Reading Gogol’s The Nose, I was thoroughly confused. One of my first thoughts were “What is up with these Eastern European guys writing about someone turning into a giant insect…and now about a runaway nose?” (after having read Kafka’s Metamorphosis as well of course). Forget all of the Soviet Russia jokes, what really is going on there?
When the nose was discovered in the loaf of bread, I immediately thought of Sweeney Todd and Ms. Lovett’s meat pies (people pies, actually) especially being that Ivan is a barber himself (much like Sweeney)
I also couldn’t help trying to picture what someone would look like without their nose. So, here’s a nose-less Tom Cruise. It’s also one of the only non-grotesque pictures I found when searching for face without a nose. Enjoy Tom Cruise in his nose-less glory.
I was also reminded of the children’s game “I’ve got your nose” which has frightened me many a times in the past (pictured above). However, I overcame my fear when I realized my nose is in fact too big to fit in anyone’s hand.
During my reading of the libretto and short story, I grew increasingly interested in the fact that we will see a performance of the opera. I began to picture how it would play out on stage.
When I pictured the nose as a separate entity, I saw something like this.
I loved the fist showing that someone has your nose because I think it captures the story perfectly! I enjoyed your anecdote of being frightened that someone has your nose and then realizing it was too big to fit into someone’s fist. I also have wondered how the opera will be performed and I didn’t want to look it up because I kind of want to be surprised.
same here, im not one for spoilers!
I think you probably said here what most of us were thinking. I actually liked The Metamorphosis and thought it was more than just a story about a guy turning into a bug, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed by “The Nose.” Kafka’s point gradually built throughout the story and by the end I felt that I really understood his frustration with the boundaries of society. But I think that Gogol spent too much of the novella telling us a story about a guy whose nose gets lost and is found in a bread roll. That’s why I liked all of your connections. We as readers weren’t focusing on Gogol’s theme for much of the story, we were thinking about more frivolous things like Sweeney Todd and what a nose-less guy would look like (I actually thought of Voldemort from Harry Potter). So instead of thinking about what ‘the nose’ symbolized in society we were distracted by the anecdote of a pompous Russian guy.
All the connections you made were spot-on. Like you, I did not understand the Russian “jokes” featured through out the short story and like you I imagined Ivan as Sweeney Todd- the Russian barber version. Your ability to make these visuals definitely shows your imagination as well as your understanding of the writing. Sometimes it is difficult to create an image of a character if you do not understand the author’s text. However, crafting the words, especially dialogue, into real-life characters makes understanding the main point that much easier.