The role of the dark force in Master and Margarita. Philosophical searches and evil spirits in Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita"

Dimitri Beznosko

“Impure forces” – or “non-dirty”?

Bulgakov dated the start of work on The Master and Margarita in various manuscripts either 1928 or 1929. In the first edition, the novel had variants of the names Black Magician, Engineer's Hoof, Juggler with a Hoof, Son V., Tour. It is known that the first edition of The Master and Margarita was destroyed by the author on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. Bulgakov reported this in a letter to the government: "And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove ..."

The novel "The Master and Margarita" combines "three independent plots within a single plot. It is easy to see that they all have all the components of the concept of "plot". Since any plot can be considered as a complete statement, then in the presence of an ethical component (composition) external to them, such statements as signs must inevitably enter into dialectical interaction, forming the resulting aesthetic form - a metaplot, in which the intention of the titular author is manifested” (1 ). But all three main plots (as well as many small ones) are sometimes connected by the most incredible intricacies that in one way or another lead us to Woland and his retinue.

In the sixty years that have passed since Bulgakov wrote his famous novel The Master and Margarita, people's views on what the common people call "evil spirits" have changed dramatically. More and more people began to believe in the existence of evil and good wizards, magicians and witches, sorcerers and werewolves. In the process of this return to folk mythology, the very perception of "Good" and "Evil", associated with the concepts of light and darkness, was radically changed. According to S. Lukyanenko, “the difference between Good and Evil lies in the attitude towards ... people. If you choose Light, you will not use your abilities for personal gain. If you chose Darkness, it will become normal for you. But even a black magician is able to heal the sick and find the missing. And a white magician can refuse to help people ”((2), ch. 5).

In a certain sense, Bulgakov anticipates the change in the concepts of light and darkness. In the novel, the author introduces Woland as a positive, or at least as a non-negative character. After all, it is not for nothing that the epigraph to The Master and Margarita is a quote from Goethe “I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good” (Goethe, “Faust”).

“As victims of the key Narrator [of the novel], which maliciously lured them into a trap and provoked them to rapture over the crude socialist realist crafts of their own work, real-life commentators of the novel are involved in the metaplot as characters - the (post) Soviet near-literary bureaucracy. In it, in real modern life, an act of Koroviev's mockery will be carried out according to the schemes described in the novel:
- ladies who were seduced by free fashionable outfits ended up in underwear when leaving the Variety Show;
- Koroviev provoked Bezdomny to shout "Help!" together, but he himself remained silent;
- he also dragged the employees of the Soviet office into a friendly choral singing, which brought them to a psychiatric hospital. Similarly, the Narrator only outlined for the critics an empty shell of the novel in the spirit of socialist realism, they unanimously thought out all the elements necessary for this genre, and he himself carefully refuted all this. In this aspect of the meta-plot, the development of which is relegated to the future (to our present), the retinue playing the naked king (socialist realism) is satirically shown, and the whole content of the novel works on this plot ("supposedly money" - "supposedly a novel"); in this sense, The Master and Margarita is one of the "Koroviev tricks" of Bulgakov himself, a true master of mystification" (3).

And again we see a connection with Woland and his retinue. From the very moment of Satan's appearance at the Patriarch's Ponds, events begin to unfold with increasing speed. However, it should be noted that the influence of Woland and his retinue is sometimes either minimal or guiding, but almost never openly evil. It is possible that Bulgakov is trying to show the “impure forces” familiar to us in a role that can be called “non-dirty”.

In his first meeting with Berlioz and Bezdomny at the Patriarch's Ponds, Woland acts only as a storyteller, or, as Bulgakov himself put it, a historian. And the truth is that the story takes place at the Patriarchs. But is Satan or any of his retinue guilty of it? Woland predicts to Berlioz that his head will be cut off; Koroviev points out to the latter where the turnstile is. But none of them is to blame for the fact that Mikhail Alexandrovich takes that last step when he decides to return behind the turntable, although, as Bulgakov emphasizes, he was already safe. So if there is Woland's fault in the death of Berlioz, it is in the very fact of his appearance at the Patriarch's Ponds and in a conversation with writers. But this is not something out of the ordinary, far from criminal, but rather a “non-dirty” act. Equally, the actions committed by Ivan Nikolayevich in the latter's futile attempt to catch up with Satan and his retinue, as well as the poet's placement in a psychiatric hospital after a fight in Griboedovo, are not Woland's fault either.

