External and internal conflicts in the drama based on the play At the Bottom (Gorky Maxim). Composition “External and internal conflicts in the drama “At the bottom

Literature lesson in grade 11

Features of the genre and conflict in M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom"

Lesson Objectives: show Gorky's innovation; determine the components of the genre and conflict in the play; prepare students for the exam.

Methodical methods: analytical conversation.

During the classes

I. Conversation on the content of the play "At the bottom"

Some of Nietzsche's philosophical and aesthetic ideas were reflected in Gorky's early romantic works. The central image of the early Gorky is a proud and strong personality, embodying the idea of ​​freedom. Therefore, Danko, who sacrifices himself for the sake of people, is on a par with the drunkard and thief Chelkash, who does not perform any feats for the sake of anyone. “Strength is virtue,” Nietzsche argued, and for Gorky, the beauty of a person lies in strength and even aimless feat: a strong person has the right to be “on the other side of good and evil”, to be outside ethical principles, like Chelkash, but a feat, from this point vision, is resistance to the general flow of life.

After the series romantic works In the 90s, full of rebellious ideas, Gorky creates a play that has become, perhaps, the most important link in the entire philosophical and artistic system of the writer - the drama "At the Bottom" (1902). Let's see what heroes inhabit the "bottom" and how they live.

How is the scene depicted?

(The scene is described in the author's remarks. In the first act, it is a "cave-like basement", "heavy, stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster." It is important that the writer gives instructions on how the scene is illuminated: "from the viewer and from top to bottom ", The light reaches the rooming houses from the basement window, as if looking for people among the basement inhabitants. Thin partitions enclose Ash's room. "Everywhere along the walls there are bunks." Except for Kvashnya, Baron and Nastya, who live in the kitchen, neither All in front of each other for show, a secluded place only on the stove and behind the cotton canopy that separates the bed of the dying Anna from others (this way she is already, as it were, separated from life). , stool, torn cardboard, pieces of oilcloth, rags.

The third act takes place in early spring in the evening on a wasteland, "littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds in the yard." Let's pay attention to the color of this place: the dark wall of the "barn or stable", the "gray wall of the rooming house covered with the remains of plaster", the red wall of the brick firewall that covers the sky, the reddish light of the setting sun, black elderberry branches without buds.

In the setting fourth act significant changes are taking place former room Ashes are broken, Tick's anvil is gone. The action takes place at night, and the light from the outside world no longer breaks into the basement - the stage is lit by a lamp standing in the middle of the table. However, the last "act" of the drama takes place in a wasteland - the Actor strangled himself there.)

What kind of people are the inhabitants of the rooming house?(People who have sunk to the bottom of life end up in a rooming house. This is the last refuge for tramps, outcasts, “ former people". Here are all the social strata of society: the ruined nobleman Baron, the owner of the bunkhouse Kostylev, the policeman Medvedev, the locksmith Kleshch, the card maker Bubnov, the merchant Kvashnya, the card sharper Satin, the prostitute Nastya, the thief Pepel. Everyone is equalized by the position of the dregs of society. Very young people live here (the shoemaker Alyoshka is 20 years old) and still not old people (the oldest, Bubnov, is 45 years old). However, their lives are almost over. The dying Anna is presented to us by an old woman, and it turns out she is 30 years old.

Many shelters do not even have names, only nicknames remain, expressively describing their carriers. The appearance of the dumplings merchant Kvashnya, the character of the Mite, the ambition of the Baron are clear. The actor once bore the sonorous surname Sverchkov-Zadunaisky, and now there are almost no memories left. - "forgot everything")

What is the subject matter of the play? What is the drama's conflict?

Reference: A sharp conflict situation, played out in front of the audience, is the most important feature of drama as a kind of literature.

(The subject of the image in the drama "At the Bottom" is the consciousness of people thrown out as a result of deep social processes, to the "bottom" of life. The social conflict has several levels in the play. Social poles are clearly marked: on one - the owner of the rooming house Kotylev and his supporter policeman Medvedev is in power, on the other - essentially disenfranchised bunkhouses.Thus, the conflict between the authorities and people deprived of their rights is obvious.This conflict hardly develops, because the Kostylevs and Medvedev are not so far from the inhabitants of the bunkhouse.

^ Each of the hostels had experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves in a humiliating position.)

What brought its inhabitants to the rooming house - Satin, Baron,Tick, Bubnov, Actor, Nastya, Ashes? What is the backstory of these characters?

(Satin went “to the bottom” after he served time in prison for murder: “I killed a scoundrel in temper and irritation ... because of my own sister”; The Baron went bankrupt; Kleshch lost his job: “I” am a working man ... I I’ve been working since I was a child”; Bubnov left home “out of harm’s way” so as not to kill his wife and her lover, although he himself admits that he is “lazy” and even a drunkard, “would have drunk the workshop”; The actor drank himself, “drank soul,., perished "; Ash's fate was predetermined already at his birth: "I am a thief from childhood ... everyone always told me: thief Vaska, thieves son Vaska!". The Baron tells in more detail about the stages of his fall (action fourth): "It seems to me that all my life I only changed clothes ... but why? I don’t understand! I studied - I wore the uniform of a noble institute ... but what did I study? I don’t remember ... I got married - I put on a tailcoat, then - a dressing gown .. and took a bad wife and - why? I don't understand... He lived everything that was - he wore some kind of gray jacket and red trousers... but how did he go bankrupt? Didn't notice... He served in the Treasury. .. a uniform, a cap with a cockade ... squandered government money - they put on me a prisoner's robe ... then - dressed this... And that's all... as in a dream... huh? That's funny?" Each stage of the life of the thirty-three-year-old Baron seems to be marked by a certain costume. These disguises symbolize a gradual decline in social status, and there is nothing behind these “dressings”, life passed “as in a dream.”)

What is the peculiarity of the social conflict of each inhabitant of the rooming house?

How is the social conflict related to the dramatic one?(These social conflicts are removed from the stage, relegated to the past, they do not become the basis of the dramaturgical conflict. We observe only the result of off-stage conflicts.)

What kind of conflicts, besides the social one, are highlighted in the play?

(There is a traditional love conflict in the play. It is determined by the relationship between Vaska Ash, Vasilisa, the wife of the owner of the rooming house, Kostylev and Natasha, Vasilisa's sister. The exposition of this conflict - the conversation of the roomers, from which it is clear that Kostshev is looking for his wife Vasilisa in the rooming house, who is cheating on him with Vaska Pepel. The origin of this conflict - the appearance of Natasha in the rooming house, for the sake of which Pepel leaves Vasilisa. As the love conflict develops, it becomes clear that the relationship with Natasha revives Ash, he wants to leave with her and start a new life. The climax of the conflict is taken offstage: at the end of the third act, we learn from the words of Kvashnya that “we boiled the girl’s legs with boiling water” - Vasilisa knocked over the samovar and scalded Natasha's feet. The murder of Kostylev by Vaska Ash turns out to be a tragic outcome of a love conflict. Natasha ceases to believe Ash: “They are at the same time! Damn you! You both...")

What is the nature of love conflict?

(Love conflict becomes the edge of social conflict. It shows that anti-human conditions cripple a person, and even love does not save a person, but leads to tragedy: to death, injury, murder, hard labor. As a result, Vasilisa alone achieves all her goals: she takes revenge on her former lover Ashes and her sister-rival Natasha, gets rid of her unloved and disgusted husband and becomes the sole mistress of the rooming house. There is nothing human left in Vasilisa, and this shows the enormity of the social conditions that have disfigured both the inhabitants of the rooming house and its owners. The roomers do not directly participate in this conflict, they are only bystanders.)

^ P. Teacher's word

The conflict in which all the characters are involved is of a different kind. Gorky depicts the consciousness of the people of the “bottom”. The plot unfolds not so much in external action - in everyday life, but in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the roommates that determine the development of the dramatic conflict. The action is transferred to the non-event series. This is typical for the genre of philosophical drama.

So, the genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama.

^III Test yourself

Read the following fragment of the play by M, Gorky "At the bottom" and complete tasks A11 -A15; AT 9 - AT 12.

Actor(stops, without closing the door, on the threshold and, holding hands on the jambs, shouts) - Old man, hey! Where are you? I remembered... listen.

(Staggering, takes two steps forward and, assuming a pose, reads.)

Lord! If the truth is holy

The world can't find the way,

Honor to the madman who will inspire

Mankind has a golden dream!

^ Natasha is behind the Actor at the door.-

Actor. Old man!..

If tomorrow the earth is our way

Forgot to shine our sun

Tomorrow would light up the whole world

The thought of some madman...

Natasha (laughs) Scarecrow! Drunk…

Actor(turning to her) Ah, is that you? Where is the old man… dear old man? Here, apparently, there is no one ... Natasha, goodbye! Farewell..- Yes!

Natasha(entering). Didn't say hello, but goodbye...

Actor(blocks her way). I'm leaving, I'm leaving. Spring will come - and I'm no more ...

Natasha. Let me go... where are you going?

Actor. Look for a city... to be treated... You, too, go away... Ophelia, go to the monastery... - You see, there is a clinic for organisms for drunkards... An excellent clinic... Marble... marble floor! Light ... cleanliness, food ... everything - for free! And the marble floor, yes! I will find her, I will be cured and... I will be again...I on the road to rebirth... as the king... Lear said! Natasha... on stage, my name is Sverchkov - Zavolzhsky... no one knows this, no one! I don't have them here. Do you understand!” what a shame it is to lose a name? Even dogs have nicknames...

^ Natasha carefully walks around the Actor, stops at Anna's bed, looks.

Actor. Without a name - there is no person ...

When completing tasks All-A15 in the answer sheet No. 1, under the number of the task you are performing, put the sign “ X »into the cell, the number of which corresponds to the number of the answer you have chosen.

