The third narrative is a love story that gives its title, concerning an author known only as “the Master” and his affair with the passionate Margarita. The Master is the author of the novel concerning Pilate and when he despairs of ever seeing his book in print and at the criticism his work receives in repressive Moscow he flings the manuscript and end up in an asylum. At this point, Woland intervenes, restoring the burnt manuscript to the Master and reuniting the two lovers.
The Master and Margarita is most concerned with the need for art, the power and immortality of art and the role of an artist in a repressive society. Bulgakov explores such themes using the repressive Stalinist regime in Moscow during the 1930s. The book is a concentrated satirical attack on the repressive control of the arts under Stalin and a satire of life of the ordinary Muscovites under Stalin.
With the rise of Joseph Stalin to the position of unchallenged dictator in 1930, writers had to produce what was, in effect, propaganda. One result was a spate of long novels idealizing the industrial drive launched by the first Five Year Plan (1929). Such works gave a glowing misleading picture of life on the newly introduced collective farms. They presented happy milkmaids and tractor drivers while ignoring the horrendous starvation, imprisonment and mass slaughter of the peasantry. More severe regimentation of literature was imposed in 1932 when the numerous literary groups were grouped into a single association, the Union of Writers of the USSR. The organization became a notorious bastion of privilege and corruption and writers who were not members could not hope to get their works published. At the same time, Socialist Realism, the newly promulgated aesthetic method, was the only permissible literary technique. It imposed on literature and art a uniform style and an avoidance of stylistic or structural experiment. Socialist realism demanded that all “art must depict some aspect of man’s struggle toward socialist progress for a better life” and it stressed the need for “the creative artist to serve the proletariat by being realistic, optimistic and heroic”. The doctrine considered all forms of experimentalism as degenerate and pessimistic. Writers who opposed this doctrine were actively persecuted, this oppression of intellectuals peaked in the Great Terror of 1937-1938. These artists were reduced to long periods of artistic silence, others perished in labour camps and some were driven to suicide.
Against this backdrop of artistic persecution and repression, The Master and Margarita portrays the struggle of writers who strive to create great literature and who struggle for freedom of expression and individuality. Such struggles portrayed in the book are almost autobiographical as they allude to Bulgakov’s own struggle as a writer. The “master” writes a novel about Pontius Pilate and the crucifixion of Christ, unacceptable to the atheist Soviet authorities and his novel is critcised and suppressed, breaking the Master’s spirit and in a drunken rage he flings it into the fire, losing his will to live and ends up in a lunatic asylum. Bulgakov shared the Master’s despair as he spent the last 12 years of his life working on The Master and Margarita, certain that he’ll never see it published. And yet in spite of everything, he was just as certain that the work was worth doing. The same applies to Yeshua (Jesus); his ideals are unacceptable to his society, especially the leaders of Jerusalem, represented by Caiaphas who suggests the release of a murderer over Yeshua. There’s a lot of expediency and betrayal in the book: Pilate betrays Yeshua and is eternally tortured by his cowardice of choosing the official ideology over his own conscience and his own will. The Master betrays his own art by flinging his manuscript into the fire leading Bulgakov to claim that “the biggest sin is cowardice”. To Bulgakov who was struggling to find his voice of expression, cowardice in the form of keeping silent and following state sanctioned ideologies is the biggest sin that an artist could ever commit, betraying his art. The recurring motif of betrayal seems to reflect Bulgakov’s doubts about his own artistic integrity and the strength of his artistic will. So the theme of betrayal and redemption in The Master and Margarita seems to be rooted in Bulgakov’s coming to terms with the compromises he’d made to ensure his artistic expression.
The Master and Margarita does not just protest against Socialist realism, it voices a disgusted mockery of the attempts by the Soviet authorities to control art and the attempts to define what art is and the role of art. Bulgakov mocks the blind conformity of the Muscovites to the ideals pre-packaged by the Soviet spin doctors. When Woland and his retinue visit Moscow, the grimmest and most hilarious fates are reserved for the hypocrites, of the city’s theatrical and literary establishment, the writers of “acceptable” literature. Early in the book, Berlioz, chairman of the MASSOLIT literary association is spectacularly decapitated by a tram and Latunsky the literary critic who publicly criticized the Master’s novel has his apartment ruined by Margarita in revenge and one by one, the prominent figures in society are driven insane or publicly humiliated. One can almost detect a certain tone of relish as Bulgakov describes the hilarious bizarre fates that Woland and his gang deal to these prominent figures who conform to the authorities.
The Master and the Margarita makes a bold statement about the ability of literature to endure throughout the ages. The Master’s novel, despite mockery, persecution and rejection gains everlasting life that can endure even the test of fire. Although he threw his manuscript into the fire, Woland was able to restore it because as he so shrewdly puts it, “manuscripts don’t burn”. A novel is much stronger than the paper it was written on; one cannot simply destroy it by burning the pages. The Master’s book is so powerful that it can not be destroyed, not by the state, not by fire and not even by the author himself. External controls on art and the attempts to repress it are futile in the end as literature cannot be corrupted so long as writers like the Master and Bulgakov are courageous enough to stand by their ideals. The Master and Margarita was only published some 30 years after Bulgakov’s death. Yet even if it had not been published, Bulgakov would still have achieved his goal. The book legitimizes itself by contending that creative thoughts come to life once they are written. No censor, no fire, no supernatural power is strong enough to drive it out of existence and even the author himself does not have this power. Bulgakov’s faith in the power and immortality of art and his book gave him the will and courage to stand by his ideals and freedom.
