A man in M. Gorky's play "At the bottom".
Human! It's great!
It sounds... proud! Human!
M. Gorky
M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" was written in 1902. It was a huge success and was staged not only in Russian but also in European theaters. The interest in it is primarily due to the fact that the writer depicted in detail and reliably the life of people who found themselves at the "bottom". Previously, on the pages of Russian classics, people who belonged to high society. Now the floor was given to those who were usually not only not listened to, but also not noticed.
Gorky in his work encourages his contemporaries to reflect on what is better for a person of the "bottom": bitter truth or sweet lie? The characters of the play talk about truth and lies. A person and his destiny occupy almost the main place in the conversations of overnight stays.
In his drama, the writer condemns the existing system, the victims of which were ordinary people. Kostylev, the owner of the flophouse, brazenly sucks out the last pennies of the inhabitants of this "hole" for one night spent here. Before us appears the world of the outcasts, who have been deprived of faith in a better life, human dignity trampled into the dirt" the mighty of the world However, according to Satin, a person is the master of his own destiny, and they themselves are to blame for the fact that the shelters were in such a distress. If the Actor had not started drinking, he would not have lost his job and would not have stooped to such a degree .
Among the people of the "bottom" it is difficult to meet someone who is ready and capable not of death, but of life. From Luke's point of view, there are "people" and there are "humans", just as there is land that is inconvenient for sowing ... and there is fertile land. "All the inhabitants of the rooming house are just people, therefore the only grace that will be granted to them is death. That is why Luke convinces Anna to meet death as a long-awaited deliverance from a painful existence.Only Natasha and Pepel find the meaning of life in each other.They are still young and can escape from the power of circumstances.According to Luke, they are able to gain faith in God, which means , worthy of hope and grace.The rest of the inhabitants of the rooming house deserve only pity.And Luka pities them, not realizing that his deceit has a detrimental effect on everyone.
In my opinion, the antipode of Luke in relation to a person is Satin. He declares that man is the sole legislator who determines his own destiny. Everyone's will is strong. Man is free in his actions. He is able to achieve grace on his own, you just need to believe in yourself, and not in God, not in " righteous land", not into anything else. It is pointless to feel sorry for yourself or someone else, since no one but the person himself is to blame for his sorrows. Is it possible to feel sorry for the one who realized own will? If for the believer Luke "blessed are the poor in spirit", then for the atheist Sateen "blessed are the strong in spirit".
At the same time, Sateen has a dream of free life, clean, honest, bright, but he does not want to work, realizing that in the existing exploitative society it is impossible to live by honest work. That's why he laughs when Tick, in a fit of despair and powerlessness, declares that he will break out of the "bottom" of life and become a normal person, you just need to work. Satine hates and despises people who "care too much about being full". He convicts Luka of a lie, but understands that the old man was "a crumb for the toothless", he understands that a comforting lie is similar to the lies of the owners. Therefore, he says: "Falsehood is the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of a free man."
However, in critical moment comforter Luka disappeared, fled, discrediting himself and his idea. And this is not the only plot move that allows us to judge the author's position, to believe that the author himself is on the side of Satin.
A person tortured by life can lose all faith. This is what happens to the Actor, who, having lost faith in the mercy of God and not relying on himself, commits suicide. But it seems to me that suicide is one of the manifestations of free will. The death of the Actor means for Gorky the victory of the satin view of man. That is why Satin reacts so calmly to the terrible news. In his opinion, the Actor has gained real faith in himself.
The play "At the Bottom" is strong not so much for its answers as for the questions that arise from the very thick of life, from the most pressing human needs. This is where the main motive of the play is the contradiction between the lie of the owner and the freedom of Man. And this question sounded like hope for those who despaired and resigned themselves to their situation.
The theme of the humiliated and offended is not new in Russian literature. Let us recall the heroes of Dostoevsky, who also "have nowhere else to go." Many similar features can be found in the heroes of Dostoevsky and Gorky: this is the same world of drunkards, thieves, prostitutes and pimps. Only he is shown even more terribly and realistically by Gorky. In Gorky's play, the audience saw for the first time the unfamiliar world of outcasts. Such a harsh, merciless truth about the life of the social lower classes, about their hopeless fate world dramaturgy didn't know yet. Under the vaults of the Kostylevo rooming house were the people of the different nature and social position. Each of them has its own individual traits. Here is the worker Mite, dreaming of honest labor, and Ash, thirsty right life, and the Actor, all absorbed in the memories of his former glory, and Nastya, passionately yearning for great, true love. All of them deserve a better fate. The more tragic their situation now.
