] The central image in the early Gorky is 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. “Power is virtue,” said Nietzsche, and for Gorky, the beauty of a person lies in strength and feat, even aimless: a strong person has the right to be “on the other side of good and evil”, to be outside ethical principles, like Chelkash, and a feat, from this point of view, is resistance to the general flow of life.
After a series of romantic works of 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.

II. Conversation on the content of the play "At the bottom"
How is the scene depicted in the play?
(The scene is described in the author's remarks. In the first act, this "cave-like basement", "heavy, stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster". It is important that the writer gives instructions on how the scene is lit: "from the viewer and from top to bottom" the light reaches the bedchambers from the basement window, as if looking for people among the basement inhabitants. Thin partitions fence off Ash's room.
"Everywhere on the walls - bunks". Except for Kvashnya, Baron and Nastya, who live in the kitchen, no one has their own corner. Everything is 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 the others (this way she is already, as it were, separated from life). Dirt everywhere. "dirty cotton canopy", unpainted and dirty table, benches, stool, tattered cardboard, pieces of oilcloth, rags.
Third act takes place in the early spring in the evening on a wasteland, “littered with various rubbish and a yard overgrown with weeds”. Let's pay attention to the color of this place: the dark wall of a barn or stable "gray, covered with remnants of plaster" the wall of the rooming house, the red wall of the brick firewall blocking the sky, the reddish light of the setting sun, the black boughs of elderberry without buds.
Significant changes take place in the setting of the fourth act: the partitions of Ash's former room are broken, and the Tick's anvil has disappeared. 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." All social strata of society are here: the ruined nobleman Baron, the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, policeman Medvedev, locksmith Kleshch, card maker Bubnov, merchant Kvashnya , sharpie Satin, prostitute Nastya, 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, 45 years old). However, their life is almost over. Dying Anna introduces herself we are an old woman, and she, it turns out, 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 - “I forgot everything.”)

What is the subject matter of the play?
(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).

- What is the conflict of the drama?
(social conflict has several levels in the play. The social poles are clearly marked: on one, the owner of the bunkhouse, Kostylev, and the policeman Medvedev, who supports his power; So it's obvious conflict between power and disenfranchised people. This conflict hardly develops, because Kostylev and Medvedev are not so far from the inhabitants of the rooming house.
Each of the hostels has experienced in the past your social conflict , resulting in a humiliating position.)
Reference:
A sharp conflict situation, played out in front of the audience, is the most important feature of drama as a kind of literature.

- What brought its inhabitants to the rooming house - Satin, Baron, Klesch, Bubnov, Actor, Nastya, Pepel? What is the backstory of these characters?
(satin got "to the bottom" after he served time in prison for murder: "He killed a scoundrel in his temper and irritation ... because of his own sister"; Baron went bankrupt; Mite lost his job: “I am a working person ... I have been working since I was young”; Bubnov he left the house away from sin 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"; Actor drank himself, "drank away his soul ... died"; fate Ashes 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 (act four): “It seems to me that all my life I have only changed clothes ... but why? I do not understand! He studied - he wore the uniform of a noble institute ... but what did he study? I don't remember... He got married - put on a tailcoat, then - a dressing gown... but he 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 roar? I didn't notice... I served in the Treasury Chamber... a uniform, a cap with a cockade... I squandered government money - they put on me a prisoner's robe... then - I put on this... And that's all... as in a dream. .. a? 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 “like in a dream”.)

- How is the social conflict interconnected with the dramatic one?
(The social conflict is taken offstage, relegated to the past, it does not become the basis of the dramaturgical conflict. We observe only the result of offstage conflicts.)