A11 . What is the genre of M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom"?

political satire


comedy of manners


socio-philosophical drama
4) vaudeville

A12. This scene takes place

after Luka told the Actor about the hospital


just before Luca left the rooming house


after Satin's monologue "Man - it sounds ... proudly"


after the murder of Kostylev

A13. What influenced the change in the Actor?

threats from Kostylev and Vasilisa


"Naked Truth" Bubnov


Luke's stories of a better life


Satin's publicistic speeches

A14 . In this scene, the main problem is

rich and poor


human dignity


the role of art in human life


present and past of Russia

A15 . The main means of creating characters of heroes is?

portraits of heroes


heroes speech


internal monologues

When completing tasks B9-B12, write down your answer in the answer sheet No. 1 to the right of the number of the corresponding task, starting from the first cell. The answer must be given in the form of a word, phrase or numbers. Write each word or number in a separate cell legibly. Write words without spaces, punctuation marks and quotation marks, put a comma between numbers in a separate cell.

AT 9. The Actor's speech is a detailed statement. What is this type of utterance in a dramatic work called?

AT 10 O'CLOCK. The development of the action in this scene is accompanied by the author's comments. Indicate the term that is used to refer to the author's comments in a dramatic work.

AT 11. The actor utters a bright, capacious, concise phrase:« Without a name, there is no person. What is this type of saying called?

AT 12. The Actor's speech contains many hidden quotes from classical tragedies (a fragment from the words "Search for a city ..."). Indicate the name of the great playwright whose works the Actor recalls.

IVHomework

Identify the role of Luke in the play. Write out his statements about people, about life, about truth, about faith

Goals:

• To acquaint students with the stage fate of the play "At the Bottom".
• Introduce the heroes of the play into the setting and world.
• Determine the main conflict of the work - a clash of views and life positions bottom dwellers.
• Show the tense atmosphere of the Kostylevo rooming house with its endless disputes and quarrels; find out the reasons for the disunity of the people of the "bottom".
• Help students understand the meaning of the author's remarks.

During the classes

I. Opening speech of the teacher.

The largest writers of the 19th century (A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy) acted as prose writers, playwrights, publicists. Creativity M. Gorky is also characterized by multi-genre. He entered literature with romantic and realistic stories. In the late 90s. published the novel "Foma Gordeev", in which he reproduced a broad picture of Russian life, showing representatives of various social strata. In the early 900s, he turned to drama and acted as a playwright for several years.

"A play, a drama, a comedy is the most difficult form of literature," said M. Gorky.

At that time, the Moscow Art Theater enjoyed great popularity, opening with innovative productions of Chekhov's plays. new page in the history of Russian theatrical art. In the winter of 1900, Gorky visited this theater for the first time; in the spring of the same year, while visiting Chekhov in Yalta, Gorky met artists who captivated him with the idea of ​​creating a play for them. The result of this acquaintance was the play "Petty Bourgeois" (1901) and the following plays: "At the Bottom" (1902), "Summer Residents" (1904), "Children of the Sun" and "Barbarians" (1905)

Let us recall what is the originality of drama as a kind of literature (student's speech, accompanied by a computer presentation).

1) Drama is for stage performances.

3) The text consists of monologues and dialogues actors.

4) The play is divided into actions (acts) and pictures (scenes).

5) In the interval between actions, a certain time may pass (a day, two, a month, half a year :), the place of action may change.

6) The whole life process is not depicted in the drama, it goes as if behind the scenes; the author, on the other hand, snatches the most significant, from his point of view, moments from the stream of time, and focuses the attention of the audience on them.

7) A special load in the play falls on conflict- a sharp clash between the characters on a very significant occasion. At the same time, there can be no (superfluous) heroes in the drama - all heroes must be included in the conflict.

8) A dramatic work is preceded by poster- list of actors.

The very first plays by Gorky showed that an innovative playwright had come to literature.

The content and problems of the plays were unusual, and their heroes are a revolutionary-minded proletarian, inhabitants of a rooming house, and a conflict. Gorky acted as the creator of a new type of drama.

From the cycle of dramatic works by Gorky, the play "At the Bottom" stands out with its depth of thought and perfection of construction. "It was the result of my almost 20 years of observation of the world of "former people", among which I include not only wanderers, inhabitants of rooming houses and the "lumpen-proletariat" in general, but also some of the intellectuals - "demagnetized", disappointed, offended and humiliated by failures in life. I realized very early that these people are incurable, "Gorky wrote. He talked a lot and willingly about the tramps, their lives, people who served as prototypes for this or that character.

Over the play "At the bottom" Gorky worked hard and purposefully. Even the list of titles that he consistently gave to the play shows both the intensity of his search, and even partly his direction:

• "No Sun"
• "Bunkhouse"
• "In the hostel"
• "Bottom"
• "Day of Life"
• "At the bottom"

Why "Down"? (The author singled out not the place of action - "a rooming house", not the nature of the conditions - "without the sun", "the bottom", not even the social position - "at the bottom of life." The final name combines all these names with a new one. Not where how, a what's happening at the bottom" (what?): souls. Unlike the original names, which emphasize the tragic situation of the tramps, the last name is more capacious and ambiguous.)

The play received its final name on the theater poster of the Moscow Art Theater, on the stage of which the premiere of the play took place.

Already after the first reading of the play by Gorky himself at the apartment of the writer L. Andreev, it was clear that it would become an event. Censorship for a long time did not allow the play to be presented. She blacked out the text, crippled it, but still, yielding to public pressure, she allowed to play exclusively in Moscow and only one Art Theater. The authorities considered the play boring and were sure of the failure of the performance, where instead of a "beautiful life" there were dirt, darkness and poor, embittered people (charmers, tramps, prostitutes) on the stage. The production, carried out by directors Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, was a tremendous success. The author has been called over 20 times!

Playbill of the play "At the bottom".

So, December 1902. Moscow Art Theatre. First performance of the play.

There are many prominent writers, artists, artists, public figures, well-known critics. The most beloved, most prominent artists of the Moscow Art Theater are in the cast: Stanislavsky (Satin), Moskvin (Luka), Kachalov (Baron), Knipper-Chekhova (Nastya), Luzhsky (Bubnov). The curtain opens...

II. Dramatization of the beginning of the play, prepared by the students of the class.

III. Conversation.

Where did the viewer go? When and where does the play take place? (In a rooming house in early spring, in the morning.)

How is the scene of action depicted in the stage direction for act 1, which depicts the furnishings of a rooming house? (A basement that looks like a cave. Everywhere there is dirt, soot, rags...)

- How are the characters on the stage?(Everywhere along the walls there are bunk beds. Thin bulkheads fence off Ash's room. Except for Kvashnya, Baron, Nastya, who live in the kitchen, no one has their own corner. Everything is in front of each other for show. Discreet place only on the stove and behind the cotton canopy separating the bed of the dying Anna from the others (by this, she is, as it were, separated from life.)

- How is the stage lit?(The light reaches the bedchambers from the basement window, as if looking for people among the basement inhabitants.)

- Why does the author describe the rooming house in such detail in the remark preceding Act 1? Why is the remark so lengthy?(The playwright emphasizes the extreme poverty of the present existence of the "former", the wretchedness of the human shelter.)

- The tragedy of the existence of bunkhouses, the depth of human fall help to feel the remarks that give an idea of ​​the sounds of the bunkhouse. What does the viewer hear?

Moaning Anna

tinkering and hysterically coughs Actor

Loudly growls satin

fiercely tinkling keys and creaks Filed Mite

The Baron champs, chewing black bread:

- What is the atmosphere of the hostel?(Noise, swearing. Endless disputes, quarrels. Hell, anger:)

- Why are there so many fights?(Everyone lives in this basement as he wants. Everyone is preoccupied own problems. The characters don't seem to hear each other. Words sound from different angles. All those present speak at once, without waiting for an answer, weakly reacting to other people's remarks, but everyone, almost not listening to others, speaks about his own. Complete separation of people under one roof.)

- Stability, the limit of mutual alienation is conveyed in the form polylogue. What remarks emphasize the continuity of such "communication", the feeling of the flow of time in a vicious circle, without beginning or end?

The curtain opens and the viewer hears the voice of the Baron: "Farther!". This is the first replica of the play! It "creates a feeling of the inevitable flow of time, flowing in a vicious circle without beginning or end. ". (B.A. Bialik. Gorky the playwright.)

Growls, not frightening anyone, Satin, overslept after next intoxication.

Kvashnya continues a conversation started behind the scenes with Klesch, constantly fencing off his terminally ill wife.

Baron habitually mocks Nastya, absorbing another shocker.

Actor boring repeats the same thing: "My body is poisoned by alcohol: It's harmful for me: to breathe dust:

Anna begs to stop what lasts "Every single day:".

Bubnov interrupts Satina: "I heard: a hundred times!"

Satin, as it were, sums up: ": all our words are tired! I heard each of them: probably a thousand times:"

- In a stream of fragmentary replicas and squabbles, words that have a symbolic sound are heard.

Bubnov: "But the threads are rotten:" - twice, doing furrier business.

He is about the position of Nastya: "You are superfluous everywhere: yes, and all people on earth are superfluous:"

What do these seemingly random remarks reveal?

(The phrases spoken on a specific occasion reveal the imaginary connections of the people gathered in the rooming house, the "superfluity" of the unfortunate).

IV. Teacher's word.

Already the first readers of the play "At the Bottom" drew attention not only to the novelty of its content, but also to the novelty of its form. Chekhov commented on the play as follows: "It is new and undoubtedly good."

Why is the form of the play "At the Bottom" unusual? In what way does Gorky deviate from the rules for creating dramatic works known to us from plays that we read earlier?

2.No traditional plot: it unfolds not so much in "external" events as in dialogues (disputes), polylogues- they determine the development of the conflict.

3. In a play no main or secondary characters- all are important.

Let's look at the list of actors - poster.

V. Work with the playbill.

Why are the characters presented in different ways: some - by name and patronymic, others - by nickname, by surname?

Why differently represented by Kostylev and Klesch? (The list presents a certain hierarchy of the "bottom". Here, too, there are "masters of life", however, they are not so different from the inhabitants of the rooming house).

People in society are valued differently. At the "bottom" of life can be a representative of any class, gender and age. What unites them? (They are all renegades. All "former".)

VI. Mini quiz.

Remember which of the heroes of the play before the rooming house was

• an official in the treasury?
• caretaker at the dacha?
• telegrapher?
• locksmith?
• a furrier?
• artist?

VII. Conversation.

How did these people get here? What brought them to the rooming house? What is the backstory of each of the characters?

