People of the bottom of character and destiny. Heroes of the play "At the Bottom" by Gorky: characteristics, images and destinies

In Gorky's play At the Bottom, the system of images is unusually interesting. But, before directly referring to them, you should consider in more detail the meaning of the title of the work. What is this “bottom”? According to Gorky's idea, this is not only housing - "a basement that looks like a cave, the ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoky, with crumbling plaster", not only a social position, but also a state of mind.
And in Gorky's play, each hero is unhappy in his own way, therefore, each has his own path of striving for the light of life.
Now let's turn to the At the Bottom image gallery. Vaska Ashes, thief and rebel; The tick, apparently, is a talented locksmith, but a tough person, even cruel, calmly watching his wife Anna die in torment. Next on the list of characters is Nastya, a girl of twenty-four years old, whose only joy in her life is the love story "Fatal Love". Kvashnya-sale of dumplings, a sympathetic woman, also with her spiritual tragedy. Bubnov is a cap-cap and a drunkard. Satin, a rather interesting personality, with his own philosophy of life, frankly drinking out all his abilities and possibilities. The actor, former minister of Melpomene, is now an alcoholic. Baron, who was once the owner and lost everything. Alyoshka, a young shoemaker of twenty years old, a man without a future, like the others. A Tatar, a believing Muslim and, perhaps, therefore, he is still somehow saving himself from complete mental degradation. And, finally, Luke, a wanderer who suddenly appeared in the life of the hostels and for a short time left a mark on the souls of every inhabitant of the basement.
Each of these images is interesting in its own way, the life of each of them is bitter in its own way.
Vaska Ashes is a thief. And at the beginning of the play, we don't really think about why he is a thief, how did he become one? But at one fine moment Vasily himself tells about himself: “I am a thief since childhood ... everyone always told me: Vaska the thief, Vaska's son the thief! Huh? So? Well - here! Here - I am a thief! .. You must understand: I, perhaps, out of spite a thief ... because I am a thief, that no one ever thought to call me by another name ... ". Maybe it's really true. They put a stigma on a person, and he is already forced to live the way others see his life. And, apparently, Luca told Natasha correctly when Ash suggested that she leave with him: “He is a guy, nothing, good! Just remind him more often that he is a good guy, so that he doesn't forget about it! He will believe you ... "
Vaska was the lover of Natasha's older sister, Vasilisa. This woman is domineering, even scary, cruel, loving only money. She also incited Ash to steal. Moreover, she began to persuade him to murder her husband, the owner of the shelter. As a result, she gets her way: Vaska in a fight, not calculating his strength, kills Kostylev. The further fate of Ashes is clear - hard labor or prison.
The girl Nastya also causes controversial feelings. She dreams of great and bright love, while trading herself. Having read love novels, she imagines her lover now Raoul, now Gaston. And cries, cries. You involuntarily ask yourself: is it possible to condemn her empty dreams, the lies that she is trying to pass off as the truth? ..
The actor, a drunken minister of Melpomene, tells everyone and everyone that his “body is poisoned with alcohol,” as if he were even proud of it. In fact, he recalls the scene with such pain! .. But because of the weakness of his nature, having fallen to the bottom of life, it is easier for him to continue to destroy himself than to struggle with life's difficulties. When Luka gives him hope by talking about a free clinic for alcoholics, the actor stops drinking: “I worked today, chalked the street ... but I didn't drink vodka! How does it feel? Here they are - two five-salty ones, and I am sober! " Having learned about the futility of his hopes, the actor hangs himself, not realizing that he does not need a clinic, he just needed to believe in himself.
Satin is very interesting, a man with his own philosophy of life. From the very beginning of the play, words such as "macrobiotics", "Sardanapalus", etc. sound from his lips. This hero differs from the rest of the inhabitants of the "bottom". About himself he says: “I am tired of human words, brother ... all our words are tired of me! I have heard each of them ... probably a thousand times ... "," I was an educated person ... "," I read a lot of books ... ". So what happened to him? How did he become an inmate of the flop? "I served four years and seven months in prison ... and after prison - no move!" And he was in prison for the murder of the offender of his own sister, who, soon after the conviction of her brother, died. Here is a human tragedy! We feel sorry for this hero. It is about him that the wanderer Luke says such words: "how did you go astray from your path, huh? .. You are such a brave ... not stupid ... and suddenly ...". By the way, it is Luke who helps to reveal the character of each of the inhabitants of the shelter; he had a particularly strong influence on Satin. "Old man? He is a clever fellow! .. The old man is not a charlatan! What is truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this ... you - no! .. He ... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin ... ". It is this hero, after Luka's departure, who takes the first step towards adopting a more active life position.
The image of the "strange man" Luke is completely ambiguous. He appears in the play and begins to stir up the emotions and deeply hidden feelings of the inhabitants of the shelter. Long accustomed to cruelty and inhumanity, they look with surprise and disbelief at Luka, who has a kind word for everyone. Here a well-known dispute arises about whether to tell a person the cruel truth or calm him down with a saving lie. The author opposes the saving lie. But what's wrong with Luka comforting a dying Anna by telling her that she will finally get some rest? But the Actor does not withstand the collision of fiction and reality and commits suicide. Luke tells everyone what they, deep down, wanted to hear, something that could awaken some kind of bright feelings in their sick souls. But not every soul is able to withstand such a shake-up. Therefore, we cannot say unequivocally whether he is a positive hero or a negative one.
So, Gorky's play At the Bottom is very interesting for its heroes, their ambiguity and complexity. Disputes about this work continue to this day, and this in its entirety speaks of Gorky's genius as a playwright.

