So lost and confused.

In the libretto of The Nose, there was a scene where the police and other civilians beat up the Nose, and then it suddenly turned back to an actual nose (Act 3, Scene 7), I was wondering: How did that happen?! Magic?? Why did the nose change form at that moment? What is the significance?

Then there is another magical moment when Kovaloff/Kovalev woke up again to find his nose in its rightful place after the doctor said that there was no hope of attaching the nose back onto his face. MAGIC. Or was it a life lesson that Kovaloff should stop being so presumptuous because of his high status? Well, he did not seem to learn his lesson because in the end when he got a shave from the barber again Kovaloff commented on the smell of his hands.

It was nice to see Kovaloff at the mercy of the advertisement agency and the doctor when he was desperate to find his nose. This part of the short story was when I had an idea that Gogol was criticizing how human behavior changes when people’s situations alter. Before Kovaloff lost his nose, he was very proud of his position and treated others below him with disrespect. After he realized he no longer had a nose, he was willing to entreat others for help as if he was beggar on the street. When the Clerk of the advertisement agency mocked the noseless Kovaloff by offering him snuff, and when the doctor said that there was no hope of reattaching his nose, I was like: 

Serves you right!

Then that led me to another stream of thought: the nose was like his ticket to high rank. Without his nose, even the lowly made fun of him. Without his nose, he was not able to see his ladies from many houses. His nose is his status.

Another connection I would like to make: The Nose reminds me very much of the movie “Beastly”. The movie is an interpretation of Beauty and the Beast, and it is about a rich, arrogant boy who was turned physically unappealing by a witch. When that transformation took place to the boy, his father chose to abandon the boy because he was running for mayor (or something like that) and he did not want the boy’s change to affect his campaign. This situation parallels with when Kovaloff tried to speak with the Nose, only to find that the Nose is better off without him. So when I was thinking about this: Kovaloff = Boy and Nose = Boy’s father