Adam and Eve
Style and Technique
In «Adam and Eve», Mikhail Bulgakov emerges as a master of concise yet richly expressive prose. His style is marked by restrained expressiveness, where every word is honed and charged with inner energy. The language abounds in metaphors and allusions, creating an atmosphere of anxious anticipation and apocalyptic hopelessness. Bulgakov skillfully employs interior monologue, allowing the reader to penetrate the psychological depths of his characters, to feel their fears, doubts, and hopes. The narrative structure is distinctly dramatic: the story alternates between dialogues and descriptions, with the dialogues filled with philosophical reflections and ironic undertones, and the descriptions imbued with the dark poetry of a ruined world. The author masterfully contrasts the mundane and the sublime, the tragic and the ironic, giving the text a special multilayered quality and depth. The composition is circular, like a ring: the beginning and end are united by the motif of catastrophe, while the inner space of the story is filled with symbols and allegories that reveal the eternal themes of love, fear, and hope for salvation.
