The Role of Insanity in Mikhail Bulgakov's the Master And
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Kennedy 1 Archived thesis/research paper/faculty publication from the University of North Carolina at Asheville’s NC DOCKS Institutional Repository: http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/unca/ A Method to His Madness: The Role of Insanity in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita Senior Paper Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For a Degree Bachelor of Arts with A Major in Literature at The University of North Carolina at Asheville Spring 2016 By Mary Laura D. Kennedy ____________________ Thesis Director Dr. Evan Gurney ____________________ Thesis Advisor Dr. Merritt Moseley Kennedy 2 When The Master, title character of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (1966), is first introduced in the novel it is within the confines of a Soviet era insane asylum. He introduces himself to the poet Ivan Ponyrov (pseudonym: “Homeless” or “Bezdomny” in Russian), fellow writer turned madman, and recounts his struggle with literary critics: And then, imagine, a third stage came- of fear. No, not fear of these articles, you understand, but fear of other things totally unrelated to the novel. Thus, for instance, I began to be afraid of the dark. In short, the state of mental illness came. It seemed to me, especially as I was falling asleep, that some very cold and pliant octopus was stealing with its tentacles immediately and directly towards my heart. And I had to sleep with the light on. (145) In a beautifully complex scene, The Master articulates an intense fear historically common to Soviet citizens in fear of political coercion. In The Master’s case, this fear, acting as a final stage in his narrative, is a product of his experience as a novelist, and is thus easily read as artistic fear of rejection or misinterpretation. However, The Master consciously challenges this assumption by asserting that his fear is “of other things totally unrelated to the novel.” His fear seems to be the product of different anxieties which manifest as fear of the dark and interestingly, he equates this fear to mental illness. His phrasing, “the state of mental illness came” is a bold characterization of illness because it offers a subtle indication of the government, often referred to as referred to as “the state.” There is also an implication that The Master is not afraid of his existing novel, but more so fearsome of what is to come, just as he sees the state of mental illness come towards him. This adds urgency to the statement, reinforced with the words “directly” and “immediately” in the following sentence. Tension escalates as he demonstrates this fear with the powerful and dramatic metaphor of the constrictive octopus. Historically, Russia and the USSR Kennedy 3 have been cartographically represented as giant, gluttonous octopi. As early as 1877, maps of the Eastern hemisphere feature the Russian landmass stretching out its massive tentacles and engulfing the rest of the European continent.1 In anticipation of World War II, propaganda was released by the Allied Powers showing Stalin’s face on the head of an enormous red octopus swallowing the rest of the world, as a warning against the threat of communism. Well-educated and cosmopolitan Bulgakov, writing The Master and Margarita on the cusp of World War II, would have been well aware of these images. Therefore it is not a large jump to see the octopus described by The Master as a metaphor for the Soviet Union. The octopus’ petrifying grip on The Master’s heart and how this affects his perceived sanity is the focal point of the metaphor. Thus it seems the state exerts oppressive totalitarian control as a cold and pliant octopus moves its tentacles, inciting fear and inducing the feeling of madness in its citizens. Concluding the scene with the matter-of-fact “And I had to sleep with the light on,” brings the metaphorical fear full circle, and demonstrates the sheer power of the fear. He cannot sleep; the terror is so strong it haunts him even past his waking hours. A fear this strong comes from something so sinister it cannot exist within the light. Bulgakov, first and foremost a master satirist, is surely commenting on the terror instilled in citizens by the Soviet government. Life in the Soviet Union, of course, was exceedingly difficult for non-party individuals. One well-documented way the oppressive and domineering government wielded their power was through government sanctioned psychological and psychiatric abuse. Soviet psychiatric practices are perhaps best summarized by an excerpt from an oath, comparable in some ways to the American recitation of the Hippocratic, recited by every Soviet physician in which they promise: “…in all my actions to be guided by the principles of 1 Political map of Europe in the year 1877 with Russia depicted as an Octopus. Digital image. British Library Board, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/ideas/large1628.html> Kennedy 4 communist morality, ever to bear in mind the high calling