Introduction
Throughout its history, humanity has tried to explain the nature of things and events. In these attempts, people have always identified two opposing forces: good and evil. The correlation of these forces in the human soul or in the surrounding world determined the development of events. And people embodied the forces themselves in images close to them. This is how world religions emerged, containing great confrontation. In opposition to the light forces of good, different images appeared: Satan, the devil, and other dark forces.
The question of good and evil has always occupied the minds of souls seeking the truth, and has always prompted the inquisitive human consciousness to strive to resolve this intractable issue in one sense or another. Many were interested, as they are now, in questions: how did evil appear in the world, who was the first to initiate the appearance of evil? Is evil a necessary and integral part of human existence, and if this is so, then how could the Good Creative Power, creating the world and man, create evil?
The problem of good and evil is an eternal topic of human knowledge, and, like any eternal topic, it does not have clear answers. One of the primary sources of this problem can rightfully be called the Bible, in which “good” and “evil” are identified with the images of God and the devil, acting as absolute bearers of these moral categories of human consciousness. Good and evil, God and the devil, are in constant opposition. In essence, this struggle is waged between the lower and higher principles in man, between the mortal personality and the immortal individuality of man, between his egoistic needs and the desire for the common good.
With its roots in the distant past, the struggle between good and evil has attracted the attention of many philosophers, poets, and prose writers for a number of centuries.
Understanding the problem of the struggle between good and evil is also reflected in the work of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, who, turning to the eternal questions of existence, rethinks them under the influence of historical events taking place in Russia in the first half of the twentieth century.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” entered the golden fund of Russian and world culture. They read it, analyze it, admire it. Bulgakov depicts good and evil - the devil and Christ - in their entirety, with the goal of exposing the real evil generated by the new system and showing the possibility of the existence of good. For this purpose, the writer uses the complex structure of the work.
The theme of good and evil in M. Bulgakov is the problem of people’s choice of the principle of life, and the purpose of mystical evil in the novel is to reward everyone in accordance with this choice. The writer’s pen endowed these concepts with a duality of nature: one side is the real, “earthly” struggle between the devil and God inside any person, and the other, fantastic, helps the reader to understand the author’s project, to discern the objects and phenomena of his accusatory satire, philosophical and humanistic ideas.
Creativity M.A. Bulgakov is the subject of close attention of literary scholars who study his artistic world in different aspects:
B. V. Sokolov A. V. Vulis“M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”, B. S. Myagkov"Bulgakov's Moscow" V. I. Nemtsev"Mikhail Bulgakov: the formation of a novelist", V. V. Novikov"Mikhail Bulgakov - artist" B. M. Gasparov“From observations of the motivic structure of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”, V. V. Khimich“Strange realism of M. Bulgakov”, V. Ya. Lakshin“M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”, M. O. Chudakova"Biography of M. Bulgakov".
“The Master and Margarita,” as critic G. A. Lesskis rightly noted, is a double novel. It consists of the Master's novel about Pontius Pilate and a novel about the fate of the Master. The main character of the first novel is Yeshua, whose prototype is the biblical Christ - the embodiment of good, and the second - Woland, whose prototype is Satan - the embodiment of evil. The informal structural division of the work does not hide the fact that each of these novels could not exist separately, since they are connected by a common philosophical idea, understandable only when analyzing the entire novelistic reality. Set in the initial three chapters in a difficult philosophical debate between the characters whom the author introduces first on the pages of the novel, this idea is then embodied in interesting collisions, interweavings of the real and the fantastic, biblical and modern events that turn out to be completely balanced and causally determined.
The uniqueness of the novel lies in the fact that we are presented with two layers of time. One is connected with the life of Moscow in the 20s of the twentieth century, the other with the life of Jesus Christ. Bulgakov created, as it were, a “novel within a novel,” and both of these novels are united by one idea - the search for truth.
RelevanceOur research is confirmed by the fact that the problems raised in the work are modern. Good and evil... Concepts are eternal and inseparable. What is good and what is evil on earth? This question runs as a leitmotif throughout M. A. Bulgakov’s novel. And as long as a person lives, they will fight each other. This is the kind of struggle that Bulgakov presents to us in the novel.
Purpose of this work- a study of the peculiarities of understanding the problem of good and evil in M. Bulgakov’s novel “Master Margarita”.
This goal determines the solution of the following specific tasks:
trace the relationship of eternal values in the novel;
correlate M. Bulgakov’s creative work on the work with the historical era;
to reveal the artistic embodiment of the problem of good and evil through the images of the heroes of the novel.
The work uses various research methods: scientific-educational, practical-recommendatory and analysis, interpretation to the extent that they seem to us appropriate and necessary for solving the tasks.
Object of study: novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita”.
Subject of study:the problem of good and evil in the novel by M. A. Bulgakov.
The practical significance of the work is that its material can be used in developing lessons and additional classes on Russian literature at school.
Chapter 1. The history of the creation of the novel “The Master and Margarita”
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” was not completed and was not published during the author’s lifetime. It was first published only in 1966, 26 years after Bulgakov’s death, and then in an abridged magazine version. We owe the fact that this greatest literary work has reached the reader to the writer’s wife, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, who managed to preserve the manuscript of the novel during the difficult Stalinist times.
This last work of the writer, his “sunset novel”, completes a theme that was significant for Bulgakov - the artist and power, this is a novel of difficult and sad thoughts about life, where philosophy and science fiction, mysticism and heartfelt lyrics, soft humor and apt deep satire are combined.
The history of the creation and publication of this most famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the most outstanding works in modern Russian and world literature, is complex and dramatic. This final work, as it were, summarizes the writer’s ideas about the meaning of life, about man, about his mortality and immortality, about the struggle between good and evil principles in history and in the moral world of man. The above helps to understand Bulgakov’s own assessment of his brainchild. “When he was dying, he said, his widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, recalled: “Maybe this is right. What could I write after the Master?
The creative history of The Master and Margarita, the idea of the novel and the beginning of work on it, Bulgakov attributed to 1928, however, according to other sources, it is obvious that the idea of writing a book about the adventures of the devil in Moscow arose several years earlier, in the early to mid-1920s. The first chapters were written in the spring of 1929. On May 8 of this year, Bulgakov submitted to the Nedra publishing house for publication in the almanac of the same name a fragment of the future novel - its separate independent chapter, called “Mania Furibunda,” which translated from Latin means “violent insanity, mania of rage.” This chapter, from which only fragments not destroyed by the author have reached us, in content approximately corresponded to the fifth chapter of the printed text “It happened in Griboedov.” In 1929, the main parts of the text of the first edition of the novel were created (and possibly a plot-completed draft version of it about the appearance and tricks of the devil in Moscow).
