Tests. Composition-reasoning How does the different attitude of the overnight stays to Nastya's story reflect the main conflict of the play? In what works of the Russian class How are the different attitudes of the overnight stays
At the heart of the play "At the Bottom" is a love affair that fits into two love triangles Ashes - Vasilisa-Natasha, Ashes-Vasilisa-Kostylev. Its development leads to the fact that Pepel kills Kostylev and ends up in prison, Natasha, crippled by Vasilisa, ends up in the hospital, and Vasilisa becomes the sovereign hostess of the rooming house.
But the originality of the play is that it is not love that is decisive. Most of the heroes are not involved in the development love story, and he himself occupies, as it were, a secondary position in relation to what Gorky depicts.
In the first place here is the social conflict between the owners of life, the Kostylevs, and the inhabitants of the rooming house. And even wider between Russian reality and the fate of people who were 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 play's conflict that made it revolutionary—it was the clash between reality and the lives of the people of the rooming house. But the most interesting thing is that even now the play has not lost its modern (universal) sound, it's just that the modern viewer and reader have changed their accents.
The figurative system of the play in resolving the conflict "At the Bottom"
The inhabitants of the rooming house 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 fell asleep
- Tick due to wife's illness,
- The baron went bankrupt
- Ashes 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 doss house have different attitudes towards their position, 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 are having a hard time with their condition, hoping or dreaming to change it (Natasha, Pepel, Actor).
But neither the first nor the second know how to escape from here. Modern reading play allows us to say that a person's attitude to his position determines his attitude to reality.
Therefore, the third group of heroes is very important - Satin and Luka - it is they who, as it were, know what needs to be done. The meaning of the images of Sateen and Luke and that here is formed more
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 rooming house, internal changes begin. According to the author, this character is rather negative
(“the savagery of virtue”, “the crafty old man”).
Luka takes pity on the man: he consoles the dying Anna, he tells Ash about wonderful life in Siberia, where you can part all over again, he tells the Actor about hospitals where you can recover from alcoholism. Gorky himself is sure that
"Don't feel sorry for the person." The writer believes that "pity humiliates a person."
However, it is Luke that affects people, it is he who makes them take a fresh look at their situation. It is he who remains at the bedside of the dying Anna until the last minute. Consequently, the rather unambiguous attitude of the author to the character does not make the image of Luka unambiguous, but sets its multidimensionality.
Satin stands out among others with 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, Pepel to kill Kostylev. A person who deliberately refuses to do anything, whose monologues are in conflict with his behavior. But you can consider his position from the point of view of Stoic philosophy: he deliberately refuses to work for this society, which threw him to the sidelines of life, he despises him
(“To work? For what? To be full?… Man is higher! Man is higher than satiety!”).
Thus, Satin is not unambiguous in the work.
The conflict of the play “At the Bottom” between compassion and truth is formally resolved in favor of the truth: Luka’s consolations did not make the lives of the inhabitants of the rooming house 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, so the play has not lost its relevance.
The conflict between the inhabitants of the rooming house 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, the existing system is beneficial to them. In the images of the Kostylevs, Gorky condemns the existing system. No wonder contemporaries take the play as a call to change the existing system. Thus, according to Gorky, it is necessary to change life - then a person will change. The resolution of the conflict between the inhabitants of the rooming house and reality is taken out by the author outside the work.
Unusual for its time, the plot (the life of a rooming house) and the universal human conflict in the play "At the Bottom", with an unambiguous and definite position of the author, give an ambiguous interpretation of the work and make it relevant for any time.
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How does the different attitude of the overnight stayers to Nastya's story reflect the main conflict of the play?
Read the text fragment below and complete tasks B1-B7; C1-C2.
"Wasteland" - a courtyard place littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds. In the depths of it is a tall brick firewall. He closes the sky. Around him are elderberry bushes. To the right is a dark, log wall of some kind of outbuilding: a shed or a stable. And to the left is the gray wall of the house covered with the remnants of plaster, in which the Kostylevs' rooming house is located. She stands obliquely, so that her back corner goes almost to the middle of the wasteland. Between it and the red wall is a narrow passage. There are two windows in the gray wall: one is level with the ground, the other is two arshins higher and closer to the firewall. By this wall there are sledges with runners up and a stump of a log, four yards long. To the right by the wall is a pile of old boards and beams. Evening, the sun sets, illuminating the firewall with a reddish light. Early spring, it snowed recently. Black boughs of elder still without kidneys. Natasha and Nastya are sitting on a log next to each other. On the firewood - Luka and Baron. The tick lies on a pile of wood against the right wall. In the window near the ground - Bubnov's mug.
