7-9 (Cracked Wristwatch)

In these chapters I paid particular attention to the idea of exile and people “leaving”, and any political message that the exile might carry with it.  The first mention of someone being sent away (in these chapters) is when Woland tells Styopa that he has “sent [Grunya] to Voronezh” (page 91).  In my research on the significance of Voronezh I learned that in 1934 Stalin exiled Osip Mandelstam, a Russian poet, to Voronezh because of his writings.  In other words, politically Voronezh has quite a bit of significance.  Grunya would have been the only witness of Woland’s extermination of Styopa, and the fact that Woland disposes of Grunya by sending her way ties in with way the Soviet government set citizens up in order to be rid of them.  In other words, if the Russian government was eager to get rid of a citizen, as Woland wanted to get rid of Styopa, they would manipulate a situation in order to implicate the person.  This is exactly what Woland does to Styopa, and by sending Grunya away he ensures there are no witnesses.  Woland essentially destroys Styopa by driving him to insanity, and his public justification is that Styopa has gone to Yalta.  Like Voronezh, Yalta has quite a bit of political significance.  In 1920 Stalin turned Yalta into a place filled with mental hospital for working class people (such as Styopa).  Therefore, Woland’s claim that Styopa has gone to Yalta is a clear mirroring of the way the Russian government exiled citizens to Yalta.

Bulgakov mirrors the Russian government even further through the demise of Nikanor Ivanocich.  Just as the Russian government manipulated situations to implicate certain citizens, Koroviev sets Nikanor up by planting money in his house) and then calling the police to take him away.  Nikanor has no way to prove his innocence, ultimately resigning himself and “[submitting] to the inevitable” (page 114).  Woland disposes of Nikanor by “[throwing] him the hell out of Moscow” just as the Russian officials at the time got rid of poets and writers by means of exile (page 92).  In essence, Bulgakov seems to be employing Woland and Woland’s tactics in order to parallel to the Soviet government practice of exiling citizens.

Another thing I noticed in these chapters was the recurring image of the needle.  Styopa feels that there is a needle in his brain and Homeless is submitted to more needles in the mental hospital (on a side note I found it interesting that Homeless is in a mental hospital and Yalta was filled with mental hospitals).  Similarly, the chairman feels that “a little need seemed to prick at [him] deep down in his heart” (page 112).  It seems that the characters almost always feel these “needles” right before Woland destroys them.  Berlioz, Styopa, and the chairman all have the sensation of a needle pricking them right before they are in some way destroyed, but I am not quite sure what the significance of this is.
-Cracked Wristwatch