The Trenchcoat by Norman Manea is probably my favourite reading of the course so far. One reason I liked it was that I was finally able to read a story in one sitting. Lately a lot of the readings have felt extra long so it was nice to sit down and finish a story from beginning to end without stopping. Reading it all at once also made it easier to follow how the tension slowly builds throughout the story.
The story begins with two couples driving to a third couple’s house for a dinner party. At first, everything seems like a normal social evening as the group eats, drinks, and talks, and a lot of the story is made up of their conversations with each other. The characters belong to the same intellectual circle, so the discussion turns into politics, culture, and everyday frustrations. While the dinner seems polite and friendly, there is also a slight uneasy feeling when everyone chats with each other. The conversations don’t completely flow naturally and there seems to be an awareness that certain things cannot be said openly.
The strange detail that drives the story is the discovery of a trenchcoat (or raincoat) that is left hanging in the hallway. No one claims it and no one can fully explain why it’s there. It is also an ordinary trenchcoat and could belong to anyone, which definitely drives up everyone’s uneasiness about it. No one in the novella can stop thinking about this coat.
The coat can be seen as something so insignificant, but it turns into something so much bigger. If you were looking at this story in today’s day and age, it wouldn’t seem like a big deal. But the story takes place in a society where surveillance and informants exist and there are rumours that the secret police – described as “creeps who keep an eye on us all” (239) – have been using residential homes to conduct interrogations. Although the trenchcoat is a simple, ordinary object, the political unrest at the time makes it feel suspicious. The uncertainty surrounding the coat grows into paranoia and the characters start overthinking the entire evening.
The ending passage especially stood out to me. Even long after the dinner party, the characters continue discussing the mystery of the trenchcoat. They come up with different explanations for why it was there and the narrator describes their conversation as animated and passionate which shows how much this ordinary coat has affected their lives. In the end, the mystery of the trenchcoat is never solved and the readers, alongside the characters, have to sit with the uncertainty.
Honestly, by the end, I kind of liked that there was never a clear answer. The trenchcoat might be important or just a random coat someone forgot. But the characters keep thinking about it which shows how easy it is to overthink small things, especially when there’s already a sense of uneasiness in the background. In the end, the mystery sticks with you.
Discussion question: Do unanswered questions reveal hidden truths, or do they just expose our need for explanations?
4 replies on “When a small detail becomes a big mystery”
“In the end, the mystery of the trenchcoat is never solved and the readers, alongside the characters, have to sit with the uncertainty.”
Readers and characters together in the lack of truth or certainty. Interesting idea.
Please share your thoughts in class.
See you on Wednesday.
Julián.
“the story takes place in a society where surveillance and informants exist”
Ah, but do we really live now in a society without surveillance and informants? I don’t think so… even these keystrokes that I’m making now are probably being tracked by someone, somewhere. Let alone if I go to Amazon or Google or wherever!
Hi Kavya! To answer your question, I think unanswered questions kind of do both. In “The Trenchcoat”, the mystery of the coat might not actually matter that much, but the way everyone reacts to it reveals a lot about the world they live in. The characters start overthinking it and imagining all these possibilities, which shows how much suspicion and tension there is around them. At the same time, it also shows how uncomfortable people are with not having a clear answer. Both the characters and the reader keep trying to explain the coat because it feels strange to just leave it as a mystery. In a way, the unanswered question ends up revealing more about the characters than the coat itself.
I like what you mentioned about the simplicity of the trenchcoat almost contributing to the suspicion about the object, adding to the mystery because of the fact that it is such an inconspicuous object. To answer your question, I think they mainly expose our need for explanations: unanswered questions and ambiguous endings certainly convey a message about society, but I think in many cases the unanswered question almost feels threatening, the lack of certainty corresponds to a lack of safety in a way and I think that contributes to our need for explanations.