Satin hit the "bottom" after he served time in prison for murder (act 1).

The Baron is ruined. Served in the state chamber, squandered money; for embezzlement of state money he went to prison, then ended up in a rooming house (act 4).

Kleshch lost his job, although he was an "honest worker", "worked from an early age" (act 1).

The actor once had a sonorous surname - Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky, but was not in the first roles (he says that he played a gravedigger in Hamlet), lived in need; began to drink, not seeing a way out - he drank himself, "drank away his soul" (act 2). Weak at heart. The tick resists - the result is the same.

Fate Ashes predetermined already at birth: "I am from childhood: a thief." "Thieves son". There is no other way (act 2).

Which hero tells more about his fall than others? (Baron. Each stage of his life is marked by a certain costume. These dressings symbolize a gradual decline in social status.)

What causes people to "bottom"? (People are brought to the “bottom” both by subjective (laziness, meanness, dishonesty, weak character) and objective, social causes (poisoned, perverted life of society).

What are the sleepers talking about? (About what any person thinks about.)

Honor and conscience Faith in one's strength, in one's talent

The people of the "bottom" are not villains, not monsters, not scoundrels. They are the same people as we are, only they live in different conditions. This amazed the first audience of the play and shocks new readers.

The characters talk and argue a lot. Their conversations are the subject of the image in the play. Clash of ideas life views, the struggle of worldviews determine the main conflict of the play. It's typical of the genre. philosophical drama .

VIII. Homework.

Answer the following questions in writing:

1. One of the characters in the play, Satin, in the remark that ends the second act, will liken the overnight stays the dead: "The dead - do not hear! The dead do not feel: Shout: roar: the dead do not hear! .."
2. Can it be said that the first act is conversations in "kingdom of the dead" (G.D. Gachev)?
3. Or the researcher is right, who believed that "Luke, having descended into the basement, did not come to the desert, but to people" (I.K. Kuzmichev), and before the arrival of Luke kept alive in one way or another human features?

Introduction

Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the figure of Maxim Gorky, like a century ago, attracts the attention of the general public. The personality and work of the writer are subjected to captious criticism, the facts of his biography are scrupulously considered, the significance of individual works is overestimated. The desire to show Gorky "without make-up" is sometimes made for the sake of a peculiar fashion for a sensation, for the overthrow of former ideals. However, even the most violent opponents today have to admit that the name of Maxim Gorky cannot be erased from the history of social and cultural thought in Russia, from the context of the complex spiritual and aesthetic quest of all Russian literature. late XIX and the first decades of the 20th century. The artist's works have become a reflection of their time - a turbulent era of wars and social cataclysms. It will not be considered a mistake to say that today the study of Maxim Gorky's work begins almost anew. An objective and impartial assessment of the place and role of the artist in the literary process of the 20th century is the primary task of modern literary science.

Much has been written about Maxim Gorky and his creative legacy. Patriotic bitter science is represented by such names as Yu.Yu. Yuzovsky, S.V. Kastorsky, B.A. Bialik, V.V. Novikov, A.A. Volkov, I.A. Gruzdev, B.V. Mikhailovsky, L.A. Spiridonova, A.B. Udodov, - authors of fundamental research art system Gorky as a writer and playwright, his biography and personality. However, most of the monographs concerning the artist’s work were written before the 1970s, when in Soviet literary criticism Gorky’s name was invariably associated with the definition of “proletarian writer” and “creator of socialist realism”, and his works were considered mainly from the point of view of reflecting in them social issues. After the 1970s, interest in Gorky noticeably declined: it seemed that nothing new could be added to what had already been said.

At the end of the 80s - beginning of the 90s, there were new wave Gorky's "hobbies" due to the publication of previously unknown materials relating to the life and work of the writer, and this interest was often more scandalous than the desire to objectively assess the "blank spots" in the history of Russian literature of the 20th century. The authors of numerous newspaper and magazine articles focused their attention on the relationship between Gorky and the official authorities after the 1917 revolution, as well as on the mystery of the writer's death. Maxim Gorky was alternately called either a victim of the "Kremlin conspiracy", or a mouthpiece of the official ideology, or an ardent opponent of Stalin. However, all these statements were poorly substantiated and calculated only for a one-day sensation. It is gratifying that this negative trend has also been overcome in recent years. Today, the focus of researchers and critics is Gorky the artist, the humanistic problems of the work of the prose writer and playwright, his innovation and connection with the Russian classical realistic tradition. last decade were marked by the publication of a number of interesting studies concerning the personality and work of M. Gorky and his dramatic legacy. These could include the books of L.A. Spiridonova “M. Gorky: a dialogue with history” (Moscow, 1994) and “M. Gorky: a new look” (Moscow, 2004), L.Ya. and unknown” (Petrozavodsk, 1996), dissertations by M.A. Kabak “The theme of the family in the work of M. Gorky: based on the material of the dramaturgy of 1908-1916. (Moscow 2005) and S.A. Iezuitov “M. Gorky’s plays of the 1930s: text and context ( St. Petersburg, 2007).

In this way,relevance this study is determined by the general task of modern literary criticism to find new approachesin studying the artistic heritage of Gorky, in particular, his dramaturgyas part of the "single text" of the artist's work.

The purpose of the course work - to show the specifics of Gorky's dramaturgy, its innovative character.

The goal defines the followingtasks :

Familiarize yourself with the literature on the problem;

Consider the stages of Gorky's dramaturgy;

Analyze in detail the plays "At the Bottom", "Petty Bourgeois";

Show how this topic associated with the school curriculum.

The practical significance of the course work consists in the fact that its materials can be used both at the university when teaching a systematic course of Russian literature of the 20th century, in special courses and special seminars on the work of M. Gorky, and at school in literature lessons and in extracurricular activities on literature.

Work structure : the work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, a list of references, including 29 sources, and a methodological appendix.

Chapter 1. Dramaturgy of M. Gorky and the poetics of the "new drama"

Both contemporaries, and criticism, and literary criticism of the Soviet era often isolated Gorky from the innovative search for a “new drama” and brought him closer to the Znanev playwrights, who continued the traditions of Russian socio-psychological drama of the 19th century. Nevertheless, Gorky not only wrote in the era of theater renewal at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, but he himself was one of the reformers.

Gorky's interest in the theater manifested itself in the mid-1990s.XIXin. He turned to writing plays on the advice of Chekhov and the urgent request of the founders of the Moscow Art Theater K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko.

Gorky's appeal to dramaturgy is explained not only by this, as it were, an external, albeit with a deep inner meaning push, but also by the nature of his own work, which is distinguished by drama and dynamism.

It is customary to divide all the dramatic work of M. Gorky into three periods: plays of the era of the first Russian revolution (“Petty bourgeois”, “At the bottom”, “Summer residents”, “Barbarians”, “Enemies” - 1901-1906); plays of the 1910s (“The Last”, “Eccentrics”, “Children”, “Vassa Zheleznova” in the first edition, “Fake Coin”, “Zykovs”, “Old Man”, “Yakov Bogomolov” - 1908-1915); plays of the Soviet period (“Egor Bulychov and others”, “Dostigaev and others”, “Somov and others”, “Vassa Zheleznova” in the second edition - 1921-1935). As O.V. Zhurchev, “if we consider the socio-historical reality reflected in the plays, their ideological orientation and pathos, the elements of internal literary and philosophical polemics - with Chekhov, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and others - of course, such a periodization is quite natural and expedient. But if we turn to Gorky's ideological and artistic "cosmos", to the undoubted unity of the dramatic structure of his works, one can see the repetition of conflicts, genres, plot collisions, and authorial techniques. All the motley drama of the writer is a kind of artistic whole, organized by a special unique dramatic style, a special mood. .
Gorky's plays are characterized by multi-conflict, multi-entanglement, when one plot after another unfolds during the action, often symmetrical to the previous one, and storylines so independent that they can easily be removed from the play and make up the content of their own. The characters begin to group not "along" the storyline and the main dramatic conflict, but, as it were, "across" it. Since the nature of the plot must correspond to the nature of the denouement, “this dramatic parallelism builds a specifically Gorky constructive principle: group demarcation and clash of characters. The composition of the groups is changing, moving, unstable. It is not only the heroes belonging to one group or another that change places with ease, but also their ideologemes. Stage character groups form their own plots, which can intertwine with each other, forming a plot symmetry, so characteristic of the construction of Gorky's plays. . Without taking into account the "symphonism" of the construction of Gorky's plays, where there are diverse variations of the main motive, i.e. polyphony, they would be in danger of breaking up into separate, unrelated scenes, just as a piece of music without a common idea would break up into separate musical episodes.
The inclination towards “symphonism”, the obvious non-stage character, multi-personality and multi-conflict nature of Gorky’s plays really have their explanation in the specific poetics of Gorky’s dramaturgy, it is in it that the general idea is contained - both artistic and ideological (worldview).
The starting point for defining this general idea can be Varvara's remark from "Summer Residents": "Words excite us more than people" . Self-sufficient word, becomes for Gorky's heroes not only and not so much a way of communicating with each other and with the world, but, according to Zhurcheva, "the verythe worldand at the same time a way to create it with its own space-time coordinate system. Action is driven by "reasoning", "discussion", "thought", "word". Now each character is not a character, a psychologically reliable type. The actor is a worldview, an idea. .
In the plays of M. Gorkythe nature of the existential conflict is revealed, when the sharp sociality, visible at first glance, dissolves in the thought of the tragedy of human existence in its eternal struggle with the finiteness of life and the unknowability of being. The Gorky hero is burdened by his existence, he is shaken by the meaninglessness of a hard-lived life and the inevitability of its collapse. Not only the Gorky intellectuals in "Petty Bourgeois", "Children of the Sun", "Summer Residents", "Barbarians" are tormented by their worthlessness, but also the so-called "working people", and those who, in relation to Gorky's work, are called "those who broke out of their class »: Antipa Zykov, Vassa Zheleznova, Egor Bulychev. No labor, no most powerful resistance to life gives them the opportunity to resolve deep internal contradictions with themselves. Heroes of Gorky, on the one hand, glorify labor, and on the other hand, they come to the conclusion that labor is just one of the options for a person’s lack of freedom in the face of the inexorable face of fate.
External dramaturgical conflict is most often domestic or social character, with it often being overcome or withdrawn well before the play's finale. The conflict is ideological, the conflict of ideas, philosophical systems characters is so global, cosmic that it is impossible even to try to resolve it within the framework of one play - this gives the events taking place "the character of the immanent tragedy of being in general" .

