SOURCE: Yermakov, Ivan. “‘The Nose.’” In Gogol from the Twentieth Century: Eleven Essays, edited by Robert A. Maguire, pp. 156–98. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.

In the following essay, Yermakov offers a psychoanalytic interpretation of “The Nose,” asserting that Gogol's tale is an exploration of sexual desire and repression.

I

“What are you laughing at?—You're laughing at yourselves.”

—Gogol, The Inspector General

Before undertaking an analysis of Gogol's story “The Nose,” I ought to offer some justification for my approach, which readers unfamiliar with psychoanalysis might otherwise find bewildering and objectionable.

Underlying the creative process in art is the vast realm of the unconscious, which is shared by all human beings. It contains not only the instincts, but also all the contents of the psyche which the consciousness finds uncomfortable and intolerable, because of the strictures of civilized society, and therefore represses. Nevertheless, these contents seek an outlet into...