The Government Inspector

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1836

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Act I

Act II

Act III

Act IV

Act V

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Shopkeepers

The shopkeepers are a section of the town’s population who seem to be denied a voice. They appear chiefly through disparaging comments made by the Mayor, who believes that they are responsible for the imminent arrival of the government inspector. The shopkeepers represent a resentment directed at a ruling class, but one which does not wholly demand a revolution in society. Instead, their complaints are as minor and as personal as the corruption itself.

For the Mayor, the shopkeepers represent something else entirely. He views them as a perpetual annoyance, a living, breathing embodiment of the way in which he is unfairly persecuted. The Mayor’s attitude toward the shopkeepers is a symbol of his own delusion. He views himself as someone who is morally above the tiresome, fussy shopkeepers. In his view, they should mind their own business rather than reach out to the government and threaten to bring his corruption to light. The way the Mayor speaks about the shopkeepers represents this inherent contradiction: He acknowledges his own immorality and corruption, but views their attitude toward him as somehow worse. They become the focal point for all his paranoia and resentment, even if he accepts that he is corrupt.

The irony of the shopkeepers’ complaints is that they are valid. However, they also try to bribe Khlestakov—they are willing to be just as corrupt as the people they are accusing of corruption. The shopkeepers’ behavior symbolizes the extent to which all Russian society experiences and perpetuates The Impact of Corruption.

Food and Drink

There is not much in the small town portrayed in The Government Inspector. Unlike the splendor of St. Petersburg, the provincial community does not have many opportunities for decadence. In this context, food and drink are an important motif that reflect whatever luxury is available. Indulgence in food and drink is a way in which people can distinguish themselves. When the Mayor invites Khlestakov back to his house, for example, he plans to offer him fine wines. He even writes ahead to his wife to ensure that the house is well-stocked with wine so that they can entertain their guest. The access to certain foods (often through corrupt means) is a way in which to symbolize social class.

Food and drink are also used as symbols of corruption by the Mayor and other members of the social elite. When he tracks down Khlestakov at the inn, the Mayor offers to pay for Khlestakov’s bill. The Mayor intends the offer as a tacit invitation to a bribe; by accepting, Khlestakov can signal that he is open to the idea of other people offering items of value to him. Khlestakov’s food bill becomes a symbol of his openness to corruption, at least from the Mayor’s perspective.

At the dinner at the Mayor’s house, Khlestakov astounds his hosts with talk of the lavish meals and decadent balls he has experienced in St. Petersburg. His words are hollow; the audience knows that he is a relatively unimportant clerk. Khlestakov uses food and drink to symbolize his importance to his hosts but, in doing so, his lies symbolize something quite different to the audience: They serve to illustrate his entitlement and his ambition. In Khlestakov’s mind, he should be a man of high rank, and his greedy consumption of food and drinks thus helps illustrate The Dangers of Delusion.

The Court

With the threat of a possible government inspection, the Mayor warns the Judge about the state of the court. While the court is supposed to function as an embodiment of law and order, it is being used by the Judge and the other legal clerks as a place to dry laundry and raise geese. The court thus serves as a symbol of The Impact of Corruption upon the community. It is a public advertisement for the way the civic leaders have turned the social institutions of the community to their own benefit, to the point where the court is no longer fit for use. The court itself, like the corruption, is an affront to the senses and they should try their best to hide it from the government inspector.

The court becomes an analogy for all the social institutions in the small town. The schools and hospitals are similarly corrupt, and the Mayor issues them with similar instructions. The court, however, is distinct, as it symbolizes a sense of justice which has been corrupted above and beyond the personal enrichment of the heads of the schools, hospitals, and charities. Now the shopkeepers of the town have been forced to go beyond their own community and their corrupted legal system to find justice.

In an aside, the Judge mentions that the court is now so chaotic that he can no longer tell one legal document from another. The fundamental bureaucracy of the court is broken. The Judge’s comment validates the complaints of the shopkeepers. The decay of the court as a social institution represents the decay which has set into the community (and, allegorically, Russia) as a whole.