The Government Inspector Questions and Answers
The Government Inspector
What is the importance of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky in The Government Inspector?
Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are crucial in The Government Inspector as they inadvertently trigger the play's central misunderstandings. They mistake Khlestakov for a government inspector, prompting the...
The Government Inspector
What are the themes in The Government Inspector?
The themes in The Government Inspector include human gullibility and vanity, greed, political corruption, provincial morals and manners, deception and self-deception, and the exposure of...
The Government Inspector
Who is Khlestakov in Gogol's The Government Inspector?
In Nikolai Gogol's play The Government Inspector, set in provincial Russia, more than 80 years before the Russian Revolution, the character Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov is an upper-class gentleman...
The Government Inspector
Why were the government officials afraid of the government inspector?
Government officials, particularly in this story, are always looking for two things, one is more power, and the other is how to get away from folks more powerful than them, or at least to curry...
The Government Inspector
What is the importance of the quote, "What are you laughing at? You're laughing at yourselves" in The Government...
The quote "What are you laughing at? You're laughing at yourselves" in The Government Inspector is important because it directly addresses the audience, challenging them to reflect on their own...
The Government Inspector
What role does The Mayor play in the Government Inspector?
The Mayor symbolizes the corruption of small-town Russian life. It is he who has the most to lose by the inspector's imminent arrival. He's petrified that all of his corrupt dealings—all the...
The Government Inspector
How did perceptions of government's powers and responsibilities change in the 1930s?
In the 1930s, following the Great Depression, president Franklin D. Roosevelt created federal programs to aid in economic relief and the wide-scale creation of jobs in order to recover the economy....
The Government Inspector
Who is the Postmaster in The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol?
In Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector, Postmaster Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin is a "guileless to the point of simplemindedness" man who is opening and reading the mail of others in hopes that he will...
The Government Inspector
What is the significance of the postmaster opening all letters in The Government Inspector?
In "The Government Inspector," the fact that the postmaster opens all letters sent or received in an effort to determine when the inspector arrives and who is complaining about him still leaves him...
The Government Inspector
Did Khlestakov accept any money from the mayor in "The Government Inspector"?
Yes, Khlestakov takes money from the mayor. A lot of money. The first instance where he takes money from the mayor is in Act II, shortly after the mayor and Khlestakov meet for the first time:...
The Government Inspector
What complaints did Hlestakov make to the mayor in The Government Inspector?
Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov complains about the quality of the food he is served at the inn. When Khlestakov first finds out that the mayor is coming to see him, he thinks that he's going to be...