The following are the specifics genre definitions, which Gorky gives to his plays: out of 18 plays - 8 are namedscenes, 1 – scenes from county life ("Barbarians"), 8 are not marked in any way and only 1 is presented asplay("Last"). According to O.V. Zhurcheva, “this was not only the author’s fear to introduce a certain trend with the help of a certain genre characteristic, but also the focus on the epic nature of the depicted, its incompleteness, discreteness, unconnectedness in a causal, logical, temporal, historical chain. genre designation"scene" involves, to a greater extent, the use of the montage technique, which always disposes the author to play with time and space" .
As noted above, between 1900 and 1906 he wrote six plays. The ideological growth of the writer is clearly visible in them. Gorky's appeal to a new genre for him - to plays, as well as the appeal to the great epic genre, testified to the expansion of his ideological and creative range. In 1902, the plays "Petty Bourgeois", "At the Bottom" appeared, in 1904 - "Summer Residents", in 1905 - "Children of the Sun", in 1906 - "Enemies", "Barbarians". Thus, during the period of revolutionary upsurge, dramaturgy becomes the main genre of the writer.

Title of the play"philistines" says that Gorky turned to the topic of philistinism. The writer has always hated philistinism as a class and ethical phenomenon, as a class of property owners, as a base structure of the human soul. The terrible strength of philistinism is in its possessive instincts, blind susceptibility to antiquity, conservatism of thinking, hatred of everything new.

The world of the philistines is an ugly world of money-grubbers, inexorably greedy and cruel, ugly and presumptuous, saturated with lies, hypocrisy, hypocrisy. The personification of this world is Vasily Bessemenov in the play. The world of the Bessemenovs is a world of greed and money-grubbing. It is “cramped and stuffy” here, the inhabitants of a rich house can spend hours arguing about insignificant things like who to bring the samovar to, what kind of sugar to buy - sawn or a whole head, which is better Fresh air or stuffiness. The old Bessemenovs embody inertia, petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness and backwardness, against which their children rebel.

The most active social force in the play is Neil - a representative of the revolutionary working class. Nil attracts with advanced views, cheerfulness, optimism - with the whole appearance of the future master of the country.

New play Gorky"At the bottom" (1902) - was staged on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater in the same year as The Philistines, in 1902. The success of the play was explained not only by the fact that Gorky for the first time showed the people of the “bottom” on the stage, summed up the theme of trampling that had previously worried him, but also spoke against inhumanity, humiliation human personality. "At the bottom" is crowded, while each character has his own life experience, his own social speech.

The play "At the Bottom" has a deep ideological and philosophical content. The playwright's idea was by no means reduced to the task of depicting people of the "bottom", crippled by the social system. This accusatory plan of the play is obvious, but at the same time the play is a passionate and agitated debate about a person, about different paths to human happiness.

What is the real truth of life? The characters of the play answer this question in different ways - Satin, Luka, Kostylev, Bubnov, Kleshch, Nastya, Actor and others. Some of them affirm and accept the "truth" in its immediate reality, reconciling with the existing vicious "timetable of life", and in this case we have before us the base "truth of facts"; others assert the truth of comforting lies.

After "At the Bottom" Gorky writes a play"Dachniks" (1904), dedicated to the ideological stratification of the democratic intelligentsia. Part of it strove for an active relationship with the people, while part began to dream after a hungry and restless youth about rest and peace, while arguing that a peaceful evolution of a society that needs “benevolent people” and not rebels is necessary. It was one of the first works about a new one - a split among the intelligentsia. In the play "Summer Residents", the writer depicted the transition of the intelligentsia to serve in the camp of the bourgeoisie.

Gorky explained the idea of ​​"Dachnikov" as follows: "I wanted to portray that part of the Russian intelligentsia that came out of the democratic strata and, having reached a certain height social position, lost touch with the people, her blood, forgot about his interests, about the need to expand life for him.

Most of the characters in the play are "dacha dwellers in essence their souls". Varvara Basova says, having come to a bitter conclusion: “The intelligentsia is not us! We are something else. We are summer residents in our country ... Some kind of visiting people.

Lawyer Basov came out of the democratic strata. In the past, a commoner, he became a typical tradesman. Law practice gave him the opportunity to make a lot of money on various frauds. He lives a prosperous life of a "summer resident" - a well-fed and self-satisfied inhabitant. He has no public interests, he is in no hurry anywhere and wants only one thing - peace, pleasure material goods. Basov is the enemy of any social upheavals, a staunch opponent of the revolution. Basov's consumerist philosophy is shared by his advocacy assistant Zamyslov.

Changed the precepts of his youth, his democratic past and writer Shalimov. He is not only now indifferent to the position of the people from which he came, but in essence he is hostile to them, he has gone over to the camp of those who fought against democracy. When the doctor Marya Lvovna reminds Shalimov of what a writer should be like in Russia, he answers her rather cynically: “Ah, again serious words - have mercy! I'm tired of being serious... I don't want philosophy - satiety. Let me live the plant life." He is forced to admit that he has lost sincerity, has ceased to understand life, does not see for whom to write, for he has “lost the reader”, his writer's work he now considers it as a means of subsistence: "but - you need to eat, then you need to write." Complete indifference to the democratic struggle of the masses is shown by the poetess Kaleria, spiritually devastated, broken. Kaleria is one of those artistic intelligentsia who, according to Gorky, “follow the philistines into the dark corners of mystical and other philosophy, it doesn’t matter where, just to hide.”

People without ideas and lofty social ideals - this is what "dacha" intellectuals are, satirically denounced and sharply condemned in Gorky's play. They are opposed by the democratic and revolutionary intelligentsia. Considering her "one of the most interesting spiritual phenomena in the world," Gorky in "Summer Residents" sought to embody her in the image of Marya Lvovna. A doctor by profession, she sees her vocation in work for the benefit of people, works in the interests of the people, their liberation, their better future. This attracts to Marya Lvovna such intellectuals as Vlas, Varvara Mikhailovna, Sanya, student Zimin. They become spiritually close to her people. Marya Lvovna is not alone.

"Summer Residents", like "Petty Bourgeois" - an ideological drama. The basis of the conflict in it is ideological differences, the struggle of worldviews. The socio-political plot also subjugated the love conflicts, which in "Summer Residents", as in previous Gorky plays, have a "service, secondary" role.

In his later plays,"Children of the Sun" (the play was written in a cell Peter and Paul Fortress in 1905) and"Barbarians" (1906) - Gorky raises the same question about the attitude of the intelligentsia to the social demands of the time and to the people.

In "Barbarians", as in other plays, Gorky noted the "ideological shifts" of that part of the bourgeois intelligentsia, which, frightened and not understanding the revolution, was looking for self-justification and a way out of a tedious life in abstract science, in the progress of technology, supposedly capable of rebuilding the world, in "art for art's sake". No, Gorky declared publicly, these ways cannot change reality. Democratic student Stepan Lukin sees a different meaning in the industrial development of Russia than Cherkun; he understands that the development of industry unites the proletariat, sharpens the class struggle and, in the final analysis, brings about the death of capitalism.

The plays of 1908-1916, created in the second dramatic period, unite family theme, which sounded especially sharp and polemical. As Yu.V. Yuzovsky notes, at the second stage of Gorky's dramaturgy, its character changes, even its appearance: the open and direct clash of social groups, characteristic of the previous stage, gives way to indirect, hidden relationships, so to speak, "underground" (reflecting the time for which were typical). crowd scenes with scaffolding a large number actors give way to paintings limited by closer and more intimate frames, with sharpened theoretical and philosophical problems, which is again typical of that period of temporary calm in mass action” . .

B.A. Bialik notes: “Although the beginning of M. Gorky’s work on The Last was only one year away from the creation of Enemies, a clear milestone passes between them, separating one period of Gorky’s dramaturgy from another. (...) Here there are no conflicts that determine the entire conflict, such as the conflict between the Nile and the Bessemenovs in "Petty Bourgeois", two detachments of the intelligentsia hostile to each other - in "Summer Residents", two class camps - in "Enemies". In addition, B.A. Bialik, the only one of all researchers, identified several characteristic features characteristic of the plays of the second dramatic cycle. The features of these plays, according to the researcher, are: the narrowing of the collision, which is limited in the plays of 1908-1916. only intra-family conflict, as a consequence of this factor - the enlargement of the psychological portraits of the characters; bringing the class struggle out of the scene, its reflection only through the fate of the heroes; the emergence of motives and images of the philosophical, almost symbolic meaning, the content of which goes beyond the framework of social and everyday motivations; lack of indications of a specific historical time.

However, that "clear milestone", which, according to B. Bialik, separated the play "Enemies" from the play "The Last", turned into an almost blank "wall". Plays written by the playwright from 1908 to 1916 and received the definition of “chamber”, “theoretical and philosophical”, are still practically unknown to a wide range of viewers and readers: they were almost never staged in theaters, were not included in collections of works by M. Gorky (with the exception, of course, of multi-volume collected works) . . Meanwhile, this is perhaps the most interesting stage dramaturgical creativity of Maxim Gorky in the sense of the development of his skill: he not only returns to the coverage of previous problems at the next life and creative "coil", but also actively seeks new genre forms, significantly changes the poetics of dramas.

According to M.A. Kabak, “the artistic originality of the plays “The Last”, “Eccentrics”, “Vassa Zheleznova”, “Fake Coin”, “Zykovs”, “The Old Man” lies in the fact that, despite the presence in them of all external attributes(closed space at home, a limited number of characters, a "family" plot), they are not family dramas in the conventional sense. Designated by Gorky in most cases as "scenes", the plays do not turn into "pictures" of family life and the customs of the merchants, bourgeoisie or nobility. On the contrary, dramas carry a complex fusion of philosophical, symbolic, journalistic motifs and images, their conflict goes far beyond family relations. In addition to external, plot-forming conflicts, there are hidden, “subtextual” conflicts in the plays, leading these dramas from the sphere of concrete everyday life into the sphere of socio-philosophical” .

