With his sense of humor and ability to observe, Nikolai Gogol presents the world with stories of little people: the weak and fragile people who try to hold on to life in the gloomy cities of Russia. "e;The Mantle"e;, which is listed among his masterpieces, describes how Russian bureaucracy turns everyone into a ghost of each other. It tells the tragicomic story of a poor low-ranking official named Akakiy Akakiyevich Bashmachkin, a faint character living on the margins of society who spends all his time diligently copying documents. Drawn into bureaucratic mechanisms of modern life, humiliated, and despised, h finds solace in his fondest dream: a mantle that will protect him from the cold in the winter. This humble dream, however, will cost him way too much and will turn his life upside down... Adapted into a variety of stage and film interpretations, the story is a major milestone in Russian literature, as expressed by in a quote often attributed to Fyodor Dostoyevsky: "e;We have all come out from under Gogol's Mantle"e;.