Probably, in the winter of 1928-1929, only individual chapters of the novel were written, which were even more politically acute than the surviving fragments of the early edition. Perhaps, the “Mania Furibunda”, which was sent to “Nedra” and has not reached us in full, was an already softened version of the original text. In the first edition, the author went through several options for the titles of his work: “ Black Magician", "Engineer's Hoof", "Woland's Tour", "Son of Destruction", "Juggler with a Hoof",but didn’t stop at any one. This first edition of the novel was destroyed by Bulgakov on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play “The Cabal of the Holy One.” The writer reported this in a letter to the government on March 28, 1930: “And I personally, with my own hands, threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove.” There is no exact information about the degree of plot completeness of this edition, but from the surviving materials, it is obvious that that final compositional juxtaposition of two novels in a novel (ancient and modern), which constitutes the genre feature of The Master and Margarita, is still missing. Written by the hero of this book - the master - there is, in fact, no “novel about Pontius Pilate”; “simply” a “strange foreigner” tells Vladimir Mironovich Berlioz and Antosha (Ivanushka) on the Patriarch’s Ponds about Yeshua Ha-Notsri, and all the “New Testament” material is presented in one chapter (“The Gospel of Woland”) in the form of a lively conversation between the “foreigner” and his listeners. There are no future main characters - the master and Margarita. This is still a novel about the devil, and in the interpretation of the image of the devil, Bulgakov is at first more traditional than in the final text: his Woland (or Faland) still acts in the classical role of a tempter and provocateur (he, for example, teaches Ivanushka to trample the image of Christ), but The writer’s “super task” is already clear: both Satan and Christ are necessary for the author of the novel as representatives of the absolute (albeit “multipolar”) truth, opposing the moral world of the Russian public of the 20s.
Work on the novel resumed in 1931. The concept of the work changes significantly and deepens - Margarita and her companion - the Poet - appear,who will later be called the master and take center stage. But for now this place still belongs to Woland, and the novel itself is planned to be called: "Consultant with a hoof". Bulgakov is working on one of the last chapters (“Woland’s Flight”) and in the upper right corner of the sheet with the outline of this chapter he writes: “Help, Lord, to finish the novel. 1931" .
This edition, the second in a row, was continued by Bulgakov in the fall of 1932 in Leningrad, where the writer arrived without a single draft - not only the idea, but also the text of this work was so thought out and matured by that time. Almost a year later, on August 2, 1933, he informed the writer V.V. Veresaev about the resumption of work on the novel: “I... was possessed by a demon. Already in Leningrad and now here, suffocating in my little rooms, I began to stain page after page of my novel, destroyed three years ago. For what? Don't know. I'm amusing myself! Let it fall into oblivion! However, I’ll probably give it up soon.” However, Bulgakov never abandoned The Master and Margarita, and with interruptions caused by the need to write commissioned plays, dramatizations, scripts and librettos, he continued his work on the novel almost until the end of his life. By November 1933, 500 pages of handwritten text had been written, divided into 37 chapters. The genre is defined by the author himself as a “fantasy novel” - this is written at the top of the sheet with a list of possible titles: “Great Chancellor”, “Satan”, “Here I Am”, “Hat with a Feather”, “Black Theologian”, “Foreigner’s Horseshoe”, “He Appeared”, “Coming”, “Black Magician”, “Consultant’s Hoof”, “Consultant with a Hoof”, but Bulgakov did not stop at any of them. All these title options still seem to point to Woland as the main person. However, Woland has already been significantly displaced by a new hero, who becomes the author of a novel about Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and this internal novel is split in two, and between the chapters that form it (chapters 11 and 16), the love and misadventures of the “Poet” (or “Faust” are described) , as it is called in one of the drafts) and Margarita. By the end of 1934, this edition was roughly completed. By this time, the word “master” had already been used three times in the last chapters in addressing the “Poet” of Woland, Azazello and Koroviev (who had already received permanent names). Over the next two years, Bulgakov made numerous additions and compositional changes to the manuscript, including finally crossing the lines of the master and Ivan Bezdomny.
In July 1936, the last and final chapter of this edition of the novel, “The Last Flight,” was created, in which the fates of the master, Margarita, and Pontius Pilate were determined. The third edition of the novel was started at the end of 1936 - beginning of 1937.In the first, unfinished version of this edition, brought to the fifth chapter and occupying 60 pages, Bulgakov, unlike the second edition, again moved the story of Pilate and Yeshua to the beginning of the novel, composing a single second chapter, called “The Golden Spear.” In 1937, a second, also unfinished version of this edition was written, brought to the thirteenth chapter (299 pages). It dates from 1928-1937 and is entitled "Prince of Darkness". Finally, the third and only completed version of the third edition of the novel was created during the period from November 1937 to spring 1938. This edition takes up 6 thick notebooks; The text is divided into thirty chapters. In the second and third versions of this edition, the Yershalaim scenes were introduced into the novel in exactly the same way as in the published text, and in its third version a well-known and definitive name appeared - "Master and Margarita".From the end of May to June 24, 1938, this edition was retyped on a typewriter under the dictation of the author, who often changed the text along the way. Bulgakov began editing this typescript on September 19, with individual chapters being rewritten.
The epilogue was written on May 14, 1939 immediately in the form that we know. At the same time, the scene of the appearance of Matthew Levi to Woland was written with a decision about the fate of the master. When Bulgakov became mortally ill, his wife Elena Sergeevna continued editing under the dictation of her husband, while this editing was partly made in the typescript, partly in a separate notebook. On January 15, 1940, E. S. Bulgakova wrote in her diary: “Misha, as much as I can, I’m editing the novel, I’m rewriting it,” and episodes with Professor Kuzmin and the miraculous transfer of Styopa Likhodeev to Yalta were recorded (before that, the director of the Variety Show was Garasey Pedulaev , and Woland sent him to Vladikavkaz). Editing was stopped on February 13, 1940, less than four weeks before Bulgakov’s death, with the phrase: “So this means that the writers are going after the coffin?”, in the middle of the nineteenth chapter of the novel.
The last thoughts and words of the dying writer were addressed to this work, which contained his entire creative life: “When at the end of his illness he almost lost his speech, sometimes only the ends and beginnings of words came out,” recalled E. S. Bulgakova. - There was a case when I was sitting next to him, as always, on a pillow on the floor, near the head of his bed, he made me understand that he needed something, that he wanted something from me. I offered him medicine, a drink - lemon juice, but I clearly understood that this was not the point. Then I guessed and asked: “Your things?” He nodded in a way that said “yes” and “no.” I said: “The Master and Margarita?” He, terribly delighted, made a sign with his head that “yes, this is it.” And he squeezed out two words: “So that they know, so that they know...”.
But it was then very difficult to fulfill this dying will of Bulgakov - to print and convey to people, readers, the novel he wrote. One of Bulgakov’s closest friends and first biographer P. S. Popov (1892-1964), having re-read the novel after the death of its author, wrote to Elena Sergeevna: “Brilliant skill always remains brilliant skill, but now the novel is unacceptable. It will take 50-100 years...” Now, he believed, “the less they know about the novel, the better.”
Fortunately, the author of these lines was mistaken in the timing, but in the next 20 years after Bulgakov’s death, we do not find any mention in the literature of the existence of this work in the writer’s heritage, although From 1946 to 1966, Elena Sergeevna made six attempts to break through the censorship and publish the novel.Only in the first edition of Bulgakov’s book “The Life of Monsieur de Moliere” (1962) V. A. Kaverin managed to break the conspiracy of silence and mention the existence of the novel “The Master and Margarita” in the manuscript. Kaverin firmly stated that “the inexplicable indifference to the work of Mikhail Bulgakov, which sometimes inspired the deceptive hope that there are many like him and that, therefore, his absence in our literature is not a big problem, this is a harmful indifference.”
