What is Pilate’s state of mind as he begins to question the prisoner? In what ways does the prisoner surprise Pilate? Consider the parallels between this encounter and the one in the opening chapter. 11) Which position is he arguing? Berlioz doesn’t have the chance to counter, but what are some possible objections to Woland’s view? In the novel’s world, does his very existence nullify these objections? What is the “seventh proof” referenced in the third chapter’s title?Ĥ. When the foreigner learns Berlioz and Homeless are atheists, he poses the age-old question of free will: “If there is no God, then, you might ask, who governs the life of men?” (p. What connotations does that word carry, especially in a closed society like the Soviet Union of the 1930s? What are the risks or dangers involved in meeting a foreigner? How does Berlioz try to establish his identity, and when does he start to realize that the stranger is not who they take him to be?ģ. Berlioz and Homeless have trouble placing the stranger who approaches them at Patriarch’s Ponds park, but they immediately peg him as a foreigner. What is Berlioz’s quibble with Homeless’s poem? Is Berlioz’s act of commissioning the poem, then directing the poet to change it to suit his own tastes, unusual? How does Homeless take his editor’s criticisms, and what are his own thoughts on the freedom of expression?Ģ. Bulgakov’s novel opens with a meeting between a poet and his editor, a loaded subject given the author’s experience with censors in the U.S.S.R.
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