The Nose

“(That is to say, Ivan Yakovlevich would have liked both, but he knew that it was quite impossible to ask for two things at once; for his wife disliked such absurd whims.)”

This reveals something important about the character of Ivan Yakovlevich: he sets his own wants aside for others. More than this, it reveals something important about the working poor in Imperial Russia: their ethics are shaped by their economic situation.

“‘The Devil knows how it happened,’ he said at last, scratching behind his ear with his hand. ‘Did I come home drunk last night, I really can’t say. And yet the whole thing is quite impossible.’”

The supernatural and drunkenness are two explanations both Yakovlevich and Kovalyov resort to in an attempt to explain the inexplicable.

“Ivan Yakovlevich, like every Russian working man, was a terrible drunkard.”

Interestingly, though social ills exist across class lines in The Nose, the focus is more on Yakovlevich’s alcohol habit over Kovalyov’s. This may reveal a cultural or authorial bias on Gogol’s part against the working class, as he relies on drunkenness to emphasize Yakovlevich’s apparent buffoonery.