One of the main ideological clashes considered in the plays - the conflict of "fathers and children" - acquires an ontological character here. Either "fathers" become an obstacle in the way of children ("The Last"), or "children" - in the way of parents ("Vassa Zheleznova", "Zykov", "Old Man"). The path of both is doomed, because sooner or later the older generation will “leave the stage”, and the younger generation will not be able to become a worthy replacement for them. The reason is that the energy of the parents is either too great ("Vassa Zheleznova", "Zykov", "The Old Man"), or completely absent ("The Last"). Gorky exposes the deep problem of the social path of Russia, when the new generation is not able to take on their shoulders the burden of the activities of their parents. The inevitability of this conflict is emphasized by the fact that not a single play has an optimistic ending. All heroes are equally "last". Against this background, all their attempts to assert themselves or self-determine, to achieve the truth or to find the meaning of life, to increase capital or find a way to spend it, look like “meaningless” and “useless” fuss. In disputes, conversations, the characters continue to conduct an "eternal" search for truth, find out what is true and false, good and evil, thereby complementing Gorky's "human comedy".

The semantic ambiguity of the plays is due to the peculiarities of their poetics. Coming to the years of the aesthetic dispute about the "new drama" that took place at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, they became Gorky's creative replica in this discussion. A wide layer of subject, verbal and figurative symbolism, a masterfully written dialogue, and the architectonics of the plays created a special Gorky subtext that allowed the playwright, with a relatively uneventful external action, to put deep inner content into them, to say more than show. In this, Maxim Gorky in many ways came close to modernist playwrights with their desire for psychologization, symbolization and genre creation. According to the fair remark of M.A. Kabak, “switching the attention of Gorky the playwright from a group social portrait to a psychological portrait of a social group or an individual representative of a particular group, from direct worldview, ideological clashes to mediated, internal conflicts, closing the collision of plays on “small” problems compared to breadth generalizations of his early dramas - this is not a retreat into "small subjects", but, on the contrary, evidence of the artist's skill, his creative maturity. During this period of dramatic creativity, Gorky's ability to see in the particular the general, in the fate of the family - the fate of the estate, in the fate of a person - the fate of the generation, affected.

Playswritten in the 1930s - "Somov and others", "EgorBulychovand others", "Dostigaev and others", as well as the second edition of"Vassa Zheleznova» - unites social topics, to one degree or another defining thempoeticsand ideological content, which predetermined their consideration as classic works of the socialistrealism.

In the plays of the 1930s, conventionally referred to as "third period"dramatic creativity, the Gorkovists saw a single idea - to reflect the recent history of the country with the help of dramaturgy: the events of the February and October revolutions of 1917, the struggle of political parties that preceded and accompanied them, and, above all, the gradual increase in the strength and influence of the Bolshevik party against the background" decay » liberal-democratic currents and « decomposition of the Russian bourgeoisie.

Yu.Yu.Yuzovsky points out that Bitter was going to create a whole cycle plays - " historical chronicles", representing "an extensive dramatic epic reflecting the development of the socialist revolution and the creation of Soviet power. Yuzovsky believes that “one can speak of a conceived, although not fully implemented, fiveology, connected by a commonality of characters moving from a play to play whose individual destinies express the social destinies of the classes in the revolution. The proposed pentology was supposed to include, in addition to the play "Egor Bulychov and others”, covering historical period from the end of the imperialist war to the eve of the February revolution, an unrealized play "Zvontsov and others» (time from February Revolution until July), " Dostigaev and others" (from July to the eve of the October Revolution), an unrealized play "Ryabinin and others"(the first months of the formation of Soviet power). Yuzovsky also refers the play “ Somov and others ”, considering it the final part of the pentology, showing “the wrecking of the representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia, acting under the leadership of the foreign imperialist clique against the construction of socialism” .

A similar point of view is expressed by SV Kastorsky. Pointing out that the original Gorky's plan included, in addition to the completed plays of the cycle "Egor Bulychov and others», « Dostigaev and others", two more parts of the tetralogy (" Ryabinin and others", where "the main character was to become a remarkable Bolshevik revolutionary, whose character is already clearly outlined in drama "Dostigaev and Others", and another play, where leading role should have played Glafira ), Kastorsky, quite in the spirit of the time, states: “Great deeds that took place Soviet people who, under the leadership of the Communist Party, went over to the full-scale construction of socialism, brought to life this grandiose Gorky plan. Folk writer Gorky decided in the dramatic genre artistically elucidate the philosophy of the history of their socialist homeland.

Gorky's turn to drama, fifteen years after writing the play "Old man”(1915), which was never staged, is associated with both external and internal causes. Among the first is the pressure from Stalin, who sought to find inGorkyobedient herald of his policy, primarily concerning the processes "pestsand those who followed them mass repression late 1920s - early 1930s. "internal"reasons should be considered the special attitude of the writer to dramatic genres, largely due to the worldwide recognition that his play received"At the bottom».

Play « Somov and others » became the first attempt by Gorky to combine in one work his experience as a writer-playwright, who was world famous, with the new principles of building the Soviet epic drama. However, according to the fair remark of S.A. Jesuitova, "in this work Bitter deliberately weakened interest in the psychological component of the life of their characters , offering instead a declaration of their political positions, class affiliation and "class consciousness". Initial predetermination of the denouement, schematism plot and the characters of the characters, dividing them into " positive" and "negative » with indispensable « exposure » the latter, - all this deprived play Gorky about Somov of that philosophical and psychological richness, which was the key to the success of his best dramatic works, such as plays "At the bottom", " Egor Bulychov and others»».

Established in the 1920s and in some cases successfully functioning in the Soviet drama , the new principles of constructing a dramatic work turned out to be alien to the nature of Gorky's talent, mechanically connected with it, which ultimately led to a creative defeat.

Play "Egor Bulychov and others" - one of the most outstanding works Gorky dramaturgy. Created in parallel with play about Somov, in many respects it turns out to be diametrically opposed.

The most important moments that predetermined the resounding success " Bulychova ”, became a theme close to the writer’s heart, an unusually attractive figure for him hero , turning to well-known time and life material, as well as refusing to follow alien artistic principles building drama , return to the classics: principles psychologism , posing questions that are not only narrowly social, but also timeless, universal, philosophical.

It would be wrong to talk about play " Egor Bulychov and others» only as a work of socio-historical or epic although there are certainly good reasons for this. In its inner essence "it's deep tragic philosophical drama, which has not only mythological, but also personal,autobiographical subtext."

"Dostigaev and others" - a play centered on the revolutionary events of 1917. Deprived of a bright protagonist, with the center of gravity shifted from individual-personal and religious-philosophical problems to social and concrete-historical problems, this play turned out to be much weaker than the previous one. The absence of a dominant core, which for " Bulychova "was the figure of the protagonist, was reflected in the plot and compositional features of the play"Dostigaev and others". Inner closeness Somov "and" Dostigaev ” affects the genre and stylistic features of these plays: “family and everyday in form, they include either ideologized political proclamations, or frankly farcical scenes. Disclosure of the psychological characteristics of each individual character subordinated to a single task: depicting them as carriers of a certain “class psychology", which severely limits the possibilities artistic research human nature."

The last play by M. Gorky, second edition "Vassa Zheleznova”, is a unique creation in the history of world dramaturgy of the creation of a new original work that has the same name, main character and similar plot lines as an already existing work by the same author.

The reason for the success of the second option "Vassa Zheleznova"was, according to the Jesuit," the exact match of the theme of the new work with Gorky's worldview in this period of his life.

central figure plays in both the first and second versions, of course, is Vassa herself. Like " Egor Bulychov", "Vassa "combines two intersecting and sometimes contrasting storylines:" family ”and socio-historical, and, depending on public sentiments and priorities, in critical articles and theatrical practice, one or the other came to the fore.

The murder of Vassa Zheleznov is only a statement of the fact of his final fall, his pernicious influence on the life of the family, daughters, which reaches its climax. To " unravel the "cases" of the dissolute » husband and brother, Vassa is ready to do anything. She is the only one who really cares not only about financial prosperity, but also about the reputation of the family, about the future of children. Not only the shipping company, but the whole house rests on it. She tries to manage and control the behavior of her daughters, to teach them how to survive in this cruel world. "human woman”- this is what Lyudmila calls her mother, obviously feeling in her an unspent supply of love and tenderness.

Motherhood is one of the most significant incarnations, outwardly uniting the two main heroines plays by Vassu and Rachel, but actually opposing them to each other. Rachel It turns out to be untenable from the point of view of motherhood.

Rachel's Appearance in Vassa's house takes Vassa's conflict with the world to a new level. The play features two truth ". One - Rachel's truth - has a transient socio-historical and abstract humanistic character. This is the truth of the destructive man, which is contrary to the logic of the everyday life of an ordinary person. The second is the truth of Vassa Zheleznova. At first glance, it seems harsh and distorted. But this is the truth of real life, the truth of a creator who does not always follow straight paths, but is steadily striving towards his goal.

Tragedy positions of Vassa, as well as Yegor Bulychov, in doom titanic efforts, not understood and not supported by others. AT last play Gorky tragic sounding even more amplified as death heroines , and the lack of full-fledged " heirs able to continue and support her life's work.

Our study of Gorky's plays allows us to speak about the coexistence in them of two plans, two levels of comprehension of reality. The first, " upper" or "outer" layer of the plays "Somov and others", " Egor Bulychov and others», « Dostigaev and others"," Vassa Zheleznova ” (second edition) is focused on the cultural, historical and socio-political realities of the Land of Soviets in the early 1930s. Here, ideological and political accents are clearly placed in the assessment of historical events and the characters of the characters. It is this one," external » layer gave groundsliterary criticsand critics of the Soviet era to see in Gorky the main ideologist of Soviet literature, the creator of socio-historical drama and political melodramas in the form of family drama. However, in-depth study poetic text structures and features subtext "(historical, political, social, cultural, psychological, etc.) opens up other aspects of Gorky's dramaturgy: in his best plays, the features of a philosophical drama clearly appear (" Egor Bulychov "), psychological (" Vassa Zheleznova "), based onmythopoeticand folklore traditions.

