The main secrets of the novel “The Master and Margarita”. The meaning of the ending in the novel "The Master and Margarita" by M.A. Bulgakov
Name the themes of the novel.
Which
the main one?
Prove your point.
7
Woland
The prototype is the biblical image of Lucifer - a fallen angel overthrown by God.
More
Total
Woland
associated with Mephistopheles from the tragedy “Faust” Goethe writes: “
Junker
Voland
kommt
! “Make way! –
damn
coming! (in the scene “Walpurgis Night”, paving the way for himself and Faust to the mountain
Brocken
among the evil spirits
).
This connection is also enshrined in the epigraph to the novel; it was first written out
in German
, then translated into Russian. But the first impetus for the idea of the image was music - Charles’s opera
Gounod
, written on a story by Goethe and which amazed Bulgakov in childhood. Probably, the writer saw Fyodor Chaliapin in the role of Mephistopheles, because the attire
Bulgakovsky
Volanda
repeats the stage costume of the opera
singer:
"He was in expensive gray suit, in foreign shoes, matching the color of the suit. He jauntily tucked his gray beret behind his ear, and under his arm he carried a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle’s head.”
Image of Pontius Pilate
Roman procurator of Judea from 26 to 36 AD. AD
“...He sees the same thing - the lunar road, and wants to go along it and talk with the prisoner Ga-
Nozri
, because, as he claims, he didn’t agree on something then, long ago, on the fourteenth of the spring month of Nisan.”
Lesson objectives:
1) Determine what the religious and philosophical issues of the novel are;
2) Identify the problem of the ending;
3) Identify the main literary approaches to the interpretation of the ending;
4) Determine the significance of the novel in Russian literature.
Why do the Master and Margarita die?
Why did the Master “not deserve light”, but “earn peace”?
20
What are the features of the composition of the work?
?
How many plot
lines?
6
Bulgakovsky
heroes are their biblical prototypes
Many images in the novel go back to the impressions and fantasies of childhood. One day, twelve-year-old Bulgakov said to his sister Nadya: “Do you think I slept last night? I was at Satan’s reception!” The panorama “Calvary” that opened in Kyiv at the beginning of 1902 made a huge impression on the young Mikhail Afanasyevich. The future author of the famous novel knew the biblical texts well - in the gymnasium, according to God's law, he had an "A".
What
there is more in it -
divine
or human?
16
Yeshua
- Jesus Christ?
Religious and philosophical issues of the novel and the meaning of the ending
“He didn’t deserve light, he deserved peace...”
Witch
Gella
The biblical and mythological prototype is a succubus demon (demon of physiological pleasures).
In medieval legends
demoness
visiting men at night.
In the Bible - the devil in female form (Book of Job, Book of Enoch).
“One of the most important human vices is cowardice.”
Why
Bulgakov's epigraph to the novel takes lines from Faust
» I.V. Goethe
?
Why is the novel called “The Master and Margarita”?
4
Cat Behemoth
A demon of carnal desires (especially gluttony and gluttony), as well as a page demon. Described in the Bible as one of two monsters (along with
Leviathan
), which God demonstrates to the righteous Job as proof of His power. His name is mentioned in the apocryphal Old Testament book of Enoch. The name "Behemoth" in Hebrew means "animals" (plural), which indicates the exorbitant size and power of this creature. In Jewish traditions, Behemoth is considered the king of beasts; at the end of time, Behemoth and Leviathan must kill each other in the last battle, their meat will serve as food for the righteous at the feast of the Messiah.
Bulgakov's novel “The Master and Margarita” is one of the most mysterious phenomena of Russian literature
XX
century.
This is a myth novel, a parable novel, a religious and philosophical novel.
This
the work has many reading options, none of the readers remain
indifferent. Disputes about
Romne
continue to this day.
22
What is the significance of Bulgakov's novel?
“Everyone will be rewarded according to his faith...”:
9
Which of the novel's heroes is punished and for what?
Why was Pontius Pilate punished?
18
What variants of the novel's title do you know?
In the original version of the novel there was no Master and Margarita. The satirical novel “about the devil” in the surviving drafts had the following title options: “Tour”, “Son of ...”, “Black Magician”, “Engineer’s Hoof”, “Consultant with a Hoof”. In 1932, the author considered several options for the title: “Satan”, “Black Theologian”, “He Appeared”, “Foreigner’s Horseshoe”.
What is the mission
Volanda
in Moscow
?
Why does he appear with his entourage in Moscow in the 1930s?
8
"People as people":
Koroviev
-Bassoon
The biblical prototype is a demon knight (militant knight,
Abbadon
), mentioned in the book of Job.
“...A dark purple knight with the gloomiest and never smiling face.
“This knight once made a bad joke...”
What does light symbolize?
Who
Which of the novel's heroes is worthy of light?
On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes
Presentation for a literature lesson, grade 9, topic “Features of the lyrics of A. Fet and F. Tyutchev”
The presentation contains material that will help students figure out the features of the poetry of Fet and Tyutchev....
