Imagery is defined as sensory details that provide vividness and immediacy in a literary work by
             arousing in readers a complex of emotional associations. Figurative language is a non-literal way
             to express a suitable relationship between essentially unlike things. Tone is an author's attitude
             toward his or her subject matter and audience. In "The Overcoat", Nikolai Gogol uses figurative
             language, imagery and tone to convey to readers the corruption of government and society at that
             Gogol uses figurative language and imagery to emphasize the corruption of government in
             Russia then. He shows this by using extremely detailed descriptions. An example of his
             descriptions is when he is first illustrating Akaky's overcoat and says, "His frock coat, which was
             supposed to be green, had turned a sort of mealy reddish. It's collar was very low and very
             narrow, so that his neck, which was really quite ordinary, looked incredibly long --like the spring
             necks of the head-shaking plaster kittens..." (634). The image of how bad poverty stricken
             Russian life was in Gogol's time is often repeated throughout the story. Another example of
             imagery is at the very end of the story. Another, second ghost, is seen stealing coats just like
             Akaky's ghost did. This shows that the crime that happened to Akaky happened all the time in
             Russia. Obviously the government officials or so-called important people did nothing to stop the
             Gogol also describes the coldness of winter. This extreme cold is also an image of the
             people of Russia through the narrator's eyes. The narrator describes the cold as being "a
             formidable enemy for all those who receive a salary in the neighborhood of four hundred rubles a
             year" (635). In a way, society and the government were quite the enemy to the poor in this time.
             For example, right before Akaky got his coat stol
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