Nastya (closing his eyes and shaking his head to the beat of the words, he sings loudly). Here he comes at night to the garden, to the gazebo, as we agreed ... and I have been waiting for him for a long time and trembling with fear and grief. He, too, is trembling all over and - white as chalk, and in his hands is a left-wing gun ...
Natasha (nibbles seeds). Look! Apparently, the truth is said that students are desperate ...
Nastya. And he says to me in a terrible voice: "My precious love ..."
Bubnov. Ho-ho! Precious?
Baron. Wait a minute! If you don’t like it, don’t listen, but don’t interfere with lying ... Next!
Nastya. “Beloved, he says, my love! Parents, he says, do not give their consent for me to marry you ... and threaten to curse me forever for loving you. Well, I must, he says, I should take my life from this ... ”And his left-hander is a huge one and loaded with ten bullets ...“ Farewell, he says, dear friend of my heart! - I decided irrevocably ... to live without you - I just can’t. And I answered him: "My unforgettable friend... Raul..."
Bubnov (surprised). What about? How? Kraul?
Baron (laughs). Nastya! Why ... after all, the last time - Gaston was!
Nastya (jumping up). Be silent... unfortunate! Ah... stray dogs! Can... can you understand... love? True love? And I had it ... real! (To the Baron.) You! Insignificant!.. You are an educated man... you say you drank coffee lying down...
Luke. And you - wait! You don't interfere! Respect a person ... not in the word - the point, but - why is the word spoken? — that's the point! Tell me, girl, nothing!
Bubnov. Color, crow, feathers ... go ahead!
Natasha. Don't listen to them... what are they? They are out of envy... they have nothing to say about themselves...
Nastya (sits down again). I don't want more! I won't speak... If they don't believe... if they laugh... (Suddenly, interrupting his speech, he is silent for several seconds and, closing his eyes again, continues hotly and loudly, waving his hand in time with the speech and listening as if listening to distant music.) And now I answer him: “The joy of my life! You are my clear month! And without you, it’s also completely impossible for me to live in the world ... because I love you madly and will love you while my heart beats in my chest! But, I say, do not deprive yourself of your young life ... how your dear parents need it, for whom you are all their joy ... Leave me! It would be better if I disappear ... from longing for you, my life ... I am alone ... I am such! Let me... perish, it doesn't matter! I am no good ... and there is nothing for me ... there is nothing ... " (He covers his face with his hands and weeps silently.)
Natasha (turning to the side, softly). Don't cry... don't!
Luka, smiling, strokes Nastya's head.
M. Gorky "At the bottom"
Indicate the genre to which M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" belongs.
Explanation.
M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" belongs to the genre of drama. Let's give a definition.
Drama is a literary (dramatic), stage and cinematic genre. It gained particular distribution in the literature of the 18th-21st centuries, gradually replacing another genre of dramaturgy - tragedy, opposing it with a predominantly everyday plot and a style closer to everyday reality.
Answer: drama.
Guest 12.02.2015 00:47
If I'm not mistaken, Drama is a kind of literature, and a genre is Play
Tatiana Statsenko
That's right, everything is explained correctly in the explanation.
Julia Khudyakova 18.12.2016 22:35
Will the answer socio-philosophical drama be correct?
Tatiana Statsenko
Refer to the codifier more often: there is no such division in it.
Name the literary trend that flourished in the second half of the 19th century and whose principles were embodied in Gorky's play.
Explanation.
The principles of realism found their embodiment in Gorky's play. Let's give a definition.
Realism is a true depiction of reality. In any work of belles-lettres, we distinguish two necessary elements: the objective one, the reproduction of phenomena given by the artist, and the subjective one, something that the artist himself put into the work. Stopping on a comparative assessment of these two elements, theory in different epochs attaches greater importance to one or the other of them (in connection with the course of development of art, and with other circumstances). Hence the two opposite directions in the theory; one thing - realism - sets before art the task of faithfully reproducing reality; the other - idealism - sees the purpose of art in the "replenishment of reality", in the creation of new forms. Moreover, the starting point is not so much the facts as the ideal representations.