Presentation for a literature lesson, grade 10, topic "M.Yu. Lermontov" Will you wake up again, ridiculed prophet?
This presentation contains questions for analyzing the poem "Prophet", an audio recording of the poem....
“The Master and Margarita” is one of the most mysterious novels in history; researchers are still struggling with its interpretation. We will give seven keys to this work.
Literary hoax
Why is Bulgakov’s famous novel called “The Master and Margarita”, and what is this book actually about? It is known that the idea of creation was born to the author after being fascinated by mysticism of the 19th century. Legends about the devil, Jewish and Christian demonology, treatises about God - all this is present in the work. The most important sources that the author consulted were the works “The History of Relations between Man and the Devil” by Mikhail Orlov and Amfiteatrov’s book “The Devil in Everyday Life, Legend and Literature of the Middle Ages.” As you know, The Master and Margarita had several editions. They say that the first one, on which the author worked in 1928-1929, had nothing to do with either the Master or Margarita, and was called “The Black Magician”, “Juggler with a Hoof”. That is, the central figure and essence of the novel was the Devil - a kind of Russian version of the work “Faust”. Bulgakov personally burned the first manuscript after his play “The Cabal of the Holy One” was banned. The writer informed the government about this: “And I personally, with my own hands, threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove!” The second edition was also dedicated to the fallen angel and was called “Satan” or “Great Chancellor”. Margarita and the Master have already appeared here, and Woland has acquired his retinue. But only the third manuscript received its current name, which, in fact, the author never finished.
The Many Faces of Woland
The Prince of Darkness is perhaps the most popular character in The Master and Margarita. On a superficial reading, the reader gets the impression that Woland is “justice itself,” a judge who fights human vices and patronizes love and creativity. Some even think that Bulgakov portrayed Stalin in this image! Woland is multifaceted and complex, as befits the Tempter. He is viewed as a classic Satan, which is what the author intended in early versions of the book, as a new Messiah, a reimagined Christ, whose coming is described in the novel.
In fact, Woland is not just a devil - he has many prototypes. This is the supreme pagan god - Wotan among the ancient Germans (Odin among the Scandinavians), the great “magician” and freemason Count Cagliostro, who remembered the events of a thousand years of the past, predicted the future, and had a portrait resemblance to Woland. And this is the “dark horse” Woland from Goethe’s Faust, who is mentioned in the work only once, in an episode that was missed in the Russian translation. By the way, in Germany the devil was called “Vahland.” Remember the episode from the novel when the employees cannot remember the name of the magician: “Perhaps Faland?”
Satan's Retinue
Just as a person cannot exist without a shadow, so Woland is not Woland without his retinue. Azazello, Behemoth and Koroviev-Fagot are instruments of diabolical justice, the most bright heroes novels, behind which they have a far from clear past.
Let's take, for example, Azazello - “the demon of the waterless desert, the demon killer.” Bulgakov borrowed this image from the Old Testament books, where this is the name of the fallen angel who taught people how to make weapons and jewelry. Thanks to him, women have mastered the “lascivious art” of painting their faces. Therefore, it is Azazello who gives the cream to Margarita and pushes her onto the “dark path”. In the novel it is right hand Wolanda performing “dirty work”. He kills Baron Meigel and poisons the lovers. Its essence is incorporeal, absolute evil in its purest form.
Koroviev-Fagot is the only person in Woland’s retinue. It is not entirely clear who became its prototype, but researchers trace its roots to the Aztec god Vitzliputzli, whose name is mentioned in Berlioz’s conversation with the Bezdomny. This is the god of war, to whom sacrifices were made, and according to the legends about Doctor Faustus, he is the spirit of hell and the first assistant of Satan. His name, carelessly pronounced by the chairman of MASSOLIT, is a signal for Woland’s appearance.
Behemoth is a werecat and Woland's favorite jester, whose image comes from legends about the demon of gluttony and the mythological beast old testament. In I. Ya. Porfiryev’s study “Apocryphal Tales of Old Testament Persons and Events,” which was clearly familiar to Bulgakov, the sea monster Behemoth was mentioned, living together with Leviathan in the invisible desert “to the east of the garden where the chosen and righteous lived.” The author also gleaned information about Behemoth from the story of a certain Anne Desange, who lived in the 17th century and was possessed by seven devils, among which Behemoth, a demon from the rank of Thrones, is mentioned. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, trunk and tusks. His hands were human, and his huge belly, short tail and thick hind legs were like those of a hippopotamus, which reminded him of his name.
Black Queen Margot
Margarita is often considered a model of femininity, a kind of Pushkin’s “Tatyana of the 20th century.” But the prototype of “Queen Margot” was clearly not a modest girl from the Russian hinterland. In addition to the obvious similarity of the heroine with the writer’s last wife, the novel emphasizes Margarita’s connection with two French queens. The first is the same “Queen Margot,” the wife of Henry IV, whose wedding turned into the bloody Night of St. Bartholomew. This event is mentioned on the way to Satan's Great Ball. The fat man, who recognized Margarita, calls her “bright Queen Margot” and babbles “some nonsense about the bloody wedding of his friend in Paris, Hessar.” Gessar is the Parisian publisher of Marguerite Valois's correspondence, whom Bulgakov made a participant in St. Bartholomew's Night. Another queen is also seen in the image of the heroine - Margarita of Navarre, who was one of the first French women writers, the author of the famous "Heptameron". Both ladies patronized writers and poets; Bulgakov’s Margarita loves her brilliant writer - the Master.
