A Study Guide for Nikolai Gogol's "The Government Inspector," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
This version of A Government Inspector is a Yorkshire take on Gogol's 1836 fantastical Russian satire. The setting is here transposed to a small northern town in the twenty-first century, geographically and culturally remote from the centre of government. Into a small Pennine town a mysterious stranger is mistaken for a government inspector. Fearing discovery of their corrupt goings-on, the town's unscrupulous councillors attempt to ingratiate themselves. Bribes, backhanders and brown envelopes abound, and the young chap, who has an eye for a quick buck, takes full advantage with hilarious results. Deborah McAndrew's version of A Government Inspector goes beyond literal translation, but is absolutely faithful to Gogol's stated intention to peel away the surface layers of ordinary people and expose the corruption beneath. It's exuberant, brilliantly witty and original, and audiences will revel in the references to government officials' expenses claims and women's beach volley ball... Northern Broadsides, one of the country's finest and best-loved touring theatre companies, breathes life and vigour into this nearly 200-year-old story. Absurdly funny, clever and strangely familiar, this feels to be the next One Man Two Guvnors. The production premieres at Harrogate Theatre from 7 - 22 September before embarking on an English national tour until December 1st.
Author, dramatist and satirist, Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) deeply influenced later Russian literature with his powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty beaurocracy and base corruption. This volume includes both his most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A biting and frequently hilarious political satire, The Government Inspector has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play every written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They include Diary of a Madman, an amusing but disturbing exploration of insanity; Nevsky Prospect, a depiction of an artist besotted with a prostitute; and The Overcoat, a moving consideration of poverty that powerfully influenced Dostoevsky and later Russian literature.
"The Cloak" tells the story of the life and death of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, an unremarkable and indeed pathetic middle-aged titular councillor and copying clerk serving in an unnamed department of the Russian civil service. Though Akaky has very little and is cruelly picked on by his coworkers, Akaky displays no discontentment with his plight, in fact even openly relishing his copying work, in which he appears to find some interesting world of his own. His life is thrown into disarray, however, when he finds that he must buy a new overcoat, a great expense for which he is unprepared. Though he is initially upset by the need for the new overcoat, he soon finds in the quest to save up for and design the new overcoat a higher purpose. The thought of the new overcoat becomes a deep comfort to him, like having a steady companion. The day he receives the coat is the happiest day of his life. However, a turn of events leads to the sudden loss of his coat, and shortly thereafter, of his own life. After his death, Akaky returns as a ghost to haunt St. Petersburg for a time, stealing coats, and in particular the coat of a general who had refused to help Akaky.
A man who asks to audition at a small theatre is mistaken for an informer for the National Endowment for the Arts. Everyone caters to the bewildered wannabe actor and his is given a role in the current production. A Christmas Carol. Everything goes wrong and hilarity is piled upon hilarity. Perfect anytime, this delight is particularly appropriate at Christmas.
A collection of short comic stories “This world is full of the most outrageous nonsense. Sometimes things happen which you would hardly think possible.”-The Nose, Nikolai Gogol This is a collection of five short satiric stories by Nikolai Gogol that focus on the ugly and the sad elements in life.
When the British journalist Rachel Polonsky moves to Moscow, she discovers an apartment on Romanov Street that was once home to the Soviet elite. One of the most infamous neighbors was the ruthless apparatchik Vyacheslav Molotov, a henchman for Stalin who was a participant in the collectivizations and the Great Purge—and also an ardent bibliophile. In what was formerly Molotov's apartment, Polonsky uncovers an extensive library and an old magic lantern—two things that lead her on an extraordinary journey throughout Russia and ultimately renew her vision of the country and its people. In Molotov's Magic Lantern, Polonsky visits the haunted cities and vivid landscapes of the books from Molotov's library: works by Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Akhmatova, and others, some of whom were sent to the Gulag by the very man who collected their books. With exceptional insight and beautiful prose, Polonsky writes about the longings and aspirations of these Russian writers and others in the course of her travels from the Arctic to Siberia and from the forests around Moscow to the vast steppes. A singular homage to Russian history and culture, Molotov's Magic Lantern evokes the spirit of the great artists and the haunted past of a country ravaged by war, famine, and totalitarianism.
A classic story of friendship and jealousy from a beloved Australian author. Erica has always believed herself to be the star of her sixth grade class. But then Alison Ashley shows up, and right from the start, seems to threaten Erica's position. Can these classmates ever see past their difficulties and find friendship?
Nikolai Gogol’s novel Dead Souls and play The Government Inspector revolutionized Russian literature and continue to entertain generations of readers around the world. Yet Gogol’s peculiar genius comes through most powerfully in his short stories. By turns—or at once—funny, terrifying, and profound, the tales collected in The Nose and Other Stories are among the greatest achievements of world literature. These stories showcase Gogol’s vivid, haunting imagination: an encounter with evil in a darkened church, a downtrodden clerk who dreams only of a new overcoat, a nose that falls off a face and reappears around town on its own, outranking its former owner. Written between 1831 and 1842, they span the colorful setting of rural Ukraine to the unforgiving urban landscape of St. Petersburg to the ancient labyrinth of Rome. Yet they share Gogol’s characteristic obsessions—city crowds, bureaucratic hierarchy and irrationality, the devil in disguise—and a constant undercurrent of the absurd. Susanne Fusso’s translations pay careful attention to the strangeness and wonder of Gogol's style, preserving the inimitable humor and oddity of his language. The Nose and Other Stories reveals why Russian writers from Dostoevsky to Nabokov have returned to Gogol as the cornerstone of their unparalleled literary tradition.