- What kind of conflicts, besides the social one, are highlighted in the play?
(The play has traditional love conflict . It is determined by the relationship between Vaska Pepel, Vasilisa, the wife of the owner of the hostel, Kostylev and Natasha, Vasilisa's sister.
Exposure of this conflict- 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 origin of this conflict- the appearance in the rooming house of Natasha, for the sake of which Pepel leaves Vasilisa.
During development of a love conflict it becomes clear that the relationship with Natasha revives Ash, he wants to leave with her and start a new life.
Conflict climax taken off stage: at the end of the third act, we learn from the words of Kvashnya that “they boiled the girl’s legs with boiling water” - Vasilisa knocked over the samovar and scalded Natasha’s legs.
The murder of Kostylev by Vaska Ashes turns out to be tragic ending of a love conflict. Natasha ceases to believe Ash: “She is at the same time! Damn you! You both…")

- What is the peculiarity of the love conflict?
(Love conflict becomes edge of social conflict . He shows that anti-human conditions cripple a person, and even love does not save a person, but leads to tragedy: to death, mutilation, murder, hard labor. As a result, Vasilisa alone achieves all her goals: she takes revenge on her former lover Pepl and her rival sister Natasha, gets rid of her unloved and disgusted husband and becomes the sole owner 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 are not directly involved in this conflict, they are only bystanders.)

III. Final word of the teacher
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. Exactly the conversations of the sleepers determine development of dramatic conflict . The action is transferred to the non-event series. It's typical of the genre. philosophical drama .
So, the genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama .

Additional material for the teacher
To record at the beginning of the lesson, you can suggest the following plan for analyzing a dramatic work:
1. Time of creation and publication of the play.
2. The place occupied in the work of the playwright.
3. The theme of the play and the reflection of certain life material in it.
4. Actors and their grouping.
5. The conflict of a dramatic work, its originality, the degree of novelty and sharpness, its deepening.
6. Development of dramatic action and its phases. Exposition, plot, ups and downs, climax, denouement.
7. Composition of the play. The role and significance of each act.
8. Dramatic characters and their connection with action.
9. Speech characteristics of the characters. Relationship between character and word.
10. The role of dialogues and monologues in the play. Word and action.
11. Identification of the author's position. The role of remarks in drama.
12. Genre and specific originality of the play. Correspondence of the genre to the author's predilections and preferences.
13. Comedy means (if it's a comedy).
14. Tragic flavor (in case of tragedy analysis).
15. Correlation of the play with the aesthetic positions of the author and his views on the theater. The purpose of the play for a particular scene.
16. Theatrical interpretation of the drama at the time of its creation and beyond. The best acting ensembles, outstanding directorial decisions, memorable incarnations of individual roles.
17. The play and its dramatic traditions.

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

Lesson 2 The role of Luke in the drama "At the Bottom"
The purpose of the lesson: create a problematic situation and encourage students to express their own point of view on the image of Luke and his position in life.
Methodical methods: discussion, analytical conversation.

During the classes
I. Analytical conversation
Let us turn to the extra-event series of the drama and see how the conflict develops here.

- How do the inhabitants of the rooming house perceive their situation before the appearance of Luka?
(AT exposure we see people, in essence, resigned to their humiliating position. The roommates languidly, habitually quarrel, and the Actor says to Sateen: “One day they will completely kill you ... to death ...” “And you are a blockhead,” Satine snaps. "Why?" - the Actor is surprised. "Because you can't kill twice."
These words of Sateen show his attitude towards the existence that they all lead in a rooming house. This is not life, they are all already dead. Everything seems to be clear.
But the Actor's retort is interesting: “I don’t understand ... Why not?” Perhaps it is the Actor, who has died more than once on the stage, who understands the horror of the situation more deeply than others. He is the one who commits suicide at the end of the play.)

- What is the meaning of using past tense in the self-characteristics of the characters?
(People feel "former":
"Satin. I was an educated person” (the paradox is that the past tense is impossible in this case).
"Bubnov. I'm a furrier was ».
Bubnov pronounces a philosophical maxim: “It turns out - don’t paint yourself outside, everything will be erased... everything will be erased, Yes!")

