![]() Given the comedic tone, you can expect an odd, but happy ending. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s helpful to know Gogol abandoned a “dream” conceit after his first draft. So he created an absurd premise for a short story to poke fun at bureaucratic jealousy and the hunger for social status. Gogol laughed at mankind’s rampant self-interest, bureaucratic pettiness, corruption, cupidity and stupidity. Considered the founder of Russian realism, he had a keen eye for detail and a satirical view of life. Agonies follow, and at the end of this bleak story, Samsa dies. No one understands and he’s a burden to his family. Kafka’s salesman wakens to learn he’s now a huge insect. But there are similarities: two ordinary men each wake up one morning to find themselves transformed. Kovalyov isn’t Kafka’s anti-hero, Gregor Samsa, so don’t go down that dark path. The story’s premise brings another European writer to mind, Franz Kafka, although his “Metamorphosis” was written in 1915, 70 years after Gogol. ![]() ![]() Kovalyov (pronounced KO-val-yoff) the anti-hero of Gogol’s “The Nose.” The little story inspired another Russian a century later to craft a short, zany opera on the tale. So goes Nikolai Gogol’s 1835 satirical tale about life in early 19th century Russia. When he learns his nose has gone into society, prancing about in a fancy uniform and claiming a higher social status, Kovalyov is both hurt and angry. When Kovalyov, a Russian bureaucrat, wakes up and finds his nose missing, he’s shocked. ![]()
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