Women at the bottom of life are bitter. Composition "The role of female images in Gorky's play" At the bottom

Works on the Russian language and literature.

The correct writing of an essay is writing your own statement in the form of reflection.
Reflection conveys the course of the writer's own considerations, his attitude to the environment, to people, animals, to phenomena, actions and impressions from them.
Reflections reveal the student's abilities, his intellect, awareness of the topic.

Essay on the topic: The role of female images in M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom".

Composition: The role of female images in M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom".

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" is complex and very interesting. In this work, the author managed to combine everyday concreteness and symbols, real human characters and abstract philosophy. Of course, Gorky's special skill was reflected in the description of the inhabitants of the rooming house. It can be seen that important role The play features female characters.

Vasilisa, Natasha, Anna, Nastya, Kvashnya - interesting characters, but after reading the work, it becomes bitter at the sight of women who have sunk to the very bottom. As a rule, a woman is a symbol of everything beautiful. This is an image of beauty, purity, tenderness, motherhood ... But Gorky shows us the other side of life. How will a woman behave in terrible, inhuman conditions? He will try to survive by selling himself, or he will forget about all the bright feelings and will love only money, or he will not withstand the yoke of the most difficult social conditions and become mortally ill ... But first things first.

Selling dumplings Kvashnya "a free woman, her own mistress." She has not yet fully hardened, is capable of sympathy. At the very beginning of the play, she tries to feed dying Anna dumplings: “And you, eat. Hot - softens. I’ll put it in a cup for you and leave it ... Whenever you want, and eat!” This woman is strong, she does not allow men to treat her freely. Somewhat perplexing is her sharp negativity towards marriage. She doesn’t want to agree to Medvedev’s proposal under any pretext: “Yes, even if he is an American prince, I won’t think about marrying him.” But then we learn that Kvashnya was once married. “Marrying a woman is the same as jumping into an ice-hole in winter: I did it once - I remember it for the rest of my life ... I still don’t believe my happiness ... ”The verb“ dead ”, which would seem inappropriate here, causes amazement. And you start to wonder if he is talking about the inhumanity of Kvashnya or her husband?
Unfortunately, in those terrible social conditions her husband's cruelty was far from uncommon. And immediately we can imagine how the poor woman lived, if she was able to rejoice so much at the death of her husband.
From here you can smoothly move on to the image of Anna. The unfortunate woman is near death. Anyone can show sympathy for her, but not Tick. To his wife's request not to make noise, he replies: "I whined." Anna is a woman who patiently endures everything. She had long been accustomed to her husband's beatings, his rudeness and cruelty. Anna symbolizes all women like her who believe that rude attitude is the norm. family life. And it becomes scary from such a calm attitude to eternal humiliation! And in spite of everything, Anna continues to take care of her cruel and indifferent husband: “Andrei Mitrich... Kvashnya left dumplings for me there... take it, eat it.” From such a life there is only one salvation - death. But Anna is only thirty years old.

The girl Nastya reads a tabloid novel about love and passion all the time. The thirst for pure feelings collides with dirt and baseness ambient atmosphere and she can only dream.
She tells her cohabitants sweet tales of unhappy love, where her lover is called either Raoul or Gaston: “Here he comes at night to the garden, to the gazebo, as we agreed ... and I have been waiting for him for a long time and trembling with fear and grief. He, too, is trembling all over and - white as chalk, and in his hands is a left-winger ... ”Nastya replies to ridicule and frank mockery of her roommates:“ Be silent ... unfortunate! Oh... stray dogs! Can... can you understand... Love? True love? And I had it ... real! All these are fantasies, but in life she is surrounded by filth and vulgarity. After all, Nastya is a prostitute. And the only way to forget all this is to get drunk.

