The subject of the image in Gorky's drama "At the Bottom" is the consciousness of people thrown out as a result of deep social processes taking place in Russian society at the turn of the century, to the bottom of life. In order to embody such an object of representation by stage means, he needs to find an appropriate situation, an appropriate conflict, as a result of which the contradictions of the consciousness of the shelters, its strengths and weaknesses would appear. Is social, public conflict suitable for this?
Indeed, social conflict is presented in the play on several levels. Firstly, this is a conflict between the owners of the rooming house, the Kostylevs, and its inhabitants. It is felt by the characters throughout the play, but it turns out to be static, devoid of dynamics, not developing. This happens because the Kostylevs themselves have not gone that far from the inhabitants of the rooming house in social terms, and relations between them can only create tension, but not become the basis of a dramatic conflict that can “start” drama.
In addition, each of the characters in the past experienced their own social conflict, as a result of which they ended up at the “bottom” of life, in a rooming house.
But these social conflicts are fundamentally taken out of the scene, relegated to the past, and therefore do not become the basis of a dramatic conflict. We see only the result of the social turmoil that so tragically affected people's lives, but not the clashes themselves.
The presence of social tension is already indicated in the title of the play. After all, the very fact of the existence of the “bottom” of life implies the presence of a “rapid stream”, its upper current, to which the characters strive to approach. But even this cannot become the basis of a dramatic conflict - after all, this tension is also devoid of dynamics, all attempts by the characters to escape from the “bottom” turn out to be futile. Even the appearance of the policeman Medvedev does not give impetus to the development of a dramatic conflict.
Perhaps the drama is organized by a traditional love conflict? Indeed, he is present in the play. It is determined by the relationship between Vaska Ash, Kostylev's wife Vasilisa, the owner of the rooming house, and Natasha.
It will be the appearance of Kostylev in the rooming house and the conversation of the roomers, from which it is clear that Kostylev is looking for his wife Vasilisa in the rooming house, who is cheating on him with Vaska Pepel. The plot is a change in the initial situation, entailing the emergence of a conflict. The plot is the appearance of Natasha in the rooming house, for the sake of which Pepel leaves Vasilisa. In the course of the development of the love conflict, it becomes clear that the relationship with Natasha enriches Ash, revives him to a new life.
The culmination, the highest point in the development of the conflict, is fundamentally moved offstage: we do not see exactly how Vasilisa scalds Natasha with boiling water, we only learn about it from the noise and screams offstage and the conversations of the roommates. The murder of Kostylev by Vaska Ash turns out to be a tragic outcome of a love conflict.
Of course, love conflict also becomes a facet of social conflict. He shows that the anti-human conditions of the “bottom” cripple a person and the most exalted feelings, even such as love, lead not to the enrichment of the individual, but to death, mutilation, murder and hard labor. Having thus unleashed a love conflict, Vasilisa emerges from it as a winner, achieves all her goals at once: she takes revenge on her former lover Vaska Peplu and her rival Natasha, gets rid of her unloved husband and becomes the sole owner of the rooming house. There is nothing human left in Vasilisa, and her moral impoverishment shows the enormity of the social conditions in which both the inhabitants of the rooming house and its owners are immersed.
But a love conflict cannot organize a stage action and become the basis of a dramatic conflict, if only because, unfolding before the eyes of the rooming-houses, it does not include them themselves. They are keenly interested in the ups and downs of these relationships, but do not participate in them, remaining only outside spectators. Consequently, a love conflict also does not create the situation that can form the basis of a dramatic conflict.
Let us repeat once again: the subject of depiction in Morky's play is not only and not so much the social contradictions of reality or possible ways of resolving them; he is interested in the consciousness of the overnight stays in all its inconsistency. Such an object of the image is typical for the genre of philosophical drama. Moreover, it also requires non-traditional forms of artistic expression: the traditional external action (event series) gives way to the so-called internal action. Ordinary life is reproduced on the stage, with its petty quarrels between the roommates, one of the characters appears and disappears again, but these circumstances are not the plot-forming ones. Philosophical issues force the playwright to transform the traditional forms of drama: the plot is manifested not only in the actions of the characters, but in their dialogues. It is the conversations of the roommates that determine the development of the dramaturgical conflict: the action is translated by Gorky into an off-event series.
In the exposition, we see people who, in essence, have come to terms with their tragic situation at the “bottom” of life. Everyone, with the exception of Tick, does not think about the possibility of getting out of here, but is only occupied with thoughts about today or, like the Baron, turned to nostalgic memories of the past.
The beginning of the conflict is the appearance of Luke. Outwardly, it does not affect the life of overnight shelters in any way, but in their minds hard work begins. Luke is immediately at the center of their attention, and the entire development of the plot is concentrated on him. In each of the heroes, he sees the bright sides of his personality, finds the key and approach to each of them - and this produces a true revolution in the lives of the heroes. The development of inner action begins at the moment when the characters discover in themselves the ability to dream of a new and better life. It turns out that those bright sides that Luka guessed in each character of Gorky constitute his true essence. It turns out that the prostitute Nastya dreams of beautiful and bright love; An actor, a drunk man, a degenerate alcoholic, recalls his work and seriously thinks about returning to the stage; The “hereditary” thief Vaska Pepel discovers in himself a desire for an honest life, he wants to leave for Siberia and become a strong master there. Dreams reveal the true human essence of Gorky's heroes, their depth and purity. This is how another facet of social conflict manifests itself: the depth of the characters' personalities, their noble aspirations are in blatant contradiction with their current social position. The structure of society is such that a person does not have the opportunity to realize his true essence.
