29 pages • 58 minutes read
Nikolai GogolThe Nose
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1836A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Devil and the Supernatural
Several references to “the devil” in The Nose reveal that the characters tend to fall back on supernatural explanations for what cannot be explained rationally. This phenomenon exists across class lines in Gogol’s tale.
The first reference comes with Ivan Yakovlevich: “Ivan Yakovlevich stood there as though bereft of senses. He thought and thought—and really did not know what to think. ‘The devil knows how it happened,’ he said at last, scratching behind his ear with his hand” (204). The second reference comes from Kovalyov: “My nose, my very own nose has disappeared goodness knows where. The devil himself must have wished to play a joke on me!” (216).
Later, Kovalyov decides that a spell has been cast on him by Mrs. Podtochin, since the nose could not have been taken off by Yakovlevich.
Contrasted with these supernatural references to “the devil” is the supernatural portrayal of the Nose itself. Serenely self-assured, the nose asserts his own independent existence as a self-evident fact that could never have been otherwise, rendering all explanations moot.
Alcohol
Alcohol is mentioned several times to highlight the general destitute situation of the working class, but like the supernatural, is something that transcends class lines and becomes more cultural in the text. Of Kovalyov’s barber, the narrator says, “Ivan Yakovlevich, like every other Russian working man, was a terrible drunkard” (205). When Yakovlevich discovers the nose in his bread, after considering a supernatural explanation, he considers his own alcoholism: “Was I drunk or wasn’t I when I came home yesterday, I really can’t say” (204).
Kovalyov too questions his own alcohol habit with regards to losing his nose: “‘I must be simply dreaming or just imagining it all. Perhaps by some mistake instead of water I drank the spirits I rub on my chin after shaving. Ivan, the blithering fool, didn’t take it away and I must have swallowed it by mistake.’ To satisfy himself that he was not drunk the major pinched himself so painfully that he cried out” (220).
This seems to imply that along with materialism, vanity, and superstition, Gogol is bringing attention to what he sees as Russian society’s alcohol problem by making a joke out of it. Still, the ruling class gets a pass while the working class are treated as ruffians and drunkards.
Snuff
At the beginning of the tale, Kovalyov complains that Ivan Yakovlevich’s hands reek of snuff when he shaves him. Ivan’s reaction in the beginning of the story is to retaliate by pinching the snuff and lathering it all over cheeks, under his nose, behind his ear, and under his chin so that the smell is inescapable. In a funny twist, by the end even though he himself binges on snuff, Kovalyov doesn’t want Yakovlevich’s hands to smell like snuff when he shaves him.
Once Kovalyov’s nose is gone, the absence of the joy of snuff becomes something of a torment for Kovalyov and a running gag in the story. “Behind them, a tall footman with large side whiskers and a whole dozen collars, stopped and opened a snuff-box” (64). No description of the smell of snuff can be given by the narrator because Kovalyov can’t smell.
This comes to a head later. “‘Don’t bother, sir’ said the clerk, taking a pinch of snuff” (217). Kovalyov, by this point, is desperate for a pinch of snuff, which the clerk offers him:
Wishing to relieve [Kovalyov’s] distress a little, [the clerk] thought it proper to express his sympathy in a few words: ‘I’m very sorry indeed sir,’ he said, ‘that such a thing should have happened to you. Would you like a pinch of snuff? It relieves headaches, dispels melancholy moods, and it is even a good remedy for hemorrhoids.’ Saying this, the clerk offered his snuff-box to Kovalyov, very deftly opening the lid with a lady in a hat on it (218).
Kovalyov reacts angrily, bringing the punchline: “Can’t you see that I lack the very one thing one needs to take snuff? To hell with your snuff! I can’t bear the sight of it now…” (219). He can bear the sight of it once his nose is restored, as he stuffs himself with it in the company of ladies: “He talked a long time with them and, taking out his snuff-box deliberately, kept stuffing his nose with snuff at both entrances for a great while…” (231).
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