Discussion Questions

Why does the novel choose to have the most exact prophecy of the work spoken by a nameless foreigner, to two men who have just denied that any power exists beyond the human?

Berlioz backs his thesis with historians, and the foreigner answers with predictions about the afternoon Berlioz still has to live. What does each way of persuading demand of the listener, and which of the two does the novel seem to favor?

When the foreigner says that human beings sometimes "are mortal all of a sudden," what does he add to the objection that every man is mortal? Why is that enough to put back on the table the question of who governs human life?

What changes in the trial from the moment that the one who holds power over another's life is also the one who receives from him the most exact diagnosis he has ever heard?

Yeshua states that "There are no evil people in the world" after having been struck by the centurion Mark the Rat-Slayer. Is this conviction strength, naivety, or something else, and what does the chapter itself offer as an argument for or against it?

Pilate concludes that Yeshua is merely a harmless philosopher and, even so, confirms the death sentence before the crowd. What forces does the chapter show weighing on this decision, and how much could Pilate have chosen differently?

Was the prophecy fulfilled or was it staged? The text never resolves the question, and it is the ambiguity, not the answer, that sustains the next chapter.

The foreigner asks Berlioz to believe "at least that the devil exists" and says the seventh proof will be presented "right now." In what sense can an event function as proof, and why does the novel prefer this kind of proof to an argument?

Berlioz and Ivan conclude that the foreigner is mad, and even the detail about Berlioz's uncle in Kiev, which no newspaper published, only plants a first doubt in Berlioz. What, in the way the two of them think, makes the explanation of madness more comfortable than the one that he is telling the truth?

The severed head of Berlioz at the end of the previous chapter is followed, in this one, by a cat trying to pay the tram fare. What does laughter do to the horror of the previous scene, and what is gained or lost by mixing the two?

Ivan pursues the foreigner through Moscow, dives into the river and ends up half-naked, in long underwear, with a candle and a paper icon. What does the chapter suggest about the distance between pursuing a truth and appearing mad while pursuing it?

The narrator describes the visitor's envy as if the Massolit membership card were a prize for literary talent. Why does the novel speak with this pose of naivety, and what does it allow it to say about the association?

The news of Berlioz's death makes the jazz band fall silent, but soon "we're alive, after all!" is worth more than mourning, and the restaurant returns to its ordinary night. What does this speed say about Massolit, and how does the narrator expect the reader to react?

The doctor asks Ivan about the candle and the icon, and then tells Riukhin that it is schizophrenia, with alcoholism on top. What does the scene show about what happens to someone who tells an impossible truth to people who can only listen for symptoms?

Riukhin concludes that Ivan's insults torment him because they "contain the truth." Why does the truth weigh more than the coarseness, and what does the chapter do with the idea that a poet can write verses he does not believe in?

Stepan wakes with a hangover and meets a stranger who shows him a contract bearing his signature. In what way does the hangover, which seemed to explain everything, cease to serve as an explanation as the chapter advances?

Stepan faints in the apartment and wakes on a jetty, and the only answer he receives about where he is is "Yalta, come now..." Why does the novel take the character to a distant city instead of simply making him disappear, and what does this do to the logic of anyone trying to explain the case?

Stravinsky never contradicts Ivan's story: he goes through with him, action by action, what he did the day before, and asks whether it is possible to arrest someone who acts like that. Why does this method convince Ivan more than a discussion about Pilate would, and what does Ivan gain and lose by accepting?

Ivan answers "I am normal" firmly and, shortly afterward, agrees to stay at the clinic. What does the sequence of these two decisions suggest about the relation between being normal and being believed?

Korovyov answers Nikanor Ivanovich's doubts about who represents whom by saying that everything "is relative and unstable." Why does this phrase serve so well to persuade the president of the residents' association to accept what is proposed to him?

Nikanor Ivanovich is arrested for dollars that appear in the ventilation duct of his own bathroom, after having accepted a bundle of money from Korovyov. Is the punishment unjust or exact, and in what does it hit or miss regarding what he actually did?

Yalta's telegrams bear Stepan's handwriting, but the distance between Moscow and Yalta makes the story impossible, and Rimsky and Varenukha do not reach an explanation that holds up. What does the chapter show about how reasonable officials deal with what fits in no regulation?

The chapter ends with the redheaded woman's line, "Let me give you a little kiss," and with Varenukha fainting before the kiss happens. Why does the narrator break off the scene at this point, and what does it do to the fear and to the comedy?