Four years later, the Moscow magazine (No. 11, 1966) published the novel in an abridged version. Magazine version of the book with censorship omissions and distortions and abbreviations made on the initiative editorial management“Moscow” (E. S. Bulgakova was forced to agree to all this, just to keep her word given to the dying author to publish this work), thus compiled fifth edition, which was published abroad as a separate book. The response to this publishing arbitrariness was the appearance in “samizdat” of a typewritten text of all places that had been released or distorted in the journal publication, with an exact indication of where the missing parts should be inserted or the distorted ones should be replaced. The author of this “cut” publication was Elena Sergeevna herself and her friends. This text, which constituted one of the versions of the fourth (1940-1941) edition of the novel, was published in 1969 in Frankfurt am Main by the Posev publishing house. Passages removed or "redacted" from the magazine publication were in italics in the 1969 edition. What did such censorship and voluntaristic “editing” of the novel represent? What goals did it pursue? Now this is quite clear. 159 bills were made: 21 in the 1st part and 138 in the 2nd; A total of more than 14,000 words (12% of the text!) were removed.
Bulgakov's text was grossly distorted, phrases from different pages were arbitrarily combined, and sometimes completely meaningless sentences arose. The reasons related to the literary and ideological canons that existed at that time are obvious: the most removed passages were those describing the actions of the Roman secret police and the work of “one of the Moscow institutions”, the similarities between the ancient and modern worlds. Further, the “inadequate” reaction of the “Soviet people” to our reality and some of their very unattractive features were weakened. The role and moral strength of Yeshua was weakened in the spirit of vulgar anti-religious propaganda. Finally, the “censor” in many cases showed a kind of “chastity”: some persistent references to the nudity of Margarita, Natasha and other women at Woland’s ball were removed, the witch’s rudeness of Margarita was weakened, etc. In preparing the complete uncensored domestic edition, which was published in 1973, the edition of the early 1940s was restored, followed by textual revision carried out by the editor of the publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura” (where the novel was published) A. A. Sahakyants. Published after the death of E. S. Bulgakova (in 1970), this is actually sixth editionThe novel was established for a long time as canonical through numerous reprints, and as such was introduced into literary circulation in the 1970-1980s. For the Kyiv edition of 1989 and for the Moscow collected works of 1989-1990, the seventh and to date final edition of the text of the novel was made with a new reconciliation of all surviving author’s materials, carried out by the literary critic L. M. Yanovskaya. However, it should be remembered that, as in many other cases in the history of literature, when there is no definitive author's text, the novel remains open to clarification and new readings. And the case with “The Master and Margarita” is almost classic in its way: Bulgakov died while working on finishing the text of the novel; he failed to complete his own textual task for this work.
There are obvious traces of shortcomings in the novel, even in its plot part (Woland limps and does not limp; Berlioz is called either the chairman or the secretary of Massolit; the white bandage with a strap on Yeshua’s head suddenly gives way to a turban; Margarita and Natasha of “pre-witch status” disappear somewhere; without explanations, Aloysius appears; he and Varenukha fly first from the bedroom window, and then from the staircase window; Gella is absent from the “last flight”, although she is leaving the “bad apartment.” Moreover, this cannot be explained as “deliberately conceived”), noticeable and some stylistic errors. So the story of the publication of the novel did not end there, especially since all its early editions were published.
Chapter 2. The struggle between good and evil in the heroes of the novel
good evil novel bulgakov
M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is a multi-dimensional and multi-layered work. It combines, closely intertwined, mysticism and satire, the most unrestrained fantasy and merciless realism, light irony and intense philosophy. As a rule, several semantic, figurative subsystems are distinguished in the novel: everyday, associated with Woland’s stay in Moscow, lyrical, telling about the love of the Master and Margarita, and philosophical, comprehending the biblical plot through the images of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua, as well as problems of creativity based on literary material the work of the Master. One of the main philosophical problems of the novel is the problem of the relationship between good and evil: the personification of good is Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and the embodiment of evil is Woland.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” is, as it were, a double novel, consisting of the Master’s novel about Pontius Pilate and a work about the fate of the Master himself, connected with the life of Moscow in the 30s of the 20th century. Both novels are united by one idea - the search for truth and the fight for it.
.1 Image of Yeshua-Ha Nozri
Yeshua is the embodiment of a pure idea. He is a philosopher, a wanderer, a preacher of goodness, love and mercy. His goal was to make the world a cleaner and kinder place. Yeshua’s philosophy of life is this: “There are no evil people in the world, there are unhappy people.” “A good man,” he addresses the procurator, and for this he is beaten by Ratboy. But the point is not that he addresses people this way, but that he really behaves with every ordinary person as if he were the embodiment of good. The portrait of Yeshua is virtually absent in the novel: the author indicates his age, describes clothing, facial expression, mentions a bruise and abrasion - but nothing more: “...They brought in a man of about twenty-seven. This man was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth.”
When asked by Pilate about his relatives, he answers: “There is no one. I am alone in the world." But this does not at all sound like a complaint about loneliness. Yeshua does not seek compassion, there is no feeling of inferiority or orphanhood in him.
The power of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is so great and so comprehensive that at first many take it for weakness, even for spiritual lack of will. However, Yeshua Ha-Nozri is not an ordinary person: Woland sees himself as approximately equal to him in the heavenly hierarchy. Bulgakov's Yeshua is the bearer of the idea of the God-man. The author sees in his hero not only a religious preacher and reformer: the image of Yeshua embodies free spiritual activity. Possessing developed intuition, subtle and strong intellect, Yeshua is able to guess the future, and not just the thunderstorm that “will begin later, in the evening,” but also the fate of his teaching, which is already being incorrectly stated by Levi.
Yeshua is internally free. He boldly says what he considers to be the truth, what he has reached himself, with his own mind. Yeshua believes that harmony will come to the tormented land and the kingdom of eternal spring, eternal love will come. Yeshua is relaxed, the power of fear does not weigh on him.
“Among other things, I said,” the prisoner said, “that all power is violence against people and that the time will come when there will be no power of either the Caesars or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.” Yeshua bravely endures all the suffering inflicted on him. The fire of all-forgiving love for people burns within him. He is confident that only goodness has the right to change the world.
Realizing that he is threatened with the death penalty, he considers it necessary to tell the Roman governor: “Your life is meager, hegemon. The trouble is that you are too closed and have completely lost faith in people.”
Speaking about Yeshua, one cannot fail to mention his unusual name. If the first part - Yeshua - transparently hints at the name of Jesus, then the “cacophony of the plebeian name” - Ha-Notsri - “so mundane” and “secular” in comparison with the solemn church - Jesus, as if called upon to confirm the authenticity of Bulgakov’s story and its independence from evangelical tradition."
Despite the fact that the plot seems complete - Yeshua is executed, the author seeks to assert that the victory of evil over good cannot be the result of social and moral confrontation; this, according to Bulgakov, is not accepted by human nature itself, and the entire course of civilization should not allow it: Yeshua remained alive, he is dead only for Levi, for the servants of Pilate.
The great tragic philosophy of Yeshua's life is that truth is tested and confirmed by death. The tragedy of the hero is his physical death, but morally he wins.
.2 Image of Pontius Pilate
The central and most dramatic character in the “gospel” chapters of the novel is the Roman procurator of Judea Pontius Pilate, who had a reputation as a “fierce monster.” “In a white cloak with a bloody lining and a shuffling cavalry gait, early in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.”
