Notes on Master and Margarita, Bulgakov (2)
10. Master and Margarita (again)
I am currently reading Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I have 50 pages to go, and then the novel is finished. I deliberately postpone the last part, because I like the book very much. I wrote one article about it, see link below
This is a second article. In this article I want to go more into depth. I read some secundary literature on TMAM and was not happy with it. There was a lot of discussion what books influenced Bulgakov, what ideas, what ideas influenced him more than others. This was all very abstract, theory; people started theoreticizing, I did not like it. So I decided to do something else. It is obvious that Bulgakov read a lot, and used these ideas in his novel. But men usually have a lot of ideas, and you can simply exchance one idea for the other, and you’ll never find out what idea is more true than the other. You can simply choose ideas, what you like more, and this is rather random; even for a smart guy as Bulgakov. But more important than that might be, whether you can see in the novel some fundamental structures of our reality; I’m not looking for ideas, but for truths. This might not be dependant what ideas are reflected in the novel, but how it is constructed: what characters are in the novel, what function do they have, what is their interaction? Perhaps, by doing so, I can examine whether the novel contains fundamental truths about life.
11. Story line
Master and Margarita is set in Moscow, 1920s or 1930s. It is about the devil (yes, you read this correctly) named Woland coming to Moscow to organize a ball. He comes to Moscow with a few helpers, funny people. Every year he organizes a ball at Walpurgisnacht (first of May).
A ball needs a prom queen. So Woland picks up a lonely, beautiful woman named Margarita to be the prom queen; because “every ball needs a prom queen” and “the prom queen should be named Margarita”. He said that they could choose from 120 Margaritas in Moscow, but they would not qualify, just she. Indeed she has a splendid character: very open, communicative, emphatic; and not unimportant, small detail, she is beautiful.
Margarita is married but she has a (secret) relationship with a writer, whose name is not mentioned in the novel, he is simply called “the Master”. The Master is sad, depressed I can say, because he wrote a great novel about Jesus and Pontius Pilate but the Soviet authorities would not promote this book, they would rather ban it.
12. Main theme: guys against girls
The story looks a bit silly, from the outset. But you can “sense” that it is extremely good. Already from the start, the story is quick, funny, characters have wit, the sentences are constructed beautifully. When I get this feeling, usually the book also >is< very good, so this means I also need to examine it’s content more closely, and precisely on what I wrote above: why did Bulgakov take any interest in all this “crazy stuff”? Why did he promote the lady Margarita? Why is the Master a writer and why is it important to reflect on the subject of his novel? What fundamental truths are reflected here?
One thing that comes forward is “gender”: the Master is a man, Margarita is a woman, there names are also part of the title of the novel. And you can see what I would call, a “masculine” and a “feminine” way of thining. On the one part you have the masculine, rational, atheistic worldview that was dominant in the Soviet-Union (but also today). And I think this novel is promoting an alternative, a more “feminine thought”: sensitivity, belief in magic; in contrast with dominant culture.
13. another theme: “Masculine” versus “feminine thinking”
Masculine thought is dominant in our culture. Men make houses, construct cars, make inventions. Men also dominate politics, philosophy and theology; they set the score.
People might be so used to this masculine, rational worldview, that they would hardly notice that this is just one option, and that there is also an alternative vision on life.
Or in simpler words, men like to talk so much, and they talk so much, that people might think: they’re probably right, or at least one of them, and forget that there is a second way of thinking.
But how to find this? We might need some “keys”, “markers” where to find feminine thought, or at least, to distinguish masculine thinking from feminine thinking.
It appears from the novel that especially belief in magic can be a good “marker”. This seems an important theme. The rationalistic citizens from Moscow do not belief in magic. And perhaps you as reader might immediately reject it: Belief in magic? Are you crazy??
But “belief in magic” is not crazy; it is “belief in the unexpected”; “belief in chance”. Many things in our lives are the product of chance or the unexpected. Actually, life is something unexpected itself! Yes, it makes sense that many things are unexpected. I will give you two examples: buying a lotery ticket is one example, but also how the world originated. It can just have originated out of pure chance, out of nothing; which is magic; unless you realize that nothingness is nevery completely nothing, it can contain chances, the virtual chance that something occurs and the real chance that it does occur.
14. Cognitive relativity theory
The next question is how to relate this to TMAM. If I read most secondary literature on internet, with one exception, I get sad: what a bunch of theories, facts, boring stuff! So I make another strategy. I am currently making a theory about human cognition, it is also about “masculine thinking” and “feminine thinking”, and I call this Cognitive Relativity Theory (CRT). There is more about it in my other articles on Medium. I won’t bother you too much with it, but I checked whether TMAM is compatible with the theory. In short CRT says that people usually have “ratio” dominant: they rationalize everything, see reasons behind everything. Though some have “emotion”, “sensitivity” dominant. They have a worldview 180 degrees the opposite. Ratio seems good for technical chores, but not for building a worldview. When you apply “emotion/spirit”, you can get better results. I make an overview, see below, what you get, dependant to the question whether you make a worldview based with a more masculine “ratio/ego” or with a more feminine “emotion/spirit”:
15.1 When it is about understanding the world:
A. very strange, but men will believe in mythology, fairy tales (!!): six day creation, never happened, but they love it; or the Big bang, did happen, but they don’t explain it! Like a mother whose son smashed the window with his football: “how did this happen little John? Explain to me in detail!!” John: “Kaboom.” They are just happy to know as little as possible. That is 180 degrees around of what they should do!