Answer: realism.
Answer: realism
The beginning of the fragment is a detailed author's description, recreating the environment in which the action takes place. What is the name of such remarks or explanations of the author characterizing what is happening on the stage or commenting on the actions of the characters?
Explanation.
Such remarks or explanations of the author are called remarks. Let's give a definition.
Remarque - an indication of the author in the text of a dramatic work on the behavior of the characters: their gestures, facial expressions, intonations, type of speech and pauses, the setting of the action, the semantic underlining of certain statements.
Natasha (nibbles seeds). Look! Apparently, the truth is said that students are desperate ...
Answer: remark.
Answer: remark | remarks
In the above fragment, the development of the action occurs due to the alternation of the replicas of the characters. Indicate the term that denotes this form of artistic speech.
Explanation.
This form of communication is called dialogue. Let's give a definition.
Dialogue is a conversation between two or more persons in a work of art. In a dramatic work, the dialogue of characters is one of the main artistic means for creating an image, character.
Answer: dialogue.
Answer: dialogue | polylogue
In this scene, Nastya's "dreams" and the environment in which her story sounds are contrasted. What is the name of a technique based on a sharp opposition of objects or phenomena?
Explanation.
This technique is called antithesis. Let's give a definition.
Antithesis is a stylistic device based on a sharp opposition of concepts and images, most often based on the use of antonyms.
A wasteland is a courtyard place littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds. “...” And to the left is the gray wall of the house covered with the remains of plaster, in which the Kostylevs' rooming house is located. “...” To the right by the wall is a bunch of old boards, beams.
And now - I answer him: “The joy of my life! You are my clear month! And without you, it’s also completely impossible for me to live in the world ... because I love you madly and will love you while my heart beats in my chest! But, I say, do not deprive yourself of your young life ... how your dear parents need it, for whom you are all their joy ... Leave me! I'd rather disappear... from longing for you, my life... I'm alone... I'm like that! Let me ... perish - it doesn't matter! I am no good ... and there is nothing for me ... there is nothing ... "
The miserable atmosphere is opposed to the gentle story of Nastya.
Answer: antithesis or contrast.
Answer: antithesis | contrast
lidana dronenko 08.12.2016 18:57
Why is antithesis, not contrast, essentially the same thing???
Tatiana Statsenko
Right, the answer has been added.
What is the name of a significant detail, which is a means of expressing the author's attitude to the depicted (for example, seeds that Natasha gnaws while listening to Nastya's story)?
Explanation.
Such a detail is called a detail or artistic detail. Let's give a definition.
An artistic detail is a particularly significant, highlighted element of an artistic image, an expressive detail in a work that carries a significant semantic and ideological and emotional load.
Answer: detail.
Answer: detail|artistic detail|artistic detail
8. How different attitude doss-houses to Nastya's story reflects the main conflict of the play?
In this passage, the characters express a contradictory attitude towards the problem of a saving lie, which M. Gorky formulated as an asymmetric question "truth or compassion?".
Luka understands that, imagining herself the heroine of tabloid novels, Nastya feels happier, and therefore supports the girl's dreams of love, sincerely offers her consolation: "Luke, smiling, strokes Nastya's head." Natasha, compassionate and dreaming of a different life like Nastya, accepts Luka's position and also supports the girl.
The opposite opinion is expressed by Bubnov and Baron. The cynic and skeptic Bubnov mercilessly exposes Nastya's groundless dreams, the Baron laughs at her hopes: "Nastka! Why, after all ... the last time was Gaston!"
These heroes illustrate the rejection of Luke's position, opposition to the idea of the life-givingness of a comforting lie.
9. In what works of Russian classics are "book" heroines depicted, and in what way can they be compared with Gorky's Nastya?
The image of the "book" heroine is reflected in many works domestic literature. For example, in the comedy "Woe from Wit" by A. S. Griboyedov, Sofya Famusova is fond of reading French novels and dreams of a big, beautiful love like Nastya. However, Sophia still lives in the real world and chooses the role of a romantic admirer real person, Molchalin, while Nastya is doomed to exist in poverty and humiliation, sincerely loving only in her dreams. Are you joining in 2019? Our team will help you save your time and nerves: we will select directions and universities (according to your preferences and recommendations of experts); we will issue applications (you will only have to sign); we will apply to Russian universities (online, email, by courier); we monitor competitive lists (we automate the tracking and analysis of your positions); we will tell you when and where to submit the original (we will evaluate the chances and determine the best option). Entrust the routine to professionals - more details.