Although Socialist realism was just a euphemism for political propaganda, the ideology behind it poses questions concerning the role of an artist. In Stalin’s words, “writers are the engineers of the human spirit” which is a noble aim of aim of artists. However, art is an expression of ideals, observations and feelings. Innate to art are freedom and individuality, the freedom for artists to express without restriction. Bulgakov sees an artist as one who questions the unquestionable in an effort to discover individual meaning, shown in the struggle of the Master. Without the occasional contention, a society becomes stagnated. Bulgakov criticizes the blind acceptance and conformity to the one man’s or one institution’s ideals. An artist offers different ideologies, usually ridiculed and scorned by the masses. An artist has vision that the masses does not and so “engineer the human spirit” and facilitates the spiritual advancement of society. Art is so influential and so powerful and thus has always been repressed through the ages by those who have little tolerance for difference. Art has the ability to repress and rebel, imprison and emancipate and thus many attempts have been made to try and suppress it. The religious leaders in Jerusalem released a murderer over Yeshua, knowing that one who kills is less of a threat than one who could incite rebellion against the institution. The Soviet’s attempts to control art have been futile as art is too powerful to be made into a mere political tool in the brainwashing of citizens. Maxim Gorky, one of the founders of socialist realism envisioned turning literature into a “midwife (to socialism) and a gravedigger (to capitalism)”. By putting the Master’s struggle on the same plane as the struggle of Jesus, Bulgakov gives the struggle for artistic freedom an almost divine dimension.
The Master and Margarita not only challenges state sanctioned orthodox ideologies, it also challenges the orthodox Christian notions of good and evil. The relationship between good and evil is ambiguous in the book; the Devil does not appear as a red demon with horns carrying a trident. Woland states that good needs a foil to be compared to in order to remain good, good is only good when there is evil to be compared with and thus without evil there would be no good, for “what is light without shadow” states Woland. This relationship between good and evil is presented at the beginning of the book in the form of a paradox as a quote from Goethe’s Faust, “which wills forever evil/ yet does forever good”, Satan desires to do harm to God’s creation but all of his scheming only results in a good outcome. Woland is an integral part of God’s plan as what is evil gives individuals something to think about in order to decide the right path for themselves. Evil is necessary as it firstly gives a basis for comparison on which the definition of good rests and secondly because it necessitates choice. In fact, in The Master and Margarita, Woland appears to be quite benign to people like the Master. Margarita sells her soul to the Devil in order to restore the novel and be reunited with her lover. In this case, the bargain is not a diabolical nightmare like when Faust sold his soul to the Devil. Margarita only had to be the hostess at the Devil’s ball and in the end was reunited with her lover, which turned out to be not such a bad deal after all.
Bulgakov’s rendition of the Gospel story of the crucifixion of Christ also challenges previously held notions of Christianity. Here, Pontius Pilate is portrayed as a man wrecked with guilt rather than an evil Roman official and the intricate psychological analysis of Pilate makes the reader sympathise with him. Yeshua is not presented as the divine son of God but rather as a visionary who presents his own rather idealistic vision of man, “there are no evil people on earth” and Matthew the Levite, his disciple is portrayed to be an inept over-zealous man who twists and misinterprets Yeshua’s words, finally getting him into trouble with the Roman authorities. This portrayal poses serious challenges to the belief that the bible is God’s word as Bulgakov shows that the bible is after all written by man who like any other person could have misinterpreted or misunderstood the teachings of Christ.
Human nature is also mocked when Woland and his gang wreck havoc in the streets of Moscow. He takes joy at seeing Muscovites at their weakness. He knows that money and possessions will appeal to them and they play right into his hands by making fools of themselves to acquire these worthless things. He makes a mockery of all that man desire in life as the material processions disappear into nothing. He shows that money and processions are of no real value, they are what the foolish, greedy and shallow minded care about. Only art and love are eternal. The love that the Master and Margarita have is so strong that they transcend the sometimes absurd world of politics and corruption, not to heaven, but to a world of two.
Thus in conclusion, The Master and Margarita shows just how important freedom and individuality are and the power of literature to surpass any human attempts to control it. It concludes that blind conformity to any notion or ideal is the ultimate evil. Arenberg states that “the Master demonstrates that each man’s salvation lies within himself” and that “Bulgakov recognized that men follow the path of least resistance, denying their own imaginative capabilities in favour of institutionalised ideologies, organized religion and conventional morality”. The book serves as a monument to all courageous authors who in Salman Rushdie’s words “attempt radical reformations of language, form and ideas, those that attempt to do what the word ‘novel’ seems to insist on: to see the world anew.”