- Which of the characters opposes himself to the rest?
(Only one The tick has not reconciled yet with your fate. He separates himself from the rest of the roomers: “What kind of people are they? Roar, golden company... people! I'm a working man... I'm ashamed to look at them... I've been working since I was little... Do you think I won't get out of here? I’ll get out... I’ll rip off my skin, and I’ll get out... Just wait... my wife will die...”
The dream of another life is connected with the Tick with the liberation that the death of his wife will bring him. He does not feel the enormity of his statement. Yes, and the dream will be imaginary.)

What scene is the beginning of the conflict?
(The beginning of the conflict is the appearance of Luke. He immediately announces his views on life: “I don’t care! I respect crooks too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps ... that's it. And one more thing: “To the old man - where it is warm, there is the homeland ...”
Luke turns out in the center of guests' attention: “What an interesting old man you brought, Natasha ...” - and all the development of the plot is concentrated on him.)

- How does Luka behave with each of the inhabitants of the rooming house?
(Luke quickly finds an approach to the overnight stays: "I'll look at you, brothers - your life - oh-oh! .."
He takes pity on Alyoshka: "Oh, boy, you're confused ...".
He does not respond to rudeness, skillfully bypasses questions that are unpleasant for him, and is ready to sweep the floor instead of the bedchambers.
Luka becomes necessary for Anna, pities her: “How can you leave a person like that?”.
Luka skillfully flatters Medvedev, calling him "under", and he immediately falls for this bait.)

- What do we know about Luke?
(Luka says almost nothing about himself, we only learn: “They crumpled a lot, that’s why he is soft ...”)

- How does Luke affect the overnight stays?
(In each of the lodging-houses, Luka sees a man, reveals their bright sides, the essence of personality , and this produces revolution in life heroes.
It turns out that the prostitute Nastya dreams of beautiful and bright love;
the drunken Actor receives hope for a cure for alcoholism - Luke tells him: “A person can do anything, if only he wants to ...”;
thief Vaska Pepel plans to leave for Siberia and start a new life there with Natasha, to become a strong master.
Anna Luca gives consolation: “Nothing, dear! You - hope ... That means you will die, and you will be calm ... you will not need anything else, and there is nothing to be afraid of! Quiet, calm - lie to yourself!
Luke reveals the good in every person and inspires faith in the best.)

- Did Luka lie to the rooming-houses?
(There may be different opinions on this.
Luke selflessly tries to help people, to instill in them faith in themselves, to awaken the best sides of nature.
He sincerely wants the best shows real ways to achieve a new, better life . After all, there really are hospitals for alcoholics, indeed Siberia is the “golden side”, and not just a place of exile and hard labor.
As for the afterlife with which he beckons Anna, the question is more complicated; it is a matter of faith and religious beliefs.
What did he lie about? When Luka convinces Nastya that he believes in her feelings, in her love: “If you believe, you had true love ... then it was! Was!" - he only helps her find the strength in herself for life, for real, not fictional love.)

- How do the inhabitants of the rooming house relate to the words of Luke?
(The roomers are at first distrustful of Luka’s words: “Why are you lying all the time? Luka does not deny this, he answers the question with a question: “And ... why do you really need it painfully ... think about it! She, really, can , butt for you ... "
Even to a direct question about God, Luke answers evasively: “If you believe, there is; if you don’t believe it, no ... What you believe in is what it is ...”)

What groups can the characters in the play be divided into?
(The heroes of the play can be divided into "believers" and "non-believers" .
Anna believes in God, Tatar - in Allah, Nastya - in "fatal" love, Baron - in her past, perhaps invented. Tick ​​no longer believes in anything, and Bubnov never believed in anything.)

- What is the sacred meaning of the name "Luka"?
(At the name "Luka" dual meaning: this name is reminiscent of Evangelist Luke, means "light coloured", and at the same time associated with the word "sly"(euphemism for the word "crap").)