Luka, from the first moment of his appearance in the rooming house, refuses to see swindlers in the rooming houses. “I respect crooks too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps ...” - this is how he says, justifying his right to call his new neighbors “honest people” and rejecting Bubnov’s objection: “ It was honest, but the spring before last.” The origins of this position are in the naive anthropologism of Luke, who believes that a person is initially good and only social circumstances make him bad and imperfect.
Luke's position in the drama is very complex, and the author's attitude towards him looks ambiguous. Luke is absolutely disinterested in his preaching and in his desire to awaken in people the best, hidden for the time being sides of their nature, which they did not even suspect: they contrast so strikingly with their position at the very “bottom” of society. Luke sincerely wishes good to his interlocutors, shows real ways to achieve another, better life. And under the influence of his words, the heroes really experience a metamorphosis. The actor stops drinking and saves up money in order to go to a free hospital for alcoholics, not even suspecting that he does not need it: the dream of returning to creativity gives him the strength to overcome his illness, and he stops drinking. Ash subordinates his whole life to the desire to leave with Natasha for Siberia and there to get on his feet, to become a strong master. The dreams of Nastya and Anna, Klesh's wife, are quite illusory, but these dreams also give them the opportunity to feel happier. Nastya imagines herself the heroine of tabloid novels, demonstrating in her dreams about the non-existent Raul or Gaston the feats of self-sacrifice that she is really capable of; the dying Anna, dreaming of the afterlife, even partly escapes from a sense of hopelessness. Only Bubnov and Baron, people who are completely indifferent to others and even to themselves, remain deaf to Luke's words. Luka's position is exposed by a dispute about what truth is, which arose between him and Bubnov and Baron, when he ruthlessly exposes Nastya's groundless dreams of Raul: "Here ... you say - the truth ... She, the truth, is not always for a person’s illness ... you can’t always cure the soul with the truth ... ". In other words, Luke affirms that a comforting lie is life-giving for a person. But is Luke only asserting a lie?
Our literary criticism has long been dominated by the concept that Gorky unequivocally rejects Luke's consolatory sermon. But the writer's position is more difficult.
The author's position is expressed primarily in the development of the plot. After Luke's departure, everything happens in a completely different way, as the heroes expected and what Luke convinced them of. Vaska Pepel will indeed go to Siberia, but not as a free settler, but as a convict accused of killing Kostylev. An actor who has lost faith in his own strength will exactly repeat the fate of the hero of the parable of the righteous land told by Luke. Trusting the hero to tell this plot, Gorky himself will beat him in the fourth act, drawing directly opposite conclusions. Luke, telling a parable about a man who, having lost faith in the existence of a righteous land, strangled himself, believes that a person should not be deprived of hope, albeit an illusory one. Gorky, showing the fate of the Actor, assures the reader and the viewer that it is precisely false hope that can lead a person to a noose. But let us return to the previous question: in what way did Luke deceive the heroes of the play?
The actor accuses him of not leaving the address of the free clinic. All the heroes agree that Luke instilled false hope in their souls. Ho, after all, he did not promise to bring them out of the "bottom" of life - he simply gave them hope that there is a way out and that it was not ordered for them. That self-confidence that woke up in the minds of the roommates turned out to be too fragile and lifeless, and with the disappearance of the hero who was able to wake her up, it immediately died out. The point is the weakness of the heroes, their inability and unwillingness to do at least a little in order to resist the ruthless social circumstances that doom them to the Kostylevs' rooming house. Therefore, he addresses the main accusation not to Luke, but to the heroes who are not able to find the strength in themselves to oppose their will to reality. Thus, Gorky manages to reveal one of the characteristic features of the Russian national character: dissatisfaction with reality, a sharply critical attitude towards it and a complete unwillingness to do anything to change this reality. That is why Luka finds such a warm response from the roomers: after all, he explains the failures of their lives by external circumstances and is not at all inclined to blame the heroes themselves for the failed life. And the thought of trying to somehow change these circumstances does not occur to either Luka or his flock. Therefore, the heroes experience the loss of Luke so dramatically: the hope awakened in their souls cannot find inner support in their characters; they will always need external support, even from a person as helpless in a practical sense as Luka, who is “unpatched”.
Luka is the ideologist of passive consciousness, which is so unacceptable to Gorky.
According to the writer, a passive ideology can only reconcile the hero with his current situation and will not induce him to try to change this situation, as happened with Nastya, Anna, the Actor, who, after the disappearance of Luka, lost all hope and gained inner strength for its realization - and laid the blame for this not on himself, but on Luke. But who could object to this hero, who could oppose at least something to his passive ideology? There was no such hero in the rooming house. The bottom line is that the “bottom” cannot develop a different ideological position, which is why the ideas of Luke are so close to its inhabitants. But his sermon gave impetus to a certain antithesis, to the emergence of a new position in life. Satin became its spokesman.