Vasilisa - the wife of the owner of the rooming house, symbolizes the "masters of life." But are the owners of the “bottom” different from the inhabitants of this “bottom”? No. It is almost impossible for a person to maintain a human appearance while in a menagerie. Vasilisa is a domineering, cruel, insensitive woman. In this life she loves only money. Vasilisa is the mistress of the thief Vaska of Ashes. But the thief, the man who has fallen, has more human qualities than the "mistress of life". He says about his mistress: “... you don’t have a soul, woman ... A woman must have a soul ...” Indeed, it seems that Vasilisa has no soul. Outer beauty opposed to internal ugliness. Assuring Ashes of her love, she prompted him to steal. And then, finding out that he loves her younger sister Natasha, promises him to give her back if he kills Kostylev, Vasilisa's husband. The hostess of the rooming house begins to beat her sister, as if taking revenge on her for being abandoned by her lover. She cruelly mocks Natasha, knowing that she cannot do anything to her in return. For by nature Natasha is a very kind and gentle person, she is still able to sincerely sympathize with people. It was this that attracted Vaska Pepla to her. But she does not love him enough to follow him to Siberia. Maybe she's just hesitant to break with her past. terrible life? Seeing Natasha and Pepel together, Vasilisa closes her sister at home and begins to severely beat and mock her. But Natasha is rescued in time, preventing Vasilisa from getting to the point of killing her sister. Unable to bear such bullying anymore, Natasha shouts: “Take me too ... to prison me! For Christ's sake... go to jail for me!.." Later we learn that Natasha ended up in a clinic, from where she then left in an unknown direction. Just not to return to that scary house.
And Vasilisa? She is a “smart woman”, she will surely be able to get out and, having avoided prison, will continue former life. It is these people who can survive in these terrible conditions.

Of course, all the heroes of the play are interesting in their own way, each of them, one way or another, expresses the author's position. But it is through female images that we can fully see the inhuman conditions of life, both the inhabitants of the basement and the owners of the doss house. And it becomes uncomfortable at the sight of the complete degradation of the initially more sensitive female souls.

Essays on the Russian language and literature

Essays on the Russian language

Composition - this is an intellectual indicator of the development of the student, his aesthetic taste. This is the result of achievements in the study of the Russian language and literature. Certificate of knowledge of the text artwork, the ability to analyze the text, the maturity of judgments, the breadth of outlook. Independent work with the text of the work allows for penetration into the author's intention, to comprehend the objective meaning of the work. The main requirement for an essay is the logical harmony of presentation. The topic should be disclosed clearly, reasonably, deeply, the individual parts of the essay should be interconnected, the transition from one thought to another should be consistent, judgments are logical. The main idea of ​​the essay develops according to plan. should be analyzed as ideological content works, as well as its artistic side.

Copyright © All rights reserved

There are five in the play female characters. Anna is the wife of Kleshch, who humbly dies in the second act, the compassionate and economic Kvashnya, the young Vasilisa is the wife of the owner of the rooming house and the lover of Vaska Pepel, the young and downtrodden Natasha and Nastya, indicated in the author's remark with the bashful word "maiden".

In the semantic context of the work, female images are represented by two pairs of opposite characters: Kvashnya - Nastya and Vasilisa - Natasha. Outside of these pairs is Anna, who personifies pure suffering in the play. Her image is not clouded by passions and desires. She patiently and meekly dies. He dies not so much from a mortal disease, but from the consciousness of his uselessness to the world. She is one of those "naked people" for whom the truth of life is unbearable. “I feel sick,” she confesses to Luca. The only aspect death, exciting her: “And how is it - also flour?” Clogged, fit for nothing in this world, it resembles a thing. She does not move around the stage - she is moved. Take out, leave in the kitchen, forget. Just like with a thing, it is treated even after death. "You have to get out! “We’ll pull it out ...” She passed away - as if the props had been taken away. “Coughing means it has stopped.”

Not so with the rest. In the first pair, Kvashnya represents the semantic dominant. She is almost always doing housework. He lives from his labors. Makes dumplings and sells them. What these dumplings are made of and who eats them, only God knows. She lived married, and now for her that she is married, that she is in a loop: “I did it once - I remember it for the rest of my life ...” And when her husband “died”, she “sat alone” all day with happiness and joy. She is always alone in the play. Conversations and events are touched by the edge, as if the inhabitants of the rooming house are afraid of her. Even Medvedev, the personification of law and power, her cohabitant, talks to Kvashnya respectfully - there is too much inquisitive reason, common sense and hidden aggression in her.