of the Soviet physician and my responsibility to the people and the Soviet state” (Bloch and Reddaway 43). A large part of “communist morality” was a strong understanding of Marxism-Leninism, which was a required course in the Soviet Union in order to complete a degree in medicine. In addition to basic required knowledge, Joseph Stalin openly appointed physicians, psychiatrists included, based more on their political qualifications than experience and training. Politically minded candidates were very strong in their knowledge of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, maintained close personal alliances with Soviet ideology and were generally favored by Stalin because they were most likely to comply with his regime. This is evident in the detailed records of high-ranking psychiatrists being loyal Soviet party members. In fact, many of them were government officials, demonstrating the inseverability of medicine and government. Bulgakov as a trained physician himself would have been exposed to the same politically intense priming and the unbalanced value of loyalty versus skill. Because of his background in medicine it is not surprising that Bulgakov wrote such bold critique of the profession. The Soviet party was also quite actively involved in art and the lives of artists living within its state. Bulgakov was well acquainted with this dynamic as he is often called “Stalin’s favorite playwright.” When Bulgakov lost his job as the director of The Moscow Arts Theater due to ideological and artistic conflict, he wrote the government imploring them to provide him with papers either of reinstatement or emigration. Allegedly, Joseph Stalin himself called Bulgakov to offer him renewal of his previous position. The specific clinical and political treatment of insanity in The Master and Margarita lies at the crossroads of Bulgakov’s work as both a physician and an artist. In the novel, “madness” serves as a socio-historical satire of life in the Soviet Union and as a literary tool by creating a disjointed structure with multiple plot planes and Kennedy 5 engaging with literary traditions such as the grotesque. Several scholars note the reading of a fractured, complex narrative, however I suggest it is purposeful for aesthetic and political reasons, simulating the impact of the Stalinist regimen on artistic life in Moscow. In other words, Bulgakov does not merely depict the Stalinist’s regime’s cold and pliant grip over artists of the period, he places his audience into a similar position by presenting two different planes of realism- forcing readers to juggle the possible and the impossible in their own minds, which is admittedly an unsetting mixture. Politics of Artistic Madness The totalitarian government of the Soviet Union notoriously used insane asylums as prisons, banishing artists and intellectuals to a hospital as a means of suppressing dissent. Books such as Psychiatric Terror (1977) by Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway note several specific historical instances of revolutionary thinkers being banished to insane asylums in response to their outcry. Some, such as Maria Spiridonova, famed leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which openly protested communist policies, never made it to an asylum and were instead tortured by the state under the guise of psychiatric care. On her case, and her public sentence of a year in a sanatorium, Bloch and Reddaway write: …confinement in a sanatorium could serve the purpose of discrediting her. She would be removed from political power and influence on the grounds that she was physically and mentally unwell. Her ideas were those of a disturbed mind. Spirindonova in fact never entered a sanatorium. She remained confined in a Kremlin guardroom in distressing Kennedy 6 physical and psychological conditions until her escape in April 1919.2 (Bloch and Reddaway 50) The Master’s story is a perfect allegory for this sort of intellectual martyrdom. In the opening passage, The Master references a “fear of other things totally unrelated to the novel.” These fears most likely stem from the insidious political forces policing artistic and intellectual labor in the period. Because of the government’s policy of unjust psychiatric imprisonment of intellectuals, political perception of ideas is inextricably linked to stability of mind. When the government is in control of psychiatric diagnoses, they are given the authority to define reality by denying the realities of others. Throughout The Master and Margarita, The Master longs for acceptance of his radical novel. These validations never come, except from his beloved Margarita, and are instead just exasperated by his stint as a madman. Furthermore, the anxiety he feels is torturingly constrictive, as illustrated by the octopus metaphor, much like the plight of wrongful containment in Soviet Russia. As exhibited by the Spririndova story, and reinforced fictionally by The Master, the stigma of mental illness was so significant under communism that even a false diagnosis permanently altered one’s role in society.