He is well aware that his state of mind is a reaction to the words of Luke:
“Yes, it was he, the old yeast, who fermented our roommates ... Old man? He is clever!.. The old man is not a charlatan! What is truth? Man is the truth! He understood this... you - no!.. He... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin...”.
And his famous monologue about a person, in which he affirms the need for respect, but not pity, and considers pity as a humiliation, affirms a different position in life. However, this is only the beginning, only the very first step towards the formation of an active consciousness capable of changing social circumstances, of resisting them, and not a simple desire to isolate themselves from them and try to get around them, as Luke insisted.
The tragic finale of the drama (the actor's suicide) also raises the question of the genre nature of the play "At the Bottom".
Do we have reason to consider "At the Bottom" as a tragedy? Indeed, in this case, we will have to define the Actor as a hero-ideologist and consider his conflict with society as ideological, because the hero-ideologist affirms his ideology by death. Tragic death is the last and often the only opportunity not to bow before the opposing force and to approve ideas.
It seems not. His death is an act of despair and disbelief in one's own strength and rebirth. Among the heroes of the “bottom” there are no obvious ideologists who oppose reality. Moreover, their own situation is not comprehended by them as tragic and hopeless. They have not yet reached that level of consciousness when a tragic worldview of life is possible, because it involves a conscious opposition to social or other circumstances.
Gorky obviously does not find such a hero in Kostylev's rooming house, at the "bottom" of his life. Therefore, it would be more logical to consider “At the Bottom” as a socio-philosophical and social drama.
Reflecting on the genre nature of the play, one must turn to its conflict, show what collisions are at the center of the playwright's attention, what becomes the main subject of the image. In our case, the subject of Gorky's research is the social conditions of Russian reality at the turn of the century and their reflection in the minds of the characters. At the same time, the main, main subject of the image is precisely the consciousness of the overnight stays and the aspects of the Russian national character that manifested themselves in it.
Gorky is trying to determine what are the social circumstances that influenced the characters of the characters. To do this, he shows the background of the characters, which becomes clear to the viewer from the dialogues of the characters. Ho, it is more important for him to show those social circumstances, the circumstances of the “bottom”, in which the heroes now find themselves. It is this position of theirs that equates the former aristocrat Baron with the cheater Bubnov and the thief Vaska Pepel and forms common features of consciousness for all: rejection of reality and at the same time a passive attitude towards it.
Inside Russian realism since the 40s. XIX century, with the emergence of the “natural school” and the Gogol trend in literature, a direction is revealed that characterizes the pathos of social criticism in relation to reality. It is this direction, which is represented, for example, by the names of Gogol, Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev, that was called critical realism. Gorky in the drama "At the Bottom" continues these traditions, which is manifested in his critical attitude to the social aspects of life and, in many respects, to the heroes who are immersed in this life and shaped by it.
A very complex work was created by Maxim Gorky. “At the bottom”, the summary of which cannot be conveyed in a few phrases, prompts philosophical reflections on life and its meaning. Carefully written images offer the reader their point of view, however, as always, it is up to him to decide.
Analysis of "At the bottom" (Gorky M.) is impossible without knowing the plot of the play. A red thread through the whole work is a dispute about the capabilities of man and the man himself. The action takes place in the Kostylevs' rooming house - a place that seems to be forgotten by God, cut off from the civilized world of people. Each inhabitant here has long lost professional, social, public, spiritual, family ties. Almost all of them consider their position to be abnormal, hence the unwillingness to know anything about their neighbors, a certain anger, and vices. Once at the very bottom, the characters have their own position in life, they know only their own truth. Can anything save them, or are they lost souls to society?
In the ongoing dispute throughout the play, three life positions are especially important: Luka, Bubnova, Satina. All of them differ in fate, and their names are also symbolic.
Luke is considered the most difficult way. It is his character that prompts reflection on what is better - compassion or truth. And is it possible to use lies in the name of compassion, as this character does? A careful analysis of "At the Bottom" (Gorky) shows that Luke embodies precisely this positive quality in himself. He eases Anna's death throes, gives hope to the Actor and Ashes. However, the disappearance of the hero leads others to a disaster that might not have happened.
Bubnov is a fatalist by nature. He believes that a person is not able to change anything, and his fate is determined from above by the will of the Lord, circumstances and laws. This hero is indifferent to others, to their suffering, as well as to himself. He goes with the flow and does not even try to get ashore. Thus, the author emphasizes the danger of such a creed.
When making an analysis of "At the Bottom" (Bitter), it is worth paying attention to Satin, who is firmly convinced that a person is the master of his own destiny, and everything is the work of his hands.
However, while preaching noble ideals, he himself is a cheater, despises others, longs to live without working. Smart, educated, strong, this character could get out of the quagmire, but does not want to do it. His free man, who, in the words of Sateen himself, "sounds proud", becomes the ideologist of evil.
