Les Pauvres Gens
Belinsky and others saw "The Overcoat" as the inspiration for the novel. Later critics stated that the sentimental-humanitarian "Poor Folk" contained a great deal of parody and satire of Gogol books; however, there are some dissenters. Karin Jeanette Harmon guesses in "Double Parody Equals Anti-Parody" that Dostoyevsky mixes the parody of the sentimental epistolary novel with the parody of the naturalistic sketch of the clerk. Robert Payne rejects the idea of any satiric content; he notes that satire began in "". A similar view was held by Belinsky, who also stated that "Dostoyevsky's talent is ... not descriptive, but to the highest degree creative." Victor Terras thought that Dostoyevsky did not use satire except in a few cases, but instead employed a "humor derived from the eternal conflict between the simple soul of a good man and the complex apparatus of the soulless, institutionalized society run by 'clever' people." Joseph Frank, who suggested that the whole work is a "serious parody", recalled that "Poor Folk" burlesques the "high-society adventure novel, the Gogolian humorous local color-tale" and "the debunking physiological sketch". Victor Terras dubbed it a "travesty of the sentimental epistolary love story." "The Contemporary" stated "In this work comedy is somehow explored and includes an appreciable tone, colour and even the language of Gogol and Kvitka". "Through his tale", wrote "The Northern Bee", "Dostoyevsky wanted to utilize Gogol's humour with naive simplicity of the undisturbed Osnovyanenko [pen name of Kvitka]." Another perspective that describes the connection between "Poor Folk" and "The Overcoat" is the position that the former is considered the continuation of the latter, that Dostoevsky picked up where Gogol left off in his tale about poor civil servants. This view does not imply that Dostoevsky did not offer innovations since this novel also distinguished itself by humanizing those that that were – in Gogol's tale - mechanical and lifeless. This is aligned with the theory that Dostoevsky attempted – both in "Poor Folk" and "The Double" – to penetrate into the psychology of Gogol's characters. It is claimed that the result of Dostoevski's unequivocal humanization of the Gogolian model intensified its effect. Gogol's debonair portrayal of social-psychic frustrations is a case in point. Dostoevski took a different path by highlighting its tragic aspect.