The drama of M. Gorky "At the Bottom" was written in 1902. The characters in this play are people who, as a result of social processes that took place at the turn of the century, were thrown to the very bottom of life. Social conflict is present in the play primarily in the form of a confrontation between the owners of the shelter Kostylevs and its inhabitants. Kostylev appears in the eyes of the night lodgers as a rich man who thinks only about money, seeks to ask for as much as possible for a place. At the same time, Kostylev pretends to be a pious person and firmly believes that he will use the extra money received from the inhabitants of the hostel for a good cause. “I’ll throw half a penny over you, - pour oil into the lamp ... and my sacrifice will burn in front of the holy icon ...”, - he insinuatingly says to the Tick. However, the hostels themselves are kinder and more sympathetic than Kostylev: the Actor helps the dying Anna, Vaska Ashes sincerely loves Natalia. And Kostylev is sure that “kindness of heart” cannot be equated with money in any case, which he explains to the Actor: “Kindness is above all blessings. And your debt to me is just a debt! So, you have to compensate me for it ... ". Vasilisa, the wife of Kostylev and the hostess of the hostel, loves to show her superiority over the hostels. Allegedly keeping order in the rooms, she threatens to call the orderlies, who "will come and impose a fine", and after that she will expel all the inhabitants of the shelter. But her superiority and power are imaginary, about which, after her angry tirade, Bubnov reminds her: "And what will you live with?" Thus, there is practically no difference between the owners of the hostel and their guests. Kostylev buys a stolen watch from the thief Vaska Pepla, his wife Vasilisa had an affair with the same Vaska. Therefore, the conflict between the Kostylevs and the hostels is based not so much on a social as on a moral basis: after all, Kostylev and his wife are people without heart and conscience. Vasilisa persuades Vaska Ash to kill Kostylev, who, according to her, tortures her and her sister. Ash condemns her: "... you don't have a soul, baba." Policeman Medvedev, the uncle of Vasilisa and Natalya, also does not at all look like a harsh representative of the law. He complains about his hectic service, regrets that it is necessary to constantly separate the fighters: "I should let them beat each other freely, as much as everyone can fit ... they would fight less, because the beatings would be remembered for longer." With the night lodge Bubnov, he comes to play checkers, and the dumpling vendor Kvashne offers to marry him. In the play At the Bottom, the social differences between all the characters are erased. The concept of the bottom expands and encompasses all the actors, not just the inhabitants of the flophouse. Each of the heroes who found themselves at the bottom experienced their own conflict with society in the past. Drunkenness leads the actor to the shelter, he admits that he "drank his soul". Because of this, the Actor loses faith in himself and his talent. Only with the arrival of Luka, a wonderful old man, who manages to restore faith in the future to many of the hostels, the Actor recalls his name "on stage": Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky. However, in the flop, he has no name, just as there is no past or future. Although the Actor constantly quotes the lines of immortal plays, he misinterprets their words, adjusts them to the nightlife: “I’ll get drunk - like ... forty thousand drunkards ...” (modified line from “Hamlet”), the Actor commits suicide, being unable to resist the oppressive and the sucking, depersonalizing reality of the bottom of life. From time to time, the sharper Bubnov recalls his past life. Previously, he was a furrier, "he had his own establishment." His wife "got in touch" with a master, a "dodger", according to Bubnov himself, and a great fighter. Bubnov decided to kill his wife, but left in time, escaping from hard labor. But the fact that now he has to lead such a lifestyle, Bubnov blames not the insidious wife, but himself: his binges and laziness. He looks with surprise at his hands, which, as it seemed to him, will never wash off the yellow paint, and sees that now they are just dirty. If earlier hands were the hallmark of his profession, now he entirely belongs to the faceless brotherhood of bed-lodgers, as he himself says: “It turns out - outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased ... everything will be erased, yes!” Satin worked at the telegraph office when he was a boy. The baron was a real aristocrat, he studied, "wore the uniform of a noble institute," and then went to prison for embezzlement. The whole life of the baron appears before the readers as a change of several costumes, several masks: from a noble uniform, a dressing gown, a cap with a cockade to a prisoner's dressing gown and the clothes of a night lodge. Together with these heroes, the sharper Satin, the thief Ash, the walking girl Nastya, the market cook Kvashnya, Tatarin live under the same roof. However, in the shelter, the social differences between them are erased, they all become just people. As Bubnov notes: "... everything faded away, one naked man remained ...". The social conflicts that determined their fate remain in the past, are excluded from the main action of the play. We see only the result of social troubles that have so tragically affected people's lives. However, the very title of the play "At the Bottom" suggests the presence of social tension. After all, if there is a bottom of life, there must be something above this bottom; there must also be a rapid flow of a light, bright, joyful life. Nightcrawlers do not hope to ever find such a life. All of them, with the exception of the Tick, are turned to the past or immersed in concerns about the present. But the Tick is not so much full of hope as powerless anger. It seems to him that he lives in a filthy shelter only for the sake of Anna, his dying wife, but after her death nothing changes. Luke, the "crafty old man," returns faith to the inhabitants of the shelter in the possibility of a new life, but it turns out to be fragile and quickly fades away. “At the bottom” is not just a social, but a socio-philosophical drama. What makes a person a person, what helps and prevents him from living, gaining human dignity - the author of the play "At the Bottom" is looking for an answer to these questions. Thus, the main subject of the depiction in the play is the thoughts and feelings of the hostels in all their contradictions. Gorky shows that to those who, by the will of fate, fell to the very bottom of life, their situation does not seem tragic, unbearable, hopeless. The fact that the environment around them, the oppressive atmosphere of the shelter pushes people to theft, drunkenness, murder, seems to its inhabitants a normal course of life. But the author's point of view differs from the position of his heroes. He shows that the antihuman conditions of the bottom lead to the impoverishment of the spiritual world of a person, even such an exalted feeling as love leads to hatred, fight, murder, and hard labor. Among the inhabitants of the shelter, only Satin "awakens" to life, utters a furious monologue about the greatness of man. However, the speech of this hero is only the first step towards changing the consciousness of people who have fallen to the bottom of life, the first attempt to overcome the social conditions that put pressure on a free personality.

Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov, who took on the literary pseudonym Maksim Gorky, created more than one wonderful work. Many people of our time are ready to plunge with pleasure into the fabulous and mysterious world of the story "The Old Woman Izergil", while others prefer his revolutionary works, imbued with patriotism and fortitude. For example, you can recall Gorky's novel "Mother", each with a sinking heart followed the development of events in this work and wanted to find out as soon as possible how this interesting story about the mother-heroine ends !? As the saying goes: “There are no comrades for taste and color!”, That's why we like different works.
And now I would like to touch upon the following topic: "People of the" bottom ": characters and destinies (based on Gorky's drama" At the Bottom ")".
This topic is interesting because it is in the dramatic works of this writer and many others, of course, that many problems are revealed that are relevant to this day. Among them, one can recall laziness, greed, greed, hypocrisy, selfishness, excessive pride. All these human vices are encountered by us, modern people. We meet a lot of people every day, and it is very difficult to say who he is to you, friend or foe !? After all, as it is customary to say now: "People tend to wear masks," and indeed! We will never be able to say whether this person is good or bad, only in some life situation his whole "essence will come out." So Gorky wrote about this more than once. He repeatedly pointed out that a kind and decent person at first glance, suddenly, unexpectedly, turned out to be “a person of not the first freshness”.
Now I propose to consider in more detail the topic that stands at the head of this essay, and give a number of illustrative examples.
So, let us consider the current situation in society using the example of the play At the Bottom. The dialogue in this work is the speech embodiment of the plot as a sequential development of the action: the effectiveness of the word, characteristic of the drama, means a system of actions and reactions, where words, irrespective of the developing event, are not and cannot be, where the word is an act.
From the very beginning of the work, the author plunges us into a disgusting environment, from which it would seem impossible to get out: “A basement that looks like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoked, with crumbling plaster. The light is from the viewer and, from top to bottom, is from the square window on the right side. The right corner is occupied by Ash's room, fenced off by thin bulkheads, near the door to this room - Bubnov's bunk. In the left corner is a large Russian stove; in the left stone wall - the door to the kitchen, where Kvashnya, Baron, Nastya live. Between the stove and the door against the wall is a wide bed, covered with a dirty chintz curtain. There are bunks all over the walls. In the foreground, near the left wall, is a stump of wood with a vise and a small anvil attached to it, and another, lower than the first. On the last one - in front of the anvil - the Tick sits, trying on the keys to the old locks. At his feet are two large bunches of different keys, put on rings made of wire, a warped table, two benches, a stool, everything is unpainted and dirty. At the table, at the samovar, Kvashnya is the boss, the Baron is chewing black bread and Nastya, on a stool, is reading, leaning on the table, a disheveled book. On the bed, covered with a canopy, Anna coughs, Bubnov, sitting on a bunk, tries on a blank for hats, clamped at the knees, old ripped trousers, figuring out how to cut. Near him - a tattered cardboard from under a hat - for visors, pieces of oilcloth, rags.

