The Master and Margarita

Woland is the name adopted by Satan in The Master and Margarita. Woland becomes human to visit Moscow in the 1930s, whereby he evaluates the society and judges its inhabitants. Though he is the devil in disguise, Woland plays a decidedly honorable role in the novel. He is genuinely and sincerely interested in people and wants to provide help to those who ae undeservedly unhappy, such as Margarita. He punishes corruption, arrogance, and stupidity while offering opportunities to people whom society has forgotten. Through Woland, the Master and Margarita are reunited and Natasha is able to escape her unhappy life as a domestic servant. Meanwhile, Berlioz and the other arrogant members of the Muscovite high society are punished. Woland dislikes hypocrisy most of all. He rewards Margarita and the Master because they are sincere and honest. He punishes others because they claim to live in a new type of equal, fair society free of class distinctions while preserving and abusing their privileged roles in society for their own benefit. Woland’s role as Satan is to expose the hypocrisy of the human world rather than to simply torture and harm people for no reason.

In this sense, Woland plays an important role in the novel’s Faustian themes.