How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Collegiate Assessor Kovalev also awoke early that morning. […] Here let me add something which may enable the reader to perceive just what the Collegiate Assessor was like. Of course, it goes without saying that Collegiate Assessors who acquire the title with the help of academic diplomas cannot be compared with Collegiate Assessors who become Collegiate Assessors through service in the Caucasus, for the two species are wholly distinct, they are—[…] Now, Kovalev was a "Caucasian" Collegiate Assessor, and had, as yet, borne the title for two years only. Hence, unable ever to forget it, he sought the more to give himself dignity and weight by calling himself, in addition to "Collegiate Assessor," "Major." (2.1-2)
So, first of all, the idea is that Kovalev only got his job in the civil service because he served in the military, which makes him feel inferior to people who got to his level through school and college. Anyway. Again, Gogol is playing with the traditional 19th-century realist thing of giving the reader a back story for every character—and preferably a back story with some kind of read on society or on psychology or whatever. Sure, we get that here, with Kovalev's feelings of inadequacy and the way he clings to his old army title ("Major"). But we also get a sense of how ridiculous the whole thing is, because the constant repetition of the word "Collegiate Assessor" ends up sounding like gibberish.
Quote #5
"Good sir"—Major Kovalev gave his shoulders a shrug—"I do not know whether you yourself (pardon me) consider conduct of this sort to be altogether in accordance with the rules of duty and honor, but at least you can understand that—— " […]
"My dear sir, you speak in error," was its reply. "I am just myself—myself separately. And in any case there cannot ever have existed a close relation between us, for, judging from the buttons of your undress uniform, your service is being performed in another department than my own."
And the Nose definitely turned away. (2.21-26)
Who knew switching identities was so easy? Kovalev immediately starts treating the nose as an individual, and a higher-ranking individual at that—and the nose immediately starts acting like it's its own person, dismissing the low-ranking official who's bothering it with dumb questions of being a nose. The kicker? Kovalev accepts that as appropriate. Which fits nicely with the story's theme of identity being very much an external thing, not something psychologically innate. Just—whatever you present to the world, that's what you are. No black-market passport necessary.
Quote #6
"No," he said at length. "Insert such an announcement I cannot. […] it might injure the paper's reputation. Imagine if everyone were to start proclaiming a disappearance of his nose! People would begin to say that, that—well, that we printed absurdities and false tales."
"But how is this matter a false tale? […] I am advertising not about a poodle, but about my own nose, which is surely, for all intents and purposes, myself?" (2.58-70)
And there we have it folks—a grand philosophical question right in the middle of a hilarious scene of a guy trying to put a classified ad in the paper about his missing nose. If the nose now has its own life, is it its own person? Or is it still a part of Kovalev? At what point is he supposed to write it off as no longer belonging to himself but having its own individual existence? If our bodies change, grow, and shed over time, do we remain fundamentally the same people? Deep thoughts, Shmoopers, deep thoughts