The play “At the Bottom” is based on a love affair that fits into two love triangles “Ashes - Vasilisa-Natasha”, “Ashes-Vasilisa-Kostylev”. Its development leads to the fact that Ash kills Kostylev and ends up in prison, Natasha, crippled by Vasilisa, ends up in the hospital, and Vasilisa becomes the sovereign mistress of the shelter.

But the originality of the play is that it is not love that is decisive. Most of the characters are not involved in the development of the love plot, and he himself occupies a secondary position in relation to what Gorky portrays.

The first place here is social conflict between the masters of life, the Kostylevs, and the inhabitants of the shelter. And even more broadly between Russian reality and the fate of people who found themselves thrown out of active life to the bottom.

The social conflict of the work was perceived by contemporaries as a call for revolution, for a radical change in life. It was the conflict of the play that made it revolutionary - this clash between reality and the lives of the people of the shelter. But the most interesting thing is that even now the play has not lost its modern (universal) sound, it’s just that modern viewer and the reader's accents changed.

The figurative system of the play in resolving the conflict “At the Bottom”

The inhabitants of the shelter are representatives of two lives, vagabonds who have been thrown to the bottom by society and who are not needed by society.

Gorky shows that people find themselves at the bottom in different ways:

• Satin - after prison,
• The actor got drunk,
• Tick ​​due to wife's illness,
• The Baron went broke
• Ash because he is a hereditary thief.

The reasons that led people to this state have not lost their relevance. Thus, the reasons for the conflict between these people and reality are different.

The inhabitants of the shelter have different attitudes towards their situation, towards the fact that reality itself is such that it pushes them to the bottom and keeps them there. Some have come to terms with reality:

• Bubnov

(“A person is a thing, you are superfluous everywhere... and all people are superfluous...”),

(“We must live according to the law”),

• Natasha (dreams replace real life),
• Baron (life replaced by memories of the past).

Others have a hard time experiencing their condition, hope or dream of changing it (Natasha, Ashes, Actor).

But neither the first nor the second know how to escape from here. A modern reading of the play allows us to say that a person’s attitude towards his position determines his attitude towards reality.

Therefore, the third group of heroes is very important - Satin and Luka - they are the ones who seem to know what to do. The meaning of the images of Satin and Luke is that another

one conflict is the conflict between truth and compassion, between truth and white lies.

The humanitarian component of the conflict in Gorky's play

Luke is one of central characters, with his appearance in the shelter, internal changes begin. According to the author, this character is rather negative

(“fanaticism of virtue”, “crafty old man”).

Luke takes pity on the man: he consoles the dying Anna, he tells Ash about wonderful life in Siberia, where you can do everything all over again, he tells the Actor about hospitals where you can recover from alcoholism. Gorky himself is sure that

“You shouldn’t feel sorry for a person.” The writer believes that “pity humiliates a person.”

However, it is Luke who influences people, it is he who makes them take a fresh look at their situation. It was he who last minute remains at the bedside of dying Anna. Consequently, the author’s rather unambiguous attitude towards the character does not make the image of Luke unambiguous, but defines its multidimensionality.

Satin stands out among others both in his attitude to life and his statements about it. His monologues about man and truth are Gorky’s credo. The image of this hero is ambiguous. He can be considered as a person provoking, for example, Ash to kill Kostylev. A person who deliberately refuses to do anything, whose monologues contradict his behavior. But you can consider his position from the point of view of Stoic philosophy: he consciously refuses to work for this society, which threw him to the sidelines of life, he despises it

(“Work? For what? To be well-fed?... Man is higher! Man is higher than satiety!”).

Thus, Satin is not unambiguous in the work.

The conflict in the play “At the Bottom” between compassion and truth is formally resolved in favor of truth: Luka’s consolations did not make the lives of the inhabitants of the shelter better (the Actor commits suicide, Ash goes to prison, Natasha goes to the hospital, Luka himself disappears). A person must know the truth about himself, says Gorky, then he can change this life. But the question posed by the writer remains a question, since the images of the characters do not provide an unambiguous solution, which is why the play has not lost its relevance.