Moscow – Yershalaim
One of the most interesting mysteries of The Master and Margarita is the time when the events take place. There is not a single absolute date in the novel from which one can count. The action dates back to Holy Week from the first to the seventh of May 1929. This dating provides a parallel with the world of the “Pilate Chapters”, which took place in Yershalaim in the year 29 or 30 during the week that later became Holy Week. “The same apocalyptic weather stands over Moscow in 1929 and Yershalaim on the 29th, the same darkness is approaching the city of sin like a thunderstorm wall, the same Easter full moon floods the alleys of Old Testament Yershalaim and New Testament Moscow.” In the first part of the novel, both of these stories develop in parallel, in the second, more and more intertwined, in the end they merge together, gaining integrity and moving from our world to the other world.
Influence of Gustav Meyrink
The ideas of Gustav Meyrink, whose works appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, had a huge impact on Bulgakov. In the novel by the Austrian expressionist "Golem" main character master Anastasius Pernat in the finale reunites with his beloved Miriam “at the wall of the last lantern,” on the border of the real and otherworldly worlds. The connection with The Master and Margarita is obvious. Let's remember famous aphorism Bulgakov's novel: “Manuscripts don’t burn.” Most likely, it goes back to “The White Dominican”, where it is said: “Yes, of course, the truth does not burn and cannot be trampled on.” It also tells about the inscription above the altar, because of which the icon of the Mother of God falls. Just like the burnt manuscript of the master, reviving Woland from oblivion, who restores the true story of Yeshua, the inscription symbolizes the connection of truth not only with God, but also with the devil.
In “The Master and Margarita,” as in Meyrink’s “The White Dominican,” the main thing for the heroes is not the goal, but the process of the journey itself—development. But the meaning of this path is different for writers. Gustav, like his heroes, sought it in his creativity; Bulgakov strove to achieve a certain “esoteric” absolute, the essence of the universe.
Last manuscript
The last edition of the novel, which subsequently reached the reader, was begun in 1937. The author continued to work with her until his death. Why couldn't he finish the book he'd been writing for a dozen years? Perhaps he believed that he was not sufficiently informed about the issue he was taking on, and his understanding of Jewish demonology and early Christian texts was amateurish? Be that as it may, the novel practically “sucked out” the life of the author. The last correction he made on February 13, 1940 was Margarita’s phrase: “So this means that the writers are going after the coffin?” A month later he died. Bulgakov’s last words addressed to the novel were: “So that they know, so that they know...”.
The poet's life is only the first part of his biography; Another and more important part is the posthumous history of his poetry.
V. O. Klyuchevsky
The finale refers to the last chapter of the novel “Forgiveness and Eternal Shelter” and the epilogue. In them, the writer finishes the story about all the characters who appeared on the pages of the book.
In life minor characters quite understandable changes took place: each of them took the place that corresponds to his talents and business qualities. The cheerful entertainer Georges Bengalsky retired from the theater. The rude and ill-mannered administrator Varenukha became responsive and polite. The former director of the Variety Theater, a lover of alcohol and women, Styopa Likhodeev is now the director of a grocery store in Rostov, he stopped drinking port wine, and drinks only vodka and avoids women. CFO Rimsky from Variety went to work at children's theater dolls, and Sempleyarov, chairman of the acoustic commission of Moscow theaters, gave up acoustics and now heads the procurement of mushrooms in the Bryansk forests, to the great joy of Muscovites who love mushroom delicacies. The chairman of the house committee, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosy, suffered a blow, and the Master’s neighbor and informer Aloisy Mogarych took the place of financial director at the Variety Theater and is poisoning Varenukha’s life. The barman from Variety, Andrei Fokich Sokov, as Koroviev predicted, died nine months later from liver cancer... The fate of the main characters in the finale is unclear, which is quite understandable: Bulgakov cannot accurately describe the posthumous fate of the Master and Margarita in the transcendental world. It follows that the ending of the novel can be interpreted in different ways.
Leaving Moscow with his retinue on the eve of Easter, Woland takes the Master and Margarita with him. The whole company on fantastic horses flies into the mountains, where Pontius Pilate sits in a stone chair on a “joyless flat peak” (2, 32). The master pronounces the last phrase of his novel, and the forgiven Pilate hurries along the lunar path to the city: “Over the black abyss (...) an immense city caught fire with sparkling idols reigning over it over a garden that had grown luxuriantly for many thousands (...) moons” ( there). This magical city resembles the New Jerusalem, as it is depicted in the Apocalypse (21: 1, 2) or in the philosophical works of European utopians - a symbol of a new earthly paradise, a “golden age”. ""Should I go there (...)?" - the Master asked worriedly” (ibid.), but received a negative answer from Woland; “Woland waved his hand towards Yershalaim, and it went out” (ibid.).