It is worth considering that Satin and Luka are paired heroes, similar. Their names are symbolic and non-random. The first is associated with the devil, Satan. The second, despite the biblical origin of the name, also serves the evil one. Concluding the analysis of "At the Bottom" (Gorky), I would like to note that the author wanted to convey to us that the truth can save the world, but compassion is no less important. The reader himself must choose the position that will be correct for him. However, the question of man and his capabilities still remains open.
The life of Maxim Gorky is unusual. He devoted himself to creativity, his works are deep in meaning. A significant book of the writer is the play "At the Bottom", written in 1902.
The main problem, which is philosophical, in the work is a dispute about the truth. Each of the characters expresses his point of view, which he likes. All the characters have a different worldview, however, the opinion of Satin deserves more attention, who claims that “falsehood is the religion of slaves and masters ... Truth is the god of a free man.” The hero says that a person should be respected, not pitied. It’s hard to argue with this, because you need to believe in a person’s own strengths, and not show pity. Therefore, a person must rely on himself.
The antipode of satin is Luke, who is a compassionate and kind person. He helps all those who need support. The hero inspires with his lies hope for a bright future, which, as readers see, cannot be in the play. Luka is a sincere and sympathetic person, trying to do everything possible to help others. But the catch is that his goodness is built on lies and deceit, which only paint a world of illusions. And this is not always correct, because a constant lie does not lead to anything good. Of course, “the truth does not always heal the soul,” but the construction of a deceitful world changes a person, weakening his will of character. And it shouldn't be.
Therefore, it is worth realizing that everything depends on the person. Being strong or weak is his choice. And with the decision made, he will have to live on. The best, of course, is the truth. It does not give false thoughts and does not create illusions. Thus, Maxim Gorky wanted to convey to readers that everything depends only on the person: whether he accepts the truth or not.
In the center of the play are people who find themselves on the social "bottom", from which it is extremely difficult to get out, because the characters are not able to make independent decisions, to change their worthless lives in any way. Gorky blames in his work not those who preach the truth (Luke, Satina), but those who cannot find the strength to resist the hardships of life. Such people are considered weak. They do not want to improve, to change something, they are only concerned about the compassion that is shown towards them from other members of the "social bottom".
What is the saddest part of the play? The most terrible and tragic thing is that the heroes are dissatisfied with the reality that surrounds them. They cannot accept the world around them, realize that the life they live is not perfection, this is the bottom, there is nowhere to fall. This is the very depth from which, as Gorky shows, there is no way back, because with such judgments, views, actions, it is difficult to achieve inclusion in society.
Thus, Maxim Gorky thought out every detail well, he endowed the characters with peculiar qualities in order to show that people are weak-willed, weak, and cannot achieve anything by their inaction. Gorky calls to think about how not to be on the "social bottom". Do not give up at the first obstacle that comes, no need to despair. The main thing is to believe in your own strength and go through life boldly!
Maxim Gorky wrote this play in 1902, but he could not immediately decide on the title. "At the Bottom" became the final title of the play. From the very title it becomes clear that we are talking about fallen people who are at the bottom of society and their return to normal life is a big question. People interested in Russian literature may notice the similarity of the meaning of the humiliated people with the works of Dostoevsky, but Gorky reveals this topic even more directly and truthfully.
In this play, the author so truthfully and realistically shows the world of degraded people that you will not find such writing in any other work of the Russian writer. An interesting idea is to place people of different nature and position in society in one rooming house. Each of these people thinks and expects the best from life. The place where these people are located is no better than a basement, but in fact these people are not to blame for their current humiliated position, they are victims of the rules and regime that break a person and lower them to the bottom.
The author does not provide the reader with a detailed description and moments from the biography of the heroes, but a little enough to understand Gorky's main idea. The heroine of the play, Anna, only keeps saying that she has lived all her life in poverty and hunger and walked only in cast-offs. Everyone complains about life and that it is not fair. The author wants to say that if a person has got out of the rut of life, rhythm, then he is no doubt threatened with the fate of being at the "bottom", which entails humiliation and, in the end, death.
The play mentions a lot of words about the essence of a person, about what he should really be and what he is intended for. Such reasoning of the author further creates a contrast between the characters and between normal people and people who have fallen.
The writer in this play is trying to give the reader an understanding that each person is the master of his own destiny and that there are completely different concepts when a person sank to the "bottom" due to circumstances and when a person simply stops fighting for a better life and just goes with the flow . The life situations shown in the play can still happen to any person, so you should never give up.
Analysis of the first act of the drama by A.M. Gorky "At the Bottom".
Gorky's play "At the Bottom" excited society with its appearance. Her first performance caused a shock: did real bed-stayers take the stage instead of actors?
The action of the play in a cave-like basement attracts attention not only by the unusual characters, but also by its polyphony. It is only at the first moment when the reader or viewer sees the “heavy stone vaults” of the ceiling, “Bubnov’s bunks”, “a wide bed covered with a dirty cotton canopy” it seems that the faces here are all the same - gray, gloomy, dirty.
But then the heroes spoke, and ...
- ... I-say, - a free woman, her own mistress ... (Kashnya)
Who beat me yesterday? What were they beaten for? (Satin)
It's bad for me to breathe dust. My body is poisoned by alcohol. (Actor)
What different voices! What different people! What different interests! The exposition of the first act is a discordant chorus of characters who seem not to hear each other. Indeed, everyone lives in this basement the way he wants, everyone is preoccupied with their own problems (for some it is a problem of freedom, for someone it is a problem of punishment, for someone it is a problem of health, survival in the created conditions).