Pontius Pilate's official duties brought him together with the accused from Gamala, Yeshua Ha-Nozri. The procurator of Judea is sick with a debilitating disease, and the tramp is beaten by the people to whom he preached. The physical suffering of each is proportional to their social positions. Almighty Pilate suffers from such headaches for no reason that he is even ready to take poison: “The thought of poison suddenly flashed seductively in the procurator’s sick head.” And the beggar Yeshua, although beaten by people of whose goodness he is convinced and to whom he carries his teaching about goodness, nevertheless does not suffer at all from this, for physical teachings only test and strengthen his faith.
Bulgakov, in the image of Pontius Pilate, recreated a living person, with an individual character, torn by conflicting feelings and passions, within whom there is a struggle between good and evil. Yeshua, initially considering all people to be good, sees in him an unhappy person, exhausted by a terrible illness, withdrawn into himself, lonely. Yeshua sincerely wants to help him. But endowed with power, the powerful and formidable Pilate is not free. Circumstances forced him to pronounce the death sentence on Yeshua. However, this was dictated to the procurator not by the cruelty attributed to him by everyone, but by cowardice - that vice that the wandering philosopher ranks among the “heaviest.”
In the novel, the image of Pontius the dictator is decomposed and transformed into a suffering personality. The authorities in his person lose the stern and faithful enforcer of the law, the image acquires a humanistic connotation. Pilate's dual life is the inevitable behavior of a man squeezed in the grip of power and his post. During the trial of Yeshua, Pilate, with greater force than before, feels a lack of harmony and strange loneliness within himself. From the very collision of Pontius Pilate with Yeshua, Bulgakov’s idea that tragic circumstances are stronger than people’s intentions follows in a dramatically multidimensional way. Even such rulers as the Roman procurator do not have the power to act of their own free will.
Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri are discussing human nature. Yeshua believes in the presence of goodness in the world, in the predetermination of historical development leading to a single truth. Pilate is convinced of the inviolability of evil, its ineradicability in man. Both are wrong. At the end of the novel, they continue their two-thousand-year dispute on the lunar road, which has brought them closer together forever; This is how evil and good merged together in human life.
On the pages of the novel, Bulgakov gives us the truth about how the “people's court” is carried out. Let us remember the scene of the pardon of one of the criminals in honor of Easter. The author does not just depict the customs of the Jewish people. He shows how those undesirable to a few are destroyed by the hands of thousands, how the blood of the prophets falls on the conscience of peoples. The crowd saves the real criminal from death and condemns Yeshua to it. "Crowd! A universal means of murder! A remedy of all times and peoples. Crowd! What should I take from her? Voice of the people! How can you not listen? The lives of departed “inconvenient” people crush like stones, burn like coals. And I want to shout: “It didn’t happen!” Did not have!". But it happened... Both Pontius Pilate and Joseph Caiaphas are real people who left their mark on history.
Evil and good are not generated from above, but by people themselves, therefore man is free in his choice. He is free from both fate and surrounding circumstances. And if he is free to choose, then he is fully responsible for his actions. This is, according to Bulgakov, a moral choice. The moral position of the individual is constantly in the center of attention of Bulgakov. Cowardice combined with lies as a source of betrayal, envy, anger and other vices that a moral person is able to keep under control is a breeding ground for despotism and unreasonable power. “It (fear) is capable of turning an intelligent, courageous and beneficent person into a pathetic rag, weakening and disgracing him. The only thing that can save him is inner fortitude, trust in his own mind and the voice of his conscience.”
2.3 Image of the Master
One of the most mysterious figures in the novel is certainly the Master. The hero after whom the novel is named appears only in chapter 13. In the description of his appearance there is something reminiscent of the author of the novel himself: “a shaved, dark-haired man with a sharp nose, about thirty-eight years old.” The same can be said about the entire history of the master’s life, his fate, in which a lot of personal things, suffered by the author, can be discerned. The master survived lack of recognition and persecution in the literary community. The master, in his unexpected, sincere, bold novel about Pilate and Yeshua, expressed the author’s understanding of the truth. The Master's novel, the meaning of his whole life, is not accepted by society. Moreover, it was decisively rejected by critics, even when unpublished. The master wanted to convey to people the need for faith, the need to search for truth. But she, like himself, is rejected. Society is alien to thinking about truth, about truth - about those higher categories, the significance of which everyone must realize for themselves. People are busy satisfying petty needs, they do not struggle with their weaknesses and shortcomings, they easily succumb to temptation, as a black magic session speaks so eloquently about. It is not surprising that in such a society a creative, thinking person is lonely and does not find understanding or feedback.
The Master's initial reaction to critical articles about himself - laughter - gave way to surprise, and then fear. You lose faith in yourself and, even worse, in your creation. Margarita feels her lover’s fear and confusion, but she is powerless to help him. No, he didn't chicken out. Cowardice is fear multiplied by meanness. Bulgakov's hero did not compromise his conscience and honor. But fear has a destructive effect on the artist’s soul.
Whatever the Master’s experiences, no matter how bitter his fate may be, one thing is indisputable - the “literary society” does not succeed in killing talent. The proof of the aphorism “manuscripts don’t burn” is the novel “The Master and Margarita” itself, burned by Bulgakov with his own hands and restored by him, because what was created by a genius cannot be killed.
The master is not worthy of the light that Yeshua personifies, because he abandoned his task of serving pure, divine art, showed weakness and burned the novel, and out of despair he himself came to the house of sorrow. But the world of the devil has no power over him either - the Master is worthy of peace, an eternal home - only there, broken by mental suffering, the Master can again find romance and unite with his romantic beloved Margarita. For the peace granted to the master is creative peace. The moral ideal embedded in the Master's novel is not subject to decay and is beyond the power of otherworldly forces.
It is peace as a counterbalance to the former hectic life that the soul of a true artist craves. There is no return to the modern Moscow world for the Master: having deprived him of the opportunity to create, the opportunity to see his beloved, his enemies deprived him of the meaning of life in this world. The master gets rid of fear of life and alienation, remains with his beloved woman, alone with his creativity and surrounded by his heroes: “You will fall asleep, putting on your greasy and eternal cap, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will strengthen you, you will begin to reason wisely. And you won’t be able to drive me away. “I will take care of your sleep,” Margarita said to the Master, and the sand rustled under her bare feet.”
Chapter 3. The power of evil doing good
Before us is Moscow of the late twenties and early thirties. “One day in the spring, at an hour of unprecedentedly hot sunset, two citizens appeared in Moscow, on the Patriarch’s Ponds.” Soon these two, writers Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny, had to meet an unknown foreigner, about whose appearance there were subsequently the most contradictory eyewitness accounts. The author gives us his exact portrait: “...The person described did not limp on any leg, and he was neither small nor huge, but simply tall. As for his teeth, he had platinum crowns on the left side and gold ones on the right. He was wearing an expensive gray suit and foreign-made shoes that matched the color of the suit. He cocked his gray beret jauntily over his ear and carried a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle's head under his arm. He looks to be over forty years old. The mouth is kind of crooked. Shaven clean. Brunette. The right eye is black, the left is green for some reason. The eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other. In a word, a foreigner.” This is Woland - the future culprit of all the unrest in Moscow.
