Where is the climax in the play at the bottom. Literature lesson on the topic "M. Gorky

First of all, the position of the author is expressed by the ambiguous, non-linear development of the plot action. The plot is motivated by the dynamics of the standard "conflict polygon" - the relationship between Kostylev, Vasilisa, Ash and Natasha. The key events that make up the storyline of the play take place outside the stage (the fight between Vasilisa and Natasha, Vasilisa's revenge - the overturning of a boiling samovar on her sister, the murder of Kostylev). The author deliberately diverts all these events "out of focus", inviting the viewer to take a closer look and, first of all, listen to the content of the numerous conversations and disputes of the hostels.

Compositionally, the disunity of the plot characters, their alienation from each other (everyone thinks "about his own", worries about himself) - is expressed in the organization of the stage space. The characters are dispersed in different corners of the stage and "closed" in unconnected, hermetic microspaces. Gorky organizes communication between them with an eye on Chekhov's principles of composition. At the same time, the author needs to keep the viewer's attention on the semantic pillars of the text. In the play, leitmotifs (truth - faith, truth - lies) become such a support, organizing the movement of the speech flow.

There are also other devices that compensate for the relative weakness of the plot action and deepen the meaning of the drama. Thus, Gorky introduced "rhyming" (that is, repeating, mirroring) episodes into the play. The exact semantic rhyme in the play is made up of Luke's parable of the righteous land and the episode with the Actor's suicide. Both fragments coincide verbatim in the final lines: "And after that I went home - and strangled myself..." / "Hey...you! Come...come here!"<...Там... Актер... удавился!" Подобное композиционное связывание проявляет позицию автора по отношению к результатам "проповеднической" деятельности Луки. Впрочем, как уже говорилось, автор далек от того, чтобы возлагать всю вину за гибель Актера на Луку. С судьбой Актера связан и дважды повторяющийся эпизод, в котором ночлежники поют свою песню - "Солнце всходит и заходит". Актер "испортил" именно эту песню - в заключительном действии в ней так и не были спеты строчки "Мне и хочется на волю.../ Цепь порвать я не могу".

In the same way, two dialogues of Nastya and Baron are mirrored, symmetrically located relative to each other. At the very beginning of the play, Nastya defends herself against Baron's skeptical remarks: his attitude to Nastya's stories about "fatal love" and Gaston is formulated by the saying "If you don't like it, don't listen, but don't interfere with lying." After Luka's departure, Nastya and the Baron seem to change roles: all the Baron's stories about "wealth ... hundreds of serfs ... horses ... cooks ... carriages with coats of arms" are accompanied by the same remark by Nastya: "It was not!"

"Rhyming" episodes do not carry new information about the characters, but connect the disparate fragments of the action, giving it a semantic unity and integrity. Even more subtle methods of compositional "arrangement" serve the same purpose, such as, for example, a system of literary and theatrical allusions.

In one of the early episodes, the Actor mentions "a good play", referring to Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet", a quote from which ("Ophelia! Oh ... remember me in your prayers! ..") already in the first act predicts his own tragic fate. His last words before suicide, addressed to Tatarin, are: "Pray for me." In addition to "Hamlet" the Actor quotes "King Lear" several times ("Here, my faithful Kent..."). Lear is also credited with the phrase "I am on the way to rebirth", which is important for the Actor. The favorite poem of the Actor was a poem by Beranger, which in the context of the play acquired the meaning of a philosophical declaration: "Honor to the madman who will inspire / Humanity a golden dream." Along with quotations from Western classics, Pushkin's line unexpectedly slips into the Actor's speech: "Our nets dragged a dead man" (from the poem "The Drowned Man"). These words seem to remind of a disastrous fate, the inevitability of death. Thus, the actor's plot path is set already at the very beginning of the work by those artistic means that determine his profession - a "foreign" word, a stage quotation.