Another heroine, Tatyana Larina from A. S. Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin", also reads a lot in her youth, lives in a fictional world of book images. Even Tatyana's behavior, the letter she wrote, are reminiscent of the classic plots of French novels. However, if Nastya still fails to get out of the social bottom, arrange own life, then the matured Tatyana becomes a luxurious representative of the high society of Moscow and lives, remaining faithful to true honor, and not to romantic dreams.
Useful material on the topic:
- In what works of Russian classics are “bookish” heroines depicted, and in what ways can they be compared with Gorky’s Nastya?
- In what works of Russian classics do the heroes turn to memories of the past, and in what way can these heroes be compared with the characters of the play “At the Bottom”?
- In what works of Russian classics is the matchmaking of the hero described, and in what ways can the corresponding episodes be compared with the above fragment of Gogol's play "The Marriage"?
- In what works of Russian classics is the conflict between the hero and society displayed, and in what way can these works be compared with Griboyedov's "Woe from Wit"?
- In what works of Russian classics is the conflict of generations depicted and in what ways can their disputes be compared with similar conflicts depicted in L.N. Tolstoy?
Part 1
Read the text fragment below and complete tasks B1-B7; C1, C2.
"Wasteland" - a courtyard place littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds. In the depths of it is a tall brick firewall. He closes the sky. around it are elderberry bushes. To the right is a dark, log wall of some kind of outbuilding: a shed or a stable. And to the left is a gray wall, covered with the remains of plaster, of the house in which the Kostylevs' rooming house is located. It stands obliquely, so that its rear corner goes out to the middle of the wasteland. Between it and the red wall is a narrow passage. There are two windows in the gray wall: one is level with the ground, the other is two arshins higher and closer to the firewall. By this wall there are sledges with runners up and a stump of a log, four yards long. To the right by the wall is a pile of old boards and beams. Evening, the sun sets, illuminating the firewall with a reddish light. Early spring, snow melted recently. Black branches of elder still without kidneys. Natasha and Nastya are sitting on a log next to each other. On the firewood - Luka and Baron. The tick lies on a pile of wood against the right wall. In the window near the ground - Bubnov's mug.
Nastya (closing his eyes and shaking his head to the beat of the words, he sings loudly). Here he comes at night to the garden, to the gazebo, as we agreed ... and I have been waiting for him for a long time and trembling with fear and grief. He, too, is trembling all over and - white as chalk, and in his hands is a left-wing gun ...
Natasha (nibbles seeds). Look! Apparently, the truth is said that students are desperate ...
Nastya. And he speaks from me in a terrible voice: "My precious love ..."
Bubnov. Ho-ho! Precious?
Baron. Wait a minute! If you don’t like it, don’t listen, but don’t interfere with lying ... Next!
Nastya. “Beloved, he says, my love! Parents, he says, do not give their consent for me to marry you ... and threaten to curse me forever for loving you. Well, I must, he says, I’ll take my own life from this ... ”And his left-hander is agro-sized and loaded with ten bullets ...“ Farewell, he says, dear friend of my heart! - I decided irrevocably ... to live without you - I just can’t. And I answered him: “My unforgettable friend… Raoul…”
Bubnov (surprised). What about? How? Kraul?
Baron (laughs). Nastya! Why ... after all, the last time - Gaston was!
Nastya (jumping up). Be silent... unfortunate! Ah… stray dogs! Can... can you understand... love? Unreal love? And I had it ... real! (To the Baron.) You! Insignificant!.. You are an educated person... you say you drank coffee lying down...
Luke. And you - wait! You don't interfere! Respect a person ... not in the word - the point, but - why is the word spoken? - that's the problem! Tell me, girl, nothing!
Bubnov. Color, crow, feathers ... go ahead!
Baron. Well - go on!
