The Nose

The antagonist of the story is the nose himself (referred to as “he” in his personified form), who is in many ways the most sympathetic character in the story for his calm but unwavering assertion of his individuality and autonomy. The nose is an evasive character, the mysterious object and force driving the story, and a symbol of the vanity of the ruling class.

When Kovalyov encounters the nose entering a cathedral, he immediately recognizes not only that this is his nose, but that his nose is in every way his superior—truly the model of what Kovalyov hopes to become as a successful citizen of the Russian Empire: “He was wearing a gold-embroidered uniform with a big stand-up collar and doeskin breeches; there was a sword at his side. From his plumed hat one could infer that he held the rank of state councilor. Everything pointed to his being on the way to pay a call” (209). Inside the church, Kovalyov finds the nose “saying his prayers with an expression of the utmost piety,” while Kovalyov himself is in such a state of disarray that he is unable either to pray or to laugh at the beggars outside the church, as he usually does. The nose is perfectly at ease and in his element, while Kovalyov has been thrown out of his.

In this encounter, the nose regards Kovalyov as a stranger, insisting on his own autonomy and implying his social superiority to Kovalyov. “You are mistaken, sir,”  the nose tells Kovalyov. “I am myself. Besides, there can be no question of any intimate relation between us. I see, sir, from the buttons of your uniform that you are serving in a different department” (211). In this moment, the nose is utterly estranged from Kovalyov, and Kovalyov is at his lowest ebb, “utterly confounded, not knowing what to do or even what to think” (211). The loss of his nose—who is now operating in the world as a separate person who doesn’t even recognize him—has temporarily robbed Kovalyov of faith in himself and his secure, ordered world.

When the nose is returned, it becomes an inanimate object again as mysteriously as it became a person. All it takes is the shifting of a pronoun. When Kovalyov asks the police officer how the nose was found, the officer first refers to the nose as “he”:

He even had a passport made out in the name of a certain civil servant. And the funny thing is that at first I was myself inclined to take him for a gentleman. But luckily I was wearing my glasses at the time and I saw at once that it was a nose (222).

At this, as if performing a magic trick, the officer hands over the nose wrapped in a piece of paper—an ordinary nose now, not a person at all. The act of seeing the nose as a nose, as an it, has made it so.

Ivan Yakovlevich, the barber who apparently is responsible for Kovalyov’s nose going missing, is “like any self-respecting Russian artisan [...] a terrible drunkard” and “...a great cynic…” but also, according to the narrator, “...in many ways a respectable man” (60). His family name has been lost and his barbershop is falling apart, and from these descriptions we get the sense that he and his wife Praskovya Osipovna are working class. When Ivan discovers a nose in the bread his wife has baked, she immediately accuses him of having cut off someone’s nose. Fed up with him, she kicks him out of the house.

Part 1 ends with Ivan having been stopped by a police officer who has seen him dropping something (the nose, wrapped in a cloth) from St. Isaac’s Bridge. Though this scene ends abruptly, by the end of Part 2, it becomes clear that Ivan was arrested as “the chief accomplice” in the nose’s disappearance (222). The phrase “chief accomplice,” never explained, suggests that the nose itself may be considered the primary culprit. The fact that Ivan Yakovlevich has been so unfairly treated on Kovalyov’s behalf makes it all the more striking when, in Part 3, after overhearing Kovalyov’s joy at having his nose restored, he reluctantly peeks his head in and offers Kovalyov his usual shave, which Kovalyov accepts after making Ivan promise that his hands are clean.

Unlike Kovalyov, Ivan Yakovlevich experiences a change: in the beginning, he shaves Kovalyov rebelliously with dirty hands reeking of snuff. By the end, he is eager to please the unrepentant but restored Kovalyov with a shave, and so washes his hands. The change in Ivan, however, is not one of moral improvement but of fear. He has been jailed and likely beaten for a crime he can’t even be sure he didn’t commit. When he knocks at Kovalyov’s door after the restoration of the nose, he does so “as timidly as a cat which had just been thrashed for the theft of suet” (229). Because of his working-class status, both fate and the law land more heavily on him than on others. Something inexplicable happened to his customer, and he was punished for it. He returns to his life newly aware of how capriciously it can be taken away from him, while Kovalyov, his nose safely back where it belongs, is more self-assured than ever.