Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Nose, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fashion, Appearances, and Status
Absurdity, Magic, and Reality
Insecurity, Masculinity, and Identity
Summary
Analysis
The narrator introduces the story of an “extraordinarily strange incident” that occurred in St. Petersburg on March 25th.
The story begins with Barber Ivan Yakovlevich. He lives in his shop, which has a dilapidated sign from which his name has faded away. In a gesture of formality, he wears a tailcoat on over his underclothes as his wife, Praskovya Osipovna, prepares breakfast. Ivan Yakovlevich decides to forgo coffee, which he believes his wife would like to have for herself, opting instead for some bread. Upon slicing upon the loaf of bread, he notices a strange, white object within.
Gogol uses fashion cues to develop Ivan Yakovlevich’s character. Specifically, the narrator’s note of a formal coat over pajamas hints at the character’s low class and clumsiness.
Themes
Ivan Yakovlevich digs around the bready mass, pulling at the pale object a buried deep inside. To his surprise, it’s a nose.
The nose appears without any reason or explanation, adding to the bizarreness of the story as a whole.
Themes
Ivan Yakovlevich recognizes the nose as belonging to one of his regular clients, collegiate assessor Kovalev. This realization fills Yakovlevich with dread and fear.
Ivan Yakovlevich’s fear is rooted in his lack of power compared to Kovalev, a man of much higher class.
Themes
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Praskovya Osipovna immediately threatens to call the cops and accuses her husband of drunkenly removing the nose during a shave. To these accusations, a bewildered Ivan Yakovlevich responds: “Devil knows how it happened.”
“Devil knows how it happened” (or, in Russian, “черт его знает как это сделалось”) was a common phrase at the time of this story’s publication in 1836. At this time in St. Petersburg, a profoundly superstitious and Christian environment, it was commonplace to blame any unexplainable misfortune on the devil.
Themes
Unable to make sense of how the nose got to his table, Ivan Yakovlevich begins to imagine a well-dressed police officer placing him under arrest. He “tremble[s]” when he thinks of the ornate officer uniform, which is “scarlet” and threaded with silver. Hoping to avoid any trouble with the law, Ivan Yakovlevich decides to dispose of the nose, which he first wraps in cloth to disguise it.
Ivan Yakovlevich’s fear of the police (who are of a much higher class than himself) inspires a strange mix of fear and awe. At the thought of the uniform, Ivan Yakovlevich’s tremble suggests there’s a sly bit of pleasure tucked deep inside his imagining of a police officer—even when that thought involves harm.
Themes
Ivan Yakovlevich, who is a “terrible drunkard,” walks to a bridge. As he stumbles, the narrator describes how his only coat is oddly formal and in terrible condition. Just before he throws the nose into the water, he recalls how Kovalev would berate him for his smelly hands. Making sure no one is watching, Ivan then tosses the nose into the waters below.
Again, Gogol relies on clothing cues to develop Ivan Yakovlevich’s character. From his poor hygiene and the pitiful coat, readers get the sense that Ivan Yakovlevich himself is unraveling: broke, drunk, and desperate.
Themes
With the nose gone, Ivan Yakovlevich feels great, and he decides to 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 offers the officer his grooming services. But the officer does not let up, pushing Ivan Yakovlevich to explain himself. Ivan Yakovlevich turns white. The narrator ends the scene with the following summation: “But here the incident becomes totally shrouded in mist, and of what happened further decidedly nothing is known.”
“The Nose” details several strange events without any explanation. To avoid complicated rationalizations of an irrational incident, Gogol’s narrator states that the “incident becomes totally shrouded in mist.” Unexplainable events do not rely on a governing rationale or system of logic. Like a dream, the strange events in this story simply occur.
Themes