- What is the author's position in relation to Luke?
(The author's position is expressed in the development of the plot.
After Luke left everything happens not at all as Luke convinced and as the heroes expected .
Vaska Pepel really ends up in Siberia, but only to hard labor, for the murder of Kostylev, and not as a free settler.
The actor, who has lost faith in himself, in his strength, exactly repeats the fate of the hero of Luke's parable about the righteous land. 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 dreams, hopes, even imaginary ones. Gorky, showing the fate of the Actor, assures the reader and viewer that it is false hope that can lead a person to commit suicide .)
Gorky himself wrote about his plan: The main question I wanted to ask is what is better, truth or compassion. What is needed. Is it necessary to bring compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? This is not a subjective question, but a general philosophical one.

- Gorky contrasts not truth and falsehood, but truth and compassion. How justified is this opposition?
(Discussion.)

- What is the significance of Luke's influence on the overnight stays?
(All characters agree that Luke instilled in them false hope . But they did not promise to lift them from the bottom of life, he simply showed their own capabilities, showed that there is a way out, and now everything depends on them.)

- How strong is the faith in yourself awakened by Luke?
(This belief did not have time to gain a foothold in the minds of the roommates, it turned out to be fragile and lifeless, with the disappearance of Luke, hope goes out)

- What is the reason for the rapid fading of faith?
(Maybe the thing in the weakness of the heroes themselves , in their inability and unwillingness to do at least something to implement new plans. Dissatisfaction with reality, a sharply negative attitude towards it, are combined with a complete unwillingness to do anything to change this reality.)

- How does Luke explain the failures of the overnight stay life?
(Luke explains the failures of the life of overnight shelters by external circumstances , does not blame the heroes themselves for a failed life. Therefore, she reached out to him so much and was so disappointed, having lost external support with the departure of Luke.)

II. Final word of the teacher
Gorky does not accept passive consciousness, whose ideologist he considers Luke.
According to the writer, it can only reconcile a person with the outside world, but this world will not move him to change.
Although Gorky does not accept Luka's position, this image seems to be getting out of the author's control.
According to the memoirs of I. M. Moskvin, in the production of 1902, Luka appeared as a noble comforter, almost the savior of many desperate inhabitants of the rooming house. Some critics saw in Luka "Danko, who was given only real features", "the spokesman of the highest truth", found elements of Luka's exaltation in Beranger's verses, which the Actor shouts out:
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!
K. S. Stanislavsky, one of the directors of the play, planned path "decrease" hero.“Luke is cunning”, “looking slyly”, “slyly smiling”, “insinuatingly, softly”, “it is clear that he is lying”.
Luke is a living image precisely because he is contradictory and ambiguous.

Homework
Find out how the question of truth is resolved in the play. Find statements of different characters about the truth.

Lesson 3
The purpose of the lesson: to reveal the positions of the heroes of the play and the author's position in relation to the question of truth.
Methodical methods: analytical conversation, discussion.

During the classes
I. Teacher's word
A philosophical question posed by Gorky himself: Which is better, truth or compassion? The question of truth is multifaceted. Each person understands the truth in his own way, having in mind some final, higher truth. Let's see how the truth and lies correlate in the drama "At the Bottom".

II. Dictionary work
- What do the heroes of the play mean by "truth"?
(Discussion. This word is ambiguous. We advise you to look into the explanatory dictionary and identify the meanings of the word “truth”.

Teacher comment:
Can be distinguished two levels of "truth".
One is " private truth, which the hero defends, assures everyone, and above all himself, of the existence of an extraordinary, bright love. Baron - in the existence of his prosperous past. Kleshch calls his situation true, which turned out to be hopeless even after the death of his wife: “There is no work ... there is no strength! Here is the truth! Shelter... there is no shelter! You need to breathe ... here it is, really! For Vasilisa, the “truth” is that she is “tired” of Vaska Pepl, that she mocks her sister: “I’m not boasting - I’m telling the truth.” Such a "private" truth is at the level of a fact: it was - it was not.
Another level of "truth" "worldview"- in Luke's remarks. Luke's "truth" and his "falsehood" are expressed by the formula: "What you believe is what you are."

