![]() This courageous determination makes her willing to put herself at real risk by agreeing to host Satan’s Ball with Woland. She has a deeply held desire to help others which drives her on to find the master, though she doesn’t even know if he is alive. ![]() Bulgakov, then, reinforces the idea that courage is about individual sacrifice for a greater good.īulgakov develops this conception of courage in the character of Margarita. Pilate regrets his decision and is plagued with guilt for two millennia, frequently dreaming of walking with Yeshua in these dreams, the two men agree that the execution never happened and that “cowardice is the worst sin of all.” Yeshua, for his part, embodies true selfless courage, refusing to drink water from the executioner’s sponge and insisting it is given to one of his fellow dying men. This is both an attempt to preserves his own status as Hegemon-self-interest-and a general fear of upsetting the hierarchy (Yershalaim is an environment held together by a delicate balance of power). Though deep down he wants to free Yeshua, intrigued by the latter’s radical compassion, he confirms Yeshua’s death because he is afraid of the consequences of doing otherwise. Pilate, who must decide whether or not to approve Yeshua Ha-Nozri’s crucifixion, is at first guilty of a similar cowardice found in the Moscow narrative. ![]() Moscow society, then, is utterly compromised by self-interested moral cowardice and the refusal to put one’s own comfort or security aside for anyone else.īulgakov fleshes out his comparison of courage and cowardice in the Pontius Pilate sections of the novel. This exposure of cowardice reaches a climax with Woland and his gang’s performance at the Variety theater, in which they make money rain down from the ceiling, causing the audience to fight with each other to snatch as much as they can. And there’s the obsessive bureaucracy that pervades Moscow where “dutiful” citizens are often trying to report one another to the shadowy secret police. The state-approved writers are also cowards, more interested in fine food and holidays than in saying anything daring or genuine with their art. It plagues the distribution of housing, as shown by Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of the tenants’ association on Sadovaya street, who accepts a bribe from Woland’s assistant, Koroviev, to let them stay in the apartment. Whether Woland comes to Moscow with evil intentions or not, the chaos he creates certainly highlights the most “sinful” side of society’s character.īulgakov exposes this moral cowardice in a number of ways. The antics of Woland and his gang draw out the populace’s self-interest, greed, and dishonesty, exposing a collective cowardice that strengthens the status quo and all its faults-and in Soviet society, there were many. If courage can be defined as a willingness to take a stand against something in aid of a greater good, most of the Moscow inhabitants of the novel fall well short. Mikhael Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita makes a powerful argument in favor of courage over cowardice, describing the latter as “the worst sin of all.” All three of the novel’s storylines-the visit of Woland (Satan) and his entourage to Moscow, the love between the master and Margarita, and Pontius Pilate’s condemnation of Yeshua (Jesus) to execution in Yershalaim (Jerusalem) two thousand years prior-combine to show the power of courage and the terrible consequences of cowardice.
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