The higher powers determined something different for the master than for Pontius Pilate: “He did not deserve light, he deserved peace” (2, 29), Matthew Levi tells Woland. What is light and peace in the novel? Some literary scholars believe that Bulgakov’s novel reflects the ideas of the 18th-century Ukrainian religious philosopher Grigory Skovoroda; the latter’s books, no doubt, were known to the writer at least through his father. Peace, according to Skovoroda’s philosophical concept, is “the reward for all the earthly suffering of a “true” person,” peace (...) personifies eternity, an eternal home. And the symbol of resurrection and the last leg of the path to peace is the moon, “intermediating between the earth and the sun,” or rather, a lunar path resembling a bridge” (I.L. Galinskaya. Riddles famous books. M., 1986, p. 84). It is easy to notice that the “eternal refuge” in the last chapter of “The Master and Margarita” and the painful dream of Ivan Ponyrev in the epilogue, thanks to some details, can be perceived as an artistic illustration of the reasoning of the Ukrainian philosopher.
Other literary scholars believe that the ending of Bulgakov’s novel echoes Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” (V.P. Kryuchkov. “The Master and Margarita” and “The Divine Comedy”: to the interpretation of the epilogue of M. Bulgakov’s novel. // Russian Literature, 1995, No. 3 ). In the third part of Dante's Comedy (in Paradise), the hero meets Beatrice, who leads him to the Empyrean, the fiery center of paradise. Here, from a dazzling point, streams of light flow and God, angels, and blessed souls reside. Maybe Matthew Levi is talking about this light? Dante's hero-narrator places himself not in the Empyrean, but in Limbo - the first circle of hell, where ancient poets and philosophers and Old Testament righteous people live, who are spared from eternal torment, but also deprived of the eternal joy of union with God. Dante's hero ends up in Limbo because, from a Christian point of view, he has a vice - pride, which is expressed in the desire for absolute knowledge. But this vice is at the same time worthy of respect, because it is fundamentally different from mortal sins. In the last chapter of the novel, Bulgakov draws an afterlife reminiscent of Limbo. The Master and Margarita, having parted with Woland and his retinue, cross “in the brilliance of the first morning rays across a stone mossy bridge” (2, 32), walk along a sandy road and rejoice in the peace and quiet that they dreamed of in earthly life, and will now enjoy them in an eternal house entwined with grapes.
Why didn't the Master deserve light? In the mentioned book by I. L. Galineka, a very simple answer is given: light is prepared for the saints, and peace is intended for the “true” person (op. cit., p. 84). However, it is necessary to explain what prevents Bulgakov’s Master from being considered a saint? One can assume: both in life and beyond the threshold of death, the hero remains too earthly. He does not want to overcome the human, bodily principle in himself and forget, for example, his great but sinful love for Margarita. He dreams of staying with her in the afterlife. The second assumption is that the Master could not stand the test and despaired; he did not accept the feat that fate had prepared for him and burned his book. Woland invites him to continue the novel about Yeshua and Pontius Pilate, but the Master refuses: “I hate this novel... I have experienced too much because of it” (2, 24). The third assumption is that the Master himself did not strive for the divine light, that is, he did not have true faith. Proof of this can be the image of Yeshua in the Master’s novel: the author depicts Yeshua as a moral wonderful person, which is not enough for a believer (posthumous resurrection is never shown).
It must be admitted that rewarding the life-weary Master with light would be unconvincing; it would contradict the artistic concept of the novel. And besides, there is a lot in common between Bulgakov and the Master, so Bulgakov, like Dante, could not reward a hero similar to himself with the heavenly radiance and bliss. At the same time, the Master, from the author’s point of view, is certainly positive hero. He accomplished a creative feat by writing a book about Yeshua Ha-Nozri during the times of militant atheism. The fact that the book was not finished does not detract from the actions of its author. And yet, the Master’s life was decorated with true, true love, the one that stronger than death. For Bulgakov, creativity and love are the highest values that redeemed the hero’s lack of correct faith: The Master and Margarita did not deserve heaven, but escaped hell, having received peace. This is how Bulgakov expressed his philosophical skepticism, so characteristic of writers of the 20th century.
Describing the Master in the finale, Bulgakov does not give an unambiguous interpretation. Here you should pay attention to the state of the main character when he goes to his eternal (that is, last) refuge: “...Margarita’s words flow in the same way as the stream left behind flowed and whispered, and the memory of the Master, the restless memory pricked with needles, became go out. Someone was releasing the Master, just as he had just released the hero he had created” (2, 32). The memory of the romance, of earthly love - this is the only thing that remained with the Master. And suddenly “the memory fades,” which means that sublime love experiences die for him, the creativity that the hero so dreamed of in earthly life becomes impossible. In other words, the Master receives bodily-spiritual, and not divine, peace. Why should the Master save creative forces, if no one reads his works? Who should I write for? Bulgakov does not bring the depiction of the Master's fate to a clear end.