III. Conversation
- Do you really need the truth?
(Discussion.)

- The position of which character opposed to Luke's position?
(Positions of Luke, compromising, comforting, opposes the position of Bubnov .
This is the darkest figure in the play. Bubnov enters into an argument implicitly, like talking to myself , supporting the polyphony (polylogue) of the play.
First act, scene at the bedside of the dying Anna:
Natasha (to Tick). You should, tea, treat her more kindly now .., after all, not for long ...
Mite. I know...
Natasha. You know... It's not enough to know, you understand. It's scary to die...
Ash. And I'm not afraid...
Natasha. How! .. Courage ...
Bubnov (whistling). And the threads are rotten ...
This phrase is repeated several times throughout the play, as if

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.

The plot of the famous play

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?

"At the bottom" (Gorky): the heroes of the work and their characters

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), one should pay attention to Sateen, 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.

Instead of a conclusion

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.

Analysis of the play by M. Gorky "At the Bottom"

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 start 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.

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 they want, 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 bed-seekers 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 up the day before, would speak directly about the abnormal state of society, which makes people behave inhumanly. 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 Sateen 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 knowledge of Jewish customs, way of thinking, and 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 disturbing: 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 it controls ... and frightens 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, the activities of Luke are diverse, many of the deeds 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, then the reader can trace the path of Man from the very beginnings to the contemporary 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 the Man in all the variety of his manifestations: from the saint to the one who found himself “at the bottom” of life.

"At the bottom" - scenes of M. Gorky. The play was written in 1902. First publication: Marchlevsky's publishing house (Munich) without indicating the year, under the title "At the bottom of life" (went on sale at the end of December 1902). The final name "At the Bottom" first appeared on the posters of the Moscow Art Theatre. When publishing the play, Gorky did not give it any genre definition. On the poster of the Moscow Art Theater, the genre was designated as "scenes".

The play is notable for its unconventional, heightened "ideological character", which has become a source of passionate drama. The “bottom”, speaking in various meanings of this word (social bottom, “depth of the soul”, depth of concepts and moral fall), is presented in it as an experimental space in which a person is considered “as he is”. The actors reconsider the relationship of "truth" and "falsehood" in relation to man, the meaning of life and death, faith and religion. The paradox of Gorky's philosophical drama lies in the fact that the "ultimate" questions of being are discussed by the bastards plucked from society - in the literal sense of the word. Freed from “social clothes”, illusions and criteria, they appear on the stage in their essential nakedness (“There are no masters here ... everything has faded, one naked person remains”), they appear to say “no” to society.

Home-grown Nietzscheans, Gorky's rooming-houses, are the true deniers of all values, ideas and notions recognized by society. In this regard, L.N. Tolstoy spoke of the inhabitants of the Gorky rooming house as "an ecumenical council of wise men." IN AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote about figures teasing “with contempt for your cleanliness,<...>free and bold resolution of all your "damned questions". K.S. Stanislavsky admired in the play "the atmosphere of romance and a kind of wild beauty."

In the play "At the Bottom" Gorky decentralized the intrigue and abandoned the main character, finding a new unity that unites the diversity of characters, faces, and types. The author put the life philosophy of the hero, his main worldview setting as the basis of the stage character. By shifting the center of action from one “minute hero” (I.F. Annensky) to another, Gorky gave the play “At the Bottom” not so much plot as ideological unity. The nerve of the drama lies in the exposure of the positions of the characters who fiercely defend their understanding of life. The hero's "I" is revealed as a correspondence of behavior to a conviction passionately defended in the dialogues. The charge of protecting one's "I" is such that any dispute can turn into a scandal, a fight, a stabbing. "Equality in Poverty" inspires the characters to uphold their own individual uniqueness, dissimilarity to others.

