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Though traditionally the image of Margarita is rendered as highly elevated, Bulgakov's intention was opposite.
The only passage mentioning the alleged everlasting love of the Master and Margarita is at the very beginning of Chapter 19. The Narrator's mocking attitude to Margarita and her allegedly elevated passion is explicit. Nevertheless, this fact has been neglected even by the Russian scholars. To demonstrate that the narrative concerning the 'everlasting love' is false, Bulgakov's Narrator employed identical phrases Follow me, my reader! in two adjoining paragraphs: in the very last one of Chapter 18, and in the first one of Chapter 19.
Moreover, in the same last paragraph of Chapter 18 the Narrator declares that it's time to proceed with what he calls the true story, while Chapter 18 is entirely devoted to the description of a string of wicked events. Chapter 19 begins with a pathetic declaration about the true nature of the story describing the so called everlasting love.
To disguise the evident parallel between the two adjoining passages, the proxy author of The Master and Margatita (the Narrator) inserts between the two chapters an inept extra title 'Part Two'. Adding absolutely nothing to the comprehension of the content of The Master and Margarita, that insertion merely diverts the readers' attention from the evident lexical and notional parallels between the adjoining paragraphs. Due to that, these two consequent paragraphs are perceived psychologically as having very little in common. Indeed, architectonically they belong not only to different chapters but even to different sections of the book.
The further narrative about Margarita is carried out in the same ironical way. Mikhail Bulgakov (according to the structure of The Master and Margarita, it is rather Bulgakov's proxy the Narrator than Bulgakov himself) employs a typical way of satirical narration: the narrative is carried out 'within the zone of the language' of Margarita. Earlier, that way of narrating was extensively employed by famous Russian novelists Alexander Pushkin and Fiodor Dostoyevsky. In the case of The Master and Margarita, such device is demonstrated in the same Chapter 19. There is there a short passage describing Margarita as Margarita Nikolayevna It consists of five short primitive sentences, four of them beginning with the name-patronymic combination Margarita Nikolayevna. Demonstrating the inherent style of Margarita, the passage characterizes her as a vulgar person with primitive intellect and base manners.
The further text of The Master and Margarita suggests the same. For example, by the end of the book we learn very important information disavowing everything positive about the image of Margarita: it was only after her death that her face at last became fair. That is, when Margarita was alive, her face was always dark. But that is not all: the deceitful Narrator lets out still another portion of vital information. We learn that besides being dark, Margarita's face had always been wearing a beast grin which disappeared only when she became a corpse.
Just imagine a persistent ugly beast grin on the dark face of a witch. Besides, Margarita's lexicon is extremely rude, and Bulgakov included in an early version of The Master and Margarita a scene depicting Margarita performing an act of oral sex at the Satan's ball.
The existing interpretations of the content of the novel disregard the fact that in the so called Jerusalem chapters of The Master and Margarita, there exists a parallel image describing Margarita.
The parallel between Margarita and Niza is justified with the analogous situation in which Margarita betrayed the Master. The second parallel is presented by the scenes with the assassination of Judas and Margarita: in both cases, the colour of the faces became light only when Judas and Margarita have become corpses.
Though these two events are separated with nearly two thousand years, Bulgakov conjoins them by employing special composition technique. After the ball, Margarita reads at the Master's place about the changes on the face of stabbed Judas. Few hours later she is assassinated herself, in the same Master's room where she read about Judas, and there appeared similar changes on her face.
It is only too obvious that the dogmatic doctrine according to which in The Master and Margarita Bulgakov depicted his wife as Margarita, is misleading.
Remarks
1. This chapter of The Master and Margarita is the very first one where Margarita appears before the readers. This sole fact is quite enough to ptovoke a suspicion that there is something strange with the process of narration.
