"The Nose" by Gogol

"The Nose" by Nikolai Gogol is a very strange story, as it comprises of a man named Ivan Yakovlevich finding a nose in his bread. He does not know whose it is or where it came from, so he throws it off a bridge. Major Kovalev, who wakes up one morning to a face without a nose, simultaneously panics and searches for his nose. After confronting his nose, who takes the form of a city officer and runs away, Kovalev attempts to spread word of his lost nose by advertising the tragedy in the paper. However, a police officer came to his house one day and delivered his nose back to him, but Kovalev could not reattach it, no matter how hard he tried. He desires that a doctor perform surgery to reattach it, but the doctor does not believe this option to be the most beneficial. One morning, Kovalev wakes up and discovers that his nose is back, attached, and as good as new.

This story is very interesting because Gogol uses components of Magical Realism in his piece of literature. The fact that a person finds a nose in his bread and that a different person magically lost his nose without a reason. Kovalev attempts to find his nose just like any other random object he might lose, which incorporates the realist aspect of Magical Realism. Very interesting, indeed.