The conflict between the inhabitants of the shelter and reality is also ambiguously resolved. On the one hand, as already mentioned, the very attitude of people determines their condition, their life path. On the other hand, the masters of life (Kostylev and Vasilisa) are the type of exploiters who are alien to humanity, their thoughts are aimed at profit, they benefit from the existing system. In the images of the Kostylevs, Gorky condemns the existing system. It is not without reason that contemporaries accept the play as a call to change the existing system. Thus, according to Gorky, you need to change your life - then the person will change. The resolution of the conflict between the inhabitants of the shelter and reality is taken out of the work by the author.

The unusual plot for its time (the life of a flophouse) and the universal conflict in the play “At the Lower Depths,” with the author’s clear and definite position, give an ambiguous interpretation of the work and make it relevant for any time.

Materials are published with the personal permission of the author - Ph.D. O.A. Mazneva (see “Our Library”)

What is the social conflict?

Even its title, “At the Bottom,” speaks of the presence of social conflict in the play. The stage directions placed at the beginning of the first act create a depressing picture of the shelter. “Cave-like basement. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoked, with crumbling plaster... There are bunks everywhere along the walls.” The picture is not pleasant - dark, dirty, cold. Next come descriptions of the residents of the shelter, or rather, descriptions of their occupations. What are they doing? Nastya is reading, Bubnov and Kleshch are busy with their work. It seems that they work reluctantly, out of boredom, without enthusiasm. They are all poor, pitiful, wretched creatures living in a dirty hole. There is also another type of people in the play: Kostylev, the owner of the shelter, and his wife Vasilisa. In my opinion, the social conflict in the play lies in the fact that the inhabitants of the shelter feel that they live “at the bottom,” that they are cut off from the world, that they only exist.

They all have a cherished goal (for example, the Actor wants to return to the stage), they have their own dream. They are looking for strength within themselves to confront this ugly reality. And for Gorky, the very desire for the best, for the Beautiful, is wonderful. 4) what is unique about the love triangle? Unlike other plays where the love triangle is the main driving force, here the course of events is not determined by intrigue of this kind. The relationship between Vasilisa, Ash and Natasha only externally motivates the action. The so-called “heroless” construction of the work arises.

The play is a cycle of small dramas in which the traditional climactic moments occur offstage (Kostylev's death, Vasilisa's mockery of Natasha, the Actor's suicide). The author deliberately removes all these events from our field of vision in order to focus attention on the conversations (this is the main thing in the play).

The dramaturgy of M. Gorky occupies a special place in Russian drama. At the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky turned to the theater and became a successor to the traditions of Russian drama of the 19th century. He believed that the main purpose of drama was to depict “man and people”, the influence of fate on the formation human personality. At the same time, Gorky’s dramaturgy gravitates towards the genre philosophical drama. These features of Gorky’s dramaturgy were reflected especially clearly in his second play “At the Lower Depths,” written in 1902.

In this play, Gorky tried to combine real human destinies and distracted philosophical concepts. Therefore, behind the external conflict of the play, an internal conflict can be traced, which is the main one in the action, allows you to more deeply understand the characters of the characters, and also helps the author to reveal the main meaning of the play. External conflict Connected with love triangle(Ashes - Natasha - Kostylevs). But this is just a background for development internal action, based on a philosophical conflict (Satin - Luke - roommates). It is the internal conflict that turns out to be the basis of dramatic action. And this conflict is largely based on the thoughts of the night shelters about Man. Why did this particular topic touch Gorky so much?

The writer was deeply concerned with thoughts about who Man is and what he should be. In his letter to Chekhov, he noted: “You have to be a monster of virtue to love, to feel sorry for, to help live the trashy midges with guts that we are. And yet I still feel sorry for people.” And at the same time, Gorky had an ineradicable faith in man, in the power of his spirit. “I don’t know anything better, more difficult, more interesting than a person. He is everything." Reflections about man, about his essence, about the spirit and morality of man formed the basis for the internal conflict of the play “At the Bottom.”