In Gorky's play At the Bottom, the system of images is unusually interesting. But, before directly referring to them, you should consider in more detail the meaning of the title of the work. What is this “bottom”? According to Gorky's idea, this is not only housing - "a basement that looks like a cave, the ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoky, with crumbling plaster", not only a social position, but also a state of mind.
And in Gorky's play, each hero is unhappy in his own way, therefore, each has his own path of striving for the light of life.
Now let's turn to the At the Bottom image gallery. Vaska Ashes, thief and rebel; The tick, apparently, is a talented locksmith, but a tough person, even cruel, calmly watching his wife Anna die in torment. Next on the list of characters is Nastya, a girl of twenty-four years old, whose only joy in her life is the love story "Fatal Love". Kvashnya-sale of dumplings, a sympathetic woman, also with her spiritual tragedy. Bubnov is a cap-cap and a drunkard. Satin, a rather interesting personality, with his own philosophy of life, frankly drinking out all his abilities and possibilities. The actor, former minister of Melpomene, is now an alcoholic. Baron, who was once the owner and lost everything. Alyoshka, a young shoemaker of twenty years old, a man without a future, like the others. A Tatar, a believing Muslim and, perhaps, therefore, he is still somehow saving himself from complete mental degradation. And, finally, Luke, a wanderer who suddenly appeared in the life of the hostels and for a short time left a mark on the souls of every inhabitant of the basement.
Each of these images is interesting in its own way, the life of each of them is bitter in its own way.
Vaska Ashes is a thief. And at the beginning of the play, we don't really think about why he is a thief, how did he become one? But at one fine moment Vasily himself tells about himself: “I am a thief since childhood ... everyone always told me: Vaska the thief, Vaska's son the thief! Huh? So? Well - here! Here - I am a thief! .. You must understand: I, perhaps, out of spite a thief ... because I am a thief, that no one ever thought to call me by another name ... ". Maybe it's really true. They put a stigma on a person, and he is already forced to live the way others see his life. And, apparently, Luca told Natasha correctly when Ash suggested that she leave with him: “He is a guy, nothing, good! Just remind him more often that he is a good guy, so that he doesn't forget about it! He will believe you ... "
Vaska was the lover of Natasha's older sister, Vasilisa. This woman is domineering, even scary, cruel, loving only money. She also incited Ash to steal. Moreover, she began to persuade him to murder her husband, the owner of the shelter. As a result, she gets her way: Vaska in a fight, not calculating his strength, kills Kostylev. The further fate of Ashes is clear - hard labor or prison.
The girl Nastya also causes controversial feelings. She dreams of great and bright love, while trading herself. Having read love novels, she imagines her lover now Raoul, now Gaston. And cries, cries. You involuntarily ask yourself: is it possible to condemn her empty dreams, the lies that she is trying to pass off as the truth? ..
The actor, a drunken minister of Melpomene, tells everyone and everyone that his “body is poisoned with alcohol,” as if he were even proud of it. In fact, he recalls the scene with such pain! .. But because of the weakness of his nature, having fallen to the bottom of life, it is easier for him to continue to destroy himself than to struggle with life's difficulties. When Luka gives him hope by talking about a free clinic for alcoholics, the actor stops drinking: “Today I worked, chalk the street ... but vodka is not

