48 pages • 1 hour read
Nikolai GogolThe Government Inspector
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1836A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act I, Scene 1 Summary
The Mayor of a provincial Russian town makes an announcement. Among the people gathered before him are important civic leaders, such as the Judge, the Inspector of Schools, the Chief of Police, the Warden of Charities, and the District Physician, as well as two police constables. The Mayor reveals that a government inspector has been dispatched to the town from the Russian capital, St. Petersburg. This inspector will be undercover and will have “secret instructions” (249). An ominous warning came to the Mayor in a dream, which was then confirmed by a letter written to him by a friend who has detailed knowledge of the government’s plans. The inspector will present himself as an ordinary person, thus allowing him to root out corruption in small towns. This letter-writing friend warned the Mayor that he should prepare himself.
The civic leaders are shocked. There may be political motivations for the inspection, the Judge warns, though the Mayor denies the idea that there may be traitors in their midst. Nevertheless, they should make sure that they are safeguarded against any prying inspectors. He believes that the Warden of Charities will be the first to be scrutinized, while he recommends to the Doctor to ready his wards. The Warden defends the treatment meted out to people by himself and the Doctor. They have developed a treatment regime which rules that anyone who dies, dies, whereas “if he recovers, he recovers” (251). This saves money on expensive medicine. The Mayor knows that the Judge allows the employees at the court to raise geese in the government building. He warns that this should stop, while the assessor should be urged to eat onions or garlic to cover his lingering smell of vodka.
The Mayor admits to his own “little sins” (252), though he believes that every person was created by God to act in this manner. The Judge asks whether there is an issue for anyone who accepts monetary bribes compared to instances where, for example, the bribes are actually Borzoi puppies. The Mayor has no answer. At the very least, he says, he is a believer in God, unlike the Judge. The Inspector of Schools is told to keep his teachers in line, as they are prone to “free-thinking ideas” (253). The Mayor does not want them to pull strange faces at the government inspector. The Inspector of Schools is aware of these problems, but confesses that nothing he has done to curb political radicalism has had any effect. The Mayor is unmoved. He turns his thoughts to the way in which the inspector will disguise himself.
Act I, Scene 2 Summary
The Postmaster pays a visit to the Mayor. He wants to know whether the government has sent an inspector to their town. Though the Mayor confirms the rumor, he dismisses the Postmaster’s suggestion that the government is motivated by the potential war with the Ottoman Empire. There are more important matters to worry about: Many people have complained about him, and he is concerned that someone may have reported him.
The Mayor makes a request: He wants to read every letter for information about the inspector’s arrival. The Postmaster quickly agrees; he already reads everyone’s mail because he is simply curious about “what’s going on in the world” (255). The Judge warns the Postmaster and the Mayor to be careful. He is worried about this inspection. A moment later, however, he offers a puppy to the Postmaster. The Mayor does not want to hear about any puppy; he is too preoccupied with the inspector.
Act I, Scene 3 Summary
Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky rush into the Mayor’s office. Their quickfire comments overlap as they veer off on wild digressions. When they get themselves in order, they reveal that a young man recently checked into the inn at the town. He seemed very refined. When they quizzed the landlord about this young man, they were told that he is named Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov. According to the landlord, he is a government official from the capital. However, he has already been in the town for two weeks and has barely left the building. While the landlord found this odd, he did not stop charging the man for the room.
The Mayor is horrified that the inspector has already arrived. The Warden of Charities suggests that they visit the man in an official capacity, though the Mayor tells him and the other men to see to their own business. He will greet this suspicious young man. As they prepare to leave, the Warden of Charites mentions to the Judge that he is concerned about the smell in the building. Whereas it should smell of oatmeal, it smells of cabbage. The Judge is unconcerned. He does not believe anyone would inspect the courthouse. Even if they did, the bureaucratic records are so disordered and chaotic that they are impossible to “sort out true from false” (259). The men leave the Mayor’s office.