The play captures, albeit a partial, timid, awakening human soul. Bubnov, quick to speak, reveals common feature, speaking about himself and other night shelters: “...everything faded away, only one naked man remained.” Maybe it’s precisely because of their “shadyness” that tramps gravitate toward certain general concepts. The author writes about “reluctant philosophers,” about unhappy people in whom the dream for a brighter future is still alive. Kleshch wants to succeed through hard work, Nastya seeks salvation in love, Anna turns to God, Natasha is waiting for a hero. The awkward judgments of tramps contain answers to the most difficult questions about human nature, about his bitter fate with naive hopes for joy.
There is another type of hero in the play. Bubnov, Satin, Baron have come to terms with their position as cheaters and are indifferent to crimes. But it is they who deeply judge life and unconsciously yearn for will and truth. They contain a natural mind doomed to inaction.
The beginning of internal action begins with the appearance of Elder Luke at the end of Act II. Luke - extraordinary personality, he is smart, he has enormous experience and a keen interest in people: “I want to understand human affairs.” At the same time, he clearly sees not only misconceptions, but also bright sides humanity: “People? They will be found! They'll figure it out! We only need to help them, we need to respect them.” This is Luke's position. But he passively waits for good, looking indifferently at specific misfortunes. He is ready to accept any life option and adapt to it. The assistance he provides to some of the homeless shelters is also a kind of adaptation to their needs. Luka’s brief dialogues with the tramps are intertwined, repeated and give the play intense internal movement, people’s illusory hopes grow. But when their illusions collapse, the old man simply disappears unnoticed.

But the last action reveals all the consequences of the experience, since, as Satin puts it, Luke “leavened our roommates.” It is the fermentation of the lazy thoughts of tramps that interests Gorky most of all. Therefore in last action The question of Man is raised with particular force. It cannot be said, of course, that in the last act the heroes become different. They are simply all presented in a moment of brief painful reflection, which, however, will not change anything in their lives. But this in no way diminishes the meaning of their words, since they have been accumulating in their souls for a long time. This especially applies to Satin’s words about Man.

Satin correctly assessed Luke’s reconciliation with existence, but drew the opposite conclusions: “Everything is in Man, everything is for Man! There is only “Man, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain.” 14 although for Satin all his cohabitants are “dumb as bricks,” he defends their capabilities and human dignity.

Satin's speech about Man is a hymn to human capabilities. Saving lies only deepen illusions, and life will still bring out the disgusting truth, which will become even more unbearable and terrible. Therefore, according to Satin, one cannot live in lies and in the past. Against the compassionate humanism of Luke, Satin puts forward his truth about Man: “We must respect man! Don’t feel sorry, don’t humiliate him with pity.” He condemns Luke's comforting lies: “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is God free man" At the same time, Satin understands that these words do not specifically refer to the inhabitants of the shelter, since they are not able to fight for themselves and their dignity. For him, Man is all the people on earth.

This is the main humanistic moral meaning plays. Life is sometimes so cruel to a person that it makes him humiliate and submit. But initially man was created as a tall and proud creature. He is the one who has the power to change the world.

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A notable phenomenon of Russian literature at the beginning of the 20th century was Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”. What explained its exceptional success? Strong impression the combination produced an extreme effect on the viewer realistic image people who have reached the last...

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The creative concept of the play “At the Lower Depths” dates back to the very beginning of 1900. M. Gorky was going to create a “cycle of dramas” of four plays, each of which was dedicated to depicting a certain layer of Russian society. About the last of them he writes in mid-1901 to K.P. Pyatnitsky: “Another one: tramps. Tatar, Jew, actor, hostess of a rooming house, thieves, detective, prostitutes. It will be scary. I already ready plans, I see faces, figures, hear voices, speeches, motives for actions - are clear, everything is clear!..” Conceiving the play as a description of the life of the poorest population of Russian cities, Gorky first of all defined it as a socio-philosophical drama in which the main thing is conflict people who find themselves at the bottom of their lives with the outside world. In one of the handwritten editions the play was called: “At the Bottom of Life.” But at the same time, these people are also at the bottom of feelings and thoughts, each of them has to fight the decline in themselves. These conflicts develop in parallel throughout the play.

