The police officer appears towards the end of the first and second sections of the story. In his first appearance, he apprehends drunk barber Ivan Yakovlevich for acting suspiciously. When he later appears with Kovalev’s lifeless nose, readers can intuit that the encounter with Ivan Yakovlevich somehow led the officer to capture Kovalev’s nose. As part of the Table of Ranks (Russia’s system governing society), the officer sits above Ivan Yakovlevich (who holds no rank) and below Kovalev (a collegiate assessor). Readers get the sense that the police officer is of lower rank than Kovalev when the officer describes his financial hardship.
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The Police Officer Character Timeline in The Nose
The timeline below shows where the character The Police Officer appears in The Nose. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Section 1
...celebrate with a drink. However, before he can get a glass of punch, a police officer stops him and asks what he was tossing in the river. Ivan Yakovlevich panics and...
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Section 2
A police officer arrives at Kovalev’s door. The narrator tells the reader that this is the same officer...
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When Kovalev asks the officer how he got the nose, the police officer recounts that, due to his poor eyesight,...
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When the police officer mentions his family’s financial misfortunes, Kovalev sends him off with a little money. With the...
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