The forgery of the contract with Variety falls under just the "impure" category. But the reader cannot fail to notice that Woland is very gentle with Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, the director of the Variety Show, who “in general […] has been terribly pig[it] lately. Drink[s], enters into relations with women, using his position, does not do a damn thing, and cannot do anything, because nothing makes sense [it] that [he ] entrusted. The authorities are rubbing points! The car is in vain driving a state-owned one! ((4) Ch. 7). And what does Woland's retinue do with the Steppes? With the permission of their master, they simply throw him out of Moscow to Yalta, when it cost them nothing to get rid of Likhodeev by faster and more reliable methods. And this act, again, can be regarded as “not dirty”.

The scene with Nikanor Ivanovich shows how different it is: Koroviev's call to the police was certainly a dirty business. But the bribe that the chairman of the housing association receives from Koroviev, to some extent, justifies the actions of Satan's retinue.

We can say that actions, one way or another connected with Woland, bring evil. That there is nothing “non-dirty” in a character whose actions and orders bring people a nervous breakdown and loss of freedom, or even everything that they have, including life. The only objection is the fact that among the victims of the "jokes" of Woland and his retinue there is not a single person with a clear conscience. And the Variety barman, and Nikanor Ivanovich, and Baron Meigel - they were all guilty and lived under a suspended sentence. The appearance of Woland in their lives causes only a quick denouement.

The denouement only does what deprives the perpetrators of the opportunity to aimlessly live the rest of their lives. In the case of Baron Meigel, approaching him at the ball, Woland says: “Yes, by the way, baron,” Woland said, suddenly lowering his voice intimately, “rumors spread about your extraordinary curiosity. They say that she, combined with your equally developed talkativeness, began to attract everyone's attention. Moreover, evil tongues have already dropped the word - earpiece and spy. And what's more, there is an assumption that this will lead you to a sad end in no more than a month. So, in order to save you from this tedious waiting, we decided to come to your aid, taking advantage of the fact that you asked for a visit to me precisely with the aim of spying and eavesdropping on everything that is possible ”((4), ch. 23) .

The same theme is heard in the words of Woland, addressed to Andrey Fokich, the barman of the Variety, after he was told that he would die of liver cancer: “Yes, I would not advise you to go to the clinic ... what's the point of dying in the ward under the groans and wheezing of hopeless patients. Wouldn't it be better to make a feast for these twenty-seven thousand and, having taken poison, move<в другой мир>to the sound of strings, surrounded by drunken beauties and dashing friends?” ((4), Ch. 18). It is possible that with these words Woland, and through him Bulgakov, clearly alludes to a similar story with the arbiter of grace Gaius Petronius at the court of Emperor Nero, who, having fallen out of favor with the emperor, arranges a feast with all his money, and in the presence of family, friends, dancers He opens his veins.

Approaching the end of the novel, Bulgakov shows Satan as the only one who is able to give peace to people who deserve it. He puts Woland higher in terms of capabilities than the forces of light, on behalf of which Levi Matthew asks Satan to provide the Master and Margarita with a reward for their labors and torment on Earth. This episode shows Bulgakov's attitude towards Woland and his retinue, the writer's respect for the roots of folk beliefs in "evil spirits", in the power of this force.

Leaving Moscow, Woland takes the Master and Margarita with him. Night returns the true appearance of Koroviev and Behemoth. This is “such a night when they settle scores” ((4), ch. 32.). The ending of the novel is somewhat unexpected - the Master and Margarita will find peace. Peace from everything: from their earthly lives, from themselves, from the novel about Pontius Pilate. And again Woland provides them with this peace. And in the person of Woland, Bulgakov releases his heroes into oblivion. And no one will ever disturb them again. Neither the noseless murderer of Gestas, nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the horseman Pontus Pilate” ((4) Epilogue).

Bibliography.