Bulgakov also maintains understatement in relation to Ivan Bezdomny. In the finale, the proletarian poet lives in the real world, stops his poetic exercises and becomes an employee of the Institute of History and Philosophy. He did not write a continuation of the novel about Yeshua, as the Master bequeathed to him. He recovered from the damage unleashed on him by “criminal hypnotists.” Only once a year - on the festive full moon - a part of the Master’s truth is miraculously revealed to him, which the student again forgets upon awakening and recovery. Once a year, Professor Ponyrev sees the same strange dream: a woman of exorbitant beauty leads by the hand a fearfully looking around man with a beard, and then they go together to the moon (this episode is very reminiscent of the procession of the hero Dante and Beatrice to the Empyrean and at the same time makes us remember the lunar the path that G. Skovoroda wrote about). On the one hand, this obsessive dream can be regarded as the delirium of a patient, on the other hand, as an epiphany, when the soul of the Master’s only disciple opens towards the eternal, without which life is empty and meaningless. Through this dream-vision, Ivan is forever connected with the Master. Or maybe this dream is an obsession from Woland: after all, the moonbeam is the magical light of the night, strangely transforming everything; excessively beautiful woman- a witch who became beautiful thanks to the magic cream Azazello.
So what is the ending of Bulgakov's novel - happy or tragic? It seems that the writer deliberately does not give a direct answer to this question, because in this case any definite answer would be inconclusive.
To summarize the above, it should be emphasized that interpretations of the ending of “The Master and Margarita” can be different. However, the rapprochement between Bulgakov's novel and Dante's poem allows us to discover interesting features Bulgakov's text.
In “The Master and Margarita” it is easy to see the influence of the images and ideas of the “Divine Comedy”, but this influence comes down not to simple imitation, but to a dispute (aesthetic play) with the famous poem of the Renaissance. In Bulgakov’s novel, the ending is, as it were, a mirror image of the ending of Dante’s poem: the moonbeam is the radiant light of the Empyrean, Margarita (possibly a witch) is Beatrice (an angel of unearthly purity), the Master (overgrown with a beard, fearfully looking around) is Dante (purposeful, inspired by the idea of the absolute knowledge). These differences and similarities are explained by the different ideas of the two works. Dante depicts the path of a person’s moral insight, and Bulgakov depicts the path of an artist’s creative feat.
Bulgakov may have deliberately made the ending of his novel ambiguous and skeptical, in contrast to the solemn ending of The Divine Comedy. The writer of the 20th century refuses to say anything for sure, talking about a transcendental world, illusory, unknown. The author's artistic taste was revealed in the mysterious ending of The Master and Margarita.
At first glance, the ending of the novel is tragic. The master, completely despairing of finding understanding in modern society, dies. Margarita dies because she cannot live without her beloved person, whom she loves for her kind heart, talent, intelligence, and suffering. Yeshua dies because people do not need his preaching about goodness and truth. But Woland at the end of the novel suddenly says: “Everything will be right, the world is built on this” (2, 32) - and each hero receives his faith. The master dreamed of peace and gets it. Margarita dreamed of always being with the Master, and remains with him even in the afterlife. Pontius Pilate signed the death sentence of an innocent man and suffers for this with immortality and insomnia for almost two thousand years. But in the end, his most cherished desire is fulfilled - to meet and talk with the wandering philosopher. Berlioz, who did not believe in anything and lived in accordance with this belief, goes into oblivion, turning into Woland's golden cup. So what: the world is arranged fairly and therefore you can live on with calm confidence? Bulgakov again does not give a definite answer, and the reader can choose the answer for himself.
The finale refers to the last chapter of the novel “Forgiveness and Eternal Shelter” and the epilogue. In them, the writer finishes the story about all the characters who appeared on the pages of the book.
Quite understandable changes have taken place in the lives of the minor characters: each of them has taken the place that corresponds to his talents and business qualities. The cheerful entertainer Georges Bengalsky retired from the theater. The rude and ill-mannered administrator Varenukha became responsive and polite. The former director of the Variety Theater, a lover of alcohol and women, Styopa Likhodeev is now the director of a grocery store in Rostov, he stopped drinking port wine, and drinks only vodka and avoids women. CFO Rimsky from Variety went to work at a children's puppet theater, and Sempleyarov, chairman of the acoustic commission of Moscow theaters, quit acoustics and now heads the procurement of mushrooms in the Bryansk forests, to the great joy of Muscovites who love mushroom delicacies. The chairman of the house committee, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosy, suffered a blow, and the Master’s neighbor and informer Aloisy Mogarych took the place of financial director at the Variety Theater and is poisoning Varenukha’s life. The barman from Variety, Andrei Fokich Sokov, as Koroviev predicted, died nine months later from liver cancer... The fate of the main characters in the finale is unclear, which is quite understandable: Bulgakov cannot accurately describe the posthumous fate of the Master and Margarita in the transcendental world. It follows that the ending of the novel can be interpreted in different ways.
