The Nose Study Guide

Nikolai Gogol grew up in present-day Ukraine. At 19, Gogol moved to St. Petersburg Russia where he failed to make it as an actor. Following acting, Gogol worked as a poet, but this career path literally went up in flames: in 1828 he bought all copies of books and magazines containing his poems and set fire to his entire catalog of poetry, vowing never to write another poem ever again. After working a series of academic jobs, Gogol found success as a short story writer throughout the 1830s. In the early 1840s, he wrote his first and only novel, Dead Souls. Shortly after the publication of Dead Souls, Gogol stopped writing and embarked on a quest to find spiritual peace. Eventually falling into a deep depressive state, Gogol burned his unpublished manuscripts and starved himself to death at the age of 42.

Gogol wrote “The Nose” during the age of Russian Enlightenment, Catherine the Great’s investment in Russian art, philosophy, and science. Best remembered for contributions to Opera, the Russian Enlightenment made it possible for writers like Gogol to make a living from their work. Still, despite this investment in the arts, Russians lived under the oppressive imperial rule with stark wealth disparities. As open criticism of society would have ended in censorship and possible arrest, Gogol relied on satire to critique Russian society. “The Nose” implicitly offers a critique of the Table of Ranks, a system which determined citizens’ social and economic status following standards set by the Imperial Russian government and military.

At the time of its publication, The Nose was difficult to categorize. While the story shared a magical sensibility with E. T. A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker and Mouse King and the comedic elements of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Gogol's blend of realism, magic, and comedy was fresh and original. Today’s literary landscape finds Gogol’s story more company within the genre of magical realism, which refers to literature that situates magical elements within the real world. Although "The Nose," published in 1836, predates the genre of magical realism, it fits snuggly within a lineage of stories which use magical realism to satirize society. These include The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, and Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o.