1) Alfred Barkov, " Metaplot of "The Master and Margarita" » http://ham.kiev.ua/barkov/bulgakov/mim10.htm

2) Sergei Lukyanenko, “ The night Watch", online publication http://www.rusf.ru/lukian/, 1998

3) Alfred Barkov, “ Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita":
"eternally faithful" love or a literary hoax? » http://ham.kiev.ua/barkov/bulgakov/mim12.htm

4) Mikhail Bulgakov, “ Master Margarita”, online publication.

http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/BULGAKOW/master.txt

Introduction

Roman Woland Satan Ball

The novel by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov "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 abbreviated journal version. The fact that this greatest literary work has reached the reader, we owe to the writer's wife, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, who managed to save the manuscript of the novel in difficult Stalinist times.

Bulgakov dated the start of work on The Master and Margarita in various manuscripts either 1928 or 1929. In the first edition, the novel had variants of the names Black Magician, Engineer's Hoof, Juggler with a Hoof, Son V., Tour. The first edition of The Master and Margarita was destroyed by the author on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. Bulgakov reported this in a letter to the government: “And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove ...”.

Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita for a total of more than 10 years. Simultaneously with the writing of the novel, work was underway on plays, staging, libretto, but this novel was a book that he could not part with - a novel-fate, a novel-testament.

The novel is written in such a way, "as if the author, feeling in advance that this was his last work, wanted to put into it without a trace all the sharpness of his satirical eye, the unrestrained imagination, the power of psychological observation." Bulgakov pushed the boundaries of the genre of the novel, he managed to achieve an organic combination of historical-epic, philosophical and satirical principles. In terms of the depth of philosophical content and the level of artistic skill, The Master and Margarita rightfully ranks on a par with Dante's Divine Comedy, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Goethe's Faust, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and other "eternal companions of mankind in his quest for the truth of freedom” Galinskaya I.L. Riddles of famous books - M .: Nauka, 1986 p. 46

From the history of the creation of the novel, we see that it was conceived and created as a "novel about the devil." Some researchers see in it an apology for the devil, admiring the gloomy power, capitulation to the world of evil. In fact, Bulgakov called himself a "mystical writer," but this mysticism did not darken the mind and did not intimidate the reader.

The role of the forces of evil in the novel

satirical role

The satirical depiction of reality, which is “majestic and beautiful,” was more than dangerous in those years. And although Bulgakov did not count on the immediate publication of the novel, he, perhaps unwittingly, or perhaps deliberately, softened his satirical attacks against certain phenomena of this reality.

Bulgakov writes about all the oddities and deformities of the life of his contemporaries with a smile, in which, however, it is easy to distinguish between sadness and bitterness. Another thing is when his gaze falls on those who have adapted perfectly to these conditions and are prospering: on bribe-takers and swindlers, bossing fools and bureaucrats. The writer also unleashes evil spirits on them, as he had planned from the first days of work on the novel.

According to critic E.L. Beznosov, the forces of hell play a somewhat unusual role in The Master and Margarita. They do not so much lead good and decent people astray from the path of righteousness, but they lead to clean water and punish already established sinners.

The evil spirits are doing in Moscow, at the behest of Bulgakov, many different outrages. It was not for nothing that the writer added his exuberant retinue to Woland. It brings together specialists of various profiles: the master of tricks and practical jokes, the cat Behemoth, the eloquent Koroviev, who owns all dialects and jargons, the gloomy Azazello, extremely inventive in the sense of kicking all kinds of sinners out of apartment No. 50, from Moscow, even from this to the next world. And, either alternating or acting in pairs or threes, they create situations that are sometimes eerie, as in the case of Rimsky, but more often comical, despite the devastating consequences of their actions.

The true nature of Muscovites is revealed only when these citizens of a materialistic state are involved in something other than the daily hell of their lives. In Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, the Moscow population is influenced by the so-called "black magic". Of course, the tricks of Woland and his retinue turn into a lot of trouble for the Moscow inhabitants. But do they lead to at least one genuine disaster? In the Soviet world of the twenties and thirties, black magic turns out to be less remarkable than real life, with its nocturnal disappearances and other types of institutionalized violence. But there is not a word about the Russian tyrant in the Moscow chapters. The reader himself is given the opportunity to guess by whose will the arrests are made, people disappear from apartments, and “quiet, decently dressed” citizens “with attentive and at the same time elusive eyes” try to remember as much as possible and deliver information to the right address.