The internal conflict between a politician and an artist, a mythologized image and a living person, is the most important feature that determines the specifics of Gorky's late artistic work.

Chapter 2

2.1 The play "The Philistines" - a dispute between two principles, two ideologies

The play "The Philistines", created in 1901, opens the dramatic heritage of M. Gorky.

The title of the play, "The Petty Bourgeoisie," suggests that Gorky turned to the topic of petty bourgeoisie. The writer has always hated philistinism - as a class and ethical phenomenon, as a class of owners, as a base structure of the human soul. The terrible strength of philistinism is in its possessive instincts, blind susceptibility to antiquity, conservatism of thinking, hatred of everything new.

The world of the philistines is an ugly world of money-grubbers, inexorably greedy and cruel, ugly and presumptuous, saturated with lies, hypocrisy, hypocrisy. The personification of this world is Vasily Bessemenov in the play. This is an “exemplary tradesman”, a “venerable mole”, who embodies petty stinginess, stinginess, wretchedness of thought, selfishness, indifference to the interests of society, senile grumbling against youth, cowardly fear of tomorrow. The singing Black Grouse speaks well about him in the play: “You are moderately smart, moderately stupid, moderately kind and moderately angry, moderately honest and mean, cowardly and brave ... you are an exemplary tradesman! You have completely embodied vulgarity in yourself... that force that defeats even heroes and lives, lives and triumphs...”.

The world of the Bessemenovs is a world of greed and money-grubbing. It is “cramped and stuffy” here, the inhabitants of a rich house can spend hours arguing about insignificant things like who to bring the samovar to, what kind of sugar to buy - sawn or a whole head, which is better fresh air or closeness. The old Bessemenovs embody inertia, petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness and backwardness, against which their children rebel.

At first glance, it seems that the younger generation of the Bessemenovs is different from their fathers - they are smarter, more educated, they dream of freedom, independence. Peter participated in student unrest, was "a citizen for half an hour," as Teterev says about him. Tatyana is a teacher and is also burdened by this life, she even tries to commit suicide. She constantly groans, complains.

Some theater critics of the early 20th century considered the "eternal" conflict between "fathers and sons" to be the main plot core of Gorky's play. It seems that everything is so: the older Bessemenovs ideologically oppose the younger Peter, Tatiana, as well as Nil, Paul, Elena and other representatives of the youth. But, as rightly noted by B.A. Bialik, "such an interpretation of the play, outwardly very convincing, came into direct conflict with its actual content".

native childrenThe Bessemenovs show some dissatisfaction with their parents, even quarrel with them. But upon closer examination, it turns out, if not absolutely the same, then at least extremely close to them in essence, and “the main delimitation does not occur between representatives of two generations, but between bearers of two worldviews.

Tatyana debunks the younger Bessemenovs, depicts the illusory nature of their impulses, because, in the end, both of them, Peter and Tatyana, are unable to break with the philistine environment to which they belong. It must be assumed that over time they will follow the path of the "fathers", only, perhaps, they will be even more dangerous and cunning. "Society? That's what I hate!" - exclaims Bessemenov Jr. He wants one thing, that no one interferes with his life in peace, without thinking about some kind of duty to people. “I was a citizen! I don't want to... don't have to obey the demands of society. I am a person. The individual is free…” Bessemenov Jr., like his father, is afraid of the future: “This life is too much for me! I feel her vulgarity, but I can’t change anything, I’m not able to contribute anything ...”, “... I say Russia - and I feel that for me this sound is empty.”

The black grouse who refuses to recognize Peter animate noun", correctly predicts his future: after the death of his father, Peter will be the same tradesman, only more cunning, dexterous.

Thus, the rebellion of the children (Peter and Tatyana) against their father turned out to be imaginary. The rebellion of declassed people - Teterev and Perchikhin, who consider themselves victims of the Bessemenovs, is also hopeless. Sincerely sympathizing with the Nile and his comrades, Grouse, however, considers them ridiculous Don Quixotes. In the escalating conflict, he takes a position “above the fight”: “I am not related to either the accused or the victims. I am on my own. I am evidence of a crime."

The most active social force in the play is Neil, a representative of the revolutionary working class. Stanislavsky considered him the main figure of the play. Nil attracts with advanced views, cheerfulness, optimism - with the whole appearance of the future master of the country.

His attitude to work is the attitude of the creator and reformer, tomorrow's master of the country. This is well revealed in a conversation with Tatyana: “... I really like to forge. In front of you is a red shapeless mass, evil ... It is alive, resilient. And here you are, with strong blows from the shoulder, making everything you need out of it ... ".

It should be noted that many of the lines in the play, especially Neil's, contain double meanings. What Neil says about the work of a blacksmith must be understood both literally and symbolically. After all, the shapeless and evil mass of metal is the life that Neil and his comrades reforge, these are the people they educate. No wonder he says this to the teacher. The symbolism of Neil's statements is noticeable in many remarks. “There is no such timetable that would not change” - formally, these are the words of a machinist about the train schedule, in essence, the revolutionary’s thoughts about the need to change the “life schedule”.

Next to the Nile are the same simple, cheerful, people in love with life - Fields, Shishkin, Tsvetaeva. The dispossessed and looking for places in life - Teterev, Perchikhin, Elena Kravtsova.

So, the main conflict of the play is the clash of two worldviews, the opposition of the proletarian to the world of owners. Attempts to interpret the play as a family drama, as a depiction of the discord between fathers and children, met with a sharp rebuff from socialist criticism. Such an interpretation is contrary to the intention of the author.

The premiere of "Petty Bourgeois" took place during the tour Art Theater Petersburg, March 26, 1902. The play "The Philistines" occupies a special place in the work of the great writer, and in particular in his dramaturgy. The unusually capacious theme of philistinism as a class and ethical category, philistinism that corrodes life with rust, was started by Gorky in his early stories and generalized artistically and philosophically in the epic "The Life of Klim Samgin". In the play "The Petty Bourgeois" Gorky shows the clash of two opposing worldviews, two camps. Neither the petty petty-bourgeois milieu exposed by Gorky in this play, nor reality itself has yet provided the necessary material for an exhaustive depiction of the conflict between petty-bourgeois and proletarian consciousness. But the true class meaning of the play lies at the basis of that dull enmity that reigns in the house of the tradesman Bessemenov.

2.2.Ideological and artistic originality and problems of the play "At the Bottom"

In the nine hundred years, a severe economic crisis erupted in Russia.

After each crop failure, masses of ruined peasants roamed the country in search of work. And factories and plants were closed. Thousands of workers and peasants found themselves homeless and without means of subsistence. Under the influence of the most severe economic oppression, a huge number of tramps appear who sink to the "bottom" of life.

Written in 1902, the play "At the Bottom" depicted the life of these people. Gorky's play is an innovative literary work. At first, the author wanted to name the play "Bottom", "At the Bottom of Life", "Bunkhouse", "Without the Sun". 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. Gorky in this play showed terrifying pictures of Russian reality, human vices, inhuman conditions of existence in Russia. The play sounds like an appeal to the people themselves to seek truth and justice.

But in the play we have before us not only a picture of the life of destitute, unfortunate people. "At the bottom" is not so much a domestic, but a philosophical play, a play-reflection. The characters reflect on life, the truth, the author reflects, forcing the reader and viewer to reflect. In the center of the play is not only human destinies, but a clash of ideas, a dispute about a person, about the meaning of life. The core of this dispute is the problem of truth and lies, the perception of life as it really is, with all its hopelessness and truth for the characters - people of the "bottom", or life with illusions, in whatever diverse and bizarre forms they may represent.

The main theme of the play is the question of the attitude towards a living person in the name of true humanity.

One of the striking features of the play is the presence in it of several conflicts expressed to varying degrees at once. Thus, the presence among the heroes of people from different strata of society determines the development of social conflict. However, it is not very dynamic, since the social status of the owners of the Kostylevs' rooming house is not much higher than that of its inhabitants. But the social conflict in the play has another facet: each of the rooming houses carries a lot of contradictions related to their place in society, ideological views, the latter determines the philosophical conflict of the play.

The action of the play "At the Bottom" takes place in a gloomy semi-dark basement, similar to a cave, with a vaulted, low ceiling that presses on people with its stone weight, where it is dark, there is no space and it is difficult to breathe. The situation in this basement is also wretched: instead of chairs, there are dirty stumps of wood, a rough-hewn table, and bunks along the walls. Thieves, cheaters, beggars, cripples have gathered here - everyone who is thrown out of life. They are different in their habits, life behavior, past fate, but they are equally hungry, exhausted and useless: the former aristocrat Baron, the drunken Actor, the former intellectual Satin, the artisan locksmith Kleshch, the fallen woman Nastya, the thief Vaska. They have nothing, everything is taken away, lost, erased and trampled into the mud. The people gathered here different nature and social position. Each of them has its own individual traits. The people living in this 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 the many features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. In a few words, the tragedy of Anna's life fate is drawn. “I don’t remember when I was full,” she says. “I was shaking over every piece of bread ... I was trembling all my life ... I was tormented ... how not to eat more than another ... All my life I went in rags ... my whole unhappy life ... ". The worker Mite speaks of the hopelessness of his share: “There is no work ... there is no strength ... Here, it’s true! No shelter, no shelter! Need to breathe. … That's the truth!” .

All the inhabitants of the rooming house are pushed by the "owners" to the bottom of life, but everything human is not trampled in them. In these people, deprived of the right to life, doomed to a hopeless existence, descended, a sense of dignity has been preserved. Vaska Pepel, a strong and broad nature, passionately dreams of a different life; Nastya, naive, touching and helpless, seeks to hide from the dirt surrounding her in illusions of pure and devoted love; The actor is a weak-willed alcoholic who, due to uselessness, has lost not only his place in life, but even his name, at the same time he is a soft, lyrically tuned romantic and a poet in his soul. Fate made Klesh embittered and cruel, but still he stubbornly, painfully, honestly tries to get out of the “bottom”. Tatar is distinguished by honesty, Natasha - spiritual purity and tenderness. Nastya thinks about bright feelings, the sick and degraded Actor believes in her dream. All they have left in life is faith. "We don't have a name! Even dogs have nicknames, but we don’t!” - the Actor exclaims bitterly. And in this exclamation there is an intolerable resentment of a man thrown overboard by life. Everything was taken from them, from these forgotten people, but could not take away faith in the best. Gorky himself possessed this quality in abundance, he endowed it with his heroes.