In Gorky's play At the Bottom, the system of images is unusually interesting. But, before directly referring to them, you should consider in more detail the meaning of the title of the work. What is this “bottom”? According to Gorky's idea, this is not only housing - "a basement that looks like a cave, the ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoky, with crumbling plaster", not only social status, but also a state of mind.

And in Gorky's play, each hero is unhappy in his own way, therefore, each has his own path of striving for the light of life.

Now let's turn to the At the Bottom image gallery. Vaska Ashes, a thief and a rebel, Tick, apparently, a talented locksmith, but a tough man, even cruel, calmly watching his wife Anna die in torment. Next on the list of characters is Nastya, a girl of twenty-four years old, whose only joy in her life is the love story "Fatal Love". Kvashnya is a trader in dumplings, a sympathetic woman, also with her own spiritual tragedy. Bubnov is a cap-cap and a drunkard. Satin, a rather interesting personality, with his own philosophy of life, frankly drinking out all his abilities and possibilities. The actor, former minister of Melpomene, is now an alcoholic. Baron, who was once the owner and lost everything. Alyoshka, a young shoemaker of twenty years old, a man without a future, like the others. A Tatar, a believing Muslim and, perhaps, therefore, he is still somehow saving himself from complete mental degradation. And, finally, Luke, a wanderer who suddenly appeared in the life of the hostels and for a short time left a mark on the souls of every inhabitant of the basement. Each of these images is interesting in its own way, the life of each of them is bitter in its own way.