Styopa Likhodeev, the director of the variety show, gets off with the fact that Woland's assistants throw him from Moscow to Yalta. And he has a whole load of sins: “... in general, they,” Koroviev reports, speaking of Styopa in the plural, “have been terribly swine lately. They get drunk, get involved with women, using their position, they don’t do a damn thing, and they can’t do a damn thing, because they don’t understand anything about what they are entrusted with. The authorities are rubbed glasses.

The car is being driven in vain by the government! - the cat also snitched. ”

And for all this, just a forced walk to Yalta. A meeting with evil spirits is avoided without too serious consequences for Nikanor Ivanovich, who really does not play around with currency, but still takes bribes, and uncle Berlioz, a cunning hunter for his nephew's Moscow apartment, and the leaders of the Spectacular Commission, typical bureaucrats and loafers.

On the other hand, extremely severe punishments fall on those who do not steal and are not smeared with Stepin's vices, but have one seemingly harmless flaw. The master defines it like this: a person without a surprise inside. For the financial director of the variety show, Rimsky, who is trying to invent "ordinary explanations for extraordinary phenomena," Woland's assistants arrange such a horror scene that in a matter of minutes he turns into a gray-haired old man with a shaking head. They are also completely ruthless to the barman of the variety show, the very one who utters the famous words about the sturgeon of the second freshness. For what? The barman just steals and cheats, but this is not his most serious vice - in hoarding, in the fact that he robs himself. “Something, your will,” Woland remarks, “bad things lurk in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate others.

But the saddest fate goes to the head of MASSOLIT, Berlioz. The trouble with Berlioz is the same: he is a man without imagination. But there is a special demand from him for this, because he is the head of a writers' organization - and at the same time an incorrigible dogmatist, recognizing only stamped truths. Raising the severed head of Berlioz at the Great Ball, Woland turns to her: "To each will be given according to his faith ...".

With seeming omnipotence, the devil administers his judgment and reprisal in Soviet Moscow. Thus? Bulgakov gets the opportunity to arrange, even if only verbally, a kind of court and retribution for literary rogues, administrative swindlers and all that inhuman bureaucratic system that is only subject to the devil's judgment.

Philosophical role

With the help of Woland's assistants, Bulgakov conducts his satirical and humorous review of the phenomena of Moscow life. He needs an alliance with Woland for other, more serious and important goals.

In one of the last chapters of the novel, Woland, on behalf of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, is Levi Matvey asking for the Master: you recognize shadows, and also 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? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But there are shadows from trees and from living beings. Don't you want to tear the whole globe off, blowing away all the trees and all life from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light?

Bulgakov was least of all attracted by the enjoyment of naked light, although the surrounding life was not so abundant in it. What Yeshua preached was dear to him - goodness, mercy, the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power would be needed at all. But this far from exhausted what, in his opinion, people needed for the fullness of life, for the eternal movement of thought and the eternal work of the imagination, and ultimately for happiness. Without the play of light and shadow, without fiction, without unusualness and mysteries, life, according to Bulgakov, cannot be complete. And all this is already under the control of Satan, the prince of darkness, the lord of shadows.

Bulgakov's Woland does not sow evil, but only exposes it in the light of day, making the secret clear. But its legitimate time - moonlit nights, when shadows dominate, become especially bizarre and mysterious.

It is on nights like these that the most incredible and the most poetic takes place in the novel, which opposes the bleak prose of Moscow life: the flights of Margarita, the Great Ball of Satan, and in the finale, the jump of the Master and Margarita with Woland and his now no longer assistants - knights to where he waits. heroes their eternal shelter and peace. And who knows what is more in all this: the omnipotence of Satan or the author's fantasy, which is sometimes itself perceived as some kind of demonic force that knows no fetters or boundaries.

and in Russian folk tales, in which one can also see a certain philosophy, but the whole point is that Bulgakov's novel about the devil is not a fairy tale, but a true story about the social structure of Soviet society, where good and evil sometimes change beyond recognition in their shape and take truly bizarre forms.

The heroes of the novel are the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, Yeshua, and representatives of the Russian creative intelligentsia. Philosophical reflections are also present in the procurator's disputes with Yeshua, and in Woland's conversations with the townsfolk. A time interval of almost two millennia separates the action of the novel about Jesus and Pilate and the novel about the Master. It is possible that with the help of this, Bulgakov wants to show the eternity of the struggle between positive and negative in man, freedom and non-freedom of the human spirit, as well as his relationship with society.