Sounding speech is an important means of semantic deepening of dramatic action. An example of this is the incredibly dense aphorism against the background of the literary tradition. Here are just a few examples from a real waterfall of aphorisms and sayings: "Such a life that you get up in the morning, and howl"; "Expect good sense from the wolf"; "When work is a duty, life is slavery!"; "Not a single flea is bad: all are black, all are jumping"; "Where it is warm for an old man, there is a homeland"; "Everyone wants order, but there is a lack of reason."

Aphoristic judgments acquire special significance in the dialogues of the main "ideologists" of the play - Luka and Bubnov, whose positions are outlined most clearly. The philosophical dispute, in which each of the heroes of the play takes his position, is supported by common folk wisdom, concentrated in proverbs and sayings. Although in this wisdom there is a certain cunning. In this regard, it is interesting that Satin's central monologue, which is very rich in "chased" formulations, is deliberately dotted with dots, talking about how difficult it is for the most important words in his life to be born in the mind of Satin.

The purpose of the lesson: to show Gorky's innovation; identify the elements of genre and conflict in a play.

Methodical techniques: lecture, analytical conversation.

Lesson equipment: a portrait and photographs of A.M. Gorky of different years, illustrations “At the Bottom”.

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During the classes.

1. Conversation on the content of the play "At the bottom".

Some of Nietzsche's philosophical and aesthetic works were reflected in Gorky's early romantic works. The central image of the early Gorky is a proud and strong personality, embodying the idea of ​​freedom. Therefore, Danko, who sacrifices himself for the sake of people, is on a par with the drunkard and thief Chelkash, who does not perform any feats for the sake of anyone. “Strength is virtue,” Nietzsche argued, and for Gorky, the beauty of a person lies in strength and even aimless feat: a strong person has the right to be “on the other side of good and evil”, to be outside ethical principles, like Chelkash, but a feat, from this point vision, is resistance to the general flow of life.

In 1902, Gorky created the drama "At the Bottom".

How is the scene depicted?

The place of action is described in the author's remarks. In the first act, it is a cave-like basement, heavy, stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster. It is important that the writer gives instructions on how the scene is illuminated: “from the viewer and from top to bottom”, the light reaches the bed-lodges from the basement window, as if looking for people among the basement inhabitants. Thin partitions fence off Ash's room. "Everywhere along the walls - bunks." Except for Kvashnya, Baron and Nastya, who live in the kitchen, no one has their own corner. Everything is for show in front of each other, a secluded place only on the stove and behind the cotton canopy that separates the bed of the dying Anna from the others (this way she is already, as it were, separated from life). There is dirt everywhere: a dirty cotton canopy, an unpainted and dirty table, benches, a stool, tattered cardboard, pieces of oilcloth, rags.

The third act takes place in the early spring in the evening on a wasteland, "littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds in the yard." Let's pay attention to the color of this place: the dark wall of the "barn or stable", the "gray, covered with the remains of plaster" wall of the rooming house, the red wall of the brick firewall that covers the sky, the reddish light of the setting sun, black elderberry branches without buds.

Significant changes take place in the setting of the fourth act: the partitions of Ash's former room are broken, and the Tick's anvil has disappeared. The action takes place at night, and the light from the outside world no longer breaks into the basement - the stage is lit by a lamp standing in the middle of the table. However, the last act of the drama takes place in a wasteland - the Actor strangled himself there.

What kind of people are the inhabitants of the rooming house?

People who have sunk to the bottom of life end up in a rooming house. This is the last refuge for tramps, outcasts, "former people." Here are all the social strata of society: the ruined nobleman Baron, the owner of the bunkhouse Kostylev, the policeman Medvedev, the locksmith Kleshch, the card maker Bubnov, the merchant Kvashnya, the card sharper Satin, the prostitute Nastya, the thief Pepel. Everyone is equalized by the position of the dregs of society. Very young people live here (the shoemaker Alyoshka is 20 years old) and still not old people (the oldest, Bubnov, is 45 years old). However, their lives are almost over. Dying Anna appears to us as an old woman, and she is 30 years old.

