NON-AFRICAN DRAMA NIKOLAI GOGOL: The Government Inspector Discuss the significance of the encounter between the protesters and Hlestakov in the Mayor's hous...

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In Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector, one of the play's most revealing episodes is the scene in which the townspeople, the local merchants and petitioners, force their way into the Mayor's house to lay their complaints before Hlestakov, the man they believe to be the visiting government inspector. The encounter is rich in irony and central to the play's satire.

What happens. Hlestakov, a penniless, empty-headed clerk stranded at the inn, has been mistaken by the terrified officials for a powerful inspector travelling incognito. Installed in the Mayor's house and plied with bribes, he is approached by the merchants and other ordinary citizens who have long suffered under the Mayor's corruption and extortion. They pour out their grievances, denounce the Mayor's abuses, and beg the supposed inspector for redress, pressing gifts and money on him as they do so.

Its significance. First, the encounter exposes the depth of the town's corruption from below as well as above. The complaints confirm that the Mayor and his officials have plundered and oppressed the common people; the petitioners' desperation shows a whole community groaning under misrule. Second, it deepens the play's central irony: the people appeal for justice to a man who is himself a fraud and who understands nothing of their case. Their hope of rescue is placed in an impostor, so that the promise of relief is hollow.

Character and theme. The scene also develops Hlestakov's character. He accepts their bribes as readily as he accepted the officials', delighting in the unearned power and money that fall into his lap, which reveals his shallow greed and opportunism. Thematically, the episode drives home Gogol's satire on bureaucratic corruption, bribery and the gullibility bred by fear. The very people harmed by corruption end up feeding it, bribing the false inspector just as the officials do.

Dramatic function. By multiplying the number of dupes and bribers, the encounter heightens the comedy of mistaken identity and prepares for the crushing reversal of the ending, when the letter is read and the real inspector is announced. It is a key step in Gogol's exposure of a rotten society.