But here the first turning point of the action - the dispute between Satine and the actor. In response to the words of the actor: “The doctor told me: your body, he says, is completely poisoned by alcohol,” Satine smiling, pronounces a completely incomprehensible word “organon”, and then adds “sicambre” to the Actor’s address.
What's this? Wordplay? Nonsense? No, this is the diagnosis that Satin made to society. Organon is a violation of all reasonable foundations of life. It means that it is not the Actor's organism that is poisoned, but human life, the life of society, is poisoned, perverted.
Sicambre translated into Russian means "savage". Of course, only a savage (according to Satine) can not understand this truth.
Sounds in this dispute and the third "incomprehensible" word - "macrobiotics". (The meaning of this concept is known: the book of the German doctor, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Hufeland was called "The Art of Prolonging Human Life", 1797). The “recipe” for prolonging human life, which the Actor offers: “If the body is poisoned, ... it means that it’s harmful for me to sweep the floor ... breathe dust ...”, - causes an unambiguously negative assessment of Sateen. It is in response to this assertion by the Actor that Satin says derisively:
“Macrobiotics… ha!”
So the idea is: life in a rooming house is absurd and wild, because its very rational foundations are poisoned. This is understandable to Satin, but the hero, apparently, does not know the recipes for treating the basics of life. The reply “Macrobiotics… ha!” can be interpreted in another way: what is the point of thinking about the art of prolonging such life. The turning point of the first scene attracts attention not only because the reader determines the dominant thought about the basics of life, it is also important because it gives an idea of the level of intelligence of the rooming houses in the face of Sateen. And the idea that there are smart, knowledgeable people in the rooming house is amazing.
Let's pay attention to how Satin presents his beliefs. It would be quite understandable if the night-bed, beaten the day before, would speak directly about the abnormal state of society, which makes people behave in an inhuman way. But for some reason he utters completely incomprehensible words. This is clearly not a demonstration of knowledge of foreign vocabulary. What then? The answer that suggests itself makes us think about the moral qualities of Sateen. Maybe he spares the Actor's vanity, knowing about his heightened emotionality? Maybe he is generally not inclined to offend a person, even one who does not know much? In both cases we are convinced of the delicacy and tact of Sateen. Isn't it strange the presence of such qualities in a person of the "bottom"?!
Another point that cannot be overlooked: quite recently we saw: “Satin just woke up, lies on the bunk and growls” (remark for 1 act), now, talking with the Actor, Satin smiles. What caused such a sharp change of mood? Perhaps Satin is interested in the course of the argument, perhaps he feels in himself that strength (both intellectual and spiritual) that favorably distinguishes him from the Actor, who recognizes his own weakness, but perhaps this is not a smile of superiority over the Actor, but a kind, compassionate smile towards the person in need of support. No matter how we evaluate Sateen's smile, it turns out that real human feelings live in him, whether it is pride from the realization of one's own significance, whether it is compassion for the Actor and the desire to support him. This discovery is all the more surprising because the first impression of the hum of the voices of the roommates, not listening, insulting each other, was not in favor of these people. (“You are a red-headed goat!” / Kvashnya - Tick /; “Silence, old dog” / Kleshch - Kvashnya / etc.).
After the argument between Satin and the Actor, the tone of the conversation changes dramatically. Let's hear what the heroes are talking about now:
I love incomprehensible, rare words ... There are very good books and many curious words ... (Satin)
I was a furrier... I had my own establishment... My hands were so yellow - from paint... I already thought that I would not wash it until my death... But they are hands... Just dirty... Yes! (Bubnov)
Education is nonsense, the main thing is talent. And talent is faith in yourself, in your strength. (Actor)
Work? Make it so that the work was pleasant to me - I may be working, yes! (Satin)
What kind of people are they? Dud, golden company ... People! I am a working person ... I am ashamed to look at them ... (Tick)
Do you have a conscience? (Ash)
What do the heroes of the “bottom” think about, what do they think about? Yes, about the same thing that any person thinks about: about love, about faith in one's own strength, about work, about the joys and sorrows of life, about good and evil, about honor and conscience.
The first discovery, the first astonishment associated with what Gorky read - here it is: people of the “bottom” are ordinary people, they are not villains, not monsters, not scoundrels. They are the same people as we are, only they live in different conditions. Perhaps it was this discovery that shocked the first viewers of the play and shocks more and more new readers?! May be…
If Gorky had completed the first act with this polylogue, our conclusion would have been correct, but the playwright introduces a new face. Luka appears "with a stick in his hand, with a knapsack over his shoulders, a bowler hat and a teapot at his belt." Who is he, the person who greets everyone: “Good health, honest people!”
Who is he, the man who says: “I don't care! I respect crooks too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: they are all black, they all jump ... ”(?) Reflecting on the question of who Luka is, we think, first of all, that the playwright gives his hero a strange name. Luke- this is a saint the biblical hero?