B. feminine thinkers as Marcion or Heidegger, also Schopenhauer, relied more on science; chance calculation, that it could be a chance/mistake, and want to know all about it in detail! Smart move: when you want to examine the world, you use science! Good choice!
15.2 When it is about understanding the divine:
A. here men will rely on science! How is this possible?! For examining the world they use fairy tales, but when it is about deity, a fairy basically, God, they use science?!?! But yeah, they do, and go dissect plants or insects to look and they either find intelligent design or chaos, from which they deduct there is or ain’t a God
B. women will understand that God is a magical deity and draw inspiration from texts where you can also find deities: fairy tales, mystery tales, dreams. Smart move!
15.3 When it is about taking care about the world
A. men will become very active, they are constantly busy with politics, debates, wars. As such, they easily create havoc: overpopulation, environment crisis, immigration crisis. They create crisis after crisis; exactly 180 degrees the opposite of what they should do.
B. women will be relatively passive, calm care-takers, as our environment is vulnerable
15.4 When it is about fighting evil, aligning with God
A. men become very passive, they lose all hope and do nothing but wait for Judgement Day or whatever solution that falls from the sky. And they especially want evil to be revenged for their own benefit.
B. women become active and think: what can I do about it?! Or how can I be involved in it? And they don’t care that much about revenge, we’re not talking about table tennis, whether you won last time, so that I want to win this time: they want evil to be completely destroyed!
16. TMAM, related to CRT
I made an assessment of Master and Margarita from the point of CRT, and to my opinion it perfectly shows the validity of a femine worldview.
16.1 When it is about taking care about the world
Men in the novel are very busy. Jesus is taking care of people from behind the scenes, Woland and his helpers also. In practise politicians and people in all kinds of functions in the Soviet-Union are also very busy, there are numerous offices, bureaus, organizations, that take care about the world. Of course it makes sense to care about the world, but I have the impression that men take this too serious. Women are present, but somewhat in a subsidiairy position: as secretaries, typists, salespersons. But these positions can be most important, they are actually the ones who do most of the work.
Also in the relation between the Master and Margarita, the Master is the active person; he wants to write a novel that contains some historical truths, he wants to make an assessment of it; and Margarita is more like the person who sponsers him, supports him, takes care of him.
16.2 When it is about fighting evil
When it is about fighting evil, and aligning with God, it is exacly the same. As mentioned above, here men will be rather passive, and indeed, this is exactly the situation in the novel. The Master is not succesful with his book, or actually, the book is good, but they do not want to publish it. And he is in a depression: he does not see any solution, so he gets depressed and does nothing about it. He waits for a solution to “come from the skies”, “drop out of the skies”. He even goes that far that he destroys the manuscript: he puts it in the oven. But Margarita is active: she rescues some pages from the oven. And later, when she is with Woland, asks him to retrieve the manuscript.
Also in relation with Woland, Margarita is the active person. You can namely wonder what Woland actually does: not much. He falls from the sky and has a ball every year, in which he invites many people. He does not do anything for these people. There is a lady Frieda, who is invited, who is cursed, but Woland does not even help her. Margarita is the active person again. She is the hostess of the ball, she is the prom queen. This is hard work: she has to smile to everyone, say “hello!” She talks to Woland about Frieda, so that the curse is lifted.
16.3 When it is about understanding the divine
Margarita is a risk taker: at some moment she loses the Master, he is in another place and she does not know where he is. But when she realizes that Woland can help her, to get the Master back, she just goes for it a full 100%. This means that she acts out of faith. In christianity this is “faith”. For Margarita it was never sure that Woland existed, or that he could do magic, but she still took a “leap of faith”. And this also applies to us. We can also act out of faith.
This is basically relying on magic. In CRT this is called “agency”. There is actually no god, but there is just nature. Though nature can be passive, that is her “default mode”, but she has also the possibility to become active. Normally nature is non-intentional, will-less, dead matter; but under certain conditions nature could become intentional. If someone has a really low ratio/ego, nature could act upon such a person; such a person might not have vision, raison d’etre, so that nature will start becoming active and give the person some.
16.4 When it is about understanding the world
Men might believe in fairy tales. I think there is a part of it in TMAM, namely the ideas about resurrection: typical male idea. There was one line about “retrieving the novel”; that was something Margarita did, so this might be part of the writer’s “redemption”. And another line of thought was whether they would live on forever, physically; they would be part of Woland’s team, or Woland would redeem them personally. But that would require some fancy trick. In Russia there was a movement busy with such ideas (transhumanism, cosmism, Nikolay Federov); but it is basically impossible. So you could say that this is either about “mental resurrection” (by promoting the novel, it was not destroyed, it can remain forever) or “physical resurrection” (by any tricks by Woland) and that this is basically impossible.
These seem “male” ideas. But there could be a way better, alternative: love. This looks pretty weak. But it can be strong. Margarita liked the Master’s novel. So he has at least one interested reader. And why bother for more readers? Also: why bother about the afterlife? “Mental resurrection” or “physical resurrection” lose significance. This might ask for an explanation: why is love so powerful? I’m not sure about that, but perhaps people are basically looking for something to identify with. And it is fun seeing something from yourself in another person. Not literally of course; at the moment when the Master and Margarita met, each would have had a different path in life, thereby recording different memories based on different experiences; they even had different preferences, as I recall Margarita liked yellow flowers and the Master did not.
And why would identification be so powerful? Difficult to say; but perhaps to “break one’s loneliness”. Perhaps love is not so much about sticking together for eternity, but breaking something, namely loneliness; perhaps this is like breaking glass, bang! broken! loneliness like broken glass on the ground.
