Literature will always hold the incredible power of making us question everything we know, or what we have come to realize. According to the cyclical concept we know as living, every individual, disregarding how this lesson was learned, blesses us with the gift of self. However, what exactly is meant by “the gift of self?” Do we truly know what kind of beings we are? Complexity, as we know it, makes us who we are: self-awareness, perspectives, beliefs, and everything that makes us different from anyone we have encountered. Societal division is crucial, however, it can be assumed that we are all driven by the love and desire to have power and control.
Society is notorious for its division of what is believed to be good and evil. The perfect analogy for said societal division is heaven and hell, in its extremity. The evilest entity known to man, from a religious standpoint, is the Devil himself. Religion has the power of dividing not only personal beliefs and hope but socioeconomic classes. Now it is
important to note that every individual has boundaries and their own considerations of what is good and evil. What if I told you, however, that true evil lies within humans instead of the most corrupt entity known to man? What if we are all punished by the Devil based on personal greed and selfishness…lack of morality and compassion? Each socioeconomic division results in an unspoken arrogance and assumed superiority, which separates all that makes us human from humanity. Ultimately, our perception of self and humanity is capable of destroying stability as we know it.
The novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov brings such dramatic assumptions and places them in a world where humans are the root of evil and corruption; for it is known, to those who choose to face the truth, that instability is blamed on higher powers or something out of human control. The main characters, the Master and his beloved Margarita, live in an ultimately atheistic world, where materialistic Muscovites believe they rule the world, as opposed to the world fueling their existence. When writing his book about Pontius Pilate, the Master finds himself in a creative and spiritual crisis, slowly driving himself insane, and losing what he once thought was his identity. Desperate to help her love, the once joyful Margarita sells her soul to Woland, for she is hopeless on Earth, and, in return, is blessed with the return of her beloved. Surrounded by the misery of materialistic Muscovites, which are the intended satirical element of the novel, and others who overcame spiritual awakenings, Margarita and the Master pursue their love in Hell, where Woland ended the sufferings experienced on Earth: crisis, loneliness, and insanity. Unlike the rest of Moscow, Margarita and the Master live on emotional impulse and love instead of selfishness and money. Woland’s assistants: Behemoth, Koroviev, and Azazello, are the embodiments of the Devil’s helpers, and deliberately catalyze chaos throughout Moscow to show how ultimately pathetic materialistic and greedy Muscovites are in the novel, and that higher powers punish those who deserve it. The notorious novel depicts a distorted yet quite chaotic image: boundaries and desire over anything else. Every boundary and extent as to how far an individual will go differs. There is a menagerie of intriguing and mind-twisting characters that all represent sanity, insanity, sin, and love, all showing that greed and selfishness lead to self-loathing and corruption. The one thing that every character has in common, however, is that they are visited by Woland, the Devil himself. This allows for every character to have a spiritual awakening that reaches upon the deepest desires of every individual.
Bulgakov uses satire and implements a mixture of Devil embodiments: Woland and Mephistopheles, to create an entity that is eternally good yet strives for chaos. This exact entity drives each character to drown in spiritual and self-awakenings, awakening to the evilest version of self. What if those higher powers, whatever they may be, bestow lessons and consequences that are deserved by those who corrupt and self-indulge? The controversy surrounding The Master and Margarita lies within its immorality…apparently it is considered to be immoral to blame humans for the end of humanity and everything we know to be good. Ultimately, what if the secret within the concept of evil and power lies within the fear of facing the ugliness that sits within every one of us – the ugliness that is avoided, the one that furtively desires to do anything to reach power, whatever the cost may be? To prove that we are capable and powerful to do as we please. We, as humans, feel jealous, angry, and even merciless at times, which are the pseudonyms and elements that stir the part of ourselves that wants nothing more but superiority and self-validation. In other words, what if evil is evil because of the lack of compassion and authenticity brought by humans?
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