The protagonist Kovalyov views himself as a member of the ascendant bourgeoisie, and he has every intention of rising higher than his current station. The narrator points out that he was appointed to the rank of Collegiate Assessor in the Caucasus—that is, as a colonial administrator at the far edge of the expanding Russian Empire, a “different species” from the genuine scholars who receive that title in Petersburg or Moscow. Despite (or because of) his tenuous claim to distinction, he insists on being called by his full title—Collegiate Assessor Major Kovalyov—and never misses an opportunity to pull rank on those beneath him or to angle for promotion. He treats his barber and his cab driver—both named Ivan—with incredible disdain and contempt, and throughout the narrative we see that this attitude is shared both by people of his class and by the government as represented by law enforcement.

Kovalyov verbally abuses his barber and physically abuses his cabbie and his valet. He looks down on serfs and on poor women selling fruit in the street. When he sees his own nose stepping out of a carriage, the most emotionally difficult part of the experience is not the fact that his nose has absconded from his face but the fact that his nose apparently outranks him.