On the surface, The Nose is the wonderfully bizarre surrealist tale of a Russian mid-level civil servant who wakes up without a nose and discovers it traveling through the streets of St. Petersburg dressed as a high-ranking member of the civil service.
When I first started reading this book I asked myself, “Why a nose? Why not an arm, a leg, an eye, an ear, something much more….well for the sake of the better word… important.” No one really pays attention to the nose. We consider smell the most trivial of our 5 senses, and yet it is this triviality that is the heart of the story. The nose is at the center of our face, and therefore is vital to how we look. Kovalev, the noseless protagonist, is very concerned with appearance, as well as rank and status, particularly his own. (Similarily to how Russian bureaucrats try to maintain a “squeaky clean” image.)
Soviet Peace Propaganda poster (1979)
Text: “Moscow – a capital of Peace Armies”
After digging a little deeper, I found it to be a story about angst, insecurity, and reputation. In fact, Gogol himself once said, “The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.” Under the humor, there is a latent theme of profound self-consciousness and anxiety about appearance and status. When seeking to take out an ad in the paper regarding his missing nose, Kovalev refuses to give his name. Eventually Kovalev wakes up to find his nose back in its proper place, with no explanation as to how or why. Kovalev is restored to his former appearance and, symbolically, his status is also restored, though he moves cautiously and more self-consciously, to keep his nose from running off again.
Gogol’s The Nose reminded me of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Both books beg the questions: where is our real self? Are we our mind or our body? The Metamorphosis Gregor’s body transforms but his mentality remains the same. However, in Gogol’s The Nose, his mentality changes as his body changes. 
I really enjoyed the last statement you made about the connection between The Metamorphosis and The Nose. It really does raise a lot of questions about what we are suppose to think and take away from these stories.
I also thought the same way you did about Gogol’s specifications in the story. As I mentioned in my blog post, I think Gogol chose a nose because of the symbolism a nose carries in Oneirology. Perhaps it could also be because the nose is a powerful factor in the way we look, and by having it removed, it made Kovalev all the more paranoid/self-conscious.
Great job and clever meme!
@AriTrotsz Thank you for such an insightful comment!
I do not know why, but I did not care about whether Gogol wrote the story about a nose, an ear, or any other body part. The story would have felt the same to me had Gogol used any other body part. The story would still be messed up no matter what body part Gogol used. The only reason I feel he used a nose is that it is the center of our face. I can see someone without a leg or an ear even to still be respected and high in rank, but someone without a nose would just look ridiculous since no one ever looses a nose. I like your comparison between The Nose and The Metamorphosis.