The people who live in this cave-like basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be a person and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the heroes of the play, but even the few features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. Tragic is drawn in a few words life destiny Anna. “I don’t remember when I was full,” she says. - I shook over every piece of bread ... I trembled all my life ... I suffered. .. how not to eat more than another ... All my life I went in rags ... my whole unhappy life ... ”The worker Klesh speaks of his hopeless share:“ There is no work ... there is no strength ... That's the truth! No shelter, no shelter! You need to breathe ... That's the truth!
The inhabitants of the “bottom” are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. Man is left to himself. If he stumbles, gets out of the rut, he is threatened with the “bottom”, inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree. And even here, in this scary world outcasts, the wolf laws of the “bottom” continue to operate. The figure of Kostya Lev, the owner of the bunkhouse, one of the “masters of life”, who is ready even to squeeze the last penny out of his unfortunate and disadvantaged guests, is disgusting. Just as disgusting is his wife Vasilisa with her immorality. The terrible fate of the inhabitants of the rooming house becomes especially obvious if we compare it with what a person is called to.
Under the dark and gloomy vaults of the doss house, among the pitiful and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagabonds, solemn hymn words about a man, about his vocation, about his strength and his beauty: “Man is the truth! Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! It's great! It sounds proud! Proud words about what a person should be and what a person can be, even more sharply set off the picture of the real situation of a person that the writer paints. And this contrast takes on a special meaning...
Sateen's fiery monologue about a man sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luka left, the Actor hanged himself, and Vaska Pepel was imprisoned. The writer himself felt this and explained this by the fact that the play should have a reasoner (expressor of the author's thoughts), but the characters portrayed by Gorky can hardly be called spokesmen for anyone's ideas in general. Therefore, Gorky puts his thoughts into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and fair character.
/ / Social issues Gorky's play "At the Bottom"
Despite the fact that Maxim Gorky's play "" is already over a hundred years old, it continues to be staged in many theaters around the world. This work, which showed the life of people who have sunk to the bottom, has not lost its relevance in our time. Gorky showed us everyday life the poorest segment of the population in its usual terms.
The action of the play takes place in a rooming house, which sheltered people of different age categories, different professions. Many of them used to have another life, but now they are all at the bottom of this life.
Speaking of social conflict plays, it is worth noting that it is ambiguous and multifaceted. It is revealed in the confrontation between the inhabitants of the rooming house and its owners, and also manifests itself in the personal tragedy of each hero of the work and the reasons that made them sink to the bottom of life.
To understand the conflict between the inhabitants of the rooming house and its owners, it is necessary to understand what kind of people they were.
So, Mikhail Kostylev was the owner of the rooming house. He was a hypocritical and greedy person. On the one hand, he gave shelter to the needy, and on the other hand, he ripped off their last money for living.
His wife Vasilisa was also disgusted with the inhabitants of the rooming house. She was in love with Vaska Ash, and was constantly jealous of him for her sister Natalya. Over Natalia Vasilisa, together with her husband, were tormented with special zeal. Natalya, on the contrary, was a quiet girl and did not allow herself to argue with her sister and her husband.
In the relationship between two sisters, Gorky showed us how social status affects the relationship of two people, even though they were sisters.
Vaska Pepel was one of the inhabitants of the Kostylevo rooming house. He said to himself that since childhood he was called a thief. Therefore, all his life he did nothing more than steal. It should be noted that Vasilisa encouraged the occupation of Ash by buying stolen things from him.
An unenviable fate was another inhabitant of the rooming house - Anna. She was ill with a fatal disease and lived to last days. Her husband, a locksmith Kleshch, has been waiting for the death of his wife for a long time. She was a burden to him. He thought that after Anna's death he would be able to earn money and start a new life. But this was not destined to happen. Anna lived and endured, endured daily humiliation, beatings from her husband. There was no place for joy and happiness in her life. The girl no longer remembered when she ate and dressed to the full, something different from old rags.