Natasha. Don't listen to them... what are they? They are out of envy… they have nothing to say about themselves…
Nastya (sits down again). I don't want more! I won't speak... If they don't believe... if they laugh... him: “The joy of my life! You are my clear month! And without you, it’s also completely impossible for me to live in the world ... because I love you madly and will love you while my heart beats in my chest! But, I say, do not deprive yourself of your young life ... how your dear parents need it, for whom you are all their joy ... Leave me! I'd rather disappear way ... from longing for you, my life ... I am alone ... I am such! Letting me ... I'm dying - it's all the same! I am no good ... and there is nothing for me ... there is nothing ... " (He covers his face with his hands and weeps silently.)
Natasha (turning away, softly). Don't cry... don't!
Luka, smiling, strokes Nastya's head.
M. Gorky, "At the Bottom"
When completing tasks B1-B2, the answer must be given in the form of a word, or a combination of words, or a sequence of numbers.
IN 1. Indicate the genre to which M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" belongs.
AT 2. Establish a correspondence between the three characters of the play "At the bottom" and their occupation. For each position in the first column, select the corresponding position from the second column.
CHARACTERS
A) Bubnov
B) Tick
B) Luca
OCCUPATION
1) working
2) wanderer
3) kartuznik
4) artist
AT 3. The beginning of the fragment is a detailed author's description, recreating the environment in which the action takes place. What is the name of such remarks or explanations of the author, characterizing what is happening on the stage or commenting on the actions of the characters?
AT 4. In the above fragment, the development of the action occurs due to the alternation of the replicas of the characters. Indicate the term that denotes this form of artistic speech.
AT 5. In this scene, Nastya's "dreams" and the environment in which her story sounds are contrasted. What is the name of the technique based on sharp opposition objects or events?
AT 6. What is the name of a significant detail, which is a means of expression copyright to the depicted (for example, the seeds that Natasha gnaws while listening to Nastya's story)?
AT 7. Replicas of characters, their reaction to what is happening convey internal state heroes, their spiritual movements. What is the name of the image of the inner life of a person in work of art?
To complete the task C1-C2, give a coherent answer to the question in the amount of 5-10 sentences.
C1. How does the different attitude of the overnight stayers to Nastya's story reflect the main conflict of the play?
C2. In what works of Russian classics are “bookish” heroines depicted, and in what way can they be compared with Gorky’s Nastya?
Part 2
Read the poem below and complete tasks B8-B12; C3-C4.
Clouds of heaven, eternal wanderers,
Steppe azure, pearl chain
You rush, as if like me, exiles,
From the sweet north to the south.
Who is driving you: is it fate's decision?
Is envy secret? is malice open?
Or is crime burdening you?
Or poisonous slander of friends?
No, you are bored with barren fields ...
Alien to you are passions and alien to suffering;
Forever cold, forever free
You have no homeland, you have no exile.
M. Yu. Lermontov, 1840
When completing tasks B8-B12, the answer must be given in the form of a word, or a combination of words, or a sequence of numbers.
AT 8. Calling the clouds "eternal wanderers", the poet endows the phenomenon of nature with human properties. Specify the name of the corresponding technique.
AT 9. The second stanza of the poem contains "unanswered" questions. What are their names?
AT 10 O'CLOCK. Specify the number of the stanza (ordinal number in nominative case), in which the poet uses an anaphora.
AT 11. Indicate a stylistic device based on a combination of the same consonant sounds in a line and reinforcing sound expressiveness verse ("From the sweet north towards the south").
AT 12. Indicate the three-syllable size in which M. Yu. Lermontov's poem "Clouds" is written (without indicating the number of feet).
To complete task C3-C4, give a coherent answer to the question in the amount of 5-10 sentences.
C3. What gives reason to attribute the poem "Clouds" to the genre of elegy?
C4. What are the works of Russian poets that reflect the connection between inner world man and nature, consonant with Lermontov's "Clouds"?
Part 3
To complete the tasks of part 3, select only ONE of the tasks below (С5.1, С5.2, С5.3). Give a complete answer to problematic issue(in a volume of at least 400 words), based on a specific literary material and the position of the author of the work, regardless of how it coincides with your own conclusions and observations expressed in the work.
C5.1. Why did the friendship of Onegin and Lensky end so tragically in the novel by A. S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"?
C5.2. What gives satirical works M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin modern sound?
C5.3. How is the past and present of Russia reflected in the lyrics of A. A. Blok?