(Let's turn to the Bible Encyclopedia. Let's take an interest in what is said there about Luke: “Luke the Evangelist is the writer of the third Gospel and the book of the Acts of the Apostles. He is not named at all as the writer of the last book, but the universal and continuous tradition of the Church from the very beginning attributed to him the compilation of the aforementioned book of the New Testament. According to Eusenius and Jerome, Luke was a native of the city of Antioch. Apostle Paul calls him beloved doctor. His thorough acquaintance with Jewish customs, way of thinking, phraseology make it somewhat probable that he was at first a proselyte, a foreigner who accepted the Jewish faith, although, on the other hand, from his classical style, the purity and correctness of the Greek language in his Gospel, one can rather conclude, that he did not come from the Jewish, but from the Greek race. We do not know what prompted him to accept Christianity, but we do know that by his conversion, having heartily attached himself to the Apostle Paul, he devoted his entire subsequent life to the service of Christ. There is an ancient tradition that Luke was one of the 70 disciples sent by the Lord to every city and place where he wanted to go(Luke X, 1). Another ancient tradition says that he was also a painter and attributes to him the inscription of the icons of the Savior and the Mother of God, of which the last one is still kept in the Great Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. Regarding the manner of his activity upon entering the apostolic ministry, we find precise and definite information, described by him in the book of Acts. They think that in his touching Gospel story about the appearance of the resurrected Lord, to two disciples who went to Emmanus under another disciple, whose name is not mentioned, of course, Luke himself (ch. XIV). When Luke joined the Apostle Paul and became his companion and collaborator is not known for certain. Maybe it was in A.D. 43 or 44. Then he accompanied the apostle to Rome, until the time of his first imprisonment in it, and remained with him. And during the second bondage of the apostle, shortly before his death, he was also with him, while all the others left the apostle; This is why Paul's words at the end of II Timothy sound so touching: “Damas left me, having loved the present age, and went to Thessalonica, Criskent to Galatea, Titus to Dalmatia. One Luke is with me." After the death of the Apostle Paul, nothing is known from the Holy Scriptures about the subsequent life of Luke. There is a legend that he preached the Gospel in Italy, Macedonia and Greece and even in Africa and died peacefully at the age of 80. According to another tradition, he died a martyr's death under Domitian, in Achaia, and, for lack of a cross, was hanged on an olive tree.")
Based on these ideas about Luke, we can say that Luke is a healer of hearts, a wanderer, a bearer of Christian morality, a teacher of lost souls, in many ways reminiscent of the Evangelist Luke.
At the same time, another question arises: maybe Luke is a crafty, two-faced person? Or maybe Luke is “light-bearing” (after all, this is how this name is translated)?
It is very difficult to unequivocally answer these questions, because even the playwright himself sometimes saw in his hero a saint, sometimes a liar, sometimes a comforter.
Luke's first words are alarming: He is so indifferent towards people that they are all the same for him?!(“Everyone is black, everyone is jumping”) Or maybe he is so wise that he sees in anyone just a Human?!(“Good health, honest people!”). Pepel is right when he calls Luka "amusing". Indeed, he is humanly interesting, ambiguous, wise as an old man: “It always turns out like this: a person thinks to himself - I’m doing well! Grab it - and people are unhappy!
Yes, people may be dissatisfied with the fact that the “old man” sees their secret desires, understands more than the heroes themselves (recall Luke’s conversations with Ashes); people may be dissatisfied with the fact that Luke speaks so convincingly and so wisely that it is difficult to dispute his words: “How many different people on earth dispose of ... and frighten each other with all sorts of fears, but there is no order in life and there is no purity ... ".
Luka's first step in the rooming house is the desire to "place": "Well, at least I'll litter here. Where is your broom?" The subtext of the phrase is obvious: Luke appears in the basement to make people's lives cleaner. But this is one part of the truth. Gorky is philosophical, so there is another part of the truth: maybe Luke appears, raises dust (excites people, makes them agitated, preoccupied with their existence) and disappears. (After all, the verb “place” also has such a meaning. Otherwise, it was necessary to say “sweep”, “sweep”).
Luke already at the first appearance formulates several basic provisions of the attitude to life:
1) - They papers are all like that - all are no good.
2) - And everything is people! No matter how you pretend, no matter how you wiggle, but you were born a man, you will die a man ...
3) -I all I look people are getting smarter more and more interesting ... And even though they live worse, but they want everything - better ... Stubborn!
4) - A is it possible for a person like that throw? He- whatever it is - a always worth the price!
Now, reflecting on some of the provisions of Luke's life truth, we can approach the moment of truth: in a terrible, unrighteous life there is one value and one truth that cannot be disputed. This truth is the man himself. Luke declares this upon his appearance.
The playwright has been thinking about the problem of man for many years. Probably, the appearance of Luka in the first act of the play "At the Bottom" is the climax of this action, not only because the hero outlines one of the main problems of the play - how to relate to a person; the appearance of Luke is the most striking moment, and because rays of thought stretch from him to the next actions of the drama.
“There is no person without a name”, - the opening of the Actor in the second act;
"Man - that's the truth," - the final confession of Sateen. Such confessions are phenomena of the same order.
