The man who loses his nose is quite obsessed with status. this is made clear when we are told that he prefers to be called a major. This is also shown by how much he feels he cannot do once he does not seem as dignified as usual (due to his loss of nose), and how much he wants it back. It seems to him as if there is nothing without that status. His one goal in the story is to return the status he has lost, which shows the desperate desire for status and fear of losing it, as well as the arbitrary nature of status: it could disappear or reappear at any time with no warning. Moreover, the barber, who found the nose, thought chiefly of protecting his status as a reputable barber, despite the relative lack of status. Thus, this story shows how afraid of losing status people are and were, regardless of how much status they actually had.