At the beginning of the play we see the inhabitants of the flophouse, dissatisfied with life, ourselves, each other. Many of them used to live better, but ended up here because of some misfortune. So, Baron and Satin ended up here after prison, Bubnov left his wife, leaving her his workshop, the Actor became an alcoholic. Some, for example Nastya, have never seen another life. Some have already come to terms with this situation and understand that it is impossible to rise from the bottom, while others hope that all this is happening to them temporarily. So, Kleshch thinks that after his wife’s death he will work hard and be able to provide himself with a better existence. He believes that if you live “honorably,” you can achieve anything. The actor, on the contrary, tries to find peace in alcohol, thereby further aggravating his plight. He no longer expects to leave this shelter and remembers his former life with bitterness. And now, among these oppressed people, an outsider appears - Luka, a wandering old man without a passport. Full of compassion for all people, he brings hope to many of the shelter's inhabitants. Anna, Kleshch's wife, lies dying and experiences terrible suffering. And this old man makes it easier for her last hours. Expecting the same torment after death, she hopefully hears his words: “Nothing will happen! Nothing! Believe it! Calm down and nothing more!..” He tells the actor about the existence of a free hospital for alcoholics, and he even abstained from drinking for one day and worked sweeping the street. Luka advises Ash to go with Natasha to Siberia and start there new life. The inhabitants of the shelter begin to feel confident that they can break free from the captivity of a hard life. And here the author raises deeply philosophical question: “Do these people need lies?” After all most of Luke's words are a lie spoken out of pity, with the goal of comforting and helping. He also supports Nastya in her stories about “ true love”, although it is quite obvious that nothing like this happened to her, that all this was read from books. The answer to this question can be found in the words of Satin: “Whoever is weak at heart... and who lives on other people’s juices - those who need lies... some are supported by it, others hide behind it... And who is their own master... who is independent and doesn’t eat someone else’s food - why would he lie? Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” The response is the entire development of the action. We see the collapse of all hopes: Anna dies, and Kleshch’s instruments are sold out for her funeral - he is left without a livelihood; Vaska Pepel kills Kostylev in a fight, which, apparently, will lead him to prison; The Tatar crushed his hand and lost his job. It seems that Luke brought only worse changes into their lives, since after his departure the situation in the shelter becomes even more deplorable than at the beginning of the play. These tramps sank even deeper to the “bottom”, they lost another clash with their fate, and finally lost faith in their strength. All this is emphasized at the end of the play. The actor, deprived of Luka's support and constantly convinced by Satin that all the talk about a free hospital for alcoholics is a lie, commits suicide. And, as an illustration of the hopelessness of the situation of the night shelters, Satin’s ordinary words sound: “Eh... ruined the song... stupid cancer!”

Taking as the basis of his play the conflict between the lower classes of society and their difficult life, Gorky managed to fulfill main task- show all the facets of the existence of these people who remain “at the bottom” for a long time or forever, all possible manifestations of their characters. We see the practical impossibility of any positive changes in their lives, despite all their efforts and hopes, since they are not free people. A free person, according to Gorky, must boldly face the truth, and not find consolation in beautiful lies, being content with his position. And only when a person becomes free will he be able to overcome difficulties and escape from the abyss of the shelter. Only then can hopes for a better life be realized not only for one person, but for the whole society.

The revival of the name of Maxim Gorky after reconsidering the place of his work in Russian literature and renaming everything that bore the name of this writer must definitely happen. It seems that the most famous play from Gorky’s dramatic heritage, “At the Lower Depths,” will play a significant role in this. The genre of drama itself presupposes the relevance of the work in a society where there are many unresolved social problems, where people know what it’s like to spend the night and be homeless. M. Gorky's play “At the Lower Depths” is defined as a socio-philosophical drama. The drama of a work is determined by the presence in it of an acute conflict affecting a person’s relationship with the environment, with society. In addition, drama, as a rule, is characterized by a veiled author’s position. Although it may seem that the material of the play is too difficult to understand, the realism of the conflict and the absence of moralizing are truly the advantages of dramatic work. Gorky's play contains all of the above. It is interesting that “At the Lower Depths” is perhaps Gorky’s only book where there is no open didacticism, where the reader himself is invited to make a choice between two “truths of life” - the positions of Luke and Satin.

