The smell that “assails one’s olfactory nerves” and the “odour from under each house”, both depict not just the filth the city has physically accumulated, but more importantly, serve as metaphors for the sheer rottenness of the social structure, the desolation of its inhabitants, the creation of a breeding ground for illness both physical and mental, and the overall degeneration and decay that prevail, exuding this overwhelming ‘smell’ assaulting Poprishchin’s psyche. The nose is required to imbibe one’s surroundings, to process one’s experiences through smells, and to interpret these sensations to the fullest, whether these be negative or positive, as Poprishchin demonstrates.Ī comment on the oppressive, constricting atmosphere Poprishchin survives in, Gogol’s focus on the olfactory here serves to depict the complete assault on his protagonist’s sanity being wrought by his surroundings. Gogol views the nose as a direct point of contact with the environment.

Thus, the nose becomes a multifaceted entity and a fundamental tool through which Gogol traces the madness chipping away at the writer’s sanity, in order to accomplish his larger purpose of satirising life in St Petersburg, peeling back the cover of glamour and exposing the cold, unattractive truth of such a melancholy existence.īeing one of two extremely important sensory organs in Gogolian literature, the nose is a prime vessel through which Proprishchin experiences his maddening world, and experiences his frustrations regarding the death of all possibility, progression and excitement in his life resulting from the stagnant, unenviable job, his empty love life and his ‘turtle’-like looks. Continually interjected, the ‘nose’ subtly depicts Poprishchin’s psychological complexes, the death of his hopes and dreams, the sexual anxiety and fear of emasculation haunting his being. Gogol’s emphasis on smells in particular, is best seen in his eccentric and whimsical use of the organ responsible, the nose. Penned by the protagonist, the diary carries the reader through his psychological journey, utilising sounds, sight and smells to create a breadcrumb trail across the virulent madness incubating in his mind. In short, without rank, wealth and beauty, existence in the famed city was bleak, desperate, and in the case of Poprishchin, maddening.

Satirical and poignant, dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman encompasses the detrimental effects of the social upon the psychological through the progression of the all-consuming madness ailing the protagonist, Poprishchin.Ĭlosely intertwined, these two variables allow Nikolai Gogol to portray St Petersburg’s social stratosphere as a falsely revered one underneath the glamour of the thriving city, lays corruption, isolating individualism and a crushing emphasis on superficiality.

The Nose by Nikolai Gogol