Leaving Moscow with his retinue on the eve of Easter, Woland takes the Master and Margarita with him. The whole company on fantastic horses flies into the mountains, where Pontius Pilate sits in a stone chair on a “joyless flat peak” (2, 32). The master pronounces the last phrase of his novel, and the forgiven Pilate hurries along the lunar path to the city: “Over the black abyss (...) an immense city caught fire with sparkling idols reigning over it over a garden that had grown luxuriantly for many thousands (...) moons” ( there). This magical city resembles the New Jerusalem, as it is depicted in the Apocalypse (21: 1, 2) or in the philosophical works of European utopians - a symbol of a new earthly paradise, a “golden age”. ""Should I go there (...)?" - the Master asked worriedly” (ibid.), but received a negative answer from Woland; “Woland waved his hand towards Yershalaim, and it went out” (ibid.).
The higher powers determined something different for the master than for Pontius Pilate: “He did not deserve light, he deserved peace” (2, 29), Matthew Levi tells Woland. What is light and peace in the novel? Some literary scholars believe that Bulgakov’s novel reflects the ideas of the 18th-century Ukrainian religious philosopher Grigory Skovoroda; the latter’s books, no doubt, were known to the writer at least through his father. Peace, according to Skovoroda’s philosophical concept, is “the reward for all the earthly suffering of a “true” person,” peace (...) personifies eternity, an eternal home. And the symbol of resurrection and the last leg of the path to peace is the moon, “intermediating between the earth and the sun,” or rather, a lunar path resembling a bridge” (I.L. Galinskaya. Mysteries of famous books. M., 1986, p. 84). It is easy to notice that the “eternal refuge” in the last chapter of “The Master and Margarita” and the painful dream of Ivan Ponyrev in the epilogue, thanks to some details, can be perceived as an artistic illustration of the reasoning of the Ukrainian philosopher.
Other literary scholars believe that the ending of Bulgakov’s novel echoes Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” (V.P. Kryuchkov. “The Master and Margarita” and “The Divine Comedy”: to the interpretation of the epilogue of M. Bulgakov’s novel. // Russian Literature, 1995, No. 3 ). In the third part of Dante's Comedy (in Paradise), the hero meets Beatrice, who leads him to the Empyrean, the fiery center of paradise. Here, from a dazzling point, streams of light flow and God, angels, and blessed souls reside. Maybe Matthew Levi is talking about this light? Dante's hero-narrator places himself not in the Empyrean, but in Limbo - the first circle of hell, where ancient poets and philosophers and Old Testament righteous people live, who are spared from eternal torment, but also deprived of the eternal joy of union with God. Dante's hero ends up in Limbo because, from a Christian point of view, he has a vice - pride, which is expressed in the desire for absolute knowledge. But this vice is at the same time worthy of respect, because it is fundamentally different from mortal sins. In the last chapter of the novel, Bulgakov draws an afterlife reminiscent of Limbo. The Master and Margarita, having parted with Woland and his retinue, cross “in the brilliance of the first morning rays across a stone mossy bridge” (2, 32), walk along a sandy road and rejoice in the peace and quiet that they dreamed of in earthly life, and will now enjoy them in an eternal house entwined with grapes.
Why didn't the Master deserve light? In the mentioned book by I. L. Galineka, a very simple answer is given: light is prepared for the saints, and peace is intended for the “true” person (op. cit., p. 84). However, it is necessary to explain what prevents Bulgakov’s Master from being considered a saint? One can assume: both in life and beyond the threshold of death, the hero remains too earthly. He does not want to overcome the human, bodily principle in himself and forget, for example, his great but sinful love for Margarita. He dreams of staying with her in the afterlife. The second assumption is that the Master could not stand the test and despaired; he did not accept the feat that fate had prepared for him and burned his book. Woland invites him to continue the novel about Yeshua and Pontius Pilate, but the Master refuses: “I hate this novel... I have experienced too much because of it” (2, 24). The third assumption is that the Master himself did not strive for divine light, that is, he did not have true faith. Proof of this can be the image of Yeshua in the Master's novel: the author portrays Yeshua as a morally beautiful person, which is not enough for a believer (the posthumous resurrection is never shown).
It must be admitted that rewarding the life-weary Master with light would be unconvincing; it would contradict the artistic concept of the novel. And besides, there is a lot in common between Bulgakov and the Master, so Bulgakov, like Dante, could not reward a hero similar to himself with the heavenly radiance and bliss. At the same time, the Master, from the author’s point of view, is certainly a positive hero. He accomplished a creative feat by writing a book about Yeshua Ha-Nozri during the times of militant atheism. The fact that the book was not finished does not detract from the actions of its author. And yet, the Master’s life was decorated with true, true love, the one that is stronger than death. For Bulgakov, creativity and love are the highest values that redeemed the hero’s lack of correct faith: The Master and Margarita did not deserve heaven, but escaped hell, having received peace. This is how Bulgakov expressed his philosophical skepticism, so characteristic of writers of the 20th century.
