Anna's life position in the play at the bottom. Anna in the work At the bottom (Image and characteristics). Several interesting compositions

The drama "At the Bottom" is a landmark work in Gorky's creative biography. Description of the heroes will be presented in this article.

This work was written at a crucial time for the country. In Russia, in the 90s of the XIX century, a serious erupted. The masses of impoverished, ruined peasants after each crop failure left the villages in search of work. Plants and factories were closed. Thousands of people were left without means of livelihood and shelter. This led to the emergence of a large number of "tramps" who sank to the bottom of life.

Who lived in the shelters?

Enterprising slum owners, taking advantage of their stalemate, have figured out how to make good use of the stinking cellars. They turned them into shelters where beggars, unemployed, thieves, vagabonds and other representatives of the "bottom" lived. This work was written in 1902. The heroes of the play "At the Bottom" are just such people.

Throughout his entire career, Maxim Gorky was interested in a person, a person, the secrets of his Feelings and thoughts, dreams and hopes, weakness and strength - all this is reflected in the work. The heroes of the play "At the Bottom" are people who lived at the beginning of the 20th century, when the old world was crumbling and a new life arose. However, they differ from the rest in that they are rejected by society. These are people of the "bottom", outcasts. The place where Vaska Ashes, Bubnov, Actor, Satin and others live is unattractive and scary. According to Gorky's description, this is a cave-like basement. Its ceiling is stone vaults with crumbled plaster, sooty. Why did the inhabitants of the shelter find themselves "at the bottom" of life, what brought them here?

Heroes of the play "At the Bottom": table

What ruined the lives of these people?

Addiction to alcohol killed the Actor. By his own admission, he used to have a good memory. Now the Actor believes that everything is over for him. Vaska Ashes is a representative of the "thieves' dynasty". This hero had no choice but to continue his father's work. He says that even when he was little, even then he was called a thief. The former furrier Bubnov left the workshop because of his wife's betrayal, as well as out of fear of his wife's lover. He went bankrupt, after which he went to serve in one "government chamber", in which he embezzled. One of the most colorful figures in the work is Satin. He was a telegraph operator in the past, and went to jail for the murder of a man who insulted his sister.

Whom do the flop dwellers blame?

Almost all the heroes of the play "At the Bottom" are inclined to blame not themselves for the current situation, but life circumstances. Perhaps, if they had developed differently, nothing would have changed significantly, and all the same, the hostels would have suffered the same fate. The phrase uttered by Bubnov confirms this. He admitted that he actually drank the workshop.

Apparently, the reason for the fall of all these people is their lack of a moral core that makes up a person's personality. You can cite the words of the Actor as an example: "Why did he die? I didn't have faith ..."

Was there a chance to live a different life?

Creating the images of the heroes of the play "At the Bottom", the author gave each of them the opportunity to live a different life. That is, they had a choice. However, everyone's first test ended in the collapse of their lives. The baron, for example, could improve his affairs not by stealing state funds, but by investing money in profitable business that he had.

Satin could have taught the offender a lesson in another way. As for Vaska Ash, would there really be few places on earth where no one would know anything about him and his past? The same can be said for many of the denizens. They have no future, but in the past they had a chance not to get here. However, the heroes of the play "At the Bottom" did not use it.

How do the heroes console themselves?

Now they can only live with unrealizable hopes and illusions. The Baron, Bubnov and the Actor live The prostitute Nastya amuses herself with dreams of true love. At the same time, the characterization of the heroes of the play "At the Bottom" is complemented by the fact that these people, rejected by society, humiliated, are endlessly arguing about moral and spiritual problems. Although it would be more logical to talk about because they live from hand to mouth. The author's description of the characters of the play "At the Bottom" says that they are occupied with such issues as freedom, truth, equality, labor, love, happiness, law, talent, honesty, pride, compassion, conscience, pity, patience, death, peace and much more. They are also worried about an even more important problem. They talk about what a person is, why he is born, what is the true meaning of being. Luka, Satin, Bubnov can be called the philosophers of the shelter.

