Breaking Stalin's Nose

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2011

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-15

Chapters 16-22

Chapters 23-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Nose

Content Warning: The source text and this guide refer to violent repression and antisemitism.

The nose motif helps explain the Russian social fixation with status and rank and the damaging effects this has on individuality. This is indicated in Yelchin’s satirical portrayal, in Sasha’s daydream, of Stalin as a sentient nose to Nikolai Gogol’s famous satirical 1836 short story “The Nose.” The Gogol story is set exactly 100 years before the setting in Yelchin’s novel, which shows the continuation, despite regime changes through the end of the imperialist monarchy and the Bolshevik revolution to the rise of communism and the advent of the USSR, of this very Russian characteristic. In a moment of satirical dramatic irony, Sasha says, “Could something like this happen now? No way. So Why should Soviet children read such lies?” (112).

In “The Nose” Yelchin puts an important message in the heroic literature teacher’s lecture. “‘What ‘The Nose’ so vividly demonstrates to us today,’ says Luzhko, ‘is that when we blindly believe in someone else’s idea of what is right or wrong for us as individuals, eventually our refusal to make our own choices could lead to the collapse of the entire political system. An entire country. The world, even’” (112). Sasha walks away confused about the teacher. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him” (112). He does not see the teacher as the one coherent, logical character in the novel. To Sasha and everyone else, the man speaks nonsense. His words, juxtaposed with the events of the rest of the narrative, expose the degree to which their mindset traps them in the irony of “The Nose.”

The Red Scarf

The red scarf of the Young Pioneers is symbolic in the novel as a tangible symbol of the toll in lives Stalin’s authoritarianism exacts. Of course, in Soviet Russia, the scarf was meant to symbolize commitment, but in the context of the novel, rife with dramatic irony and satire, it vividly portrays a counter meaning: That of pointless sacrifice. Stalin infamously said, “One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” (first attributed to Stalin in the form: ‘If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics’ Washington Post, 20 January 1947; “Joseph Stalin 1879-1953.” Oxford Reference).

For Sasha and the other children in his school, becoming a Young Pioneer is the height of youthful achievement. When Zaichik presents Sasha with the scarf that he will tie around his son’s neck during the ceremony, Sasha is overwhelmed. “How beautiful it is and how long I have wished for it” (15). He continues, “After tomorrow, I’ll never take this scarf off. Just to wash and iron it every night” (17). His devotion to the Young Pioneers is whole and complete. Yet the red scarf represents those who died under and authoritarian dictator. When his father asks him if he is ready, “to fight for the cause of the Communist Party and Comrade Stalin?” Sasha replies, “Always Ready” (16). It is at this moment that his father whispers a warning to him about his coming arrest. His father knows that to be ready to fight for the cause means that one must be ready to die for it. His warning contradicts the symbolism Sasha perceives in the red scarf. Just as Sasha vows to maintain the appearance of the scarf, his father’s warning exposes the scarf and his devotion to the Party as surface-level. In this light, the scarf takes on a more sinister symbolism of a cadre of children who march to their sacrifice.

The Carrot

The carrot represents naïveté. Although Sasha has just written an adoring letter to Stalin about his glorious childhood, he sits savoring a single carrot as his stomach growls in hunger and he refers to the lone carrot as “a treat” (9). For readers of Breaking Stalin’s Nose, the irony and sadness of the situation are heightened by the protagonist’s ignorance of the world. He is naïve to an absurd degree; both aware of his hunger and incapable of relating this hunger to the broken system. “I wonder what it’s like in the Capitalist countries. I wouldn’t be surprised if children there had never even tasted a carrot” (10).

Sasha is thoroughly brainwashed by the Soviet authoritarian leaders into the belief that “Communism is just over the horizon; soon there will be plenty of food for everyone” (10). These are the same Soviet leaders who, several years prior, killed thousands in the famine that followed their forced agricultural collectivization and the export of the majority of crops to profit the State. Sasha is incapable of rationalizing his hunger as a result of the political system and instead trivializes his hunger. “When hunger gnaws inside my belly, I tell myself that a future Pioneer has to repress cravings for such unimportant matters as food” (10). Instead, he is making a willing sacrifice in service to the cause of communism. The naïveté of Sasha’s worldview at the opening of the novel is demonstrated most clearly in these quiet moments as he savors a carrot and considers himself lucky to be starving in service to Communism.