The Master and Margarita

by

Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita: Genre 1 key example

Genre
Explanation and Analysis:

As a satirical fantasy, The Master and Margarita resists the tidy constraints of any single genre. Bulgakov had finished the novel in 1940, but it would only be released in 1966—well after Stalin’s death. Even so, its uncensored version didn’t appear in the mainstream literary market until 1973. The novel owed much of these publishing delays to its subversive satire about the Soviet regime. Accompanied by a motley retinue with a talking tomcat and half-nude women, the Devil wreaks havoc upon Moscow while cleverly exposing the many failings of Soviet society—moral, institutional, and otherwise. Emcee heads get cut off, theater directors vanish, poets roam the streets in their underwear. The novel’s absurdity and devilish antics stage an unsubtle, darkly humorous criticism of the regime in which Bulgakov had imagined them.

Satire is not the only way the novel challenges Soviet society. Bulgakov pairs his critique with a magical surrealism that departs from the strict, realist standards of state-sponsored art. Witches gallivanting on broomsticks and pistol-firing, Satanic tomcats suspend everyday reality as much as they take issue with Soviet politics. The Master and Margarita’s plot defies credibility, and that partly by design. In a novel that deals with weighty issues of state censorship, crucifixion, and love, Bulgakov lifts part of his plot from the realm of fantasy and imagination to provide just as many moments of lighthearted, playful reading.