With the exception of Bubnov, all the heroes of the work reject the "no-lodging" way of life. They hope for a lucky twist of fortune, which will bring them from the "bottom" to the surface. A tick, for example, says that he has been working from an early age (this hero is a locksmith), so he will certainly get out of here. "Here, wait ... the wife will die ..." - he says. The actor, this chronic drunkard, hopes to find a luxurious hospital in which health, strength, talent, memory and applause from the audience will miraculously return to him. Anna, an unhappy sufferer, dreams of bliss and peace in which she will finally be rewarded for torment and patience. Vaska Ashes, this desperate hero, kills Kostylev, the owner of the shelter, because he considers the latter to be the embodiment of evil. His dream is to leave for Siberia, where he will start a new life with his beloved girl.

Luke's role in the work

Keeping these illusions alive is Luke, the wanderer. He possesses the skill of a comforter and preacher. Maxim Gorky portrays this hero as a doctor who considers all people to be terminally ill and sees his calling in softening their pain and hiding it from them. However, at every step, life refutes the position of this hero. Anna, to whom he promises divine reward in heaven, suddenly wants to "live a little more ..." Believing first in a cure for alcoholism, the Actor takes his own life at the end of the play. Vaska Ashes defines the true value of all these consolations of Luke. He claims that he "speaks fairy tales" pleasantly, because there is so little good in the world.

Satin's opinion

Luke is full of sincere pity for the inhabitants of the shelter, but he cannot change anything, help people live a different life. In his monologue, Satine rejects this attitude, since he considers it humiliating, suggesting the inconsistency and wretchedness of those to whom this pity is directed. The main characters of the play "At the Bottom", Satin and Luka, express opposite opinions. Satin says that it is necessary to respect a person and not humiliate him with pity. These words probably express the position of the author: "Man! .. It sounds ... proudly!"

The further fate of the heroes

What will become of all these people in the future, will the heroes of the play "At the Bottom" by Gorky be able to change something? It is not difficult to imagine their further fate. For example, Tick. He tries to get out of the "bottom" at the beginning of the piece. He thinks that when his wife dies, everything will magically change for the better. However, after the death of his wife, Tick is left without tools and money and sings gloomily along with others: "I won't run away anyway." In fact, he will not run away, like the other inhabitants of the shelter.

What is salvation?

Are there any ways of salvation from the "bottom", and what are they? A decisive way out, perhaps, is outlined from this difficult situation in Satin's speech when he speaks about the truth. He believes that the purpose of a strong person is to eradicate evil, and not to comfort the suffering, like Luke. This is one of the most firm convictions of Maxim Gorky himself. "From the bottom" people can rise only by learning to respect themselves, gaining a sense of their own dignity. Then they will be able to bear the proud title of Human. It still needs to be earned, according to Gorky.

Declaring his faith in the creative powers, abilities and intelligence of a free person, Maxim Gorky affirmed the ideas of humanism. The author understood that in the mouths of Satin, a drunken tramp, the words about a free and proud person sound artificial. However, they were supposed to sound in the play, expressing the ideals of the writer himself. There was no one to say this speech except Satin.

Gorky refuted the main principles of idealism in his work. These are the ideas of humility, forgiveness, non-resistance. He made it clear what beliefs the future holds. This is proved by the fate of the heroes of the play "At the Bottom". The whole work is imbued with faith in man.

Anna is a character in the play "At the Bottom", a woman with consumption who is living out her last days, the wife of the laborer Klesh. She is tired of a life in which she shakes over every piece of bread and walks in rags. At the same time, Anna constantly endures her husband's abuse. Anyone but her husband sympathizes with the poor thing. He only insults and humiliates her, and sometimes beats her. She only causes indifference and irritation in him.

