Prologue-1 (Apricot Soda)

I'm interested to see how the story will reflect upon the context of censoring and Bulgakov's frustration with getting his work published. Bulgakov’s The Purple Island was a satire on censorship, but was banned from being published. So, perhaps Bulgakov will slip in a few satirical remarks about censorship in The Master and Margarita, but very subtly in order for it to have been published. Why "Homeless" as Ivan's pen name? Even if it is just a name that he signs his work by, the narrator refer to him as Homeless. Perhaps there is a "home" not like the one you live in but maybe a domain or a safe haven that he lacks. I quite like the argument that the stranger makes about God governing the world not humans. He makes the world sound much more in order, that it has a plan, which man cannot govern because he cannot plan for a long span of time. "It is necessary to have a definite plan" he remarks (11). He may suggest that our lives are predestined, "for at least a fairly decent period of time" (11). There is a passage that is really reminiscent of Ivan Ilych which the stranger says about one who has unexpectedly contracted cancer, "You are no longer interested in anyone's destiny but your own. Your relatives begin to lie to you. Sensing the end, you rush to doctors, then to charlatans, or even fortunetellers, although you know yourself that all are equally useless" (11). Show out to Tolstoy? Hey! What was also interesting about these characters was the difference in their grounds for belief. There is seeing is believing and believing is seeing, but for Berlioz and Homeless, they need some sort of proof. They seem to take a scientific methodesque sort of approach, and have found nothing to show that Jesus or God existed. Berlioz objects so much to that idea that he wants Homeless to completely rewrite his poem, which make him seem as though he did exist. Why isn’t that enough proof that he did exist. Anyway, the definition of faith is believing without proof. To have faith in God is to simply believe, trust that He is there and He does in fact exist. It was strange that while Berlioz and Homeless failed to believe in Jesus Christ without proof, the stranger, a professor of black magic, was able to say Jesus existed without needing proof.
-Apricot Soda