Vaska Ashes is a thief. And at the beginning of the play, we don't really think about why he is a thief, how did he become one? But at one fine moment Vasily himself tells about himself: “I - from childhood - a thief ... everyone always told me: thief Vaska, thief son Vaska! Huh? So? Well - here! Here - I am a thief! .. You must understand: I may be a thief out of malice ... because I am a thief, that no one ever thought of calling me by another name ... ". Maybe it's really true. They put a stigma on a person, and he is already forced to live the way others see his life. And, apparently, Luca told Natasha correctly when Ash suggested that she leave with him: “He is a guy, nothing, good! Just remind him more often that he is a good guy, so that he doesn't forget about it! He will believe you ... "

Vaska was the lover of Natasha's older sister, Vasilisa. This woman is domineering, even scary, cruel, loving only money. She also incited Ash to steal. Moreover, she began to persuade him to murder her husband, the owner of the shelter. As a result, she gets her way: Vaska in a fight, not calculating his strength, kills Kostylev. The further fate of Ashes is clear - hard labor or prison.

The girl Nastya also causes controversial feelings. She dreams of great and bright love, while trading herself. Having read love stories, she imagines her lover: now Raoul, then Gaston. And she cries, cries ... You involuntarily ask yourself a question: is it possible to condemn her empty dreams, the lie that she is trying to pass off as the truth? ..

The actor, a drunken minister of Melpomene, tells everyone and everyone that his “body is poisoned with alcohol,” as if he were even proud of it. In fact, he recalls the scene with such pain! .. But because of the weakness of his nature, having fallen to the bottom of life, it is easier for him to continue to destroy himself than to struggle with life's difficulties. When Luka gives him hope by talking about a free clinic for alcoholics, the actor stops drinking: “I worked today, chalked the street ... and I didn't drink vodka! How does it feel? Here they are - two five-salty ones, and I am sober! " Having learned about the futility of his hopes, the Actor hangs himself, not realizing that he does not need a clinic, he just needed to believe in himself.

Satin is very interesting, a man with his own philosophy of life. From the very beginning of the play, words such as "macrobiotics", "Sardanapalus", etc. sound from his lips. This hero differs from the rest of the inhabitants of the "bottom". About himself he says: “I am tired of human words, brother… all our words are tired! I have heard each of them ... probably a thousand times ... "," I was an educated person ... "," I read a lot of books ... ".

So what happened to him? How did he become an inmate of the flop? Here are his own words: "I served four years and seven months in prison ... and after prison - no move!" And he was in prison for the murder of the offender of his own sister, who, soon after the conviction of her brother, died. Here is a human tragedy! We feel sorry for this hero. It is about him that the wanderer Luke says these words: "How did you go astray from your path, huh? .. You are such a brave ... not stupid ... and suddenly ...". By the way, it is Luke who helps to reveal the character of each of the inhabitants of the shelter, but he had a particularly strong influence on Satin: “Old man? He is a clever fellow! .. The old man is not a charlatan! What is truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this… you - no! .. He… acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin… ”. It is this hero, after Luka's departure, who takes the first step towards adopting a more active life position.

The image of the "strange man" Luke is completely ambiguous. He appears in the play and begins to stir up the emotions and deeply hidden feelings of the inhabitants of the shelter. Long accustomed to cruelty and inhumanity, they look with surprise and disbelief at Luka, who has a kind word for everyone. Here a well-known dispute arises about whether to tell a person the cruel truth or calm him down with a saving lie. The author opposes the saving lie. But what's wrong with Luka comforting a dying Anna by telling her that she will finally get some rest? But the Actor does not withstand the collision of fiction and reality and commits suicide. Luke tells everyone what they, deep down, wanted to hear, something that could awaken some kind of bright feelings in their sick souls. But not every soul is able to withstand such a shake-up. Therefore, we cannot say unequivocally whether he is a positive hero or a negative one.

So, Gorky's play At the Bottom is very interesting for its heroes, their ambiguity and complexity. Disputes about this work continue to this day, and this in its entirety speaks of Gorky's genius as a playwright.