The person who could not find an application for his knowledge and skills, and now found himself in a rooming house with its other inhabitants, was Satin. FROM early age he worked at the telegraph office, was fond of reading. But now he has become a beggar, not expecting anything from life. From the old days, he had only a few intricate words on foreign language which he liked to show off to others.
Orphan Nastya was forced to sell her body in order to somehow make ends meet. She was a dreamer. Nastya was fond of romance novels and believed that someday it would befall her real love. For her dreaminess and naivety, the girl endured daily ridicule from other inhabitants of the rooming house.
Another inhabitant of the rooming house was Bubnov. Here he found himself because he found out about the betrayal of his wife and, not finding the best option, went to the rooming house to Kostylev.
In my opinion, the most tragic fall to the bottom was the fall of the Baron. He was a former nobleman, held a high position. But now he is forced to spend time with those people whom he simply did not notice before. The baron often recalled his past "well-fed" years. From that life, he only had an arrogant manner of communicating with others.
The next inhabitant of the rooming house was a man of the stage, a man who was bathed in applause, but who, succumbing bad habit, rolled down. The worst thing is that the Actor understands the cause of his suffering, but he cannot do anything about it.
Now all these once different people equal in their injustice. They find themselves at the bottom of life and are forced to come to terms with their fate. These people have no future, they only have memories of past life. All of them are united by one road - the road down into the abyss. Such a life destroyed everything in the inhabitants of the rooming house. human feelings and quality and gave rise not only to social, but also to moral degradation.
A ray of light for the inhabitants of the rooming house is the old man Luka, who tried to "stir up" them, giving them hope. Unfortunately, it was already too late, no one could find the strength to climb up again. The actor commits suicide, Vaska Pepel was exiled to Siberia, the rest of the inhabitants of the rooming house suffered a bad fate.
Maxim Gorky in his play "At the Bottom" tried to show us all the powerlessness of a person burdened social problems how important it is to be able to solve them in time in order to change your life.
Man is an invariable part of society, its main element. In the complex mechanism of life, he always has to subordinate personal motives and interests to social frameworks that protect him, and, at the same time, become the cause of spiritual unfreedom. Limitations and standards put forward by the environment, sometimes can not curb the strength of the human character, his desire for knowledge of the world and self-expression. Therefore, the conflicts between the individual and the collective are reflected in many works of Russian literature. One of these works is M. Gorky's drama "At the Bottom". The action takes place in a rooming house for the poor, where people of various kinds have gathered, but they are all rejected by society. Each of them has his own life tragedy, which is based on simple human weaknesses.
- Once rejected by society, found himself on " social day“A person is no longer able to rise, to cope with the vicissitudes of fate. So says one of the inhabitants of the rooming house - Bubnov. Life for him has lost its significance: once he owned a dyeing workshop, the hero suddenly loses everything. Thrown "to the bottom", having lost faith in people and the truth, having survived the betrayal of his wife, now he is convinced that everything in the world is subject to cruel and immutable laws, which it is pointless to resist. The thought of getting out of the rooming house, changing the course of things and starting new life Bubnov seems absurd. “All people on earth are superfluous ...” - the hero notes. Abandoned by the environment, he is embittered at society and is incapable of faith and forgiveness.
- “A person can do anything - if only he wants to,” another hero of the play, the new guest of the rooming house, the wanderer Luka, is sure, who enters into a conditional conflict with the ideological statements of Bubnov. Luke is a mysterious old man, almost blissful, who knows where he came from and where he is heading. Nobody knows about his fate, however, according to the preacher, a lot of grief and difficulties fell to his lot. However, the righteous man is sure that one can cope with the external ugliness, cruelty of life and society, it is enough to believe in a person, inspire hope in him, albeit sometimes deceptive. “You can’t always cure the soul with the truth,” the old man is convinced, consoling the heroes of the rooming house. Rejected by society, like the other characters in the play, Luke continues to believe in the inhabitants of the "bottom", in the high destiny of each of them.