The epiphany of the heroes in the finale of the play, the optimistic sound of "At the Bottom" became possible, also because Luka appeared in the play, acting on the dark world, like "acid" on a rusty coin, highlighting both the best and worst aspects of life. Of course, Luke's activities are diverse, many of the actions and words of this hero can be interpreted in the opposite way, but this is quite natural, because a person is a living phenomenon, changing and changing the world around him. Whatever you say Luke no matter how he argues this or that position, he is humanly wise, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with cunning, sometimes seriously leads the reader to an understanding of what is in the world of Man, and everything else is the work of his hands, his mind, conscience. It is this understanding that is valuable in the hero of Gorky, who appeared among people who had lost their faith and disappeared when that HUMAN GRAIN, which for the time being had dormant for the time being, hatched in people, woke up, came to life. With the advent of Luka, the life of the overnight stays takes on new, human facets.
Read the first act of the play. The relationship of the characters, the personal characteristics of the overnight stays are considered, the compositional features of this important action for the play are revealed. Along with those intermediate conclusions that we made in the course of the analysis, it is probably worth making a general conclusion about the sound of the first act.
Let's ask the question What role does the first act play in the context of the drama? This question can be answered in different ways: firstly, it outlines the themes that will sound throughout the play; secondly, here are formulated (still very approximately) the principles of attitude towards a person, which will be developed by both Luka and Satin in the course of the drama; thirdly, and this is especially important, already in the first act of the play, in the arrangement of the characters, in their words, we see the attitude of the writer to the PERSON, we feel that the main thing in the play is the author's view of a person, his role and place in the world. From this point of view, it is interesting to turn to Gorky's confession, which was made in the article "On Plays": "A historical man, the one who created everything in 5-6 thousand years what we call culture, in which a huge amount of his energy is embodied and which is a grandiose superstructure over nature, much more hostile than friendly to him - this man as an artistic image is an excellent being! But the modern writer and playwright is dealing with a superman who has been brought up for centuries in conditions of class struggle, is deeply infected with zoological individualism and in general is an extremely motley figure, very complex, contradictory... we must show it to oneself in all the beauty of its confusion and fragmentation, with all the "contradictions of the heart and mind."
Already the first act of the drama "At the Bottom" realizes this task, which is why we cannot unequivocally interpret any character, not a single remark, not a single act of the characters. The historical layer that interested the writer is also obvious in the first act: if we take into account the historical roots of Luke, the reader can trace the path of Man from the very beginnings to the modern moment of the playwright, to the beginning of the 20th century. In the first act, another layer is also obvious - the social and moral one: Gorky considers Man in all the diversity of his manifestations: from the saint to the one who is "at the bottom" of life.
In all the plays of M. Gorky, an important motive sounded loudly - passive humanism, addressed only to such feelings as pity and compassion, and opposing it to active humanism, which arouses in people the desire for protest, resistance, struggle. This motif formed the main content of the play created by Gorky in 1902 and immediately aroused heated discussions, and then gave rise in a few decades to such a huge critical literature that few dramatic masterpieces have generated in several centuries. We are talking about the philosophical drama "At the Bottom".
Gorky's plays are social dramas in which the problems are common and the characters are unusual. The author does not have main and secondary characters. In the plot of the plays, the main thing is not a clash of people in some life situations, but a clash of life positions and views of these people. These are socio-philosophical dramas. Everything in the play is subject to a philosophical conflict, a clash of different life positions. And that is why a tense dialogue, often a dispute, is the main thing in the playwright's work. Monologues in the play are rare and are the end of a certain stage of the characters' dispute, a conclusion, even the author's declaration (for example, Sateen's monologue). The arguing parties strive to convince each other - and the speech of each of the heroes is bright, rich in aphorisms.
The development of the play "At the Bottom" flows along several parallel channels, almost independent of each other. Relations between the host of the rooming house, Kostylev, his wife Vasilisa, her sister Natasha, and the thief Pepel, are tied into a special plot knot - a separate social and everyday drama could be created on this vital material. Separately, a storyline develops related to the relationship between the locksmith Kleshch, who lost his job and sank "to the bottom" and his dying wife Anna. Separate plot nodes are formed from the relationship between Baron and Nastya, Medvedev and Kvashnya, from the fate of the Actor, Bubnov, Alyoshka and others. It may seem that Gorky gave only a sum of examples from the life of the inhabitants of the “bottom” and that, in essence, nothing would change if there were more or less of these examples.
It even seems that he consciously sought to break up the action, dividing the scene every now and then into several sections, each of which is inhabited by its own characters and lives its own special life. In this case, an interesting multi-voiced dialogue arises: the remarks that sound on one of the sections of the stage, as if by chance, echo the remarks that sound on the other, acquiring an unexpected effect. In one corner of the stage, Pepel assures Natasha that he is not afraid of anyone or anything, and in the other, Bubnov, who is patching his cap, says drawlingly: “But the strings are rotten ...” And this sounds like an evil irony to Pepel. In one corner, the drunken Actor tries and fails to recite his favorite poem, and in the other Bubnov, playing checkers with the policeman Medvedev, gloatingly tells him: “Your lady has disappeared ...” And again, it seems that this is addressed not only to Medvedev , but also to the Actor, that we are talking not only about the fate of the game of checkers, but also about the fate person.