It seems that in the image of Anna all women are shown who endure a rude attitude in family life. It even becomes scary that she so calmly endures eternal humiliation. At the same time, she continues to take care of her husband and is ready to give everything to him. So, in one episode, she says that Kvashnya left her dumplings for him to take and eat. He grumbles at her all the time and does not take her requests in any way. When she, panting, asks to open the door, he refuses, fearing that he will catch a cold. It is not surprising that there is only one way out of such a life - death. And she is only thirty years old. Before dying, Luke somehow comforts her. He says that in the next world she can take a break from her joyless existence. After all, these torments are compensated by bliss in heaven. She soon dies.

The play "At the Bottom" is a rather complicated, but very interesting piece by Gorky. The author managed to combine in it everyday specifics and generalized symbols, real human images and abstract philosophy. Gorky's skill was especially manifested in the description of the inhabitants of the shelter, so dissimilar to each other. Female images play an important role in the work.

Natasha, Vasilisa, Nastya, Anna, Kvashnya are very interesting and peculiar characters. These women have sunk to the very bottom of life, their appearance is depressing and causes bitter feelings in the reader. Usually, a woman is a symbol of beauty, pure and light. The female image is the image of tenderness, love and motherhood. However, Gorky shows the reader a completely different side of life. When a woman finds herself in terrible and cruel conditions, she is forced to behave a little differently.

Someone will try to survive by trading themselves, while someone will break down and become mortally ill, unable to withstand the heavy oppression. Consider specific images from the play.

Kvashnya is a trader in dumplings, a free and strong woman, she does not allow any man to freely handle her. Her attitude towards marriage is sharply negative. It turns out that Kvashnya was already married once, but this bitter experience left an indelible mark on her soul for the rest of her life. You can imagine how cruel her husband was, and how unhappy their family life was, if the woman was so happy about the death of her husband that she simply could not believe her happiness. But, in spite of everything, Kvashnya remained sensitive to the grief of others and did not lose her humanity. She takes pity on the dying Anna and tries to feed her with dumplings. But she won't marry again, even for a prince, that's enough, she has suffered.

The next heroine of the play is an unfortunate woman named Anna. She is seriously ill and is dying. Many sympathize with her, regret and try to ease the torments of the last days of life. Only Tick, her husband, is still rude and indifferent to Anna. She is used to his cruelty and patiently accepts such behavior of her husband. Anna symbolizes all women who consider rudeness to be the norm in family relations. Even, being on the verge of death, she takes care of her indifferent and callous husband (offers to eat dumplings that Kvashnya left for her). Anna is only thirty years old, she is dying, and there is nothing bright in her existence.

The girl Nastya reads tabloid romances, dreams of lofty feelings, of light love, but in life she is surrounded by meanness and filth, vulgarity and rudeness. She tells her roommates sweet tales of love that are born in her imagination. They frankly mock her, because Nastya is an ordinary prostitute, she can only dream of pure and true love. The only way for her to forget about all this is to get drunk.

Vasilisa is a representative of the "masters of life", because she is the wife of the owner of the hostel. But the owners of the “bottom” differ little from its inhabitants. It is almost impossible to preserve human appearance if you are constantly in the menagerie. Vasilisa is a domineering, insensitive and cruel woman who only loves money. Her lover Vaska Ash, a thief who lacks moral principles, and he notices that this woman has no soul. Its external beauty is contrasted with its internal ugliness. She swears her love to Ash and pushes him to steal. Then he learns that he loves her sister Natasha and promises to give her to him if Ash kills Kostylev, Vasilisa's wife. Then the hostess begins to cruelly mock her sister. She is angry with Natasha and takes revenge on her for leaving her lover. Natasha cannot answer her anything, she, by nature, is a kind and gentle person, capable of sympathizing with someone else's grief. Seeing once Natasha with Ash, Vasilisa becomes furious and, locking her sister in the house, beats her to a pulp. Natasha is already ready to go even to prison for Ashes, just not to return to Vasilisa's house. She ends up in a clinic, and from there disappears in an unknown direction, fleeing the cruelty of her sister.

Vasilisa, for sure, will be able to get out and avoid prison. She will continue her former life, because only with such a character as hers can one survive in these monstrous conditions.

