I felt that “The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol was just as strange as “The Metamorphosis”, but in a much different way. I liked “The Nose” a lot more than I liked “The Metamorphosis, for the simple reason that it wasn’t dark and dreary. In fact, “The Nose” was pretty funny. I felt more sympathetic for the two main characters–Ivan, because he was the one to find the nose and be burdened by having to get rid of it, and Kovaloff because even if he was kind of full of himself, it was pathetic watching him run around town trying to find a solution to his problem. 

In the beginning of the story, before Ivan discovers the nose, I felt confused, and wondered what it had to do with anything that he wanted bread and onions for breakfast instead of coffee. Of course, once he discovered the nose inside the bread, it became obvious that his sudden change of routine was the catalyst that set the story in motion. But then, the discovery of the nose raised even more questions: what the heck was a nose doing inside a loaf of bread? How did it even get there?

And why on earth did Ivan’s wife react the way she did? I mean, in any other context her anger would be a telltale sign of being trapped in a loveless marriage (not that it still isn’t a sign), but it seems out of place here; this is a situation that calls for, at the very least, bewilderment, if not outright terror and confusion, and yet Ivan’s wife responds with the same anger as if she’d watched him do something completely stupid (like anger a high-ranking official, say).

With regards to Kovaloff, one thing that confused me at first was that his nose was simultaneously with Ivan, and wandering the streets in a carriage as though it were an actual person. If it had been one or the other, it would’ve been…well, not normal, but at least easier to understand. But as it was, I was really confused–if the nose was walking around, and sentient, then how was it also with Ivan? And then it hit me: the nose had a passport, and was trying to leave St. Petersburg for Riga, the capital of Latvia. Not only that, but the nose was dressed as a high-ranking official, and while it was running around town trying to leave, Ivan, who is clearly of a lower class, was trying to dispose of the nose before anyone found out he even had it. 

“The Nose” was written in the mid-1830s, roughly eighty years before the Russian Revolution would lead to the overthrow of the tsar and the bourgeoisie; however, the 1830s were a tumultuous time in Europe as a whole, following the French Revolution and the various smaller revolutions that came in its wake. All over the continent were people trying to reform, or overthrow their current governments in favor of more liberal ones.

Whether “The Nose” is allegory for these revolutions, I can’t say–it might even be a stretch to make that claim. But I don’t think it’s a very far stretch. If we take the sentient nose to symbolize the upper class, the bourgeoisie, and their desire to “get out of town” before the situation became too dangerous for them, then Ivan’s desperation to get rid of it could be taken to symbolize people’s desire for a more equal, classless society. Certainly, the idea of such a society was at least in the air, seeing as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s Communist Manifesto was written only about a decade after “The Nose”.

That was the impression I got from the story, although, as I said, it could be a stretch to make that claim. However, I enjoyed “The Nose” a lot more than “The Metamorphosis”, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the coming classes will bring.