18-21 (Cracked Wristwatch)

In these chapters, I became increasingly curious about the character of the narrator.  It is clearly an interrupting narrator, and in our past encounters with interrupting narrators (particularly with Gogol’s works) the narrator could not be trusted.  Is this the case with The Master and Margarita narrator?  He or she tells the reader flat out that he is “an honest narrator,” but seeing as the truth in this book is incredibly subjective, can we trust him?  As Mrs. Larson pointed out in class, he uses almost Jesus’ exact words in commanding the reader to follow him (“Follow me, reader!”), and the fact that he is likening himself to Jesus suggests that perhaps he exaggerates (in other words, that he is not completely honest) (page 235).  He even tells the reader to “follow [him]…and only [him], and [he] will show [the reader] such love!” (page 235).  Such extreme narcissism makes his character questionable.  In addition, a narrator’s job is not necessarily to give the reader love; rather, it is to tell the story.  If anything, it feels have if the narrator is trying to confuse the reader (not love the reader) in this novel.  If the narrator himself is a character in the book it changes everything, as he is our only window into what occurs.  I am beginning to trust him less and less, which of course makes reading (and deciding what actually happened) quite a bit more difficult.

            Also, Margarita’s transformation seems quite Faustian to me.  It is only after she makes the statement that “[she] would pawn [her] soul to the devil” for more knowledge regarding the Master that Azazello appears to her, and the seeds of her transformation are planted (page 242).  Afterwards, she quite literally gives herself up to the devil, becoming a witch and loosing (nearly all) of her morals.  I also find it interesting that despite the fact that she now wants to inflict unnecessary harm on others, she still seems to retain her morals/old behavior in her encounter with the little boy.  There have been almost no children in the novel so far, and based on this one instance, Bulgakov seems to be portraying children as the one bit of innocence in a (literally) mad world.  Then again, instead of thinking that witches are destroying his building, the boy thinks that other children are doing the damage with slings.  Is this really any better?  One would expect such behavior from a witch, but from little boys?  Nevertheless, I think that the fact that Margarita treats the little boy so differently gives children a unique position in the madness of this novel.

            Another theme that I noticed was that of the breaking or shattering of glass.  For instance, in the last night’s reading the sparrow in the doctor’s office pecks his picture frame and “[shatters] it to splinters” (page 232).  Later on, Margarita drops the gold box holding the cream onto her watch, “cracking the glass” (page 249).  Of course the most obvious instance of glass breaking is when Margarita cracks all the windows of the apartment building.  Although I’m not quite sure what the glass breaking is symbolic of, I think it might have something to do with the way in which the novel and everything the novel depicts is descending into chaos.  In other words, Woland and his trio came to Moscow and shattered everyone’s preconceptions and peace of mind.
-Cracked Wristwatch