To me, Nicolai Gogol’s The Nose comes even more peculiar than Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Although it is possible to lose a nose, the notion of talking to one’s own nose sounds not only strange, but also grotesque. How are you supposed to know whether your nose understands you or not without its ears or mouth? If there is no response, you will probably feel as if you are talking to a wall.
When I first imagined Major Kovaloff in my head, I immediately thought of Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. But when the official at an advertisement office described it to be “perfectly flat like a freshly fried pancake,” I realized the Major didn’t even have nostrils anymore. It must have been difficult for him to constantly talk and breathe at the same time.
How Gogol used the nose to depict the theme of social status came very new to me. Who would have known that a missing nose could reveal so much about an individual? Instead of thinking about how to breathe more easily, the Major worries more about how others will perceive him as, without his nose. For someone who “wore a number of seals, on some of which were engraved armorial bearings,” letting others discover perhaps his only weakness would have been the last thing he desired. He does not even wish to publish his name on the “missing nose” advertisement.
This makes me wonder. How would the Major have acted towards his own nose if it weren’t a higher ranking than him? Would he have approached him politely and referred to it as “honourable sir?” I doubt it.
Finding out that his missing nose had finally been spotted indeed makes the Major’s day. When the District Constable notifies him, the Major asks, “where is it?” six times on the libretto of The Nose. He becomes ecstatic as soon as he sees his nose.
“He did not mind anything said against him as an individual, but he could not endure any reflection on his rank or social position. He even believed that in comedies one might allow attacks on junior officers, but never on their seniors.” This description of the Major’s character discloses the “moral” of the story. Yet, Gogol’s usage of the nose as a fundamental metaphor in his short story is simply amazing.
Works Cited:
Burns, Neil. The Nose. 2011. JPG file.
Weknowmemes. 8 October 2013.
< http://weknowmemes.com/2012/04/crazy-birthday-kid-gif/>.
I absolutely agree with you about The Nose being more peculiar than Metamorphosis. It is hard to imagine waking up one morning without a nose, let alone, talking to your own nose. I felt the story was difficult to understand and I didn’t even make the connection to social status until our discussion in class.
When Kovaloff loses his nose, I also imagine Voldemort. Although the book does say his face was completely flat where his nose should be, I still imagined Voldemort. I assumed he had nostrils or something so he could breathe because talking and breathing at the same time would be extremely difficult.
Many similar questions came to my mind when reading this story. I liked the question you posed about him acting the same way if the nose wasn’t higher ranked. Kovaloff was so concerned about his status in society and how other people would treat him if they knew he had lost his nose. This really emphasized Gogol’s theme of social status. I, too, was amazed by Gogol’s use of a nose as a metaphor to represent social classes.
I never realized that it would be hard to talk without nostrils until you mentioned it; I actually pinched my nose shut and tried talking. I also managed to discover that you can’t hum when you pinch your nose shut (try it), but I digress.
Although I initially did not realize that Gogol uses the nose to portray social status, it makes perfect sense in retrospect (or at least sort of). In Chinese face reading, a tall nose implies confidence and success. So the fact that the Major loses both of these traits when he loses his nose was very interesting to me.
I also think you pose an interesting question about whether the Major would approach his nose differently if it were a lower rank. But even if he commanded authority, what can the Major really do about a giant walking nose? I think it would be quite cumbersome (and quite a scene) if he decided to shove it back in his face.
I think the fact that his nose was of higher rank than him represented the idea that Kovaloff couldn’t control every aspect of his life. Unlike his step-by-step marriage proposal, Kovaloff didn’t know how to react when he saw his nose posing as State Councilor. His well-bred manners and instinct to respect a higher ranking official was in conflict with the knowledge that this thing in a uniform was his nose and that without it he would lose his own standing. If the nose had been of lower rank than him, I think Kovaloff would have tried to intimidate the nose to submission. And, perhaps, if the nose didn’t comply, he would have learned an alternate lesson about how needlessly intricate social standings are.
First let me acknowledge that you are definitely right about the story being as strange as Kafka’s Metamorphosis. The scene where Gogol describe the nose in a high ranking official uniform is difficult for anyone to imagine. On the other hand, like you said, Gogol does make a good use of the nose to present the social hierarchy in Russia. The nose is used to show how anything, even something not human, could gain respect from others if they can get to a high position on the social pyramid.