What "The Nose" says about social class is very interesting in that while many of the characters seem to be stuck in thier positions, the barber, the major( he may be up for a permotion but he is still stuck withing the ranks of beurocracy) etc. the nose is able to jump from being just a nose to being a high ranking official. What Gogol seems to be saying about Russian social stratifacation of the time is that it is so absurd for one to easily move between social classes that a nose could do it but for the owner of the nose it requiers a large dowery and five years of hard work to move between classes.