SOURCE: Lindstrom, Thaïs S. “The Petersburg Cycle.” In Nikolay Gogol, pp. 83–88. New York: Twayne, 1974.

In the following excerpt, Lindstrom discusses the elements of comic-grotesque and social satire in “The Nose.”

“The Nose” is a gem apart. Pushkin acclaimed it as a merry, fantastic jest, and at first blush it does seem to be a hilarious tour de force, something made out of nothing, with the exact proportion of ingredients needed to produce a completely successful “tall” story: a preposterous event in a realistic framework reinforced with comic but credible incidents, a total lack of compassion for all concerned, and an atmosphere of suspense maintained until the end where it dissolves into bathos, and everything that has been stirred up settles back into its original order.

On March 25th, a Petersburg barber finds in his breakfast roll the nose of Collegiate Assessor Kovalev whom he shaves every Wednesday...