The interpretation of the story “The Nose”

The paper interprets the story “The Nose” by Gogol. The separation of the part from the
whole and unexplained restoring of initial integrity is perceived by a reader as the discovery of
the universal state of the total instability and uncertainty of being. The author provides a phenomenological
description of the reader’s behavior provoked by both the story of the disintegration
of being that is shown in the plot and the demonstration of this kind of breakdown presented in
terms of narration. The Gogol’s story consistently weakens the borders of extraordinary and ordinary.
Thereby, the reader’s astonishment, characteristic for the perception of literary texts in general,
reaches its higher level when following the story “The Nose.”
The paper emphasizes the significance of laughter for interpreting the Gogol’s work. Laughter
as a narrative object and laughter as a unique way of constructing images is considered. This hermeneutic
significance is explained by the fact that laughter always arises on the border between
being and nothing. It is this boundary fluctuation that the reader finds in the story “The Nose.”
This laughter has an apparent satirical nature because it reveals the unhappy truth of the instability
and the meaningful insufficiency of life.