Each heroine of the play is interesting in its own way. It is through female images that the reader is best able to feel the inhuman conditions of life in which the inhabitants of the shelter find themselves.

The play "At the Bottom" was conceived by Gorky as one of four plays in a cycle showing the life and worldview of people from different strata of society. This is one of the two purposes of creating a work. The deep meaning that the author laid in it is an attempt to answer the main questions of human existence: what is a person and whether he will preserve his personality, having sunk "to the bottom" of moral and social life.

The history of the play

The first evidence of work on the play dates back to 1900, when Gorky, in a conversation with Stanislavsky, mentions his desire to write scenes from the life of the flophouse. Some sketches appeared at the end of 1901. In a letter to the publisher K. P. Pyatnitsky, to whom the author dedicated the work, Gorky wrote that in the planned play all the characters, the idea, the motives of the actions are clear to him, and "it will be scary." The final version of the work was ready on July 25, 1902, published in Munich and went on sale at the end of the year.

Things were not so rosy with the staging of the play on the stages of Russian theaters - it is practically prohibited. An exception was made only for the Moscow Art Theater, the rest of the theaters had to receive special permission for staging.

The title of the play was changed at least four times in the process of work, and the genre was not determined by the author - the edition read “At the bottom of life: scenes”. The shortened and now familiar name first appeared on the playbill at the first production at the Moscow Art Theater.

The first performers were the star cast of the Moscow Art Academic Theater: the role of Satin was performed by K. Stanislavsky, Baron - V. Kachalov, Luke - I. Moskvin, Nastya - O. Knipper, Natasha - M. Andreeva.

The main plot of the work

The plot of the play is tied to the relationship of the heroes and in the atmosphere of universal hatred that reigns in the shelter. This is the outer canvas of the work. Parallel action explores the depth of a person's fall “to the bottom”, the measure of insignificance of a socially and spiritually degraded individual.

The action of the play begins and ends with the storyline of the relationship between two characters: the thief Vaska Ash and the wife of the owner of the shelter Vasilisa. Ash loves her younger sister Natasha. Vasilisa is jealous, constantly beats up her sister. She also has another interest in her lover - she wants to free herself from her husband and pushes Ash to murder. In the course of the play, Ash actually kills Kostylev in a quarrel. In the last act of the play, the lodgers of the hostel say that Vaska will have to go to hard labor, and Vasilisa will “get out” anyway. Thus, the action is looped through the fates of the two heroes, but is far from limited to them.

The play is scheduled for several weeks in early spring. The season is an important part of the play. One of the first titles given by the author to the work, "Without the Sun". Indeed, there is spring around, a sea of ​​sunlight, and darkness in the shelter and in the souls of its inhabitants. Luka, a tramp, whom Natasha brings in one of the days, became the ray of the sun for the hostels. Luke brings hope of a happy outcome to the hearts of those who have fallen asleep and have lost faith in the best. However, at the end of the play, Luca disappears from the shelter. The characters who trust him lose faith in the best. The play ends with the suicide of one of them - the Actor.

Analysis of the piece

The play describes the life of a Moscow shelter. The main characters, respectively, were its inhabitants and the owners of the establishment. Also in it there are persons related to the life of the institution: a policeman, who is also the uncle of the hostess of the hostel, a vendor with dumplings, loaders.

Satin and Luca

The sharper, the former convict Satin and the vagabond, the wanderer Luke are carriers of two opposing ideas: the need for compassion for a person, a saving lie out of love for him, and the need to know the truth, as proof of a person's greatness, as a sign of trust in his strength of mind. In order to prove the falsity of the first worldview and the truth of the second, the author also built the action of the play.

Other characters

All other characters are the backdrop for this battle of ideas. In addition, they are designed to show, measure the depth of fall to which a person is able to descend. The drunkard Actor and the terminally ill Anna, people who have completely lost faith in their strengths, fall under the power of a wonderful fairy tale, into which Luke takes them. They are the most dependent on him. With his departure, they physically cannot live and die. The rest of the inhabitants of the shelter perceive the appearance and departure of Luke, as a play of the sun's ray of spring - appeared and disappeared.