In his philosophical searches, the writer puts the Master in situations similar to the fate of Christ. The master also undergoes great trials in his field. Bulgakov, in artistically and philosophically vivid images, shows the true and imaginary strength of man on earth, the true and imaginary freedom of his spirit. For example, Pontius Pilate, who has power over Yeshua and conducts his interrogation, suddenly begins to feel the superiority of the spirit of the impoverished philosopher over himself, the great ruler of people. Undoubtedly, the author subtly psychologically noted that the true greatness of the spirit cannot but inspire a sense of respect and even fear for the powerful of this world.

Pontius Pilate, in spite of his suffering, cannot maintain his mental balance in a verbal duel with a beggar philosopher. The ruler is not helped by his philosophy of the slave owner. He feels that with this philosophy he is defenseless before the highest truth and harmony of the world. On the other hand, Yeshua remains true to his truth even in the face of death, and not just before the procurator.

Interestingly, Pilate is a very complicated person. He is not just a villain and a coward. He is a man whom the social conditions that prevailed before him keep within certain limits. His soul begins to rebel, feeling that Yeshua is right. But Bulgakov certainly does not notice this and mercilessly condemns Pilate for his deed: the death sentence of Yeshua. Bulgakov-philosopher in this case takes the place of Yeshua, and, despite the objective and subjective conditions under which Pilate cannot act otherwise, the author affirms the highest philosophical law, according to which, at a certain moral level, there cannot be two correct decisions, but there is only one step towards higher truth.

truth, but his belief that manuscripts do not burn if they are honest books leaves him the right to understand in the future the highest truth and harmony of the world.

The forces of hell play a somewhat unusual role in The Master and Margarita. They do not so much lead good and decent people astray from the path of righteousness, but they lead to clean water and punish already established sinners.

The evil spirits are doing in Moscow, at the behest of Bulgakov, many different outrages. It was not for nothing that the writer added his exuberant retinue to Woland. It brings together specialists of various profiles: the cat Behemoth, the master of mischievous tricks and pranks, the eloquent Koroviev, who owns all dialects and jargons - from semi-criminal to high society, gloomy Azazello, extremely resourceful in the sense of kicking all kinds of sinners out of apartment No. 50, from Moscow, even from this to the next world. And, either alternating or acting in pairs or threes, they create situations that are sometimes eerie, as in the case of Rimsky, but more often comical, despite the devastating consequences of their actions.

“They are driving a state-owned car in vain! - the cat also snitched"

inside. For the financial director of the variety show, Rimsky, who is trying to invent "ordinary explanations for extraordinary phenomena," Woland's assistants arrange such a horror scene that in a matter of minutes he turns into a gray-haired old man with a shaking head. They are also completely ruthless to the barman of the variety show, the very one who utters the famous words about the sturgeon of the second freshness. For what? The barman just steals and cheats, but this is not his most serious vice - in hoarding, in the fact that he robs himself. “Something, your will,” Woland remarks, “bad things lurk in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate others.

this is an incorrigible dogmatist, recognizing only stamped truths. Raising the severed head of Berlioz at the Great Ball, Woland turns to her: "To each will be given according to his faith ...". It seems to me that only at this moment does the first real meeting between Berlioz and Woland take place.

With seeming omnipotence, the devil administers his judgment and reprisal in Soviet Moscow. Thus, Bulgakov gets the opportunity to arrange, even if only verbally, a kind of court and retribution for literary rogues, administrative swindlers and all that inhuman bureaucratic system that is only subject to the devil's judgment.

In one of the last chapters of the novel, Bulgakov shows us the dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil. To Woland, on behalf of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Levi Matthew comes to ask for the Master: “I am to you, the spirit of evil and the lord of shadows ...” - you pronounced your words like this, - Woland notices, - as if you do not recognize the 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? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But there are shadows from trees and from living beings. Don't you want to tear the whole globe off, blowing away all the trees and all life from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light? Here is another example of Sharikovshchina, only from the diametrically opposite side. Clear everything to achieve your goal, regardless of anything and no one.