The distinctive originality of the play is that most of the characters do not play a role in the development of the dramatic intrigue of Kostyleva - Natasha - Pepel.
If desired, one could simulate such a dramatic situation in which all the characters would become active participants in the main storyline.
The heroes of the play are united not so much by action as, at first, by their place of residence and way of life. All of them are overnight stays, although of different social origins.
Social differences are fundamentally important for the characters themselves and are the subject of their conversations, but for the author, the philosophical aspect is more important, and he skillfully minimizes social contradictions between his characters.
A person in the world of the play turns out to be superfluous, thrown out of the threshold of life. Bubnov to Nastya: "You are superfluous everywhere ... And all the people on earth are superfluous."
Characters can be divided into two groups: "wolves" and "sheep", causing the reader's sympathy and antipathy; "believers" and "unbelievers"; workers and freeloaders. But these differences are important to the author rather in order to individualize each character. They are just different variations of the same main theme- Topics of "truth": for some, truth is the repulsive reality of their lives, for others it is a dream of a better fate.
In the first act, the image of Luke "falls out" from the general ensemble of characters. There is no bitterness and aggressiveness in him alone. Luke treats people differently than the inhabitants of the rooming house, he talks to them differently. For Luke, the conviction that everyone is human, everyone is equal, is the starting point. For him, each individual is a source of a special quality unknown to the world.
Luka is not so much a hero as a "catalyst" of those internal spiritual processes that barely glimmered in the least hopeless inhabitants of the rooming house. With his appearance in the soul of each of these characters there is a spark of hope for the opportunity to escape "from the bottom".
None of the heroes manage to make their awakened dream come true. At the end of the play, the tragic tension intensifies. And again, each character contributes to building a common main motive. With the advent of Luka, Kleshch and Tatarin thaw. The tick repairs Alyoshka's accordion for nothing.
A glimpse of love for people was born in him, and with it, the joy of his own existence. beauty free life"at the bottom". Sobering up the message about the death of the Actor. It makes the overnight stays think again: can there be truth without a dream? Is a person capable of getting up from his knees if his dream is trampled by the people around him, trampled by the "evil" truth? Is it possible to fall in love with the heroes of this play, and if so, why? When we read or watch a play, many inhabitants of Kostylevskaya's quarters arouse our sympathy and even sympathy. They are pitiful, and it seems that without good pity they cannot survive. Although, apart from pity, you need your own willpower. The action of the play “At the Bottom” takes place in a gloomy, semi-dark basement, similar to a cave, with a vaulted, low ceiling that presses on people with its stone weight, where it is dark, there is no space and it is difficult to breathe. The situation in this basement is also wretched: instead of chairs, there are dirty stumps of wood, a rough-hewn table, and bunks along the walls. The gloomy life of the Kostylevo rooming house is depicted by Gorky as the embodiment of social evil. The heroes of the play live in poverty, filth and poverty. In a damp basement huddle people thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. And in this oppressive, gloomy and unpromising environment, thieves, cheaters, beggars, hungry, crippled, humiliated and insulted, thrown out of life gathered. The heroes are different in their habits, life behavior, past fate, but they are equally hungry, exhausted and useless: the former aristocrat Baron, the drunken Actor, the former intellectual Satin, the artisan locksmith Kleshch, the fallen woman Nastya, the thief Vaska. They have nothing, everything is taken away, lost, erased and trampled into the mud. The people gathered here different nature and social position. Each of them is endowed with its own individual features. Worker Mite, living in the hope of a return to honest work. Ashes, longing for the right life. The actor, absorbed in memories of his past glory, Nastya, passionately rushing to the present, Great love. All of them deserve a better fate. The more tragic their situation now. The people living in this basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be a person and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the heroes of the play, but the many features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. In a few words, the tragedy of Anna's life fate is drawn. “I don't remember when I was full,” she says. “She was shaking over every piece of bread. ... I was trembling all my life ... I was tormented ... as if I couldn’t eat more than another ... I walked all my life in rags ... my whole unhappy life ...” The worker Mite speaks of the hopelessness of his lot: “There is no work ... there is no strength. ... Here it is! No shelter, no shelter! Need to breathe. … That's the truth!” A motley gallery of characters are victims of the capitalist order even here, at the very bottom of life, completely exhausted and destitute, they serve as an object of exploitation, even here the owners, petty-bourgeois owners, did not stop at any crime and are trying to squeeze a few pennies out of them. All characters are sharply divided into two main groups: the bums-room-beds and the hosts of the room-house, the small proprietors, the burghers. The figure of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, one of the "masters of life", causes disgust. Hypocritical and cowardly, he seeks to cover up his predatory desires with unctuous religious speeches. Just as disgusting is his wife Vasilisa with her immorality. She has the same greed, cruelty as an owner-philistine, making her way to her well-being at any cost. It has its own inexorable wolf laws.