Nastya, selling her body "on the boulevard", believes that there is a light love, and she was in her life. The tick, husband of dying Anna, believes that he will rise from the bottom and start earning a living from work again. The thread that connects him to his working past is the toolbox. At the end of the play, he is forced to sell them in order to bury his wife. Natasha hopes that Vasilisa will change and stop torturing her. After another beatings, after leaving the hospital, she will no longer appear in the shelter. Vaska Pepel strives to stay with Natalia, but cannot get out of the networks of the imperious Vasilisa. The latter, in turn, expects the death of her husband to untie her hands and give her long-awaited freedom. The Baron lives his aristocratic past. The gambler Bubnov, the destroyer of "illusions", the ideologue of misanthropy, believes that "all people are superfluous."

The work was created in conditions when, after the economic crisis of the 90s of the XIX century, factories stood up in Russia, the population was rapidly becoming poorer, many found themselves at the bottom rung of the social ladder, in the basement. Each of the heroes of the play in the past experienced a fall “to the bottom”, social and moral. Now they live with the memory of this, but they cannot rise “into the light”: they cannot, they have no strength, they are ashamed of their insignificance.

main characters

Luke became the light for some. Gorky gave Luka a “telling” name. It refers both to the image of St. Luke and to the concept of "guile". Obviously, the author seeks to show the inconsistency of Luke's ideas about the beneficial value of Faith for a person. Gorky practically reduces Luka's compassionate humanism to the notion of betrayal - according to the plot of the play, the tramp leaves the shelter just when those who trusted him need his support.

Satin is a figure designed to voice the author's worldview. As Gorky wrote, Satin is not quite a character for this, but there is simply no other with the same powerful charisma in the play. Satin is the ideological antipode of Luke: he does not believe in anything, sees the ruthless essence of life and the situation in which he and the rest of the inhabitants of the shelter found themselves. Does Satin believe in Man and his power over the power of circumstances and mistakes? The passionate monologue that he utters, arguing in absentia with the departed Luka, leaves a strong but contradictory impression.

There is also a carrier of the "third" truth in the work - Tambourines. This hero, like Satin, "stands for the truth", only he is somehow very scary. He is a man-hater, but, in fact, a murderer. Only they die not from the knife in his hands, but from the hatred that he harbors for everyone.

The drama of the play increases from act to act. Luke's comforting conversations with those who suffer from his compassion and the rare remarks of Satin, which indicate that he is attentively listening to the vagabond's speeches, become a connecting canvas. The climax of the play is Satin's monologue, delivered after Luke's departure and flight. Phrases from it are often quoted because they look like aphorisms; "Everything in a person is everything for a person!", "Lies are the religion of slaves and masters ... Truth is the god of a free person!"

Conclusion

The bitter result of the play is the triumph of the freedom of a fallen person to perish, disappear, leave, leaving no trace or memories behind. The inhabitants of the shelter are free from society, moral norms, family and livelihood. By and large, they are free from life.

The play At the Bottom has been living for over a century and continues to be one of the most powerful works of Russian classics. The play makes one think about the place of faith and love in a person's life, about the nature of truth and lies, about a person's ability to withstand moral and social decline.

There are five female characters in the play. Anna is the wife of Tick, humbly dying in the second act, compassionate and economic Kvashnya, young Vasilisa is the wife of the owner of the hostel and mistress of Vaska Pepla, the young and downtrodden Natasha and Nastya, denoted in the author's remark by the bashful word "girl".

In the semantic context of the work, female images are represented by two pairs of opposite characters: Kvashnya - Nastya and Vasilisa - Natasha. Outside of these pairs is Anna, who personifies pure suffering in the play. Her image is not clouded by passions

And desires. She dies patiently and obediently. He dies not so much from a mortal illness as from the consciousness of his uselessness in the world. She is one of those "naked people" for whom the truth of being is intolerable. “I feel sick,” she admits to Luca. The only aspect of death that worries her: "And how is there - also torment?" Hammered, not suitable for anything in this world, it resembles a thing. She does not move around the stage - she is moved. They take out, leave in the kitchen, forget. Just like a thing, it is treated after death. “We have to drag it out! “We'll pull it out ...” She passed away - as if the props had been taken away. "So she stopped coughing."