From the start, Ivan's denunciation stumbles on the word "deceased" applied to Berlioz. What does this difficulty reveal about the distance between knowing that something has happened and being able to say it in official language?

When the new Ivan asks the old one "who am I in this case," the one who answers is a voice that belongs to neither of them. Why does the answer come from outside Ivan, and what does this say about the change he is going through?

After watching the audience scramble for the banknotes falling from the ceiling, and then beg for clemency for Bengalsky, Woland concludes that they are "people like any others," corrupted by the housing problem. Is this verdict mild or cruel, and what does it leave aside?

Bengalsky explains the money falling from the ceiling as "mass hypnosis," and Fagot replies that the banknotes are real and that this is a "barefaced lie." Why does the novel punish so violently those who try to give a rational explanation for what everyone has just seen?

The Master spends the whole chapter refusing his proper name, but accepts without hesitation the title his beloved gave him. What does this say about what he still considers his own, after losing everything else?

The Master says that love arose before him and his beloved "like a murderer who appears out of nowhere in a side street." What image of love does this comparison propose, and how does it fit with what the Master tells next about the two of them?

The Master burns the novel after the hostile articles and observes that "written paper burns against its will." What does the chapter make clear about his reason for destroying the book: the criticism, the fear, or something else?

The more vivid the details Varenukha adds to the Pushkino story, the less Rimsky believes it. What does this mechanism say about the relation between detail and truth, and why does the novel use it to give rise to Rimsky's fear?

Rimsky escapes only because a rooster crows, and afterward flees by train to Leningrad. What does the chapter say about the role of chance and of the natural order before the forces the novel has put on stage?

In Nikanor's dream, the master of ceremonies asks that the audience hand over the foreign money: whoever confesses is applauded, and whoever denies is refuted by his own mistress. What portrait of a society does this scene compose, and why does the novel show it in a dream?

Nikanor admits to having accepted the bundle, but insists it was "our money, Soviet money." Why does this distinction seem to him sufficient to declare himself innocent, and what does the chapter do with it?

Levi's curse is addressed to a silent God, yet the novel itself has shown, a few chapters earlier, a power that directly interferes in the world. To whom, in fact, should Levi direct his fury?

The narrator says that "The most resigned of all was Yeshua," among the three men on the crosses. Why does the text describe his resignation rather than just his suffering, and what does this change in the reading of the scene?

Levi arrives too late and curses God as the "god of bandits." Why does he choose this accusation, and what does his anger say about what he expected of God?

In every place the treasurer visits, something shows itself to be the opposite of what it seemed: the commission's president is an empty suit that writes with a dry pen, the employees sing without being able to stop, the rubles turn into foreign money. What do these images say about the bureaucracy the chapter portrays?

The treasurer is arrested for foreign money that appeared in the parcel without his doing anything to bring it about. What justice, or what lack of it, does the chapter show in this arrest, and how does it compare with that of Nikanor Ivanovich?

Sokov asks Dr. Kuzmin to "remove" a cancer that has not yet produced any symptom, instead of asking how to make the most of the nine months left to him. What does this reveal about what he values most: the time he has left to live, or the money he has accumulated to spend after it?

The narrator says without beating around the bush that "The motive was one thing only, the apartment" in explaining the trip of Berlioz's uncle. Why does the novel expose the uncle's motive with such frankness, and how does this change the way the reader watches his expulsion?

Woland asks Sokov "How much do you have in savings?" and then proposes organizing a party with the money before his death. Is the proposal cynical, sensible, or both, and what does it reveal about the way Woland judges the Muscovites?

Margarita lives with a rich and good husband, and the narrator says of her: "She had to either forget him or die." What does this extreme alternative say about the kind of love the novel stages?

Margarita only returns to the bench and listens to Azazello after he recites a sentence from the burned novel and mentions the notebook and the dried rose. Why do the Master's signs weigh more for her than any argument, and what does this show about what she expects from the invitation?

In the note to her husband, Margarita writes: "I have become a witch because of the misfortunes and sorrows that have struck me." Why does she present herself as a witch through misfortune, and not through choice or a desire for power?

Margarita leaves clothes and perfumes for Natasha, but sets aside the jewels so that the maid will not be accused of theft. What does this care say about how she takes leave of her former life, and why does the novel give room to such a domestic gesture?

Margarita destroys the apartment of the critic who ruined the Master and floods the neighbors below, but she stops on finding a frightened boy. What does the interruption of the vengeance say about the justice of this violence?