Who is he? If it is a symbol of darkness and evil, then why are wise and bright words put into his mouth? If he is a prophet, then why does he dress himself in black clothes and reject mercy and compassion with a cynical laugh? Everything is simple, as he himself said, everything is simple: “I am part of that force...”. Woland - Satan in a different form. His image symbolizes not evil, but his self-redemption. For the struggle between evil and good, darkness and light, lies and truth, hatred and love, cowardice and spiritual strength continues. This struggle is inside each of us. And the power that always wants evil and always does good is dissolved everywhere. It is in the search for truth, in the struggle for justice, in the struggle between good and evil that Bulgakov sees the meaning of human life.
3.1 Image of Woland
Woland (translated from Hebrew as “devil”) is a representative of the “dark” force, the author’s artistically reimagined image of Satan. He came to Moscow with one purpose - to find out whether Moscow had changed since the day he was last in it. After all, Moscow claimed to be the Third Rome. She proclaimed new principles of reconstruction, new values, new life. And what does he see? Moscow has turned into something like a Great Ball: it is inhabited mostly by traitors, informers, sycophants, and bribe-takers.
Bulgakov gives Woland broad powers: throughout the entire novel he judges, decides destinies, decides - life or death, carries out retribution, distributing to everyone what they deserve: “Not according to reason, not according to the correct choice of mentality, but according to the choice of the heart, according to faith!” . During their four-day tour in Moscow, Woland, the cat Behemoth, Koroviev, Azazello and Gella turn inside out figures from the literary and theatrical environment, officials and ordinary people, defining “who is who”. The goal of the “prince of darkness” is to expose the essence of phenomena, to expose negative phenomena in human society to public display. Tricks in Variety, tricks with an empty suit signing papers, the mysterious transformation of money into dollars and other devilry - revealing human vices. Tricks in Variety are a test of Muscovites' greed and mercy. At the end of the performance, Woland comes to the conclusion: “Well, they are people like people. They love money, no matter what it is made of - leather, paper, bronze or gold. Well, they are frivolous, well, mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts. Ordinary people, reminiscent of the old ones, the housing issue only spoiled them...”
Woland, personifying evil, was in this case a messenger of good. In all actions one can see either acts of just retribution (episodes with Stepa Likhodeev, Nikanor Bosy), or the desire to prove to people the existence and connection of good and evil. Woland in the artistic world of the novel is not so much the opposite of Yeshua as an addition to him. Like good and evil, Yeshua and Woland are internally interconnected and, opposing, cannot do without each other. It's like we wouldn't know what white is if black didn't exist, what day is if night didn't exist. But the dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil are most fully revealed in Woland’s words addressed to Matthew Levi, who refused to wish health to the “spirit of evil and the lord of shadows”: “You said your words as if you do not recognize shadows, as well as evil. Would you be so kind as to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? Don’t you want to rip off the entire globe, sweeping away all the trees and all living things because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light?”
Good and evil are surprisingly closely intertwined in life, especially in human souls. When Woland, in a scene in the Variety Show, tests the audience for cruelty and deprives the entertainer of his head, compassionate women demand that his head be put back in its place. And then we watch these same women fight over money. It seems that Woland punished people with evil for their evil for the sake of justice. For Woland, evil is not a goal, but a means to cope with human vices. Who can join the fight against evil, which of the novel’s heroes is worthy of “light”? This question is answered by a novel written by the Master. In the city of Yershalaim, mired, like Moscow, in debauchery, a man appears: Yeshua Ha-Notsri, who believed that there are no evil people and that the worst sin is cowardice. This is the person who is worthy of “light”.
The clash of opposing forces is most clearly presented at the end of the novel, when Woland and his retinue leave Moscow. “Light” and “darkness” are on the same level. Woland does not rule the world, but Yeshua does not rule the world either. All Yeshua can do is ask Woland to give the Master and his beloved eternal peace. And Woland fulfills this request. Thus, we come to the conclusion that the forces of good and evil are equal. They exist in the world side by side, constantly confronting and arguing with each other. And their struggle is eternal, because there is no person on Earth who has never committed a sin in his life; and there is no such person who would completely lose the ability to do good. The world is a kind of scale, on the scales of which lie two weights: good and evil. And as long as balance is maintained, the world and humanity will exist.
For Bulgakov, the devil is not only the arbiter of evil, he is a spiritualized being to whom nothing human is alien. Therefore, Woland grants forgiveness to many heroes, sufficiently punishing them for their vices. Forgiveness is the main thing a person should learn in his life.
.2 Image of Margarita
An example of the consequence of the moral commandment of love is in the novel Margarita. The image of Margarita is very dear to the author, perhaps because in it one can read the features of one of the people closest to Bulgakov - Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova.
Margarita turned out to be strikingly similar to Elena Sergeevna. Both of them lived a satisfying, prosperous life, calmly and without shocks: “Margarita Nikolaevna did not need money. Margarita Nikolaevna could buy whatever she liked. Among her husband's acquaintances there were interesting people. Margarita Nikolaevna never touched a primus stove. In a word... was she happy? Not one minute! What did this woman need?! She needed him, the master, and not a Gothic mansion, and not a separate garden, and not money. She loved him..." The author does not give an external portrait of Margarita. We hear the sound of her voice, her laughter, we see her movements. Bulgakov repeatedly describes the expression of her eyes. With all this, he wants to emphasize that it is not her appearance that is important to him, but the life of her soul. Bulgakov managed to express true, faithful, eternal love, which naturally clarifies the main idea of the novel. The love of Margarita and the Master is unusual, defiant, reckless - and this is precisely why it is attractive. You believe in it immediately and forever. “Follow me, reader, and only me, and I will show you such love!” .
Bulgakov's Margarita is a symbol of femininity, fidelity, beauty, self-sacrifice in the name of love. It is in the love of a woman, and not in himself, that the Master, once again returned to his apartment in Arbat Lane, draws strength. “That’s enough,” he says to Margarita, “You shamed me. I will never allow cowardice again and will not return to this issue, rest assured. I know that we are both victims of our mental illness, which, perhaps, I passed on to you... Well, well, together we will bear it.” Margarita's spiritual closeness to the Master is so strong that the Master is not able to forget his beloved for a minute, and Margarita sees him in a dream.
The image of Margarita clearly reflects Bulgakov’s creative courage and daring challenge to stable aesthetic laws. On the one hand, the most poetic words about the Creator, about his immortality, about the beautiful “eternal home” that will be his reward are put into Margarita’s mouth. On the other hand, it is the Master’s beloved who flies on a broom over the boulevards and roofs of Moscow, breaks window panes, puts “sharp claws” into the Behemoth’s ear and calls him a swear word, asks Woland to turn the housekeeper Natasha into a witch, takes revenge on the insignificant literary critic Latunsky , pouring buckets of water into the drawers of his desk. Margarita, with her fierce, offensive love, is contrasted with the Master: “Because of you, I was shaking naked all night yesterday, I lost my nature and replaced it with a new one, for several months I sat in a dark closet and thought only about one thing - about the thunderstorm over Yershalaim, I I cried my eyes out, and now, when happiness has fallen, are you driving me away?” Margarita herself compares her fierce love with the fierce devotion of Levi Matthew. But Levi is fanatical and therefore narrow, while Margarita’s love is as comprehensive as life. On the other hand, with her immortality, Margarita is opposed to the warrior and commander Pilate. And with his defenseless and at the same time powerful humanity - to the omnipotent Woland. Margarita fights for her happiness: in the name of saving the Master, she enters into an agreement with the devil, thereby destroying her soul. The hope that she would be able to achieve the return of her happiness made her fearless. “Oh, really, I would pledge my soul to the devil just to find out whether he is alive or not!” Margarita became a generalized poetic image of a loving woman, a woman who so inspiredly turns into a witch, furiously dealing with the enemy of Master Latunsky: “Taking careful aim, Margarita hit the keys of the piano, and the first plaintive howl echoed throughout the apartment. The innocent instrument screamed frantically. Margarita tore and tossed the strings with a hammer. The destruction she caused gave her a burning pleasure...”