Her opposite, Nastya, is not protected and accessible. She does nothing, does nothing. She is a "girl". She almost does not react to the realities of the world around her. Her mind is not burdened with reflection. She is as self-sufficient as Kvashnya. Gorky implanted in her a strange, not invented world " women's novels", a meager and meaningless dream beautiful life. She is literate and therefore reads. “There, in the kitchen, the girl is sitting, reading a book and crying,” Luka is surprised. This is Nastya. She weeps over a fiction that miraculously seems to her own life. She resembles a little girl who dreamed of a toy. Waking up, she pulls her parents, demands this toy for herself. At a tender age, children do not separate dream from reality. This happens later, in the process of growing up. Nastya not only does not grow up - she does not wake up. She wakingly dreaming of these confectionary, sinless dreams: “And his left-hander is huge, and loaded with ten bullets ... My unforgettable friend ... Raoul ...” The baron rolls over her: “Nastka! Why ... after all, the last time - Gaston was! Nastya behaves like a child. Having stuck her nose into reality, she is capricious, gets excited, throws a cup on the floor, threatens the inhabitants: "I'll get drunk today ... I'll get drunk." Getting drunk means getting away from reality again. Forget yourself. Judging by indirect hints, the Baron is with her in gigolos, but she is not aware of this either. Rays of reality only glare on the surface of her consciousness, not penetrating inside. Once Nastya opens up a little, and it becomes clear that her life is powered by the energy of hatred. Running away, she shouts to everyone: “Wolves! For you to breathe! Wolves! She utters this remark at the end of the fourth act, and, consequently, there is a hope of waking up. Vasilisa represents the imperious beginning of the play. She is Pallas Athena of the rooming house, her evil genius. She alone acts - all others exist. The criminal and melodramatic intrigues of the plot are connected with her image. There are no internal prohibitions for Vasilisa. She, like everyone else in the rooming house, - " naked man", she is "everything is allowed." And Vasilisa takes advantage of this while the others are just talking. The author gave her a cruel and merciless character. The concept of "cannot" lies outside of it. moral consciousness. And she thinks consistently: "To enjoy - to kill in order to enjoy." Her antipode Natasha is the purest and brightest image of the play. Out of jealousy for Vaska Pepl, Vasilisa constantly beats and torments Natasha, her husband, old Kostylev, helps her. The instinct of the pack kicks in. Natasha is one of all who believes and still hopes, she is waiting not for a haberdashery, but true love looking for her. But, unfortunately, the geography of its search takes place on that section of the bottom, on which the Spanish galleons loaded with gold do not rest. The dim light coming "from above, from the viewer" allows you to see only the faces of permanent residents. Natasha doesn't trust anyone. Neither Luka nor Ashes. It's just that she, like Marmeladov, "has nowhere to go." When Kostylev is killed, she shouts: “Take me too ... put me in prison!” It is clear to Natasha that Ashes did not kill. All the fault. Everyone was killed. This is her truth. Her, not Satin. Not really proud strong man, but the truth of the humiliated and insulted.

Women's images in Gorky's play "At the Bottom" carry a serious semantic load. The flawed world of the inhabitants of the rooming house, thanks to their presence, becomes closer and more understandable. They are, as it were, guarantors of its authenticity. It is with their voices that the author openly speaks of compassion, of the unbearable boredom of life. They have their own literary forerunners, many literary projections from the previous artistic tradition. The author does not hide it. Another thing is more important: it is they that cause the most sincere feelings hatred or compassion from readers and viewers of the play.

