogol's style imply flaws in the texture of life itself. . 10 To this one might add, however, that the hollowness of the gaps, the terrifying absence, is also an absence/presence: a void that asks to be filled by the interpretive act. The dialectics of negativity, so dependent on the antiheroic mode embodied by Akaky, displace the production of meaning from the almost non-existent character and undecidable text to the creative reader. Victor Erlich has very convincingly discussed Gogol's motif of the mask and tendency to â€Å"speak in somebody else's voice† in his chapter â€Å"The Great Impersonator† in Gogol, op. cit. , pp. 210-223. Gogol himself writes: â€Å"If anyone had seen the monsters that issued from my pen, at first for my own purposes alone-he would certainly have shuddered† (quoted by Valery Bryusov in his essay â⠂¬Å"Burnt to Ashes,† reproduced in Gogolfrom the Twentieth Century, p. 111). 10Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol, op. cit. , p. 143.

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