Margarita is by no means an ideal in everything. Margarita's moral choice was determined in favor of evil. She sold her soul to the devil for love. And this fact deserves condemnation. Due to religious beliefs, she deprived herself of the chance to go to heaven. Another of her sins was participating in Satan’s ball along with the greatest sinners, who after the ball turned to dust and returned to oblivion. “But this sin is committed in an irrational, otherworldly world; Margarita’s actions here do not harm anyone and therefore do not require atonement.” Margarita takes on an active role and tries to wage that fight against life circumstances that the Master refuses. And suffering gives birth to cruelty in her soul, which, however, has not taken root in her.
The motif of mercy is associated with the image of Margarita in the novel. After the Great Ball, she asks Satan for the unfortunate Frida, while she is clearly hinted at asking for the release of the Master. She says: “I asked you for Frida only because I had the imprudence to give her firm hope. She is waiting, sir, she believes in my power. And if she remains deceived, I will be in a terrible position. I won't have peace all my life. It's nothing you can do! It just happened that way.” But Margarita’s mercy does not end there. Even being a witch, she does not lose the brightest human qualities. Margarita's human nature, with her spiritual impulses, overcoming temptations and weaknesses, is revealed as strong and proud, conscientious and honest. This is exactly how Margarita appears at the ball. “She intuitively immediately grasps the truth, as only a moral and reasonable person with a light soul, not burdened with sins, is capable of. If, according to Christian dogma, she is a sinner, then she is one whom the tongue does not dare to condemn, for her love is extremely selfless, only a truly earthly woman can love like that.” Associated with love and creativity are the concepts of goodness, forgiveness, understanding, responsibility, truth and harmony. In the name of love, Margarita accomplishes a feat, overcoming fear and weakness, defeating circumstances, without demanding anything for herself. It is with the image of Margarita that the true values affirmed by the author of the novel are associated: personal freedom, mercy, honesty, truth, faith, love.
Conclusion
The work of Mikhail Bulgakov is a wonderful page in the history of Russian literature of the 20th century. Thanks to him, literature became more multifaceted in thematic and genre-style terms, got rid of descriptiveness, and acquired the features of deep analyticalism.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” rightfully belongs to the greatest works of Russian and world literature of the 20th century. Bulgakov wrote the novel as a historically and psychologically reliable book about his time and its people, which is why the novel probably became a unique human document of that remarkable era. And at the same time, this narrative is directed to the future, is a book for all times, which is facilitated by its highest artistry. To this day, we are convinced of the depth of the author’s creative search, which is confirmed by the continuous flow of books and articles about the writer. There is a certain special magnetism in the novel, a kind of magic of the word that captivates the reader and introduces him to a world where reality cannot be distinguished from fantasy. Magical actions and acts, statements of heroes on the highest philosophical themes are masterfully woven by Bulgakov into the artistic fabric of the work.
Good and evil in a work are not two balanced phenomena that enter into open opposition, raising the question of faith and unbelief. They are dualistic. Goodness for M. Bulgakov is not a characteristic of a person or an action, but a way of life, its principle, for which one is not afraid to endure pain and suffering. The author’s thought, spoken through the mouth of Yeshua, is very important and bright: “All people are good.” The fact that it is expressed in the description of the time when Pontius Pilate lived, that is, twelve thousand moons ago, in the narration of Moscow in the twenties and thirties, reveals the writer’s struggle and faith in eternal good, despite the evil accompanying it, which also has eternity. “Have these townspeople changed internally?” - Satan asked, and although there was no answer, obviously, there is a bitter “no, they are still petty, greedy, selfish and stupid.” Bulgakov directs his main blow, angry, inexorable and revealing, against human vices, considering cowardice the most serious of them, which gives rise to unprincipledness and pity of human nature, and the worthlessness of the existence of impersonal individualism.
The theme of good and evil in M. Bulgakov is the problem of people’s choice of the principle of life, and the purpose of mystical evil in the novel is to reward everyone in accordance with this choice. The main value of the work is that Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov considers only man capable of overcoming any evil in spite of circumstances and temptations. So what is the salvation of enduring values according to Bulgakov?
The duality of human nature, in the presence of human free will, is the only factor in the generation of both good and evil. In the universe there is neither good nor evil as such, but there are laws of nature and principles of the development of life. Everything that is given for human life is neither bad nor good, but becomes one or the other depending on how each of us uses the abilities and needs given to him. Whatever evil exists in the world we take, its creator will be none other than man himself. Therefore, we create our own destiny and choose our own path.
Incarnating from life to life in all sorts of conditions, positions and states, a person ultimately reveals his true face, reveals either the divine or demonic aspect of his dual nature. The whole point of evolution lies precisely in the fact that everyone must show whether he is a future god or a future devil, revealing one of the sides of his dual nature, namely the one that corresponded to his aspirations either towards good or towards evil.
Through the fate of Margarita, Bulgakov presents to us the path of goodness to self-discovery through the purity of the heart with a huge, sincere love burning in it, which contains its strength. The writer's Margarita is an ideal. The master is a bearer of good, because he was above the prejudices of society and lived guided by his soul. But the writer does not forgive him for fear, lack of faith, weakness, for the fact that he retreated and did not continue the fight for his idea. The image of Satan in the novel is also unusual. For Woland, evil is not a goal, but a means to cope with human vices and injustice.
The writer showed us that each person creates his own destiny, and it depends only on him whether it will be good or evil. If we do good, then evil will leave our souls forever, which means the world will become a better and kinder place. Bulgakov in his novel was able to cover many problems that concern us all. The novel “The Master and Margarita” is about man’s responsibility for the good and evil that is committed on earth, for his own choice of life paths leading to truth and freedom or to slavery, betrayal and inhumanity, about all-conquering love and creativity that lifts the soul to the heights of the true humanity.
List of used literature
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Babinsky, M. B. Study of M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” in the 11th grade. / M. B. Babinsky. - M., 1992.- 205 p.
Bely, A. D. About “The Master and Margarita” / A. D. Bely. // Bulletin of the Russian Christian movement. -1974. -No. 112.- P.89-101.
Boborykin, V. G. Mikhail Bulgakov. / V. G. Boborykin. - M.: Education, 1991. - 128 p.
Bulgakov, M. A. The Master and Margarita: a novel. / M. A. Bulgakov. - Minsk, 1999.-407 p.
Galinskaya, I. L. Mysteries of famous books. / I. L Galinskaya. - M.: Nauka, 1986.-345 p.
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Composition
Topic: M.A. Bulgakov “Good and evil in the novel Master and
Margarita”
Throughout his life, a person has faced and will face good and evil. Therefore, the question of what is good and what is evil will always worry humanity. The theme of good and evil in the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov
“The Master and Margarita” is one of the key ones; the author shows readers this eternal struggle between good and evil.