Among the features of the play, we will mention the presence in it of several conflicts expressed to varying degrees. Thus, the presence of people from different walks of life among the heroes determines the development of social conflict. However, it is not very dynamic, since the owners of the shelter, the Kostylevs, social status not much higher than that of its inhabitants. But there is one more facet to the social conflict in the play: each of the night shelters carries a lot of contradictions related to their place in society, each hero has his own social conflict within himself, which threw them to the “bottom” of life.

The development of a love conflict is connected with the relationship between Vaska Ash and Natasha, into which the claims for love of Vasilisa and her husband interfere. Vaska Pepel, without the slightest doubt, leaves Vasilisa, who cheated on her husband with him, for the sake of a truly high feeling for Natasha. The heroine seems to return the thief Vaska to the true life values, relationships with her certainly enrich his inner world and awaken dreams of honest life. But the envy of the elder sister prevents the successful outcome of this love story. The culmination is Vasilisa’s dirty and cruel revenge, and the denouement is the murder of Kostylev. Thus, love conflict resolved by the triumph of the disgusting Vasilisa and the defeat of two loving hearts. The author shows that there is no place for true feelings at the “bottom”.

The philosophical conflict in the drama is the main one; it affects, to one degree or another, all the characters in the work. Its development is provoked by the appearance of the wanderer Luke in the shelter, who brings A New Look to the peace of the inhabitants of the “bottom”. Two life positions come into conflict: a white lie and the truth without embellishment. What turns out to be people need it more? Luke preaches pity and compassion, he instills hope for a different possibility, better life. Those heroes who believed him began to dream again, make plans, they had an incentive to live on. But the old man didn’t tell them about the difficulties that were inevitable on the path to a bright future. It seems to give impetus to the beginning of a new life, but the person must go further on his own, but will he have enough strength for this? Can illusions always become a support in difficulties? The antipodean hero Satin believes that pity humiliates a person; to live, a person needs the truth, no matter how cruel it may seem.

All philosophical thoughts in the play they are expressed by the characters in direct dialogues and monologues. From Luke’s lips it sounds: “It’s true, it’s not always because of a person’s illness... you can’t always cure a soul with the truth...”. Satin says: “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” Yes, exclamations that “only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain” are very attractive to us! Human! It's great! It sounds... proud! Human! We must respect the person!” Author's position in the dramatic is hidden. Gorky does not directly evaluate the words of his heroes. True, in another way prose work“The Life of Klim Samgin” the author says that we love people for the good that we have done to them, and we do not love for the evil that they have brought. When a person is deceived, they hide something from him, they, of course, bring harm to him, since they are deprived of the right to information and, therefore, to an objectively made choice. From this point of view, Luke’s philosophy cannot be salutary; his pity and compassion are not identical to love for a person. But Satin is powerless to help the inhabitants of the shelter, since he has nothing to respect even himself, in fact, he does not see a person in himself, his words are not supported by action. This is the common tragedy of all heroes. Words and dreams hang in the air, unable to find support in the people themselves.

At the end of the drama, one murder and one suicide occur. But the author does not pass judgment on any of them. life philosophies underlying the play. Rather, one can feel a general regret about the passivity and weakness of people who find themselves at the “bottom”, see their own guilt in what happened and realize the futility of helping someone who is not ready for it. The ambiguity and diversity of the play are associated with the depth of the problems raised. You can’t see Luka as a stupid “crafty” old man who lies all the time, but you can’t idealize his compassionate love. At the same time, Satin, at first glance, pronounces his monologue as if in delirium, phrases pop up in his fevered brain, which he picked up from different places. But with his enthusiasm he is trying to infect the people, to rouse them to revolution. Although the substitution of values ​​is obvious in his words. And perhaps in this way Gorky warned us about the substitution of values ​​that has eternally existed in the revolution, which is its tragedy.

True drama is always modern. The relevance of the play “At the Bottom” will never die, in my opinion, because when reading or watching it on stage we think about eternal problems choosing your path. The current pathos of the work, in my opinion, is associated with the attempt of our entire society to rise from the “bottom”, to understand why some manage to get out, while others do not. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds in the positive desire to raise their head. And some people don’t even try. This is also a philosophy of life. Thus, the vitality of the drama “At the Bottom” is due to its truthfulness.