SOURCE: Pope, Richard W. F. “Ambiguity and Meaning in The Master and Margarita: The Role of Afranius.” Slavic Review 36 (1977): 1-24.

In the following essay, Pope argues that the ambiguity of the Afranius figure is essential to the meaning and structure of The Master and Margarita.

Perhaps the most mysterious and elusive figure in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita¹ is Afranius, a man who has been in Judea for fifteen years working in the Roman imperial service as chief of the procurator of Judea's secret police. He is present in all four Judean chapters of the novel (chapters 2, 16, 25, 26) as one of the myriad connecting links, though we really do not know who he is for certain until near the end of the third of these chapters, “How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Karioth.” We first meet him in chapter 2 (which is related by Woland and entitled “Pontius...