In Nikolai Gogol's comedy The Government Inspector, a stranger called Khlestakov arrives in a provincial town and is mistaken for a government official whose advent has been expected and (since the town dignitaries are so corrupt) dreaded. Khlestakov is treated like a king by the townspeople. The mayor insists on putting him up in luxury at his own house, where he receives visits from the local administrators and landowners, all of whom are only too eager to favor him with loans if he will overlook their misconduct.

The themes of the play include human gullibility and vanity, greed, political corruption, provincial morals and manners, deception and self-deception, and the exposure of pretentiousness and folly. Khlestakov, an empty-headed and thriftless dandy who is only too happy to become a fraud for his own profit, is satirized as well as the self-important mayor and administrators, so the society Gogol depicts appears entirely corrupt and foolish, without a single character for the audience to admire.