“The Master and Margarita” is structured like a novel within a novel: in one book it describes the events of the twenties and thirties of our century and the events of biblical times. And the motives and plots of both novels constantly overlap.
The theme of good and evil develops throughout the book.
First of all, the disclosure of the problem of good and evil is connected with the image
Woland, one of the main characters in the Master's novel. The question is: does Woland do evil? It seems to me that no, he does not bring evil to people.
It is not for nothing that Bulgakov writes that he “eternally wants evil and always does good.”
Woland points out the vices of people and provokes them to display these qualities. So, for example, in the scene in Variety, when people rushed for money and clothes, Woland demonstrated human greed. Woland accurately defines “who is who”: Styopa Likhodeev, a famous person in the cultural world of Moscow, is a slacker, a libertine and a drunkard; Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy - bribe-taker; Fokin, bartender at Variety, is a thief; Baron Meigel, an employee of one of the offices, is an informer, and the poet A. “carefully disguised as a proletarian”
Ryukhin is an inveterate hypocrite
The author puts a lot of deep meaning into the word “good”. This is not a characteristic of a person or an action, but a way of life. The idea of Yeshua that “all people are good” is very important for the author. The fact that it is expressed in the description of the time when Pontius Pilate lived, that is, “twelve thousand moons” ago, when narrating about Moscow in the twenties and thirties, reveals the faith and struggle of the writer into eternal good, despite the evil that accompanies it, which also has eternity. “Have these townspeople changed internally?” Satan asked, and although there was no answer, the reader clearly feels that
"no, they are still petty, greedy, selfish and stupid." Thus, Bulgakov directs his main blow, angry, inexorable and revealing, against human vices, considering cowardice to be the “heaviest” of them, which gives rise to both unprincipledness and pity of human nature.
So, the theme of good and evil in Bulgakov is the problem of people’s choice of the principle of life, and the purpose of the evil that Woland and his retinue carry in the novel is to reward everyone in accordance with this choice. The author considers only man capable of overcoming any evil despite circumstances and temptations. Through the fate of Margarita, he presents to us the path of goodness to self-discovery through the purity of the heart with a huge, sincere love burning in it, in which lies its strength. The writer's Margarita is an ideal.
The master is also a bearer of good, because he was above the prejudices of society and lived guided by his soul. Therefore, the author gives him the peace that the hero dreamed of. On earth, the Master still has a student and an immortal romance, destined to continue the struggle between good and evil. In my opinion, M.
Bulgakov wanted to show us that the line between good and evil is, indeed, barely noticeable: after all, you do not immediately realize the meaning of the actions of Woland and his retinue.
And in life, while doing good, we may not even notice how our actions give rise to evil.
The problem of good and evil has worried the minds of writers at all times. She did not bypass the brilliant 20th century writer Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. The novel “The Master and Margarita” was written in the 1930s, but was published only in 1966. It was classified as fantastic, realistic, grotesque and even atheistic. The appearance of Yeshua Ha-Nozri, the prototype of Jesus Christ, and Satan in the same novel aroused unprecedented interest. Already based on the example of these characters, one could conclude that the plot of the work is based on the struggle between good and evil. However, it is not necessary that these are different people, because good and evil can collide in one person. Each person, whether he wants it or not, faces the problem of choice. The same thing happened with the heroes of the novel “The Master and Margarita”.
Bulgakov's Jesus, Yeshua Ha-Nozri, is an ordinary person with his fears and weaknesses. He could have been completely weak if not for his faith. He sincerely believes that all people in the world are good and that there are no evil people. Being an honest man, he speaks directly about his beliefs, not renouncing them even under pain of death. He sincerely believes that someday the time for justice will come and there will be no more cruelty in the world. Yeshua makes this choice and does not deviate from his path. For this he is endowed with Light.
He is opposed to the procurator of Judea - Pontius Pilate. This man, endowed with power and strength, also faces a choice: to pardon the innocent philosopher or execute him. However, he lacks the courage to go against the system. Fearing denunciation, he signs Yeshua's death warrant, although he is sure that the prisoner is innocent. As a result, it becomes a heavy burden on his conscience. In order to somehow atone for his guilt, he personally organizes the murder of the traitor Judah from Kiriath. But, as it turned out, Yeshua was right. You can atone for guilt only with sincere repentance, and not with a new murder. Only after repentance was Pilate granted forgiveness.
The problem of choosing good and evil faces not only the gospel heroes, but also the residents of Moscow in the 1930s. For example, the chairman of a large literary publishing house, Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, was punished and doomed to death for not believing in the existence of God and the devil.
And the author confronts his main character, called the Master, with a choice. However, succumbing to cowardice and weakness, he repeats the actions of Pontius Pilate. He refused to fight for his work and chose to burn it, although he knew that it was worthy of publication. In contrast to him, Margarita, the master's beloved, takes a more active position. She is ready to fight for the well-being of her beloved and his creativity. For this reason, she even makes a deal with the devil, accepting his terms. She does not have the same faith as Yeshua, but she has an all-consuming love, which she does not renounce. As a result, she makes the right choice. Despite the fact that she chooses the side of the forces of darkness, her choice does not bring grief or suffering to anyone.
Using the example of his heroes, the author tries in every possible way to show the reader that in the novel no one commits sins at the prompting. Everything that happens is a conscious choice of everyone. Therefore, every person is responsible for his actions, both good and bad.
Shapkina Victoria
The problem of good and evil is an eternal problem that has worried humanity for centuries. The author of the study is trying to figure out how good and evil are related in M.A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita.” Does good always triumph and does evil always bring misfortune? These and other issues are addressed in the work.
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There is another assessment of the hero’s action. V.A. Chalmayev believes: “Even after forgiveness, Pilate cannot free himself from the thought of the “past execution”, he is looking for confirmation that it did not happen. However, he is no longer separate from Yeshua. He will forever be the embodiment of “pilatchina,” avoidance of one’s conscience. Pontius Pilate received his punishment for cowardice - the immortality of eternal guilt." Hence condemnation as a natural reaction to the actions of Pontius Pilate. However, is it worth rushing to condemn the hero, because in the last chapter of the novel, at the request of the Master and Margarita, Pontius Pilate receives liberation and forgiveness, and together with Yeshua leaves along the lunar path. Why am I still closer to L.M.’s assessment? Yanovskaya, which more accurately, in my opinion, reflects the intention of the writer himself, who avoids categoricalness.
Pontius Pilate and Yeshua are having a discussion about good and evil. Yeshua believes in goodness, in the predetermination of historical development leading to a single truth. Pilate is convinced of the ineradicability of evil in man. Maybe both are wrong? The path along the lunar path became the result of the dispute between Pilate and Yeshua, which brought them closer together forever; This is how evil and good merged together in human life.
So, in the Yershalaim chapters of the novel Yeshua– a bearer of goodness, a symbol of moral fortitude and humanity.And Pontius Pilate cannot be classified as either a bearer of evil or a bearer of good, because he combines both principles, which may also well define human essence. The images of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua make it possible to understand that good does not always triumph on earth, and the struggle of these two principles does not always end in the victory of good.
Woland’s conclusion is well known: human nature cannot change so quickly, everything remains the same. Woland's visit, like the brilliant novel of the Master, who guessed the events of two thousand years ago, could not change anything in modern Moscow. Bulgakov draws this conclusion.
