The Master and Margarita

Summary

The Master and Margarita interweaves two stories: the visit of the Devil to Soviet Moscow in the 1930s and a novel about Pontius Pilate written by an unnamed author known as the Master. On a hot spring evening at Patriarch's Ponds, the literary bureaucrat Mikhail Berlioz and the young poet Ivan Bezdomny are discussing the non-existence of Jesus when a mysterious foreigner joins them. He is Woland, a 'professor of black magic', who tells them that Jesus existed and that Berlioz will have his head cut off that evening. He begins to narrate Pilate's interrogation of the wandering philosopher Yeshua Ha-Notsri in Jerusalem. Berlioz slips on spilt sunflower oil and is decapitated by a tram. Ivan, chasing Woland and his retinue, Koroviev, the giant talking cat Behemoth and the fanged Azazello, ends up in Stravinsky's psychiatric clinic, raving about the devil. Woland's gang then unleashes chaos: they take over Berlioz's flat, stage a black-magic show at the Variety Theatre where money rains from the ceiling and dresses vanish, and expose the greed, cowardice and corruption of Moscow's officials, theatre managers and housing committees. In the clinic, Ivan meets his neighbour, the Master, a former historian who wrote a novel about Pilate. Its rejection and vicious denunciation by critics drove him to burn the manuscript and, in fear and despair, to the clinic; he has abandoned his lover Margarita. Part Two follows Margarita, a married woman who has never stopped loving the Master. Azazello offers her a magic cream that turns her into a flying witch, and she agrees to serve as hostess at Satan's great spring ball, greeting a procession of famous murderers and poisoners. In reward, Woland grants her wish: the Master is returned to her, along with his burned manuscript, for manuscripts do not burn. Interleaved chapters complete the Pilate story: Pilate, suffering a crippling headache, is drawn to Yeshua, who cures it and speaks of the goodness of all people, but he lacks the courage to save him; after the crucifixion he arranges the murder of the informer Judas and is condemned to centuries of remorse. At the end Woland's party leaves Moscow. Through Matthew Levi, Yeshua asks that the Master be granted not light but peace. The Master and Margarita die in Moscow and ride with Woland to an eternal refuge; the Master releases Pilate to walk up the moonbeam to Yeshua. In the Epilogue, the authorities explain everything as mass hypnosis, and Ivan, now a historian, is troubled every spring full moon by dreams.

Top Lessons

• Cowardice is the worst vice

  Pilate's failure to save Yeshua, and the Master's flight from persecution, show how fear corrupts the conscience. The novel treats moral courage as the rarest and most necessary virtue.

• Art survives oppression

  The burned manuscript is restored, and the novel itself survived its author's lifetime of censorship. Bulgakov asserts that true art cannot be destroyed by persecution.

• Satire through the supernatural

  Woland's tricks expose greed, vanity and pretence in Bulgakov's Moscow. The devil becomes an instrument of justice where human institutions fail.

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Medical Lens

Bulgakov was a physician, and the novel is full of medicine. Professor Stravinsky's clinic, modelled on modern Soviet psychiatric hospitals, is portrayed with surprising humanity, though it also serves to neutralize witnesses to the inexplicable; the novel's treatment of 'madness' as the only sane response to an irrational reality anticipates Soviet punitive psychiatry, and Ivan's diagnosis is presented ironically. The Master's anxiety, fear of the dark and despair after persecution, and his voluntary entry into the clinic, read as a portrait of breakdown under political terror; avoid confident diagnosis. Pilate's hemicrania, a disabling one-sided headache cured by Yeshua's attention, is among literature's best-known migraines. Satan's ball parades historic poisoners. Bulgakov's own history of morphine dependence, explored in his story 'Morphine', and his death from nephrosclerosis are relevant biographical context.

• Part One, Ch. 2

  Pilate suffers an excruciating hemicrania during the interrogation; Yeshua perceives it and it lifts.

• Part One, Ch. 6–8

  Ivan's arrival at the clinic in his underwear, his sedation, and his interview with Professor Stravinsky.

• Part One, Ch. 13

  The Master tells Ivan of his novel's persecution, his fear, the burning of the manuscript and his flight to the clinic.

• Part Two, Ch. 23

  Satan's ball: Margarita receives a procession of poisoners and murderers from history.

• Epilogue

  Ivan, now a professor, is restless at each spring full moon, dreams of Pilate, and is calmed by an injection from his wife.