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Bulgakov's Ironic Parallel between Margarita and Afranius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Matt F. Oja
Matt F. Oja*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
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Extract

One of the most intriguing aspects of Mikhail Bulgakov's Master i Margarita is the complex and deeply significant system of parallels the author has set up between the Moscow and Jerusalem stories. These parallels have produced, in much scholarly analysis of the novel, a strong tendency toward what Andrew Barratt has called a “monistic” approach: An interpretation of the work as a double novel, or two variations of the same “master story,” acted out in different times and places by characters with clear, specific correlations—Woland-Pilate (or Latunskii-Pilate), the Master-Ieshua, Bezdomnyi-Matvei, and so forth. Although this approach has an obvious appeal, it also has several serious weaknesses. Not least among these is its failure to encompass the character of Margarita—that is, to identify a parallel to her in the Jerusalem story. In the following I will address this weakness by suggesting that Margarita's parallel character is Afranius, the chief of Pilate's secret service.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , Spring 1991 , pp. 144 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1991

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References

The author would like to thank Joe W. Shepard for his generous suggestions and valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. All references to the Master i Margarita are to the following edition: Mikhail Bulgakov, Master i Margarita (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1979).

1. See Barratt, Andrew, Between Two Worlds: A Critical Introduction to “The Master and Margarita” (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 111–115 Google Scholar, for a comparison of “monistic” and “pluralistic” interpretations of the novel. Barratt cites several monistic interpretations, see the literature cited therein. Other monistic interpretations include Bruce A. Beatie and Phyllis W. Powell's “Story and Symbol: Notes toward a Structural Analysis of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” Russian Literature Triquarterly, no. 15 (1976); W.J. Leatherbarrow, “The Devil and the Creative Vision in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” New Zealand Slavonic Journal, no. 1, (1975); and Anatolii Belyi, “O Mastere i Margarite,” Vestnik russkogo khristianskogo dvizheniia (1974), 112-113.

2. Proffer, Ellendea, Bulgakov: Life and Work (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1984), 638, n. 19Google Scholar.

3. For a detailed analysis of the timing of both stories, see Beatie and Powell, “Story and Symbol,” especially 220-228 and figures 1-3.

4. Pope, Richard W. F., “Ambiguity and Meaning in The Master and Margarita: The Role of Afranius,” Slavic Review, 36(1977): 16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Proffer, Bulgakov, 539; Milne, Lesley, “The Master and Margarita”: A Comedy of Victory (Birmingham: 1977), 11 Google Scholar; Edythe C. Haber, “The Mythic Structure of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” Russian Review 34 (1975): 398-399; Belyi, “O Mastere i Margarite,” 180.

6. In Proffer's opinion, “There are a number of mysteries in the Pilate novel, the chief of which is the role of Aphranius” (Bulgakov: Life and Work, 545). She follows this comment with a discussion of Afranius's lies. Pope agrees: “Perhaps the most mysterious and elusive figure in The Master and Margarita is Afranius” (“Ambiguity and Meaning,” 1). Pope, however, overemphasizes the ambiguity of Afranius's remarks: Afranius does distort the account of the crucifixion and Pilate does order him to assassinate Iuda in the cryptic conversation of chapter 25.

7. A. Colin Wright briefly discusses the contrast between Ieshua's individualistic philosophy and Pilate's role as representative of state power and notes that, according to Bulgakov, “ultimately all temporal power is an illusion—as Woland says, its influence is ‘microscopic’ in comparison with his own, so that those who wield it ‘become quite laughable, even pathetic,'” Mikhail Bulgakov: Life and Interpretations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), 263.

8. Woland himself, present at this scene in the form of the sparrow, appears to give Pilate the suggestion to try to save leshua. At the moment that the sparrow flies into the arcade “v svetloi teper’ i legkoi golove prokuratora slozhilas’ formula,” namely that the charge against Ieshua was unsubstantiated. As a result Pilate decides to acquit Ieshua and invite him to come and live in the palace. The decision suddenly made— “ostavalos’ eto prodiktovat’ sekretar'iu“—the swallow flies around Pilate's head and flies off, its mission completed (p. 25). Proffer originally suggested that the swallow is Woland's incognito form but later adopted the much more unlikely opinion that “the best candidate for the role of Woland ‘incognito’ is indeed Aphranius” (see Bulgakov: Life and Work, 640, n.28).

9. Edythe Haber, among others, has made the point that “in her selfless compassion, Margarita comes closest of all the characters in the novel to the Christian ideal” (“The Mythic Structure,” 402). She notes that Margarita saves Frida and Pilate, but does not mention Latunskii in this connection.

10. Pope, “Ambiguity and Meaning,” 21n.40.