Did Woland have prototypes? Most likely not, because the writer himself emphasized in a letter to S. Ermolinsky: “Woland has no prototypes, I beg you, keep this in mind.”.
The depiction of the devil in Russian and world literature has a centuries-old tradition. It is no coincidence that the image of Woland combines the features of heroes from many literary sources. For example, Woland’s name and the epigraph to the novel are borrowed from Goethe’s Faust.
Woland is endowed with omniscience. He sees the future and the past, knows the thoughts of his heroes, their intentions and experiences. And there is nothing supernatural here, because he is the creator of this entire world. I agree with the opinion of V.V. Petelin is that if “... we remove all the external tinsel, all these transformations, fantastic paintings, all these clothes suitable only for a masquerade, then Bulgakov himself will appear before us, subtle and ironic.” This is exactly how subtle and ironic it appears to me
M. A. Bulgakov as the author of the novel.
Everything that Woland turns his gaze to appears in its true light. Woland does not inspire or sow evil, he does not lie or tempt. “He just reveals evil, exposing, burning, destroying what is truly insignificant,” - says L.M. Yanovskaya. And I agree with this competent opinion.
Thus, in the Moscow chapters of the novel, the Master is a bearer of good. Even though he gave up the fight, for his suffering he deserved, if not light, then peace. His Margarita is a symbol of goodness and mercy. Through her fate, Bulgakov presents us with the path of goodness to truth with the help of the purity of the heart and the enormous, sincere love burning in it, which contains strength.
And Woland is part of that force that, in theory, should do evil, but in fact does good. He is the eternally existing evil,becoming a necessary condition for the manifestation of good.It is his image that reflects Bulgakov’s moral concepts thatgood and evil are created by the hands of man himself. All of Woland’s knowledge, ideas of amazing depth, were discovered from the rich experience of observing the life of Bulgakov himself. In the created image, Bulgakov seemed to declare that good and evil in life are inseparable and are the eternal essences of life.
In this version, God commanded Satan and was therefore responsible for all the evil in the world. In the final form, God’s “guilt” is removed, the prince of darkness receives his kingdom in full power, and the former order becomes just a request to grant the master peace (but not light). Here evil follows the logic of Goethe's paradox: while desiring evil, evil still (sometimes) brings good.This paradoxical role makes darkness, if not light, then a cleansing fire.
Nowhere in the novel is there any talk of any “balance” of good and evil, light and dark, or the priority of good. This problem is clearly defined, but is not finally solved by the author either in favor of good or in favor of evil.
So, good and evil in the novel “The Master and Margarita” exist in inextricable unity. If in dualistic ideas about the world the opposition of good and evil as polar principles was formed, then it is also obvious that these concepts can only exist in relation to each other. In this case, evil plays an extremely important role, since only thanks to it we learn good, and even more precisely, evil leads us to good. In the novel “The Master and Margarita”, good and evil are not two different phenomena opposed to each other, they represent a single picture of the world. The phenomena of good and evil are valuable in their unity.
Conclusion
In the course of the study, after analyzing the Yershalaim chapters of the novel, it was found that Yeshua is the bearer of good, a symbol of moral fortitude and humanity. Pontius Pilate cannot be classified as either a bearer of evil or a bearer of good, because he combines both principles, which may also well define human essence. The images of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua make it possible to understand that good does not always triumph on earth, and the struggle of these two principles does not always end in the victory of good.
It is determined that in the Moscow chapters of the novel the Master is a bearer of good. Even though he gave up the fight, for his suffering he deserved, if not light, then peace. His Margarita is a symbol of goodness and mercy. Through her fate, Bulgakov presents us with the path of goodness to truth with the help of the purity of the heart and the enormous, sincere love burning in it, which contains strength.
And Woland is part of that force that, in theory, should do evil, but in fact does good. He is an eternally existing evil that becomes a necessary condition for the manifestation of good. It is his image that reflects Bulgakov’s moral concepts that good and evil are created by the hands of man himself. All of Woland’s knowledge, ideas of amazing depth, were discovered from the rich experience of observing the life of Bulgakov himself. In the created image, Bulgakov seemed to declare that good and evil in life are inseparable and are the eternal essences of life.
A comparison of good and evil in the two layers of the novel led to the conclusion that good and evil in the novel “The Master and Margarita” exist in inextricable unity. If in dualistic ideas about the world the opposition of good and evil as polar principles was formed, then it is also obvious that these concepts can only exist in relation to each other. In this case, evil plays an extremely important role, since only thanks to it we learn good, and even more precisely, evil leads us to good. In the novel “The Master and Margarita”, good and evil are not two different phenomena opposed to each other, they represent a single picture of the world. The phenomena of good and evil are valuable in their unity.
The hypothesis was not confirmed, because in this novel we saw that good and evil are in balance without a clear advantage of good, and evil is not always opposed to good.
List of used literature
- Abraham P. Pavel Florensky and Mikhail Bulgakov. Philosophical Sciences. 1990.
- Abraham P.R. The novel “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov in the aspect of literary traditions. - M., 1989
- Belobrovtseva I., Kulyus S. Roman M. Bulgakova “The Master and Margarita”. Comment / I. Belobrovtseva, S. Kulyus. – M., 2007.
- Bulgakov M.A. Collected works. In 5 volumes. Volume 5. The Master and Margarita. - M., 1992.
- Bulgakov M.A. Unknown Bulgakov. M., 1993.
- Bulgakov M.A. The Great Chancellor: Draft editions of the novel “The Master and Margarita” / Publ., intro. and comment. V. Loseva. M., 1992.
M.A. Bulgakov - novel “The Master and Margarita”. In Bulgakov's novel, the concepts of good and evil are intricately intertwined. Woland, Satan, is traditionally supposed to be the absolute embodiment of evil, but he often restores justice on earth by exposing human vices. The greatest evil, according to Bulgakov, is concentrated in the world of human society. And this has always been the case. The Master wrote about this in his novel, revealing the history of the deal between the procurator of Judea and his own conscience. Pontius Pilate sends an innocent man, the wandering philosopher Yeshua, to execution, since society expects such a decision from him. The outcome of this situation is endless pangs of conscience that overcome the hero. The situation in Bulgakov’s contemporary Moscow is even more deplorable: all moral norms have been violated there. And Woland seems to be trying to restore their inviolability. During his four days in Moscow, Satan determines the “true face” of many cultural figures, artists, officials, and local citizens. He accurately defines the inner essence of everyone: Styopa Likhodeev, a famous cultural figure, is a slacker, a reveler and a drunkard; Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy - bribe-taker and fraudster; proletarian poet Alexander Ryukhin is a liar and a hypocrite. And at a session of black magic in a Moscow variety show, Woland literally and figuratively exposes the citizens who have coveted what they can get for nothing. It is noteworthy that all of Woland’s tricks are almost unnoticeable against the background of everyday life in Moscow. Thus, the author seems to hint to us that the real life of a totalitarian state, with its legalized party hierarchy and violence, is the main diabolical action. There is no place for creativity and love in this world. Therefore, the Master and Margarita have no place in this society. And here Bulgakov’s thought is pessimistic - for a real artist, happiness on earth is impossible. In a world where everything is determined by a person’s social status, good and truth still exist, but they have to seek protection from the devil himself. Thus, according to Bulgakov, the confrontation between good and evil is eternal, but these concepts are relative.
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