Not so with the rest. In the first pair, Kvashnya represents a semantic dominant. She is almost always around the house. Lives from his labors. Makes dumplings and sells them. What are these dumplings from and who eats them - only God knows. She lived married, and now for her what is married, what is in a noose: "Once I did it - for the rest of my life ..." And when her husband "died", she spent the whole day with happiness and joy. She is always alone in the play. She touches conversations and events with the edge, the inhabitants of the shelter seem to be afraid of her. Even Medvedev, the personification of law and power, her roommate, talks with Kvashnya respectfully - there is too much of an incurious intellect, common sense and hidden aggression in her.

Her opposite Nastya is not protected and available. She is not busy with anything, does nothing. She is a "girl". She almost does not react to the realities of the surrounding world. Her mind is not burdened with reflection. She is as self-sufficient as Kvashnya. Gorky implanted in her a strange, not invented by him world of "women's novels", a meager and meaningless dream of a beautiful life. She is literate and therefore reads. “There, in the kitchen, a girl is sitting, reading a book and crying,” Luka wonders. This is Nastya. She weeps over a fiction that miraculously seems to her to be her own life. She resembles a little girl who dreamed of a toy. Waking up, she fumbles with her parents, demands this toy for herself. At a tender age, children do not separate sleep from reality. This happens later in the process of growing up. Nastya not only does not grow up - she does not wake up. In reality she dreams of these confectionery, sinless dreams: "And he has a huge left-handed, and is loaded with ten bullets ... My unforgettable friend ... Raul ..." The baron rolls over her: "Nastka! Why ... after all, the last time - Gaston was! " Nastya behaves like a child. Poking her nose into reality, she is capricious, gets excited, throws a cup on the floor, threatens the inhabitants: "I'll get drunk today ... I'll get drunk." To get drunk means to get away from reality again. Forget it. Judging by indirect hints, the Baron is with her in gigolos, however, she does not realize this either. The rays of reality only glint on the surface of her consciousness, not penetrating inside. One day Nastya opens up a little, and it becomes clear that her life is fed by the energy of hatred. Running away, she shouts to everyone: “Wolves! Let you die! Wolves! " She utters this remark at the end of the fourth act, and, therefore, there is a hope of waking up. Vasilisa represents the domineering beginning of the play. She is the Pallas Athena of the shelter, her evil genius. She alone acts - all the others exist. The criminal and melodramatic intrigues of the plot are connected with her image. There are no internal prohibitions for Vasilisa. She, like everyone else in the shelter, is a "naked person", "everything is allowed to her." And Vasilisa uses this while the others are just talking. She was presented by the author with a cruel and merciless character. The concept of "no" lies outside of her moral consciousness. And she thinks consistently: "To enjoy is to kill in order to enjoy." Her antipode Natasha is the purest and brightest image of the play. Natasha, out of jealousy of Vaska Ash, Vasilisa constantly beats and tortures her, her husband, old Kostylev, helps her. The instinct of a pack is triggered. Natasha is one of everyone who believes and still hopes, is waiting not for haberdashery, but for true love, looking for it. But, unfortunately, the geography of its search takes place on that part of the bottom on which Spanish galleons laden with gold do not rest. The dim light coming "from above, from the viewer" allows us to see only the faces of the permanent inhabitants. Natasha doesn't trust anyone. Neither Luke nor Ash. It's just that she, like Marmeladov, “has nowhere to go”. When Kostylev is being killed, she shouts: "Take me too ... to jail me!" It is clear to Natasha - it was not Ash who killed. All the fault. They all killed. This is her truth. Her, not Satina. Not the truth of a proud, strong person, but the truth of the humiliated and insulted.

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