The Drunk Actor does not tire of emphasizing that his “whole body is poisoned by alcohol” and at every opportunity reminds him of his acting past. The prostitute Nastya fiercely defends her right to "fatal love", deducted from the tabloid novels. The baron, who has become her pimp, is not averse to thinking about "carriages with coats of arms" and "coffee with cream" in the morning. The former furrier Bubnov consistently and stubbornly asserts that “outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased ...”, and is ready to despise anyone who thinks otherwise. Shoemaker Alyoshka does not want to be commanded, and at the age of twenty he is beating in a drunken hysteria: “... I don’t want anything!<...>Come on, eat me! And I don't want anything!" The hopelessness of existence is a meta "bottom", marking this heterogeneous mass of people with a common destiny. With special force, she is revealed in the fate of the dying Anna and Natasha, who is “waiting and waiting for something”, dreaming of a person who will lead her out of here. Even the owner of the rooming house, Kostylev, and his wife Vasilisa (the “beast-woman”), the police officer Medvedev, are also people of the “bottom”, who have very relative power over its inhabitants.

The ideologist of the free “bottom” is the sharper Satin, who speaks with contempt about everything that is valued by people of “decent society”. He was "tired of all human words" - erased, empty shells with weathered content. His ease of attitude to life is largely due to the fact that he fearlessly crossed the line separating "yes" and "no", and freely located "beyond" good and evil. The picturesque appearance, the artistry of nature, the whimsical sophistication of logic, the aphorism of statements speak of the author's loving attitude towards this image - the source of the all-penetrating anti-bourgeois pathos of the play.

Explodes the habitual inertia of existence, provokes the inhabitants of the "bottom" to self-disclosure, pushes them to action - Luke, "the evil old man" (whose name paradoxically evokes both the image of the evangelist Luke and the epithet of the devil - "evil"). The idea of ​​the need for faith for a person is central to the image. The question of the actual correlation of unvarnished, "bare" truth and "brown" reality lies, he replaced the problem of "faith". Luka actively convinces the inhabitants of the rooming house to believe and act in accordance with what he could, managed to believe: Anna - in an otherworldly meeting with a kind and gentle God; Actor - in the existence of free hospitals for alcoholics; Vaska Pepla - to a good, happy life in Siberia; Natasha - in Vaska's "goodness". He assures Nastya that she had true love, and advises Satina to go to the "runners". The wanderer formulates his paradoxical, full of ambiguity "creed", answering the question of Vaska Ash "Is there a God?": "If you believe, - there is; if you don’t believe it, no… What you believe in is what it is…”. In Luke's worldview, faith acts as a substitute for the "cursed", unbearable truth, which not every person can withstand. Rejecting the question of "what is truth", he proposes to treat the soul - not with the truth, but with faith, not with knowledge, but with action. In encrypted form, this idea was expressed by him in a tricky tale about the “righteous land”. Sateen's monologue about the "proud man" was the answer to it, in which the truth is intended for the "free man", and the lie remains the religion of "slaves and masters".

Luke disappeared from the play—“like smoke from the face of fire,” like “sinners from the face of the righteous,” went to where, according to rumors, “a new faith was discovered.” And the tenacious embrace of the “bottom” strangled many of those whom he so ardently urged to “believe”: Natasha, Vaska Pepel disappeared, Kleshch lost hope of getting out, the Actor hanged himself. People of the "bottom", free from everything - from God, from other people, from society as a whole, from their own past and from thoughts about the future - are free to "disappear" further. The “bottom” is not what life has done to people; "bottom" is what people have done (and continue to do) to themselves and to each other - the last bitter conclusion of the drama.

The play premiered on December 18, 1902 at the Moscow Art Theatre. Staging by K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. Starring: Satin - Stanislavsky, Luka - I.M. Moskvin, Nastya - O.L. Knipper, Baron - V.I. Kachalov, Natasha - M.F. Andreeva. In January 1904, the play was awarded the Griboyedov Prize, the highest award for playwrights. The performance of the Moscow Art Theater did not leave the stage for more than half a century, having survived three revolutions and two world wars. The most significant other productions: M. Reinhardt (1903, "Small Theater", Berlin); Lunier-Poe (1905, "Creativity", Paris); G.B. Volchek (1970, Sovremennik, Moscow); R. Hossein (1971, Drama Theatre, Reims); A.V. Efros (1984, Taganka Theatre, Moscow); G.A. Tovstonogov (1987, BDT named after M. Gorky, Leningrad).