Act I, Scene 4 Summary
The Mayor, Dobchinsky, and Bobchinsky leave. On their way out, they bump into Svistunov, who warns them that Prokhorov has gotten so drunk that he cannot join them. The Mayor first calls for his sword, then complains that it is “all scratched to pieces” (260). He has asked Abdulin the shopkeeper for a new sword many times, but the crafty shopkeeper has denied him. He suspects this could be part of a conspiracy of petitions against him.
Act I, Scene 5 Summary
Meeting the Chief of Police, the Mayor is told that the sidewalks in the town are being cleaned. The Mayor issues a list of potential actions to make the townspeople look clean and busy, as well as to hide building projects which were never initiated. He does not want the soldiers to parade half-naked through the streets, and then remembers the pile of garbage which the townspeople have left to languish. He curses the townspeople and pleads with God for an escape from his predicament. Caught up in confusion, he nearly puts a box on his head rather than his hat.
Act I, Scene 6 Summary
The Mayor’s wife is named Anna Andreyevna and his daughter is named Maria Antonovna. They nervously wait for him at home. When Anna spots the Mayor coming home, he tells her that he has little time to speak. Anna blames her daughter for taking so long to prepare herself. She accuses Maria of “preening herself in front of a mirror” (262) for the Postmaster, even though he has no interest in her. Anna calls through the window to a neighbor, demanding information about the inspector.
Act I Analysis
Act I of The Government Inspector introduces the play’s pivotal theme of The Impact of Corruption. The play is set in an unnamed provincial Russian town; the lack of specificity is deliberate, allowing this one small town to stand in for all towns of a similar size in the Russian Empire. In effect, the corruption in this community is analogous to the corruption which can be found in every town in every part of Russia. Through vagueness, the play provides a satire of Russian society as a whole rather than a critique of one small community.
The small, provincial nature of the town also helps to highlight the low-level nature of the corruption. In this apparent rural backwater, everyone running the town is corrupt. Their corruption is not particularly enriching, however, as it amounts to raising geese in a courtyard or hanging laundry in a government facility. One of the civic leaders’ chief concerns is whether they can still accept Borzoi puppies as bribes. They are not securing life-changing wealth through their corruption, but they are swapping puppies back and forth while using social institutions for their personal gain. The low stakes of the corruption adds a pathetic dimension to the Mayor’s fears, while also illustrating the pervasiveness of the corruption in this society.
The small cadre of civic leaders function as the embodiment of corruption in the small community. The Mayor is the de facto leader of a group which includes the Judge, the Inspector of Schools, the Chief of Police, the Warden of Charities, and the District Physician. They are known more by their titles than their names, which presents them as representatives of their corrupt institutions rather than individuals in their own right. They are a self-enriching, self-preserving, self-interested group that desires to maintain the status quo with regards to their corruption and power. They all know themselves to be corrupt and, even as the Mayor warns of an imminent inspection, they assure each other that their sins and moral breaches are irrelevant.
The self-appointed civic leaders maintain and abuse their elevated status in the community by assuring one another that they are doing what anyone else in their position would do. This position contains a contradiction which they ignore: They insist they are no different than anyone else in their proclivity toward corruption, yet they believe that their intelligence, character, and/or ability means that they deserve to be the leaders of the community. They convince themselves that they are above the townsfolk while admitting to having the same foibles as everyone else. To take away their status, the Mayor implies, would be grossly unfair.
Even among this corrupt inner circle, power is misused in new and unforeseen ways. When he talks to the Postmaster, the Mayor suggests that the man should begin to open and read other people’s mail. The Postmaster does not object: Instead of regarding reading other people’s mail as immoral and illegal, he admits that he already reads everything that passes through his office. In a comic scene, he justifies his constant breaching of other people’s privacy by saying that he is simply interested in other people. While the Postmaster is not necessarily materially benefiting from snooping into the private lives of others without their consent, he is nevertheless abusing his position and turning the entire community into his own private entertainment. In this respect, he is just like every other civic leader: He is self-interested and unambitious, willing to step over moral boundaries but lacking in the vision to truly improve his life through corruption.
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By Nikolai Gogol
