Bulgakov is known for his fictional approach to the true face of the world, and he never skimps on his bold imagination and witty language. With its fascinating fantasies, sharp satire and profound philosophy, his novels have been called "a magic mirror of the world", which has great charm and artistic value. It not only made the reader reminisce endlessly, but also influenced a large number of later literary scholars. Although it is written about the illusory world, Bulgakov's words are by no means limited to illusion, but reflect real social phenomena through illusion. To deeply understand Bulgakov's grotesqueness, we need to combine the background of the times, deeply appreciate his works of fantasy, satire and realism, and unveil his mysterious veil.
Bulgakov
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > art of fictional worlds</h1>
In the 1920s, writers liked to describe fantasies that did not exist in reality in hypothetical forms to reflect what they saw as turbulent times. Bulgakov is the most unique alternative among them, as his novels are full of "judging ugliness" interest. He used humorous and witty language and bizarre fantasies to sharply satirize various social ills that he could not tolerate, such as corrupt bureaucrats, the atmosphere of the city servants, and so on. These fantasy-based novels get rid of the limitations of time and space, make the characters come to life in the fictional world, and also make the theme and artistry of the novel more profound. Next, let's walk into Bulgakov's novel and explore his whimsical world.
Bulgakov and his manuscripts
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, the fiction reflects the truth</h1>
1. The dream in "The White Guard"
As Bulgakov's debut novel, The White Guard took him a lot of effort and was a bold attempt. The novel depicts the actions of a group of White Guard officers during the Cold War period, mainly Turbin, with a calm attitude, and shows the psychological changes of the White Guards officers with delicate brushwork: their love for the country, their nostalgia for the warm life of the past, their confusion about the future, and so on. Although it is a novel, Bulgakov has great respect for reality. He gives the Novel's White Guard officers the same ending as in history—defeat. The war was lost, lives were lost, and even their last warm harbor, Turbin's home on the slope, was destroyed.
Despite such a hardcore and heavy theme, Bulgakov is not a boring narrative, but a large number of dreams interspersed in the narrative, so that the whole novel is shrouded in a gray hazy atmosphere, and people can't help but feel melancholy. The dreams in The White Guard range from the characters' dreams at night to their daytime fantasies. Dreams and reality are intertwined, making the story of the novel both true and false, like a dream. Coupled with the interspersed scriptures, it gives the novel a mysterious and sublime color, allowing us to stand in the perspective of God and read through the entire novel with a historical eye, and also let Bulgakov's thought convey it vividly.
Stills from The White Guard
The dreams in the novel are not only grotesque, but also a continuation of the characters' realistic thoughts. For example, Dr. Turbin once dreamed of a monster in large plaid pants constantly laughing at him, and always chanted to him a sentence he had been thinking about before going to bed: "Honor is just a superfluous burden for Russians." This reflects his waking thoughts, and the monster in his dreams symbolizes his suspicions of joining the army to attack Moscow, and he does not know whether doing so will bring him the expected honor. This strange dream is only the beginning of a series of strange dreams by Dr. Turbin, and Bulgakov's art of the intersection of reality and fantasy has just begun.
In the novel, Dr. Turbin also made a series of strange and interesting dreams such as "Heaven's Dream" and "City's Dream", among which "City Dream" even contained the dream of Dr. Turbin in the dream, showing the wonders of the dream in the dream. This unfolding of the inception space not only confuses Dr. Turbin with dreams and reality, but also makes us as readers feel lost, as if we are sucked into the world of the story. In addition, the dreams of other characters are also interspersed in the novel from time to time. Prophecy dreams, warning dreams, divine dreams, "sleepwalking" dreams, a series of wonderful dreams that push the story to the climax at the same time, but also bring us an unparalleled reading experience.
Dr. Turbin's dream
2. The grotesque in "The Magic Barrier"
Unlike the serious and heavy-hearted White Guard, The Magic Barrier is a humorous and humorous dramatic novel. Korotkov, an honest and dutiful civil servant, was fired by the new station master due to a misunderstanding, and in order to keep his job, he had to chase after the station master who was out. It was at this time that the strange thing began: he first met a strange man with a big beard exactly like the new stationmaster; he was also regarded as a thief called Colobukov; then his documents were lost and could not prove his identity; everyone in the office where he used to work was replaced by strangers; the bearded freak suddenly turned into a cat; he tried to go to the Supervisory Commission but found that it had become a marriage registry... A series of strange things made him desperate and desperate.
The biggest charm of "Magic Barrier" lies in its artistic appeal. The people and events in the story change rapidly, the most obvious of which is the change of the new webmaster. He first grew a beard, and then found that the bearded man and the stationmaster were actually two people. Upon encounter with Korotkov on the narrow road, the bearded man was so frightened that he turned into a cat and fled. And when Trotkov entered the room, the cuckoo that popped out of the wall clock on the wall suddenly changed into the appearance of a stationmaster. These extremely exaggerated changes bring the grotesqueness of the novel to the extreme, and the fast-paced narrative can easily make us fall into it, gradually falling into tension as the protagonist's state of mind changes.
The strange people, strange words, and strange things in the novel are not only imaginary grotesques, but also symbols of various oppressions in real life. Korotkov is a typical little man, he is oppressed, he runs into walls everywhere, and he is desperate under all kinds of huge pressures. The story is full of exaggerated grotesqueness, and the fog of absurdity gradually rises, blurring the boundaries between reality and the delusions born of Korotkov's fragile spiritual world. Let us laugh at the twists and turns of the storyline, and we can't help but feel empathy and sigh for the tragic situation of the little people.