- Despite the seeming doom of life, some of the heroes do not lose faith in a bright future, they dream of rising from the bottom of the social to a better stage of life. Vaska Pepel is a rebellious character in the play. His father was a thief, and he himself was accustomed to such a craft from childhood. Unlike others actors Ashes are rejected by society from the very beginning, as a lost person, whose fate is predetermined and known in advance. He seeks to change himself, thereby proving to the team that his share can be better, and he himself can become an honest and decent citizen. He loves Natasha, dreams of taking her away from the rooming house, where she is forced to endure her sister's beatings, and moving to Siberia, where no one will know about his past, and, therefore, will not be judged for past mistakes.
- "Man - that sounds proud!" - asserts his bitter truth, another guest of the rooming house, a former telegraph operator Satin. He is convinced that human life is expensive, so everyone needs sympathy. Satin, like Luke, is compassionate towards his neighbors, ready to help those in need. However, being on the social "bottom" makes him indifferent to life in general. He does not see the point in action, so he consciously destroys himself. Once sent to prison for murder, and now living in a rooming house, he does not want to change, because he considers existence "on the bottom" to be the natural course of existence. He rejects a society in which he no longer sees the truth. The truth, in his opinion, is in the person himself, however, even before that Satine does not care. Broken by circumstances, he refuses to fight, remaining indifferent to his future fate.
- Doomed to death, the heroes of the play inevitably go to the bottom. They are connected by a common destinies and the situation in which they are, the tragedy of the surrounding world, which rejected each of the guests of the rooming house for different reasons. The actor, who has successfully performed on stage in the past, now drinks heavily. He dreams of recovering from alcoholism and returning to the stage, constantly quoting famous literary passages. However, the realization of one's own weakness, the oblivion of society, the inability to get out of poverty push the hero to suicide. Other characters in the drama are also looking for "truth in wine": Andrey Mitrich Kleshch, a locksmith, found himself at the bottom due to his wife's illness. With her death, he expects relief from the burden of responsibility, but loses his job, becoming even more embittered at people and having lost the last goal of existence, messing around with Satin. The heroes are unable to find the right path, expelled from the collective to the social “bottom”, they die there, deprived of hope for the future.
The play "At the Bottom" was created by Maxim Gorky especially for the troupe Art Theater, and initially did not look in the eyes of the author as an independent literary work. However, the power of psychological embodiment, the sharp, to some extent even scandalous, theme of the work, brought the play "At the Bottom" to the rank of the strongest dramatic works.
"At the bottom" is a peculiar continuation of the theme of the humiliated and insulted in Russian literature. The author tells about the thoughts and feelings of people who, by the will of circumstances, found themselves at the very bottom of society. The very title of the work contains deepest meaning, which very accurately reflects the theme of the play.
The main images and heroes of the play "At the bottom"
From the first pages of the drama "At the Bottom" a dark and unpleasant picture unfolds before us. Dark dirty basement that looks more like primeval cave is the home of many people who, for various reasons, found themselves at the bottom social life. Many of them are rich in the past successful people who broke down under the pressure of fate, many continue their beggarly existence here.
All of them are bound by the same fetters, which consist in the absence of any spiritual and cultural development. The inhabitants of the rooming house are tired of struggling with difficulties and obediently swim along the stream of life. Gorky vividly depicts lost people who will never be able to rise from the "bottom".
Thief Vaska Pepel not trying to change their life values, talking about what continues the thieves' path of their parents. The actor, who, in fact, was one of the most thinking inhabitants of the rooming house, unable to put his philosophical thoughts into practice, finally becomes an inveterate drunkard.
Died in terrible agony Anna who still firmly believed before last moment your life in recovery. But like every society, even at its very bottom there was a person who tried to reassure and kindle the fire of faith in the souls of the destitute.
The priest was such a hero Luke. He tried to instill faith in people in salvation, pushed them to feel the strength in themselves and get out of the bottom of society. However, no one heard him. After the death of the priest, the existence of people became even more unbearable, they lost that weak thin thread of hope that was still in their souls.
It destroyed the dreams Tick about a better life, and he was the first to give up in his struggle for existence. The hope that at least someone could get out of here was completely crushed. The inhabitants did not have the strength to follow the light that Luka showed them.
The tragedy of society in the play
On the example of heroes, the author shows how people should not live. And this in no way concerns their fall, since no one in life is immune from this. But once at the bottom, no one has the right to obey circumstances, but on the contrary, this should serve powerful impetus to a better life.
"At the bottom" can be regarded as a kind of historical record. The situation described in the play was quite common at the beginning of the century.