Margarita calms the boy with a kind lie: "it was the boys who broke the windows." What value does a pious lie have in a novel where Woland's retinue exposes truths that no one wants to hear?

Woland shows Margarita, on a globe, a house that explodes in a war and a child fallen in a pool of blood, and says: "The work of Abaddon is impeccable." How should the praise be understood, and what does it suggest about Woland's position before the death of innocents?

Woland describes Abaddon as someone who "is impartial and tends to feel compassion for both sides," so that "the results for both sides are the same." What does it mean to be impartial and yet to feel compassion, and why does this not change the outcome?

Frida can only repeat her own name, and Margarita tells her only "drink until you are drunk today, Frida, and don't think about anything." What relief can such advice give someone carrying a guilt that "nothing helps" to erase, and what does it reveal about Margarita?

Woland tells Berlioz's head that there is a theory according to which "to each is given according to his belief," and sends it to nonexistence. What kind of justice is this, which gives Berlioz exactly what he sustained, and is it punishment or the fulfillment of what he wanted?

Woland says: "Never ask for anything, especially from those who are strong." Soon after, Margarita's first request is for Frida, not for the Master. What do Woland's maxim and Margarita's choice each say about what is worth asking for, and from whom?

Woland does not accept that the Master's novel has been burned: "Manuscripts don't burn." What claim does this sentence make about the written work and about the persecution of those who write, and why does the novel put it in the mouth of a demon?

When Afranius repeats that Yeshua considered cowardice the worst of human weaknesses, Pilate asks "Why did he say that?", hears that Afranius did not understand, and soon moves on to other orders. What do the question and the haste to move on say about how the phrase strikes him?

Pilate states that they will kill Judas that night and declares: "My intuition has never deceived me." Why does the novel show Pilate more certain than Afranius about a plan that neither of them can verify, and what does that certainty suggest?

Judas is lured to Gethsemane by a woman who feigns affection and killed by men who take his money bag, after having handed Yeshua over for money, after having welcomed him into his home. Is this parallel justice, or is it another betrayal?

Pilate tells Levi "It was me" when revealing who did that to Judas. What changes in the meaning of the word justice when it is carried out in secret by someone who, in public, condemned Yeshua?

The commission gathers true testimonies that contradict each other and that no explanation without magic can put together. What does the chapter ridicule: the refusal to believe, or the method of investigation?

The cat Behemoth pretends to be wounded, drinks the stove fuel, exchanges fire with the intruders, and then sets the apartment on fire. Why does the novel give such a comic end to a place so charged with the sinister, instead of a serious confrontation with the retinue?

At the shop's door, the doorman announces: "Here sales are only for foreign currency." Korovyov feigns indignation before the customer in the lilac suit who pays with foreign currency: "And ours, what about ours?!" Against whom does the satire aim: the customer, the shop, or the rule that separates the two of them from everyone else?

At the Griboyedov House, Korovyov protests the request for documents, saying: "It is not identity cards that define a writer, but what he writes!" Why does the phrase sound so right, and yet so ironic when he says it in that place?

Woland asks Levi what his goodness would do "if evil did not exist" and how the earth would be without shadows. The argument convinces, and what does it leave out?

Levi says the Master "did not earn the light, he earned peace." Why does the text separate light from peace, and what did the Master do, or fail to do, to get the latter?

The Master manages to say only "Poisoner..." as he falls, after drinking Azazello's wine. Why does the novel make the passage to another life look like poisoning, and what does that change in the image of death it proposes?

The Master encourages Ivan to write the sequel, but he himself says he will no longer write and that he will be busy with other things. What does the farewell between the two suggest about what passes from one writer to another, and what ends with the Master?

When Korovyov whistles, the earth splits and an oak is torn up by the roots, and the Master runs back, frightened, to say that he has said his goodbyes. Why does the novel place a violent prank between the Master's farewell and the final departure?

Before Moscow, the Master feels "profound sorrow," then "proud indifference," and finally a "premonition of lasting peace." What inner path is this, and what does it say about what it means to bid farewell to a city where one has suffered?

Woland says that, "If it is true that cowardice is the worst defect," Pilate's dog is not guilty. What does this phrase absolve, and what does it leave unabsolved?

The Master receives a house under grapevines, with Schubert's music at night and goose quills for writing. Why does the novel imagine his rest so concretely and domestically, and is that a reward or a limit?

The official investigation attributes everything to hypnotists and ventriloquists, and the city kills black cats on suspicion of witchcraft. What explanation does society choose in order not to admit the inexplicable, and how does the epilogue portray it?

