In Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, Lady Susan is portrayed as a selfish, attractive widow who goes out of her way to maliciously attain herself the perfect life. She is cunning with her ways, as the men in the novel stoop to her level and fall at her feet. As we compare Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat”, which is about Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, a poor clerk who buys an expensive overcoat and gets it stolen from him, to Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, we can conclude that both texts show basic assumptions about human motivations. Motivation is “the force that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors.” Motivation as overall is thought to be as a rewarding concept, but the motives of the motivation can be used for the good or for the evil. Lady Susan portrays the assumption that people are motivated to do things because of external rewards while “The Overcoat” portrays the assumption that people are motivated to work toward achieving certain things in order to reduce the internal tension that is caused by unmet needs. Lady Susan incorporates the incentive theory of motivation where people are motivated to do things because they are rewarded at the end. In the novella, Lady Susan plots to find an advantageous marriage for herself while marrying her daughter off as well. The audience knows this aspect of the novella by Lady Susan’s letters to her confidante, Alicia Johnson. Lady Susan manipulates all the men in the in the novel because she believes that the men are the most easily deceived. Through the use of many men in this novella, she goes as far as trying to destroy marriages that will result in her own good. It is quite obvious that Lady Susan is obsessed with attaining a large estate and money. Through the use of Lady Susan’s motives, it is able to conclude that humans will go out of their way to achieve what they want in the end. Motivation is through dedication. Lady Susan is dedicated to the thought of