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" is complex and very interesting. In this work, the author managed to combine everyday concreteness and symbols, real human characters and abstract philosophy. Of course, Gorky's special skill was reflected in the description of the inhabitants of the rooming house. It can be seen that female images play an important role in the play.
Vasilisa, Natasha, Anna, Nastya, Kvashnya are the most interesting characters, but after reading the work, it becomes bitter at the sight of women who have sunk to the very bottom. As a rule, a woman is a symbol of everything beautiful. This is an image of beauty, purity, tenderness, motherhood ... But Gorky shows us the other side of life. How will a woman behave in terrible, inhuman conditions? He will try to survive by selling himself, or he will forget about all the bright feelings and will love only money, or he will not withstand the yoke of the most difficult social conditions and become mortally ill ... But first things first.
Selling dumplings Kvashnya "a free woman, her own mistress." She has not yet fully hardened, is capable of sympathy. At the very beginning of the play, she tries to feed the dying Anna with dumplings: “And you, eat. Hot - softens. I’ll put it in a cup for you and leave it ... Whenever you want, and eat!” This woman is strong, she does not allow men to treat her freely. Somewhat perplexing is her sharp negativity towards marriage. She doesn’t want to agree to Medvedev’s proposal under any pretext: “Yes, even if he is an American prince, I won’t think about marrying him.” But then we learn that Kvashnya was once married. “Marrying a woman is the same as jumping into an ice-hole in winter: I did it once - I remember it for the rest of my life ... I still don’t believe my happiness ... ”The verb“ dead ”, which would seem inappropriate here, causes amazement. And you begin to wonder if he is talking about the inhumanity of Kvashnya or her husband? .. Unfortunately, in those terrible social conditions, the cruelty of her husband was far from uncommon. And immediately we can imagine how the poor woman lived, if she was able to rejoice so much at the death of her husband.
From here you can smoothly move on to the image of Anna. The unfortunate woman is near death. Anyone can show sympathy for her, but not Tick. To his wife's request not to make noise, he replies: "I whined." Anna is a woman who patiently endures everything. She had long been accustomed to her husband's beatings, his rudeness and cruelty. Anna symbolizes all women like her, who believe that a rude attitude is the norm of family life. And it becomes scary from such a calm attitude to eternal humiliation! And in spite of everything, Anna continues to take care of her cruel and indifferent husband: “Andrei Mitrich... Kvashnya left dumplings for me there... take it, eat it.” From such a life there is only one salvation - death. But Anna is only thirty years old ...
The girl Nastya reads a tabloid novel about love and passion all the time. The thirst for pure feelings collides with the dirt and meanness of the surrounding atmosphere, and she can only dream. She tells her cohabitants sweet tales of unhappy love, where her lover is called either Raoul or Gaston: “Here he comes at night to the garden, to the gazebo, as we agreed ... and I have been waiting for him for a long time and trembling with fear and grief. He, too, is trembling all over and - white as chalk, and in his hands is a left-winger ... ”Nastya replies to ridicule and frank mockery of her roommates:“ Be silent ... unfortunate! Ah... stray dogs! Can... can you understand... Love? True love? And I had it ... real! All these are fantasies, but in life she is surrounded by filth and vulgarity. After all, Nastya is a prostitute. And the only way to forget all this is to get drunk.
Vasilisa, the wife of the owner of the rooming house, symbolizes the "masters of life." But are the owners of the “bottom” different from the inhabitants of this “bottom”? No. It is almost impossible for a person to maintain a human appearance while in a menagerie. Vasilisa is a domineering, cruel, insensitive woman. In this life she loves only money. Vasilisa is the mistress of the thief Vaska of Ashes. But a thief, a man who has fallen, has more human qualities than the "mistress of life." He says about his mistress: “... you don’t have a soul, woman ... A woman must have a soul ...” Indeed, it seems that Vasilisa has no soul. External beauty is opposed to internal ugliness. Assuring Ashes of her love, she prompted him to steal. And then, having learned that he loves her younger sister Natasha, he promises him to give her away if he kills Kostylev, Vasilisa's husband. The hostess of the rooming house begins to beat her sister, as if taking revenge on her for being abandoned by her lover. She cruelly mocks Natasha, knowing that she cannot do anything to her in return. For by nature Natasha is a very kind and gentle person, she is still able to sincerely sympathize with people. It was this that attracted Vaska Pepla to her. But she does not love him enough to follow him to Siberia. Maybe she just does not dare to break with her past terrible life? Seeing Natasha and Pepel together, Vasilisa closes her sister at home and begins to severely beat and mock her. But Natasha is rescued in time, preventing Vasilisa from getting to the point of killing her sister. Unable to bear such bullying anymore, Natasha shouts: “Take me too ... to prison me! For Christ's sake... go to jail for me!.." Later we learn that Natasha ended up in a clinic, from where she then left in an unknown direction. If only not to return to that terrible house.
And Vasilisa? She is a “smart woman”, she will certainly be able to get out and, having avoided prison, will continue her former life. It is these people who can survive in these terrible conditions.
Of course, all the heroes of the play are interesting in their own way, each of them, one way or another, expresses the author's position. But it is through female images that we can fully see the inhuman conditions of life, both the inhabitants of the basement and the owners of the doss house. And it becomes uncomfortable at the sight of the complete degradation of the initially more sensitive female souls.