Aloisy Mogarych, the neighbor who denounced the Master to get his apartment, ends up as financial director of the Variety Theater, the post Rimsky refused. What does this destiny say about what the novel thinks of informers and of justice? Is it irony, punishment, or something else?

If Woland does not corrupt and only reveals, is he still the devil, or has he become an instrument of justice?

Why does the author entrust the book's moral thesis to Yeshua and its demonstration to Woland?

What changes in the reading of the novel when one knows that the manuscript that burns inside it also burns outside?

Margarita becomes a witch for love, and the first thing she asks for after the ball is for someone else. Does that redeem her, or is it precisely what condemns her to refuge instead of light?

Berlioz denies the existence of Jesus with historical erudition, and is brought down by a banal prophecy (sunflower oil, a tram). Why does the novel choose such a small mechanism to defeat so large an argument?

Yeshua tells Pilate that there are no wicked people, not even Mark the Rat-Killer, who beat him minutes earlier. Is it naivety, method, or the only way to keep some freedom before those who decide his death?

Pilate formulates Yeshua's acquittal on his own and does not carry it out. Which weighs more in the scene: the fear of an accusation of treason against Caesar, or the cowardice that Yeshua himself accuses him of (head aching, "thinks about death")?

No one believes Ivan when he tells the truth about Berlioz's death, and the price of insisting is the psychiatric hospital. What other scenes in the novel repeat this same structure, truth told and truth committed?

The Master burns the novel, but not his own memory of it: he can recite the book from memory later in the work. What did the burning actually destroy, if not the text?

Nikanor admits under interrogation the bribe in rubles, and denies, awake and in a dream, the foreign currency (see The foreign money), while other spectators of the dream, such as Kanavkin, confess. Why does the novel choose precisely the dream, and not the real interrogation, as the place where the truth of the Muscovites appears undisguised?

Rimsky and Poplavsky react to the supernatural in the same way, fleeing to catch the first train. What morally distinguishes one's fear from the other's calculation?

Stravinsky (see Stravinsky's clinic) never argues with Ivan over whether the consultant exists. He measures the distance between Ivan's behavior and that of "a normal man," and it is this distance, not the truth of the story, that decides whether he stays interned. What kind of truth survives this test, and what kind does not?

Woland absolves the audience by saying that the "housing problem" corrupted people who, at heart, are like anyone else. Is it a generous verdict, or the most cynical of all, for removing from each one the responsibility for what they have just done in the theater?

When the voice that judges the "new" Ivan sounds identical to the consultant's, the text suggests that the harshest self-examination Ivan makes of himself is no longer entirely his own. To what extent is recognizing one's own mediocrity (as Riukhin does in chapter VI) freedom, and to what extent is it merely a strange spirit speaking from within?

Margarita accepts Azazello's invitation without knowing the price or the destination: she decides in the dark, and only afterward discovers what she has taken on. What changes in a moral choice made this way, and does it still count as a real choice?

Korovyov instructs Margarita, before the ball, never to let any displeasure show toward any guest, even among murderers and confessed traitors. To what extent is hospitality without judgment a virtue when the one received has already been judged and condemned before reaching the door?

Woland says "Never ask for anything" right after Margarita refuses any payment, and right before she asks for Frida. Does the phrase describe a law about power, or is it also a comment on her own gesture, which gains its value precisely because she did not ask for herself first?

"Manuscripts don't burn" is said by someone who has the power to make the phrase true. Outside the novel, what survives of a work its own author tried to destroy, and what is lost when it has to be rebuilt from memory?

Pilate orders Judas protected while having already ordered his death. What changes, morally, between condemning a crime in the public square and carrying it out in secret, disguised as someone else's revenge?

Moscow's investigation gathers true testimonies, one by one, and still gets the entire explanation wrong, because it refuses the only hypothesis that would fit all the facts. What kind of error is this, and where else does it appear outside the novel?

Matthew Levi says the Master did not earn the light, but earned peace. Which of the Master's actions (or omissions), between burning the novel and giving up on defending it, weighs most in that reckoning?

Woland returns the decision about Pilate to the Master, and not to Yeshua or to himself. What changes when the one who forgives is the author of the story, and not an authority external to it?

The Master says he knows the novel "by heart" and therefore does not need to take it with him. Must a work that its author can recite from memory still exist outside him?

Ivan Nikolayevich never stops feeling the full moon, even when cured. Does the Epilogue treat this as residual illness, or as the only part of Ivan's story that remains true?