The Magic Barrier
3. Science fiction in "Dog Heart"
Dog Heart tells a bold experimental story. A medical professor implanted the gonads and pituitary glands of a recently deceased person into a dog for scientific research, turning it into a strange person with a humanoid dog heart. Strange people have human bodies, dog habits, and the bad habits of the original owners of organs. Even more outrageous, the odd man became the chief of the Moscow Public Utilities Bureau. He used his position to threaten a girl to marry him, and secretly gave him a bad professor who advised him to be good and even had a gun battle with him. The intolerable professor eventually operated on the odd man and turned him back into a dog.
This novel is grotesque and full of scientific overtones, which can be classified as science fiction. Like other novels, this novel also hides irony in the fantasy. The story of "Dog Heart" takes place in Moscow in 1924-1925, when the war is in turmoil, the people have difficulties in food, clothing, shelter and transportation, the oppression of the poor by the bureaucratic class is everywhere, and the plot of the strange man threatening to lure the girl to marry him is alluding to this phenomenon. In addition, the characters in the novel often make bold satirical statements, such as the inability to eat in Soviet newspapers, and the weight loss of patients who read Pravda. Such unabashed political confessions have brought "Dog Heart" to a very high political height. In fact, the existence of strange people is itself a kind of irony. Abuse of power for personal gain, false accusations of justice, murder of the weak... The irony of these human vices was imposed on the dog-hearted people by Bulgakov.
"Dog Heart"
4. Myths in The Master and Margaret
The Master and Margaret introduces a large number of biblical myths, which renders the novel a strong Christian color, and at the same time, it is also the finishing touch to the novel's classics. Unlike the traditional European and American rewrites of the worldview of biblical mythology, Bulgakov's penetration of the Bible is more diverse and unique. He arranged for biblical characters to appear in different time and space; let biblical characters become the prototype of his real-life-based novel; the theme of the novel is also full of biblical colors. The biblical themes he had processed appeared in the novel in different ways, forming a unique style of "novel within a novel".
The novel transforms and develops the biblical satan, Jesus, and Pilate. Satan was originally the devil of the Bible, and in Bulgakov's pen, he added some of the characteristics of Mephistopheles in Faust, becoming a law-abiding evil image that treats evil as good, punishes evil and promotes good. Jesus continues the image in the Bible, in which he willingly dies for justice and goodness. In the Bible, Pilate, who raped himself excessively, endured thousands of years of soul torture because of a momentary cowardice. These images, which are not the same as those in the original Bible, make us shine, and the character design that is closer to modern characters makes us read more intimately.
The Master and Margaret runs through the themes, images, characters, and themes of the Bible, revealing the good and evil in the depths of the human soul through mythology, and has become a contemporary apocalyptic book. Known for its artistic value as the pioneering work of the grotesque fairy tale tendencies of the Soviet literary scene, it was praised by the Soviet novelist Simonov as the pinnacle of Bulgakov's satire, fantasy and strict realist prose, and influenced a large number of literary scholars. The philosophical fairy tales of the decades that followed were more or less inspired by Bulgakov.
Stills from The Master and Margaret
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, the cause of the fictional world</h1>
1. Ingenious writing techniques
Bulgakov's novels are known for their illusory art, the most important of which is the philosophical expression of reality critique and symbolism in hypothetical forms. Bulgakov's literary orientation to himself was a satire on the ugliness of society, expressing his political position in the form of irony. He uses hypothetical techniques to skillfully connect reality and illusion, reveal people's changes from both the material and inner aspects, and further deepen and sublimate reality in this way to reach the height of philosophy. At the same time, the characters in the novel also have symbolic meaning. Good and evil; atonement, punishment; oppression, rebellion... A series of vivid characters reveal the truth of the chaotic world to us, and also make the theme of the novel more profound.
2. Complex writing background
In The White Guard, he created the Turbin family based on his own family, of which Dr. Turbin's prototype came from Bulgakov himself, and even the family's house was based on his own residence. His parents were both teachers, his grandfather and maternal grandfather were clergy, and from an early age, he had no worries about food and clothing, and the family atmosphere was easy-going and happy. Bulgakov's ingenious use of biblical mythology in The Master and Margaret comes from his intimate knowledge of scripture, in which his father's earnest teachings were crucial. His father taught him the Bible, his mother played with him, his younger siblings played with him, and the pleasant experience of growing up was the cornerstone of his later sense of humor, creativity and creative motivation.
However, Bulgakov wrote in the context of war, the country was shrouded in a tense political atmosphere, and he himself could not escape the shaking of current events, and it was the cruelty of war that made him choose grotesque irony. At the same time, the war and the miserable life of the people in the war provided him with a wealth of writing material. The last point that influenced his writing style was the borrowing of domestic and foreign literature. A lot of reading in his youth gave him a lot of experience, and his writing skills were more proficient.
Bulgakov and younger siblings
Conclusion: Bulgakov's novel world integrates fantasy, grotesqueness, science fiction, and mythology, skillfully combining fiction and reality, and raising the theme of the novel to a philosophical height through satire. Due to the influence of family, society and literary tradition, his language is humorous and profound, reflecting social problems appropriately and has high artistic value. His writing has a very high status in the history of art, and he has his shadow in the literary works of the following decades. Although he has always described the chaos of war, Bulgakov has always had a future without war and without disturbances in his heart. Now that the Master is gone, his illusory world will always accompany us, and the power in his words will never disappear.
bibliography:
1. "Absurdity, Grotesque, Funny: Perspective on the Labyrinth of Modernist Art"
2. Historical Facts of the Literary Struggle in the Twenties of the Soviet Union
3. History of Russian Literature in the 20th Century