June 12 2011

At the heart of Maxim Gorky's play "At the Bottom" (1902) is a dispute about Man and his capabilities. The action of the work takes place in the Kostylevs' rooming house - a place outside the world of people. Almost all the inhabitants of the rooming house are aware of their situation as abnormal: between them and the world all the most important ties have been cut off - social, professional, spiritual, social family. Nothing connects the hostels themselves - they are just people who accidentally come together in one place, not wanting to know anything about each other. Each of them knows the truth about himself, and each has his own.

The heroes of the drama are philosophical disputes, not coming to a single conclusion in the end. Gorky's work shows the "bottom" of life and human souls. And in this dirt, in the darkness of hopelessness, those who are sung by many poets and writers are forced to exist, traditionally described as charming, tender and air creatures- women.

In the ongoing dispute about a person, three positions are especially important - Bubnov, Luka and Satina. Bubnov's position is fatalistic. powerless to change anything in his destiny. Hence the indifference not only to the suffering of others, but also to one's own destiny. In his opinion, all people are “superfluous”, since the world is dominated by ruthless laws that control a person and dominate him. People go with the flow, like chips, powerless to change anything. The truth of Bubnov is the truth of the external circumstances of life. Satin is the spokesman for another life position: “Everything is in a person, everything is for a person. There is only man, everything else is the work of his hands and brain. A person must be respected, Satin believes, pity only humiliates. Luka is the most difficult in. It is with him that the main philosophical question of the work is connected: “Which is better: truth or compassion? Is it necessary to bring compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? In essence, Luke, with his theory of pity, is the main image of the play. With his appearance, the actual dramatic development plot. Luke stirred up the stagnant swamp of the "bottom", made people think and reason.

And the female images in Gorky's play also take part in this dispute. And they, too, must find the answer to the question "What is more important - the bitter truth or the hopeful lie?"

In the play "At the Bottom" five women stand out among the heroes. These are Vasilisa Karpov-na, the wife of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, her sister, Klesch's wife Anna, dumplings seller Kvashnya and girl Nastya. Judging by the lines from Actors"plays, all of them are young women - aged from 20 (Natasha) to 30 (Anna) years old, with the exception of Kvashnya, who is 40 years old. What are they? Why are they included in the play?

Vasilisa - her image is usually evaluated by the following epithets: “immoral”, “cynical”, etc. Her behavior really seems to be so. Vasilisa systematically beats her sister, she cheats on her husband and tries to persuade Pepel to kill her husband, as a result, she brings Pepel under arrest, accusing him of killing Kostylev, and scalds her sister Natasha with boiling water. But it is worth re-reading the pages and thinking: is Vasilisa's nature the only reason for this? And at the very beginning, we see that Vasilisa's husband is 54 years old, she is 26, that is, almost thirty years of age difference. This to some extent explains Vasilisa's infidelity.

From the pages of the play it becomes clear what the owner of the rooming house Kostylev is. He is the owner of the rooming house and considers himself the master of life. From the description of the conditions of the rooming house, we see what conditions he creates for his "guests". In general, as Nastya says, with a husband like Kostylev, everyone will go wild.