Describing the Master in the finale, Bulgakov does not give an unambiguous interpretation. Here we should pay attention to the state of the main character when he goes to his eternal (that is, last) refuge: “...Margarita’s words flow in the same way as the stream left behind flowed and whispered, and the Master’s memory, the restless memory pricked with needles, became go out. Someone was releasing the Master, just as he had just released the hero he had created” (2, 32). The memory of the romance, of earthly love - this is the only thing that remained with the Master. And suddenly “the memory fades,” which means that sublime love experiences die for him, the creativity that the hero so dreamed of in earthly life becomes impossible. In other words, the Master receives bodily-spiritual, and not divine, peace. Why should the Master retain his creative powers if no one reads his works? For whom should I write? Bulgakov does not bring the depiction of the Master's fate to a clear end.
Bulgakov also maintains understatement in relation to Ivan Bezdomny. In the finale, the proletarian poet lives in the real world, stops his poetic exercises and becomes an employee of the Institute of History and Philosophy. He did not write a continuation of the novel about Yeshua, as the Master bequeathed to him. He recovered from the damage unleashed on him by “criminal hypnotists.” Only once a year - on the festive full moon - a part of the Master's truth is miraculously revealed to him, which the student again forgets upon awakening and recovery. Once a year, Professor Ponyrev sees the same strange dream: a woman of exorbitant beauty leads by the hand a fearfully looking around man with a beard, and then they go together to the moon (this episode is very reminiscent of the procession of the hero Dante and Beatrice to the Empyrean and at the same time makes us remember the lunar the path that G. Skovoroda wrote about). On the one hand, this obsessive dream can be regarded as the delirium of a patient, on the other hand, as an epiphany, when the soul of the Master’s only disciple opens towards the eternal, without which life is empty and meaningless. Through this dream-vision, Ivan is forever connected with the Master. Or maybe this dream is an obsession from Woland: after all, the moonbeam is the magical light of the night, strangely transforming everything; An overly beautiful woman is a witch who became beautiful thanks to Azazello's magic cream.
So what is the ending of Bulgakov's novel - happy or tragic? It seems that the writer deliberately does not give a direct answer to this question, because in this case any definite answer would be inconclusive.
To summarize the above, it should be emphasized that interpretations of the ending of “The Master and Margarita” can be different. However, the rapprochement of Bulgakov's novel and Dante's poem allows us to discover interesting features of Bulgakov's text.
In “The Master and Margarita” it is easy to see the influence of the images and ideas of the “Divine Comedy”, but this influence comes down not to simple imitation, but to a dispute (aesthetic play) with the famous poem of the Renaissance. In Bulgakov’s novel, the ending is, as it were, a mirror image of the ending of Dante’s poem: the moonbeam is the radiant light of the Empyrean, Margarita (possibly a witch) is Beatrice (an angel of unearthly purity), the Master (overgrown with a beard, fearfully looking around) is Dante (purposeful, inspired by the idea of the absolute knowledge). These differences and similarities are explained by the different ideas of the two works. Dante depicts the path of a person’s moral insight, and Bulgakov depicts the path of an artist’s creative feat.
Bulgakov may have deliberately made the ending of his novel ambiguous and skeptical, in contrast to the solemn ending of The Divine Comedy. The writer of the 20th century refuses to say anything for sure, talking about a transcendental world, illusory, unknown. The author's artistic taste was revealed in the mysterious ending of The Master and Margarita.
At first glance, the ending of the novel is tragic. The master, completely despairing of finding understanding in modern society, dies. Margarita dies because she cannot live without her beloved person, whom she loves for her kind heart, talent, intelligence, and suffering. Yeshua dies because people do not need his preaching about goodness and truth. But Woland at the end of the novel suddenly says: “Everything will be right, the world is built on this” (2, 32) - and each hero receives his faith. The master dreamed of peace and gets it. Margarita dreamed of always being with the Master, and remains with him even in the afterlife. Pontius Pilate signed the death sentence of an innocent man and suffers for this with immortality and insomnia for almost two thousand years. But in the end, his most cherished desire is fulfilled - to meet and talk with the wandering philosopher. Berlioz, who did not believe in anything and lived in accordance with this belief, goes into oblivion, turning into Woland's golden cup. So what: the world is arranged fairly and therefore you can live on with calm confidence? Bulgakov again does not give a definite answer, and the reader can choose the answer for himself.
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The world of the novel “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov with its bizarre interweaving of fantastic, inexplicable phenomena and everyday realities will not leave anyone indifferent. We find ourselves in a timeless space, where two realities: eternal and transitory, are layered on top of each other.
Woland, the prince of darkness, the devil, comes to Moscow to administer the Supreme Court. The very fact that Satan himself begins to administer a fair judgment speaks volumes and makes you think. How far people have come in their vices, they have turned so far away from God that Evil itself considered it its duty to do good for the sake of universal balance. The scale of good-evil has clearly tilted towards evil. And Woland appears in the human world to restore order.
Everyone receives for their merits: members of MASSOLIT, director of Variety, critics. The fate of the main characters is also decided by Woland.