Sateen's famous words are heard in the rooming house, declaring the human right to personal freedom and human dignity: “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! Human! You have to respect the person! Do not pity ... do not humiliate him with pity ... you must respect!

The philosophical conflict of the drama is the main one; in one way or another, it affects all the heroes of the work. Its development provokes the appearance of the wanderer Luke in the rooming house, who brings a new look at the world to the inhabitants of the “bottom”: “And that's all - people! No matter how you pretend, no matter how you boast, but you were born a man, you will die a man ... ".

Along with it, a new motive appears in the play: the possibility of consolation or exposure. With his appearance, the dispute about a person, about truth and lies in his life, intensifies. But this dispute begins long before Luke's appearance and continues after his departure. Already at the very beginning of the play, Kvashnya flatters herself with the illusion that she is a free woman, and Nastya dreams of a great feeling, borrowing it from the book “ fatal love". And from the very beginning, the fatal truth breaks into this world of illusions.

In the midst of bitter people, Luke appears. It is on this character of the play that causes the most fierce controversy, it is her dramatic nerve. After the appearance of Luka, three centers are identified in the subsequent dispute about a person: Luka himself, Satin and Bubnov - the three main characters of the play.

Luke acts as a comforter. The deceiver Luke is human in his own way, but his humanism is passive-compassionate. Imbued with deep humanism, the play negatively answers the question - is it necessary to bring compassion to people to a comforting deception.

Luca takes care of dying Anna, pities her, consoles her with the fact that in the next world, in paradise, there will be no torment and you should not cling to "earthly" life. The actor talks about the supposedly existing free hospital for alcoholics. Luka believes in the power of a dream: “A person can do anything ... If only he wants to ...” - and tries to plant a dream in the soul of every person. He advises the thief Vaska Pepl to leave for Siberia and start life anew. The prostitute Nastya, whose book fantasies everyone laughs at, Luka consoles: “If you believe, you had real love... that means she was. He instills illusions in the inhabitants of the rooming house, and his life experience is such that he subtly feels people, knows what is most important to each of them. And he unmistakably presses the main lever of the human personality. The roommates are drawn to him, warmed by the rays of kindness and sympathy. The Stranger managed to plant and kindle a spark of hope and dreams in everyone's heart. Luke treats them this way because, in his opinion, any individual is worthy of respect as a person. According to Luke, every person needs to be supported in trouble, even if through "white lies." Luke gives everyone the optimism that everyone lacked so much - hope for a favorable future. Reinforcing his words about the benefits of pity with an example, Luke tells how he himself once took pity on the robbers, by which he saved them, because otherwise they would have killed him and themselves would have died in hard labor. Luke also tells a parable about the "righteous land" - about a poor man who believed in the existence of such a land, but, disappointed that the scientist did not have one on the map, hanged himself. With this, Luke wants to confirm once again how saving lies are sometimes for people and how unnecessary and dangerous truth can be for them. When Ash calls Natasha to leave with him, Luka advises her to remind Ash more often that he is a "good person".

The struggle for a dream gives a person strength. Luka helps a dream, perhaps not yet realized, to form into a whole in order to rise from the bottom, as he tried to help the Actor and Ash, or to narcotic soften the pain caused by reality to such characters as Nastya and Anna. He resorts to lies like a verbal drug, like a pain reliever.

During the ensuing fight, when Pepel kills Kostylev and nearly kills Vasilisa, Luka disappears in the confusion. In the last act, the roommates remember him, expressing a different attitude towards the “consoling lie”.

Not a single hero could escape from the bottom to the surface: the Actor hanged himself, Ashes - in prison, Anna dies, all the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree, so Luke's action was reduced only to anesthesia of someone else's pain.

Luka sincerely loved people, wanted them well, but - alas - did not know right ways to everyone's happiness. A sincere and disinterested lie is much more dangerous and harmful than a selfish and hypocritical lie.

After the departure of the wanderer Luke, the life of the overnight stays became even harder. People are so broken that they have nothing to look forward to. And the hope that Luke dropped only opened up their wounds. The wanderer beckoned, but did not show the way.

The play claims: it is no longer possible to live like this!

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 miserable and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagrants, the words about man, his vocation, his strength and his beauty sound like a solemn hymn: “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 monologue about a man sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luke left, the Actor hanged himself, and Ashes 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). Therefore, he puts his thoughts of Gorky into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and fair character.

Satin expresses the general idea of ​​a free person. He exposes the comforting lie of Elder Luke, who, seeing the torment of the destitute, unselfishly tries to help them, ease their suffering, and pacify them. Satin opposes the harmfulness of lies and the philosophy of slavish obedience and long-suffering: “Those who are weak in soul ... and who live on other people's juices need a lie ... She supports some, others hide behind her ... Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of a free man." . Satin tells the actor that Luka "lied" about the free clinic. Klesch, Anna's husband, who sold all the tools to bury his wife, Satin advises “do nothing” and “just burden the earth”: “Think about it - you won’t work, I won’t ... hundreds more ... thousands ... everything! - understand? Everyone stops working!” . Despite the ironic attitude towards Luka, after his disappearance, Satin says that he was not a charlatan: “A man is the truth! He understood it<…>He lied ... but - this is out of pity for you. Although Satin declares that "lie is the religion of slaves and masters", but, according to him, Luke acted on him, "like acid on a dirty old coin"; Satin pronounces a monologue about man as the highest value. In this monologue of Sateen, the demand for freedom and humane treatment of a person is heard in full voice: “We must respect a person! Do not regret, ... do not humiliate him with pity, ... you must respect! . He is convinced that one should not reconcile a person with reality, but force reality itself to serve a person, therefore he raises the banner of struggle for a Man with a capital letter!

The solution to the question of what needs to be done in order to change life and destroy the "bottom" is given in his speeches by Satin, whose image more fully sets off the harmfulness of Luke's comforting sermons. Comforters are hated by Gorky, and in the image of Luka, the writer exposed their failure. Luke considers all people insignificant, miserable, weak, incapable of actively fighting for their rights and in need of condolence and consolation. Luka is a sower of illusions, comforting tales, which desperate weak people greedily clutched at. Secretly, he is sure that the real situation of a person cannot be changed, therefore he approaches everyone with a comforting lie. And in this way Gorky finds in the face of Sateen an image that exposes Luke's compassion and at the same time expresses his opinion on the question posed by him. Gorky is unequivocally against useless lies and humiliating pity. In the words of Satin, Gorky stands for the high truth, the truth that inspires a person, opening up prospects for the struggle for happiness.

However, Sateen's protest against the existing order, in essence, comes down to preaching doing nothing, his psychology is not the psychology of a worker, not the psychology of a fighter, he is poisoned by the poison of individualism, is in the grip of illusions about personal freedom at the bottom of life. Gorky does not idealize this image. Like other tramps, Satin is incapable of either socially useful work or revolutionary action, he is infected with anarchist sentiments. He has a lot of vices instilled in him by the rooming house: he is a drunkard, a cheater, sometimes cruel and cynical, but nevertheless, his intelligence, relative education and breadth of nature distinguish him from other tramps.

The writer gave Satin a lot of his thoughts, but the ideological content of the play is wider and deeper than the content of Satin's monologues.

Bubnov, the third disputing party, believes that any person does not deserve respect: “people all live like chips floating down the river, building a house, and chips away.” Bubnov is a champion of the truth (“bring the whole truth as it is! Why be embarrassed?”), Like Satin, but his truth is akin to Luke’s “fictions”, since it does not encourage a person to rush forward, to look for a path to self-improvement. Like Satina and Baron, Bubnov can be called a strong person. Much has been given to him, but he has already lost himself. Unlike Sateen, who understands that a strong person must fight for the truth, Bubnov lives without paying attention to any nonsense. Regarding Luka, Bubnov declares that people lie out of a desire to “paint their souls”, but one should not hesitate to tell the truth. Bubnov is characterized by wingless and somewhat cynical fatalism. He does not acknowledge moral responsibility, stating that he has no conscience as he is "not rich". It rests on the confrontation of the disputants philosophical problems plays. This dispute is a purely philosophical one, therefore it is not surprising that, as is often the case in philosophy, it is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question: who is right? - or even: who is more right in this dispute? After writing the play, the author insisted that Luka was a cunning man, skillfully taking advantage of other people's misfortune. But it is difficult to convincingly confirm or refute this point of view, and the play "At the Bottom" remains a work that everyone can interpret in their own way.

So, in the play, M. Gorky seeks to show that compassion and consolation are the worst enemy for the individual. That pity humiliates a person. It is clear from the play that Luke's compassion ultimately came to nothing. Gorky's position is clear - compassion for people, brought to a comforting deception, negatively affects society. Gorky exposes the inconsistency of the image of Luke. But it all depends on the person himself. Luke gives them a chance, and to take advantage of it, to accept everything said not as a consolation, but as an incentive to fight for the best - this is the business of every person. After all, if there were no compassion in the world, the whole earth would be filled with hardened and embittered people. After all, after all, the appearance of Luke rallied the inhabitants of the rooming house. The failure of the image of Luke lies in the people around him. They are completely broken by the harsh life, and what they have left is only unrealizable dreams. But you can’t blame them for inaction either, since they don’t have the means to make their dreams come true. Which is better truth or compassion is a difficult question. It turns out that theoretically the truth is better. But sometimes the bitter truth breaks a person. Nevertheless, compassion makes people kinder and for some it is an outlet in a cruel world. The question posed cannot be answered unambiguously.

Conclusion

So, in this term paper we set a goalto show the specifics of Gorky's dramaturgy, its innovative character.

