The Story Archive

The Government Inspector

Nikolai Gogol · 1836 CE · Play · Russian · Romantic

Officials in a remote provincial town learn that an inspector is coming from Petersburg incognito and with secret instructions, and between them they have a hospital where patients recover by nature, a judge who takes his bribes in borzoi puppies and a postmaster who opens the mail for entertainment. The penniless young clerk stranded at the inn over an unpaid bill is not the man they are looking for, but he lets them talk first and works out what they think he is only once the loans begin. Gogol had the situation from an anecdote of Pushkin's and needed the Tsar's personal intervention to get a comedy this hostile to officialdom onto the imperial stage.

Open The Government Inspector in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

Attributes

Genre
ComedySatirePolitical
Theme
Appearance vs RealityPower & CorruptionWealth & GreedClass & InequalityVanity & Beauty
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
TricksterVillain / TyrantEveryman
Plot structure
Mistaken IdentityIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The MaskThe LetterThe MirrorThe Feast
Conflict
vs Societyvs Person
Mode / tone
SatiricalComicIronic
Culture / tradition
Russian

Closest analogues