Such a through action is complex in this play. To understand him, you need to understand what role Luke plays here. This wandering preacher consoles everyone, promises deliverance from suffering to everyone, says to everyone: “You - hope!”, “You - believe!” Luka is an outstanding personality: he is smart, he has vast experience and a keen interest in people. The whole philosophy of Luke is condensed into one of his sayings: "What you believe is what you are." He is sure that the truth will never cure any soul, and you can’t cure anything, but you can only alleviate the pain with a comforting lie. At the same time, he sincerely pities people and sincerely wants to help them.
From collisions of this kind, the through action of the play is formed. For the sake of it, Gorky needed, as it were, parallel developing destinies of different people. These are people of different vitality, different resistance, different ability to believe in a person. The fact that Luke's preaching, its real value, is "tested" on such different people makes this test especially convincing.
Luka tells the dying Anna, who did not know peace during her life: “You - die with joy, without anxiety ...” And in Anna, on the contrary, the desire to live intensifies: “... a little more ... to live ... a little! If there is no flour there ... here you can endure ... you can!” This is Luke's first defeat. He tells Natasha a parable about the “righteous land” in order to convince her of the perniciousness of truth and the saving grace of deceit. But Natasha makes a completely different, directly opposite conclusion about the hero of this parable who committed suicide: "I could not stand the deception." And these words throw light on the tragedy of the Actor, who believed the consolations of Luke and could not bear the bitter disappointment.
The short dialogues of the old man with his “wards”, intertwining with each other, give the play a tense inner movement: the illusory hopes of the unfortunate are growing. And when the collapse of illusions begins, Luke quietly disappears.
Luka suffers the biggest defeat from Sateen. In the last act, when Luka is no longer in the rooming house and everyone is arguing about who he is and what, in fact, he is striving for, the tramps' anxiety intensifies: how, with what to live? The baron expresses the general state. Having confessed that he had “never understood anything” before, lived “like in a dream”, he thoughtfully remarks: “... after all, for some reason I was born ...” People begin to listen to each other. Satin first defends Luka, denying that he is a conscious deceiver, a charlatan. But this defense quickly turns into an offensive - an attack on Luke's false philosophy. Satin says: “He lied ... but - this is out of pity for you ... There is a comforting lie, a reconciling lie ... I know a lie! Those who are weak in soul ... and who live on other people's juices - those need a lie ... It supports some, others hide behind it ... And who is his own master ... who is independent and does not eat someone else's - why does he need a lie? Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” The lie as the "religion of the owners" embodies the owner of the rooming house Kostylev. Luke embodies the lie as a "religion of slaves", expressing their weakness and oppression, their inability to fight, their tendency to patience, to reconciliation.
Satin concludes: “Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain. And although for Satin his cohabitants were and will remain “stupid as bricks”, and he himself will not go further than these words, for the first time a serious speech is heard in the rooming house, pain is felt because of the lost life. The arrival of Bubnov reinforces this impression. "Where are the people?" - he exclaims and offers to "sing ... all night", to sob his inglorious fate. That is why Satin responds to the news of the Actor's suicide with harsh words: "Eh ... ruined the song ... fool!" This replica has another emphasis. The departure from the life of the Actor is again the step of a person who could not stand the truth.
Each of the last three acts of "At the Bottom" ends with someone's death. At the end of Act II, Satin shouts: "The dead can't hear!" The movement of the drama is associated with the awakening of "living corpses", their hearing, emotions. It is here that the main humane, moral meaning of the play is concluded, although it ends tragically.
The problem of humanism is complex in that it cannot be solved once and for all. Each new era and each shift in history forces us to set and decide it anew. This is why arguments about the "softness" of Luke and the rudeness of Sateen can arise again and again.
The ambiguity of the Gorky play led to its various theatrical productions. The most striking was the first stage incarnation of the drama (1902) by the Art Theater, directed by K.S. Stanislavsky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, with the direct participation of M. Gorky. Stanislavsky later wrote that everyone was captivated by "a kind of romanticism, bordering on theatricality on the one hand, and preaching on the other."
In the 60s, Sovremennik, under the leadership of O. Efremov, sort of entered into a controversy with the classical interpretation of “At the Bottom”. The figure of Luke was brought to the fore. His consoling speeches were presented as an expression of concern for a person, and Sateen was reprimanded for "rudeness." The spiritual impulses of the heroes turned out to be dampened, and the atmosphere of the action was mundane.
Disputes about the play are caused by different perceptions of Gorky's dramaturgy. In the play "At the bottom" there is no subject of dispute, clashes. There is also no direct mutual assessment of the characters: their relationship developed long ago, before the beginning of the play. Therefore, the true meaning of Luke's behavior is not immediately revealed. Next to the embittered remarks of the inhabitants of the rooming house, his "good" speeches sound contrastingly, humanely. Hence the desire to “humanize” this image is born.
M. Gorky psychologically expressively embodied the perspective concept of the person. The writer revealed in unconventional material the acute philosophical and moral conflicts of his time, their progressive development. It was important for him to awaken the personality, its ability to think, to comprehend the essence.