Natasha, Vasilisa's sister, tender and sincere pure creation. Natasha is kind, and this becomes clear from the pages of the play. Natasha tells Tick to come for Anna later and be kind to her, she is dying and she is scared. When Anna dies, Natasha is surprised that no one regrets her. Natasha is the only one who sympathizes with Nastya's fantasies. She herself dreams that tomorrow a special stranger will come and something very special will happen. But unlike the romantic Nastya, she understands that there is nothing to wait for - a miracle will not happen to her, no matter how much she wants it.

The final fate of the heroine remains in question. After Vasilisa scalded her legs, Natasha ended up in the hospital. And in the last act, it turns out that Natasha left the hospital a long time ago and disappeared. Maybe she found hers? But, unfortunately, such an outcome is hard to believe.

Anna, a woman sick with consumption and tired of life, dies. She says that “she was shaking all over every piece of bread ... she was tormented ... She walked in rags all her life.” For this heroine, Luke's theory paid off. Luke reassures and encourages the dying woman with the hope that for her earthly torments, after death, she will find peace and eternal bliss in heaven. A miserable, meaningless, joyless existence on earth is compensated by eternal bliss in heaven.

The fallen woman Nastya is naive, touching and helpless at heart. She dreams of pure and devoted love, and in these illusions she seeks to hide from the surrounding dirt, darkness and hopelessness. Her fantasies are incomprehensible. The Baron, who exists at her expense, only laughs in response to her tears and fantasies. Nastya loves to read novels, the content of which is for the most part her dreams.

Kvashnya - Kvashnya, a forty-year-old dumpling vendor, seems to be a kind of optimist. Perhaps she has already got used to the life of the “bottom”. But this woman is strikingly different from all the other heroines of the play. Her thought that she is a free woman and will never agree to “give herself to the fortress”, that is, to get married, runs like a refrain through the whole play. And in the finale, he begins to cohabit with Medvedev, the uncle of Vasilisa and Natasha, a policeman. Kvashnya is the only heroine who was not affected by the "coming" of Luke. The rest were influenced in one way or another.

Anna dies, comforted by Luke's lie about the bright and tender "that world". Nastya, even without the influence of Luka, created for herself a "saving lie" - in her fantasies. And she still remains in the rooming house, without outwardly striving for any accomplishments. Vasilisa is taken under arrest along with Vaska Pepel, and the roomers are arguing about who will put whom in jail for a longer period. In essence, everything remains practically unchanged. Only the fate of Natasha seems incomprehensible. After leaving the hospital, she disappeared. But where and why? Maybe she decided to seek her happiness?

In my opinion, with the female images in the play "At the Bottom" Gorky sought to show both the depth of moral decline and the spiritual purity of "tender, charming creatures." Here, as in the whole piece, there is polyphony. Gorky does not have a single answer to the question of how to live, is it possible to get out of difficult situation? But even in the difficult, gloomy conditions of life, not each of Gorky's heroines finally sinks to its bottom. Someone is trying to adapt, someone does not lose faith in the future, trying to keep in himself at least tiny particles of goodness and light and love.

There are five female characters in the play. Anna is the wife of Kleshch, who humbly dies in the second act, the compassionate and economic Kvashnya, the young Vasilisa is the wife of the owner of the rooming house and the lover of Vaska Pepel, the young and downtrodden Natasha and Nastya, indicated in the author's remark with the bashful word "maiden".

In the semantic context of the work, female images are represented by two pairs of opposite characters: Kvashnya - Nastya and Vasilisa - Natasha. Outside of these pairs is Anna, who personifies pure suffering in the play. Her image is not clouded by passions and desires. She patiently and meekly dies. He dies not so much from a mortal disease, but from the consciousness of his uselessness to the world. She is one of those "naked people" for whom the truth of life is unbearable. “I feel sick,” she confesses to Luca. The only aspect of death that worries her is: "And how is it - also flour?" Clogged, fit for nothing in this world, it resembles a thing. She does not move around the stage - she is moved. Take out, leave in the kitchen, forget. Just like with a thing, it is treated even after death. "You have to get out! “We’ll pull it out ...” She passed away - as if the props had been taken away. “Coughing means it has stopped.”