It is customary to divide all the dramatic work of M. Gorky into three periods: plays of the era of the first Russian revolution (“Petty bourgeois”, “At the bottom”, “Summer residents”, “Barbarians”, “Enemies” - 1901-1906); plays of the 1910s (“The Last”, “Eccentrics”, “Children”, “Vassa Zheleznova” in the first edition, “Fake Coin”, “Zykovs”, “Old Man”, “Yakov Bogomolov” - 1908-1915); plays of the Soviet period (“Egor Bulychov and others”, “Dostigaev and others”, “Somov and others”, “Vassa Zheleznova” in the second edition - 1921-1935). All the motley drama of the writer is a kind of artistic whole, organized by a special unique dramatic style, a special mood.
Gorky's plays are characterized by multi-conflict, multi-entanglement, when during the course of the action one plot after another unfolds, often symmetrical to the previous one, and the plot lines are so independent that they can easily be removed from the play and make up the content of their own.

We dwelled in more detail on the analysis of the plays "Petty Bourgeois" and "At the Bottom".

In the play "The Petty Bourgeois" Gorky shows the clash of two opposing worldviews, two camps. Neither the petty petty-bourgeois milieu exposed by Gorky in this play, nor reality itself has yet provided the necessary material for an exhaustive depiction of the conflict between petty-bourgeois and proletarian consciousness. But the true class meaning of the play lies at the basis of that dull enmity that reigns in the house of the tradesman Bessemenov.

A detailed analysis of the play "At the bottom" showed thatThe problem raised in the play cannot be unambiguously solved.

The play "At the Bottom" is imbued with an ardent and passionate call to love a person, to make his name really sound proud. The play had a huge political resonance, called for the restructuring of society, throwing people "to the bottom." A person cannot be happy while he is not free, while injustice reigns at every step. Man is worthy of happiness and freedom because he is a Man!

Now, in an era when we are again talking about humanism and mercy, when we call for "mercy for the fallen", Gorky's play takes on a different meaning. This is not only a historical document, not just an outstanding creation of the human mind, it is also a work that will again and again turn people's eyes to the eternal problems of kindness, mercy, and social justice.

LITERATURE

List of sources

1 . Gorky, M. Collected works in 18 volumes. T. 16 / M. Gorky. - M .: Fiction, 1963.

2. Gorky, M. Plays / M. Gorky. - Gorky, 1973.

List of critical, memoir, literary criticism

3. Baranov, V.I. M. Gorky: Genuine and imaginary / V.I. Baranov. - M.: Enlightenment, 2000.

4.Basinsky, P. Truth and lies in Gorky's play "At the Bottom" / P. Basinsky // Literature. – 1996 - №17

5. Bykov, B.L. Was there Gorky? Biographical sketch/ B.L. Bykov. - M.: Astrel, 2009.

6. Bialik, B.A. M. Gorky - playwright / B.A. Bialik. - M.: Soviet writer, 1977.

7. Weinberg, I. Pages of a great life / I. Weinberg // M. Gorky in documents, letters, memoirs of contemporaries. - M.: Children's literature, 1981.

8. Volkov, A.A. Russian literature of the twentieth century. Pre-October period / A.A. Volkov. - M.: Enlightenment, 1984.

9. Volkov, A.A. Artistic world of Gorky / A.A. Volkov. - M.: Sovremennik, 1978.

10. Golubkov, M.M. Maksim Gorky. To help teachers, high school students and applicants / M.M. Golubkov. - M.: Educational literature, 2004.

11. Gruzdev, I.A. M. Gorky. Life of wonderful people / I.A. Gruzdev. - M.: Young Guard, 1958.

12. History of Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX century / Ed. V. A. Keldysh. In 2 vols. T.1. - M., 2007.

13. Kastorsky, S.V. Dramaturgy of M. Gorky: Observations on the ideological and artistic specifics / S.V. Kastorsky.- M.-L. ,1963

14. Kulova, G. New truth about man. M. Gorky and his pre-October dramaturgy / G. Kulova. - M., 1968.

15. Maxim Gorky in the memoirs of contemporaries. In 2 volumes. T.1.- M.: Fiction, 1991.

16. Mikhailovsky, B. Gorky's work / B. Mikhailovsky, E. Tager. - M.: Nauka, 1969.

17. Nefedova, I.M. Maxim Gorky: Biography of the writer / I.M. Nefedov. - L .: Education, 1971.

18. Novikov, V.V. Creative laboratory of M. Gorky - playwright / V.V. Novikov. - M .: Soviet writer, 1976.

19. Primochkina, N. N. Gorky today / N.N. Primochkina // Literature at school. - 2008.- No. 7.

20. Reznikov, L.Ya. Maxim Gorky known and unknown / L.Ya. Reznikov. - Petrozavodsk, 1996.

21. Sarychev, V. A. "People and people". The idea of ​​a path in the creative mind of Maxim Gorky in the 1890s - early 1900s / V.A. Sarychev // Literature at school. - 2008 - No. 7.

22. Spiridonova, L.A. M. Gorky: a new look / L.A. Spiridonova.- M.: Nauka, 2004.

23. Udodov, A.B. The play by M. Gorky "At the bottom" / A.B. Udodov. - Voronezh, 1989

24. Eventov, N.S. About the dramatic epic of M. Gorky / N.S. Eventov // Russian Literature. - 1984 - No. 2.

25. Yuzovsky, Yu.V. Maxim Gorky and his dramaturgy / Yu.V. Yuzovsky.- M.: Art, 1959.

26. Yuzovsky, Yu. “At the bottom” by M. Gorky: ideas and images / Yu.V. Yuzovsky. - M.: Fiction, 1986.

Internet sources

27. Zhurcheva, O.V. Forms of expression of the author's consciousness in Russian dramaXX century // http: // dis. podelise. en.

28. Jezuitov, S.A. Plays by M. Gorky in the 1930s (text and context): author's abstract. cand. philol. Sciences. - St. Petersburg, 2007//http: // www. dissercat. com .

29. Kabak, M.A. The theme of the family in the work of M. Gorky: (Based on the material of the dramaturgy of 1908-1916): author's abstract. dissertation cand. philol. Sciences. - M., 2005 //http: // www. dissercat. com .

Application

The works of M. Gorky occupy a very special place in the history of Russian drama. The writer turned to the theater at the very beginning of the 20th century and became a real successor to the traditions of Russian drama of the 19th century. Gorky believed that the main purpose of the drama is to depict "man and people", a reflection of the influence of fate on the development and formation of the human personality. In addition, in the works of Gorky there are features characteristic of the genre of philosophical drama. They found their most vivid reflection in the play "At the Bottom", which was written in 1902.

It was in this work that Gorky managed to combine the real destinies of people and abstract philosophical concepts.

Behind the external conflict of the work, an internal conflict is clearly traced, which becomes the main one and helps to best reveal the characters of the characters, and, in addition, contributes to the most profound perception of the main meaning of the play. The external conflict is shown through a love triangle (Natasha - Ashes - Kostylevs). But this intrigue is only a background for the development of an action based on an internal philosophical conflict (Luke - overnight stays - Satin). It is the internal conflict that becomes the basis of the dramatic action. This conflict is based on the philosophical reasoning of the inhabitants of the rooming house about Man and his capabilities.

The writer was very deeply worried about the idea of ​​what should be real man who he is on this planet. Once, in his letter to Chekhov, Gorky remarked that it was very difficult to love, help, and pity the "cheesy midges with guts" that all people are. But at the same time, in Gorky lived an unshakable faith in Man, as well as in his strength of mind. The writer called Man the best, most complex and most interesting creature on Earth. The author's thoughts about the essence of Man, about his morality and spiritual world became the basis of the internal conflict of the play.

The work captures the awakening of the human soul, albeit partial, completely timid. Speaking in a blunt manner, Bubnov speaks about himself and other rooming houses, expressing their common feature: being at the “bottom”, people are deprived of all the attributes of a civilized life, “one naked person” remains, such as he is. Maybe that's why tramps are drawn to some general principles and concepts. The author calls them "reluctant philosophers", these unfortunate people are still able to dream of a brighter future. Tick ​​wants to succeed through hard work, Nastya dreams of love as salvation, Natasha is waiting for a hero, Anna is praying to God. The simple and naive judgments of tramps hide the answers to the most difficult questions about the nature and destiny of man.

There are other types of characters in the play. Satin, Baron and Bubnov have come to terms with their own position as cheaters and do not seek to change anything in their fate. They talk deeply about the meaning of life, yearn for truth and freedom. These heroes are naturally endowed with a lively mind, but do not strive for action.

At the end of the second act of the play, Elder Luke appears. This is a smart and outstanding person who has vast experience and a keen interest in people. He seeks to understand each person, sees not only the mistakes of other people, but is able to discern their bright qualities. Luka does not just pity people, he believes in them, sincerely wants to help everyone.

However, Luke's position is such that he is ready to accept any life situation and adapt to it. Luke passively waits for the good, not trying to correct a specific state of affairs. He offers his help to the rooming dwellers, which simply helps them to adapt to need and misfortune. Luke gives people a ghostly hope that everything will work out by itself. When the collapse of these illusions occurs, the old man quietly disappears.

In the last act of the play, all the consequences of the experience are revealed. Gorky is especially interested in the fermentation of the lazy thoughts of the roommates, so the question of Man is posed with particular force in the last act. Of course, the heroes of the play did not change overnight, the author simply showed their painful thoughts, which, meanwhile, will not change anything in their lives. However, the meaning of their words does not decrease from this, because they have been accumulating in people's souls for so long.

Satin's words about Man sound in a special way. This is a kind of hymn to human capabilities and dignity. Despite the fact that Satin is usually indifferent to people and their misfortunes, he firmly believes that Man is a strong and wise being worthy of respect. Satin opposes the saving lie that Luke used. He believes that truth is the only God of a free man. At the same time, Satin understands that his words do not apply to the specific inhabitants of the rooming house, because these people are not able to fight for their honor and dignity. For Satin, Man is absolutely all people on the planet.

This is the main moral meaning of the play. Sometimes life is cruel to people, forcing them to obey and endure humiliation. But initially man was created to be a tall and proud being. Only he can change the world for the better.

Effective preparation for the exam (all subjects) - start preparing

Updated: 2012-11-17

Attention!
If you notice an error or typo, highlight the text and press Ctrl+Enter.
Thus, you will provide invaluable benefit to the project and other readers.

Thank you for your attention.