The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
“The Devil visits Soviet Moscow with a retinue of demons, and the only honest relationships in the city are between the damned.”
Characters in The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov · 1967 · 8 characters analyzed
Cast: Woland (the Devil), The Master, Margarita, Pontius Pilate, Yeshua Ha-Nozri, Ivan Homeless (Professor Ponyrev), Koroviev / Fagot, Behemoth.
Character Analysis
Woland is not Bulgakov's villain — he is the novel's moral arbiter. He exposes cowardice, punishes hypocrisy, rewards genuine love, and serves as the instrument through which Yeshua's mercy reaches the Master. His famous line — 'What would your good do if evil didn't exist?' — is the novel's epistemological thesis. He does not tempt or corrupt; he reveals what was already there.
Archaic, formal, occasionally theatrical — speaks like someone who has seen every human era and finds the present merely the latest iteration