Akaky progresses from an introverted and hopeless but functioning non-entity with no expectations of social or material success to one whose self-esteem and thereby expectations are raised by the overcoat. Akaky is not merely introverted, but described as humorously fit for his position as a non-entity. He is not oppressed by the nature of bureaucratic work because he enjoys performing bureaucratic tasks. Akaky “labored with love” and longed for nothing but copying. He found it “a varied and agreeable employment. Enjoyment was written on his face.” A good contrast would be Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener. Bartleby is quite adept at his job as a copyist, but arrives “incurably forlorn” when he is first employed. Bartleby begins rejecting his work saying “I would prefer not to,” gradually rejecting more and more, until he finally dies staring at a wall having rejected life itself. Bartleby's antisocial, otherworldly and melancholy features make him uncanny and he has been interpreted as a provocateur of existential crisis. Akaky, on the other hand, is presented in a humorous way initially. This is partly because he represents a “type” presented in anecdotal form by Gogol. He enjoys copying because he lacks an inner life. Gogol makes light of his fitness for mundane bureaucratic activities by joking that Akaky was always “to be seen in the same place, the same attitude, the same occupation; so that it was afterwards affirmed that he had been born in undress uniform with a bald head.” When Akaky is asked to make a minor change in a document instead of merely copying it, he cannot do it.