Back2. According to the special kind of composition employed in The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov created within the hidden plot a kind a proxy author, so the whole text is narrated by this special character (Korovyev-Fagot). His role is dual: besides being one of the characters acting in the 'Moscow chapters' he narrates the whole story attempting to obscure that role . All malicious irony in The Master and Margarita comes from him, not Bulgakov.
Back3. Such division of The Master and Margarita into two parts is so illogical that nobody would ever attempt to explain its significance. In this, Bulgakov replicated the ironical division into inept 'parts' of Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin.
Back4. There is much more in common between The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, and Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. Factually, Bulgakov employed the sophisticated structure of Pushkin's novel, and included into the text of The Master and Margarita multiple references to Eugene Onegin.
Back5. In the case of Margarita, the persistent use of her patronymic stresses the ironical attitude of the Narrator. This way of expressing scornful irony is widely used among the Russians at all social levels, especially in everyday communication. Along with that, this passage contains a reflection of actress Maria Andreyeva whom Bulgakov depicted as Margarita. The thing is that having become a highly positioned theatrical bureaucrat after the 1917 revolt, Andreyeva discouraged mentioning her last name (she lived apart from her husband since 1905 when she fled abroad with M. Gorky.) Instead, she preferred to be addressed to by the first name and patronymic
Back6 . This feature is especially prominent in the original Russian text of The Master and Margarita.
Back7. In the early versions of The Master and Margarita the so called 'Jerusalem chapters' were grouped together comprising a compact section. In the ultimate version, Bulgakov separated them with the 'Moscow chapters' in an apparently random way. Within the traditional ('optimistic') interpretation of the content of the novel such pattern cannot ever be explained. That interpretation ignores the fact that the text of The Master and Margarita contains description of destruction of Moscow when the Woland's gang leaves the city. (The collapse of Moscow was described more explicitly in the 1938 version of the novel.) An attentive reading reveals that Bulgakov has decribed a global disaster rather than a 'happy-end'. In that case, the pattern according to which Bulgakov placed the 'Jerusalem chapters' among the 'Moscow' ones becomes evident: he persued the aim of synchronizing the two events separated with nineteen centuries, and presenting them as being alike. The events in Jerusalem and in Moscow have been dated with the same weekdays, in both cases ending on Saturday. To stress the synchronization, Bulgakov describes the apearance of Levy Mathew in Jerusalem on Saturday, the next day after the Crussifiction: when he was brought to Pilatus he was daubed with clay. When he appeared in Moscow before Woland that was on Saturday as well, and he was still daubed with clay.
Back8. The scholars have established the existence of such parallels for all other characters of The Master and Margarita, though their conclusions are The whole block of the 'Jerusalem chapters' serves as a macro trop characterizing the events in Soviet Moscow as a great tragedy comparable with the crussifiction of Christ. Contrary to the facts contained in the text, the officious Russian literary scholarship asserts that the main gist of The Master and Margarita is the maintenance of the idea of Moscow being The Third Rome (though not pronounced openly, the Russian Nationalists' thesis of the prominent role of Russia has been widely adopted by the majority of the Russian society. Be the literary scholars either pro- or post-Communists, they would hardly adopt an idea that by creating The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov's could pursue a contrary thesis.)
Back Chapter I.
Did Bulgakov intend solemn meaning of the notion of Master?
In The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov described Margarita as a debauched prostitute who betrayed the Master to the secret police.
(For the complete text in Russian, click here)
Chapter II. The Master and Margarita: the denominative notion of Master
Though the sobriquet Master is perceived as a proper name, in The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov transcribed the word master only in the lower case.
(For the complete text in Russian, click here)
Chapter III. Why the Master was not admitted to the light
What Bulgakov described in The Master and Margarita as clinic is actually a jail where the Master serving the diabolic Soviet regime, converted talented poets into idiots.
(For the complete text in Russian, click here)
Chapter IV. Mikhail Bulgakov's Margarita: a bestial whore betraying the Master
In The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov depicted Margarita as a bestial whore betraying the Master to the secret police.
(For the complete text in Russian, click here)
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