The Nose - Study Guide

  1. How does Ivan Yakovlevitch find the nose? What is absurd about the way he finds it?
  2. What is his wife's reaction?
  3. Why does he want to get rid of it?
  4. How does he try to get rid of it?
  5. How does Collegiate Assessor KOVALEV act specifically when he finds no nose on his face?
  6. What is unusual about his reaction?
  7. Where, and in what form does he first find his nose?
  8. Why might he be jealous of his nose?
  9. Why is he astonished?
  10. Kovalev tries to convince the nose to take it's proper palce. What are some of the things that worry him the most about not having a nose?
  11. How does the nose try to explain to Kovalev that it cannot be his nose?
  12. KOvalev decides to place an ad for a lost nose. How does he explain the situation to the clerk? What is the clerk's reaction?
  13. What, specifically, is the reply of the police inspector regarding Kovalev's lost nose? Why does Kovalev get angry at the reply?
  14. Comment on Kovalev's monologue at his predicament:
    “My God, my God! why has this misfortune come upon me? Even loss of hands or feet would have been better, for a man without a nose is the devil knows what — a bird, but not a bird, a citizen, but not a citizen, a thing just to be thrown out of window. It would have been better, too, to have had my nose cut off in action, or in a duel, or through my own act: whereas here is the nose gone with nothing to show for it — uselessly — for not a groat's profit!"
  15. Based on the quote above, can you come up with some kind of a Freudian explanation to Kovalev's reaction to the loss of his nose
  16. Whom does he blame for the loss of his nose?
  17. WHo finally finds the nose? How was it found?
  18. How does Kovalev recognize that the nose is his?
  19. Kovalev get's a doctor to stick thenose back. What's doctor's advice?
  20. To whom does Kovalev write a letter? Why?
  21. What's the reply?
  22. What are some of the stories in St. Petersburg told about the nose?
  23. Kovalev's reply is "How come people so to excite themselves about stupid, improbable reports?”. What is ironic about his reply?
  24. How did the nose get back in its place?
  25. Any suggestions on what the meaning, or point of the story may be?
  26. What does it mean "to have an identity"?
  27. How do people form their identities?
  28. How important are body features in forming people's idntities?
  29. How do people lose their identities?