Not so with the rest. In the first pair, Kvashnya represents the semantic dominant. She is almost always doing housework. He lives from his labors. Makes dumplings and sells them. What these dumplings are made of and who eats them, only God knows. She lived married, and now for her that she is married, that she is in a loop: “I did it once - I remember it for the rest of my life ...” And when her husband “died”, she “sat alone” all day with happiness and joy. She is always alone in the play. Conversations and events are touched by the edge, as if the inhabitants of the rooming house are afraid of her. Even Medvedev, the personification of law and power, her cohabitant, talks to Kvashnya respectfully - there is too much inquisitive reason, common sense and hidden aggression in her.

Her opposite, Nastya, is not protected and accessible. She does nothing, does nothing. She is a "girl". She almost does not react to the realities of the world around her. Her mind is not burdened with reflection. She is as self-sufficient as Kvashnya. Gorky implanted in her a strange, not invented by him world of "women's novels", a meager and meaningless dream of a beautiful life. She is literate and therefore reads. “There, in the kitchen, the girl is sitting, reading a book and crying,” Luka is surprised. This is Nastya. She weeps over a fiction that miraculously feels like her own life. She resembles a little girl who dreamed of a toy. Waking up, she pulls her parents, demands this toy for herself. At a tender age, children do not separate dream from reality. This happens later, in the process of growing up. Nastya not only does not grow up - she does not wake up. She wakingly dreaming of these confectionary, sinless dreams: “And his left-hander is huge, and loaded with ten bullets ... My unforgettable friend ... Raoul ...” The baron rolls over her: “Nastka! Why ... after all, the last time - Gaston was! Nastya behaves like a child. Having stuck her nose into reality, she is capricious, gets excited, throws a cup on the floor, threatens the inhabitants: "I'll get drunk today ... I'll get drunk." Getting drunk means getting away from reality again. Forget yourself. Judging by indirect hints, the Baron is with her in gigolos, but she is not aware of this either. Rays of reality only glare on the surface of her consciousness, not penetrating inside. Once Nastya opens up a little, and it becomes clear that her life is powered by the energy of hatred. Running away, she shouts to everyone: “Wolves! For you to breathe! Wolves! She utters this remark at the end of the fourth act, and, consequently, there is a hope of waking up. Vasilisa represents the imperious beginning of the play. She is Pallas Athena of the rooming house, her evil genius. She alone acts - all others exist. The criminal and melodramatic intrigues of the plot are connected with her image. There are no internal prohibitions for Vasilisa. She, like everyone in the rooming house, is a “naked person”, she is “allowed everything”. And Vasilisa takes advantage of this while the others are just talking. The author gave her a cruel and merciless character. The concept of "impossible" lies outside of her moral consciousness. And she thinks consistently: "To enjoy - to kill in order to enjoy." Her antipode Natasha is the purest and brightest image of the play. Out of jealousy for Vaska Pepl, Vasilisa constantly beats and torments Natasha, her husband, old Kostylev, helps her. The instinct of the pack kicks in. Natasha is one of all who believes and still hopes, she is waiting not for haberdashery, but for true love, she is looking for it. But, unfortunately, the geography of its search takes place on that section of the bottom, on which the Spanish galleons loaded with gold do not rest. The dim light coming "from above, from the viewer" allows you to see only the faces of permanent residents. Natasha doesn't trust anyone. Neither Luka nor Ashes. It's just that she, like Marmeladov, "has nowhere to go." When Kostylev is killed, she shouts: “Take me too ... put me in prison!” It is clear to Natasha that Ashes did not kill. All the fault. Everyone was killed. This is her truth. Her, not Satin. Not the truth of a proud, strong man, but the truth of the humiliated and offended.

The female images in Gorky's play "At the Bottom" carry a serious semantic load. The flawed world of the inhabitants of the rooming house, thanks to their presence, becomes closer and more understandable. They are, as it were, guarantors of its authenticity. It is with their voices that the author openly speaks of compassion, of the unbearable boredom of life. They have their own bookish forerunners, many literary projections from the previous artistic tradition converged on them. The author does not hide it. Another thing is more important: it is they who evoke the most sincere feelings of hatred or compassion in the readers and viewers of the play.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)