The story and summary of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Russian novel, The Master and Margarita. Plot, characters and explanation.
The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita is a Russian novel by Mikhail Bulgakov , published posthumously between 1966 and 1967. The story takes place during the period of Russian communism in Moscow and nearby cities, while the story of Pontius Pilate takes place in Jerusalem.
The Master and Margarita: Plot
The first part of the novel begins with Berlioz and Ivan Nikolaevich meeting a stranger who foretold Berlioz’s death. Berlioz, frightened, runs away and while crossing the tram tracks slips and dies. Ivan, shocked by what happened, tries to chase the stranger who in the meantime was running away together with a man and a huge cat. Many other strange events of this kind occur in the city and all can be traced back to Woland, a stranger who practices black magic and puts on theatrical shows. Ivan, after having searched in vain for the stranger who is in the throes of a fit of madness, is transported to a psychiatric hospital outside the city. Here, Ivan meets a man who says he is “The Master”, who reveals to him the arrival of Satan in the city. The following evening, during Woland’s first show, some very strange things happened.
In the second part of the novel, Margherita appears: a married woman in love with the Master with whom she had a secret love affair. The Master, after having written a novel about Pontius Pilate and having received a rejection from the publishing house, falls into depression and burns the only copies of the novel.
Margherita meets Azazel, a man with one eye and a fang, who gives her a cream to apply all over her body. The cream has a miraculous effect: Margherita appears rejuvenated and is able to fly. The girl takes flight and heads towards the house of the person responsible for the Master’s ruin and destroys it.
Later, Margherita meets Satan and accepts his proposal to be the queen of the ball in which all the most illustrious dead would participate. At the end of the ball Margherita has the opportunity to make a wish and she asks to have the Master and his novel back near her. The Master appears and the novel returns intact to her hands after having been set on fire.
The next day, Azazel, with the devil’s instructions, goes to Margarita and the Master and kills them by offering them poisoned wine and then brings them back to life with the same wine. The two lovers, along with Satan, set out together to reach a place where they could live together forever.
The Master and Margherita: explanation
The writer Mikhail Bulgakov, using the narrative pretext of the Devil arriving in Moscow, wanted to make a strong criticism of the Soviet communist society and the writers of the period. Bulgakov criticizes the closure of Soviet society, the complex bureaucracy and its poverty. To conclude, in the novel the Devil seen as a bringer of evil here appears, instead, as the person who carries out the author’s revenge, becoming a bringer of good.
The Master and Margarita: Narrative Techniques and Style
The story is written in a humorous tone even if the language is very complicated. The narrator tells in the third person, is extraneous to the story except when in the second part of the book he addresses the reader directly, and is omniscient.
The Master and Margarita: Main Characters
Berlioz : Woland’s predestined victim.
Woland : He presents himself as an expert in black magic but in reality he is the devil.
Azarel : Woland’s assassin and servant.
The Master : the author of the novel about Pontius Pilate and who is locked up in an asylum for a nervous breakdown.
Margherita : the Master’s lover.
Pontius Pilate : Roman procurator of Judea.