Bulgakov was least of all attracted by the enjoyment of naked light, although the surrounding life was not so abundant in it. What Yeshua preached was dear to him - goodness, mercy, the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power would be needed at all. With the help of Yeshua and the Master, Bulgakov preaches Ethics and morality. But this far from exhausted what, in his opinion, people needed for the fullness of life, for the eternal movement of thought and the eternal work of the imagination, and ultimately for happiness. Without the play of light and shadow, without fiction, without unusualness and mysteries, life, according to Bulgakov, cannot be complete. And all this is already under the control of Satan, the prince of darkness, the lord of shadows.

Answer from Yergey Ryazanov[guru]
The central problem of the novel is the problem of GOOD and EVIL. Why does evil exist in the world, why does it often triumph over good? How to defeat evil and is it possible at all? What is good for man and what is evil for him? These questions concern each of us, and for Bulgakov they acquired a special urgency because his whole life was crippled, crushed by the evil that triumphed in his time and in his country.
The central image in the novel for understanding this problem is, of course, the image of Woland. But how to treat him? Is it really evil? But what if Woland is a positive hero? In the same house in Moscow where the writer once lived and where the “bad” apartment No. 50 is located, in our time someone has depicted Woland’s head on the wall in the entrance and wrote under it: “Woland, come, too much rubbish divorced” (21, p. 28). This, so to speak, is the popular perception of Woland and his role, and if it is true, then Woland is not only not the embodiment of evil, but he is the main fighter against evil! Is it so?
If we single out the scenes “Inhabitants of Moscow” and “Unclean Forces” in the novel, then what did the writer want to say with them? Why did he even need Satan and his cronies? In society, in that Moscow that the writer depicts, scoundrels and nonentities, hypocrites and opportunists reign: Nikanor Ivanovichi, Aloisia Mogarychi, Andria Fokich, Varenukha and Likhodeev - they lie, cheat, steal, take bribes, and until they encounter Satan's henchmen, they succeed quite well. Aloisy Mogarych, who wrote a denunciation of the Master, moves into his apartment. Styopa Likhodeev, a fool and a drunkard, works most happily as the director of the Variety. Nikanor Ivanovich, a representative of the Domkom tribe so unloved by Bulgakov, prescribes for money and prospers.
But then “evil spirits” appear, and all these scoundrels are instantly exposed and punished. Woland's henchmen (like himself) are omnipotent and omniscient. They see through anyone, it is impossible to deceive them. But scoundrels and nonentities live only by lies: lies are their way of existence, this is the air they breathe, this is their protection and support, their armor and their weapons. But against the "department of Satan" this weapon, so perfect in the world of people, turns out to be powerless.
“As soon as the chairman left the apartment, a low voice came from the bedroom:
- I didn't like this Nikanor Ivanovich. He is a burnout and a rogue” (1, p. 109).
An instant and precise definition - and it is followed by a strictly corresponding "merit" punishment. Styopa Likhodeev is thrown into Yalta, Varenukha is made a vampire (but not forever, as this, apparently, would be unfair), Maximilian Andreyevich, Berlioz's uncle from Kiev, was frightened to death, expelled from the apartment, and Berlioz himself is sent into oblivion. To each according to merit.
Isn't it very reminiscent of a punitive system, but absolutely perfect, ideal? After all, Woland and his retinue also protect the Master. So what - they are good in the novel? Is the "People's Perception" True? No, it's not that simple.
Literary critic L. Levina does not agree with the “popular” perception of Woland as a social orderly, for whom Woland is a traditional Satan (10, p. 22). “Satan is (according to Kant) the accuser of man,” she writes (10, p. 18). It is also a tempter, a seducer. Woland, according to Levina, sees the evil side in everything and everyone. Assuming evil in people, he provokes its appearance (10, p. 19). At the same time, L. Levina believes that “the rejection of Christ (Yeshua) and, as an inevitable consequence, of the value of the human person, puts the heroes in vassal dependence on the prince of darkness” (10, p. 20). That is, it is still evil that people refuse Christ. However, L. Levina sees evil rather in evil spirits, and justifies people, as it were. And there are reasons for this: after all, the servants of Satan really provoke people, pushing them to nasty deeds, as in the scene in the Variety Show, as in the scene “Koroviev and Nikanor Ivanovich”, when the bribe even crawled into the briefcase of the house committee.