Who He Is
Magazine editor and chairman of the council of the Massolit literary association, an atheist and a rationalist, who on the bench at Patriarch's Ponds wants to convince Ivan to deny that Jesus existed, citing Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus as historians who never mentioned him. The commonsense objection he prepares against the foreigner is dismantled by an adverb.
The objection Berlioz prepares is the commonsense one, that man is mortal, and the foreigner dismantles it by adding an adverb.Yes, man is mortal, but that would still be only half the misfortune. The bad part is that sometimes he is mortal suddenly, and that is where the danger lies! And generally he cannot even say what he will do this afternoon.
Trajectory
In chapter 1 he hears from the foreigner how he will die; in chapter 3 he concludes with Ivan that the man is mad and runs to phone the foreigners' department. On the way he slips on the sunflower oil spilled by Annushka and falls under a tram. In chapter 5, at the Griboyedov House, twelve writers wait for him for the ten o'clock meeting, and, once the news reaches the restaurant, the stand-in Yeldybin settles into his office.
They're going to cut off your head!
It was Berlioz's severed head
The chapter's satire lies in proportion: the news of Berlioz's death interrupts the dance for a few minutes, and then "we're alive, after all!" is once again worth more than mourning.
In chapter 9 what remains of him in Moscow are the vacant rooms, contested in thirty-two complaints from neighbors, and, in chapter 11, the denunciation that Ivan cannot write because he does not know how to speak of "the late" as the subject of a sentence.
In chapter 18 the uncle, Poplavsky, travels from Kiev to Moscow after the telegram about his nephew's death.
There was only one reason, the apartment. The apartment in Moscow!
In chapter 19 the city buries him without his head, stolen from the coffin that morning, and in chapter 23, at the end of the ball, Azazello brings the head on a platter, and Woland tells him that his theory, that death is the end of everything, will come true in him, since each is given according to his belief; the head becomes a goblet.
That is a fact. And a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Supernatural, Reason, and Death. The reading of chapter 1 on what his death does to his argument:
Ivan's answer, that man himself manages his life, is the thesis the whole scene will dismantle: the novel does not refute the atheism of the two with an argument; it refutes it with a fact that happens.
The head is Berlioz's thread through the entire book: it is the head the foreigner announces at Patriarch's Ponds, the head the tram cuts off, the head that is missing from the coffin, and the head that comes to Woland on a platter at the end of the ball, to hear that its owner's theory will come true in him, before it becomes a goblet.
Relationships
- Ivan Nikolayevich Bezdomny: the poet whom he commissions to deny Jesus and who witnesses his death.
- Woland: the foreigner who announces his death and receives his head at the ball.
- Poplavsky, the uncle from Kiev, and Annushka, of the sunflower oil.