The Government Inspector Literary Elements

Drama

Russian; translated into English

The actions take place in an unnamed town in Russia.

Traditional dramatic structure of third-person dialogue and monologue.

Tone: ironic, comic, parodic

Mood: suspenseful, light-hearted, amused

The protagonist is Khlestakov, and he is an antagonist at the same time.

Will Khlestakov's true identity become clear to the Mayor and the other civil servants?

The climax occurs when the Postmaster bursts in and exposes the fact that the government inspector is not who they think.

1. In the very beginning, the governor tells about his dream: “I had a sort of presentiment of it: all last night I dreamt about a pair of monstrous rats. Upon my word, I never saw the like of 'em—so black and enormous. They came, and snuffed about, and vanished.” This dream foreshadows something bad for him.
2. The Mayor worries that "those bastards [the shopkeepers] are already cooking up petitions against me on the sly" (230), which they are indeed.

N/A.

1. There are allusions to Assyrians, Babylonians, and Alexander of Macedon (the schoolteachers talk about them).
2. "Voltairean freethinkers" is an allusion to Voltaire, the French Enlightenment philosopher.
3. The Acts of John the Mason references a book by English nonconformist preacher John Mason, which Gogol thought was a guidebook to Masonic ritual.
4. Khlestakov says that he is friends with Pushkin, one of the most famous Russian authors.
5. The Judge compares the Inspector of Schools to Cicero, the famous classical orator.
6. Jacobin—a French revolutionary; name associated with radicals and freethinkers.
7. Gendarme—Corps of Gendarmes established by Nicholas I, under the command of the Third Department, a secret police force.

See the separate "Imagery" section of this ClassicNote.

One paradox is that the governor, who has engaged and dealt with different frauds his entire life, could not discern the truth about Khlestakov, who was entirely fraudulent.

Gogol often uses parallel actions and words between the characters to show how similar they are and how complicit they are in the town's climate of corruption (e.g., the scenes where Khlestakov meets with the civil servants individually, who all loan him money, and the scenes where the civil servants come to pay their respects to the newly-engaged Marya and her parents).

1. "The whole town seems dead!" (Anna Andreyevna, 249)
2. "My blasted tongue's done for me again!" (Inspector of Schools, 272)
3. "The hand of destiny was at work" (Warden of Charities, 298)

1. Monologues are widely used in the play; they mostly show one person’s mocking attitude towards others.
2. Gogol often has his characters use asides so that they can express what they are really thinking.
3. There are numerous stage directions, especially in the mute scene at the end.
4. Onomatopoeia: "Count and princes jostling each other and buzzing like so many bees—all you can hear is bzz.bzz.bzz." (Khlestakov, 259.)