Prosodic characteristics of key characters’ speech in M. Bulgakov’s novel «The Master and Margarita»

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This article discusses the prosodic characteristics of the speech of key characters in M.A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. The work is performed in the context of the author’s dissertation. Prosodic characteristics of the characters’ speech is an important function of the author’s commentary in the literary text, which allows to emphasize the uniqueness of each character, to reveal the individual features of the speech, emotional and mental state, temperament of characters. It also expresses the meanings that are fundamentally important for the semantics of the image. Based on this, it can be argued that the verbs of sound, adverbial and adjective side notes in the prosodic characteristics of the characters create an original manner of M.A. Bulgakov’s writings: the writer conveys the full range of feelings and moods of his characters as fully as possible, reflecting the peculiarities of oral colloquial speech as well. In particular, the prosodic characteristics of the Master and Margarita in the novel reveal the essence of these characters, to convey the author’s intention in relation to them. So, the task of the intonation characteristics of the Master’s speech is to show his emotional instability, anxiety, which is explained by the failure with the novel (his life’s work). In the prosodic characteristics of Margarita’s speech, two plans are distinguished: Margarita actually and Margarita the witch. This division is important, since the intonations differ significantly (which allows the author to shift the emphasis towards the heroine’s infernality in the course of the plot movement). Special attention is paid to the analysis of lexemes that are used in the author’s comments, since they reflect the peculiarities of characters’ lexicon, contribute to the brightly changing image, while determining the self-disclosure of the character.