The petty-bourgeois hosts, who have lost everything human, are opposed to the bums-beds. The composition of the shelters is motley: they came to the “bottom” in different ways, each lived his own life, they are different in character, in convictions, and in the strength of their desire to escape from the basement. But whatever they are, they stand their ground moral qualities immeasurably higher than the hosts of the hostel.
Here there are "kings" and subject, exploiters and exploited, masters and workers. The laws of society pursue a person from birth to death, from royal palaces to a stinking rooming house. Only in the latter, everything is much more naked, and the relationship is wilder. And this is the accusation of the system and society! Life here for a normal person is worse than hard labor. It pushes people to crime, callousness, inhumanity. The fate of all these people and the very existence of the “bottom” proves the illegitimacy of the capitalist system and serves as an exposure and a formidable accusation of the bourgeois world.
During the action, swearing is heard from the stage, fights take place, the characters talk about their misfortunes and the misfortunes of other people - the most terrible aspects of life are shown in the play. But, despite this, the atmosphere of the play, the mood that it causes in the audience, and with which they leave the theater, are optimistic. The spectator and the person sees among these dregs of society disfigured people, but with a sense of their own dignity, capable of living a different life.
Gorky, with all his determination, reveals in the play the impotence of the tramps, their unsuitability for the cause of the reorganization of Russia. Everyone from the rooming house lives in hopes, but he cannot do anything, change his deplorable situation by virtue of tragic confluence circumstances.
“They are organically incapable of rebellion for the sake of freedom of labor,” Gorky later said about the heroes of the play. Moreover, the participation in the uprising of people like the inhabitants of a rooming house would be a discrediting of the very idea of socialist labor, and not an anarchist revelry of desperate and disillusioned people.
In the play “At the bottom”, with great force and unsurpassed artistic skill, those terrible conditions of life are shown that push it to the “bottom”, into the “pit”. And then the person ceases to be a person. Is it really the people who live in Kostylev's disgusting rooming house? They have lost everything human, they have lost even the appearance of a man, they have turned into miserable, useless creatures.
Of course, in many ways they themselves are to blame for what happened to them: they did not have the firmness or ability to fight fate, the desire to work, to overcome difficulties. But social conditions are also to blame. This is the era of the rapid enrichment of some and the impoverishment of others, the era when the remnants of centuries-old foundations collapsed. In every ruined fate, we see a fusion of social and personal problems.
From the very beginning of the play, much sounds like Gorky's argument with himself, with his former idealization of tramps. In Kostylev's rooming house, freedom turns out to be illusory: having sunk to the "bottom", people have not left life, it overtakes them. And the former Gorky desire - to consider in tramps, lumpen, people who are cut off from the normal human life, above all good - also recedes into the background. These people are cruel to each other, life has made them so. And this cruelty is manifested, first of all, in the persistence with which they destroy the illusions of other people, for example, Nastya, the dying Anna, Klesh with his hope to get out of the rooming house, start new life, Baron, whose entire property is memories of the past greatness of the family and to whom Nastya throws retorts in bitterness: “You're lying, it wasn't!”.
The inhabitants of the "bottom" are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society.
Man is left to himself. If he stumbles, gets out of the rut, he is threatened with the “bottom”, inevitable moral, and often physical death.
But these are people who knew another life. And therefore, Natasha is full of passionate dreams, Nastya thinks about bright feelings, the sick and degraded Actor believes in her dream. All they have left in life is faith. “We don't have a name! Even dogs have nicknames, but we don’t!” - the Actor exclaims bitterly. And in this exclamation there is an intolerable resentment of a man thrown overboard by life. Everything was taken from them, from these forgotten people, but could not take away faith in the best. Gorky himself possessed this quality in abundance, he endowed it with his heroes.