The last 32nd chapter, “Forgiveness and Eternal Shelter,” is written in a high style. The night catches up with the gallopers and tears off their deceptive veils. This night everything will be seen in its true light, illusions will be dispelled. At night there is no place for the antics of Koroviev and Behemoth, and the author’s irony disappears from the 32nd chapter. Bassoon is transformed, he is now “a dark purple knight with a gloomy and never smiling face.” The Behemoth cat, who can eat pickled mushrooms with a fork and pay fares, “now turned out to be a thin youth, a demon page, the best jester that ever existed in the world.” Azazello, the Master changed and, finally, Woland flew in his real guise. This night the fates of the heroes are decided; irony is inappropriate here.
The first to receive forgiveness was the Great Procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Two thousand years ago, he did not listen to his heart, did not heed the truth, and failed to free himself “from the power that was wonderful for people, the Emperor Tiberius.” He was scared. He got scared and sent the beggar “tramp”, philosopher, bearer of the Supreme Truth Yeshua Ha-Nozri, to execution. It is cowardice that Woland calls the most serious vice. Pilate was punished for his cowardice. He tried to save Yeshua in his own way, hinting at words of renunciation. The prisoner did not heed his hints, because “it’s easy and pleasant to tell the truth.” Approving the death sentence, Pilate hoped that the Sanhedrin would have mercy on Yeshua, but the high priest Kaifa chooses the murderer of Varravan. And again Pilate failed to object and did not save Yeshua.
That night the sentence expired. He asks for Pilate, the one whom he sent to execution, with whose fate he was forever connected, with whom he tried so hard to talk.
In the epilogue, in the dream of Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, the former Homeless, we learn what the Procurator of Judea so wanted to ask the prisoner Ga-Notsri. Pilate wanted to hear from Yeshua’s lips that this execution did not take place, that it was not he who passed the sentence. He wanted to wake up and see a living “doctor” in front of him human souls. And the former prisoner confirms that the Procurator imagined this execution.
The Master's fate is more uncertain. Levi Matvey came to Woland with a request to give the Master peace, since “he did not deserve light, he deserved peace.” There was a lot of controversy among researchers about the “eternal shelter” of the Master. L. Yanovskaya says that the Master’s peace will forever remain only that promised to him. The hero in the novel will never see his “eternal home.” V. Kryuchkov declares that the Master’s peace is a devilish obsession, peace is not achievable. The researcher’s proof of this is the lines of the novel, where it is said that the Master’s memory begins to fade. And the memory of romance and earthly love is the only thing he has left. Without memory, creativity is impossible. Therefore, the Master’s peace is not divine, but deceptive. But most researchers of Bulgakov's novel adhere to a more optimistic point of view. They believe that the Master finally entered his “eternal home” and was rewarded with peace.
So did the Master receive his peace, and why did he not deserve the light? His feat is not a Christian one, it is an artist’s feat. Perhaps that's why he didn't deserve the light. The master did not get rid of earthly things, did not forget his earthly love Margarita. But did the hero need light, perhaps peace - the only thing his tired soul thirsts for? It seems to me that the Master has received his peace, because the last chapter is even called “Forgiveness and Eternal Shelter.” By the fact that Woland gives peace to the Master, the author wanted to emphasize that the artist is neither a saint nor a sinner, his highest desired reward is peace in which he can create next to the woman he loves. And the lines “and the Master’s memory, a restless memory punctured by needles, began to fade” can be interpreted as washing out from the memory of everything tragic that happened to him. The master will no longer be worried about everyday troubles, the stupidity of critics, misunderstandings. All this is for the sake of creativity, because it gives immortality: “manuscripts do not burn.”
The epilogue differs sharply in style from the last chapter. Irony appears again. We will learn about the fates of all the heroes left on earth. The memorable meeting with the devil did not pass without a trace for anyone. The epilogue is written in the spirit of current pseudo-science fiction films: when, after terrible and inexplicable events, the hero wakes up, and everything that happened turns out to be just a dream. In the epilogue we learn that everything that happened was imagined by Ivan Bezdomny.
He heeded the Master's advice to never write poetry. The homeless man became a history professor and found his way. But every spring full moon he loses peace and common sense. Ivan Nikolaevich goes to the Patriarch's Ponds and remembers those events. He dreams about Pontius Pilate, about number one hundred eighteen and his beloved
The next morning, Ivan gets rid of lunar ghosts and obsessions. “His punctured memory is fading, and until the next full moon no one will disturb the professor.” It is no coincidence that the epilogue ends with words about memory in the same way as chapter 32. A punctured memory cannot be killed; it does not completely disappear from either the Master or the Homeless. There is a sense of tragedy in this: nothing is forgotten. Memory does not die, it only fades until the next full moon.
The ending of the novel, and the novel itself, can be understood in two ways: to accept everything that happened on faith or to calm down with the thought that all this is the delirium of the sick consciousness of Ivan Bezdomny. Bulgakov gives us a choice of what to choose - an individual matter for each reader.
novel diabolical obsession
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