Many shelters do not have names, only nicknames remain, expressively describing their carriers. The appearance of the dumplings merchant Kvashnya, the character of the Mite, the ambition of the Baron are clear. The actor once bore the sonorous surname Sverchkov-Zadunaisky, and now even the memories are almost gone - "I forgot everything."

What is the subject matter of the play? What is the drama's conflict?

Reference: A sharp conflict situation, playing out in front of the audience, is the most important feature of drama as a kind of literature.

The subject of the image in the drama is the consciousness of people thrown out as a result of deep social processes to the bottom of life. Social conflict has several levels in the play. The social poles are clearly marked: on the one side, the owner of the bunkhouse, Kostylev, and the policeman Medvedev, who supports his power, on the other, the bunkhouses, which are essentially powerless. Thus, the conflict between the authorities and the disenfranchised people is obvious. This conflict hardly develops, because the Kostylevs and Medvedev are not so far from the inhabitants of the rooming house.

Each of the overnight stays experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves in a humiliating position.

What brought its inhabitants to the rooming house - Satin, Baron, Klesch, Bubnov, Actor, Nastya, Pepel? What is the backstory of these characters?

Satine hit rock bottom after serving time in prison for murder; The baron went bankrupt; Tick ​​lost his job; Bubnov left the house "out of harm's way" so as not to kill his wife and her lover, although he himself admits that he is lazy, and even a drunkard; The actor was drunk; Ash's fate was predetermined already at his birth: "I - from childhood - a thief ... everyone always told me: thief Vaska, thieves son Vaska!". The Baron tells in more detail about the stages of his fall (4 act). Each stage of the life of the 33rd Baron seems to be marked by a certain costume. These dressings symbolize a gradual decline in social status, and there is nothing behind these dressings, life passed like a dream.

What is the peculiarity of the social conflict of each inhabitant of the rooming house?

How is the social conflict related to the dramatic one?

These social conflicts are taken out of the scene, relegated to the past, they do not become the basis of the dramatic conflict.

What kind of conflicts, besides the social one, are highlighted in the play?

There is a traditional love conflict in the play. It is caused by relationships

Vaska Pepla, Vasilisa, wife of the owner of the hostel, Kostyleva and Natasha, Vasilisa's sister. The exposition of this conflict is the conversation of the roomers, from which it is clear that Kostylev is looking for his wife Vasilisa in the rooming house, who is cheating on him with Ash. The plot of this conflict is the appearance of Natasha in the rooming house, for the sake of which Pepel leaves Vasilisa. As the love conflict develops, it becomes clear that the relationship with Natasha revives Ash, he wants to leave with her and start a new life. The culmination of the conflict is taken offstage: at the end of the third act, we learn from the words of Kvashnya that “they boiled the girl’s legs with boiling water” - Vasilisa knocked over the samovar and scalded Natasha’s legs. The murder of Kostylev by Ash turns out to be the tragic outcome of a love conflict. Natasha ceases to believe Ash: “They are at the same time! Damn you! You both…"

What is the nature of love conflict?

Love conflict becomes a facet of social conflict. He shows that inhuman conditions cripple a person, and even love does not save a person, but leads to tragedy: to death, injury, murder, hard labor. As a result, Vasilisa alone achieves all her goals: she takes revenge on her former lover Pepl and her sister, rival Natasha, gets rid of her unloved and disgusted husband and becomes the sole owner of the rooming house. There is nothing human left in Vasilisa, and this shows the enormity of the social conditions that have disfigured both the inhabitants of the rooming house and its owners. The shelters do not directly participate in this conflict, they are only bystanders.

1. Teacher's word.

The conflict in which all the characters are involved is of a different kind. Gorky depicts the consciousness of the people of the bottom. The plot unfolds not so much in external action - in everyday life, but in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the roommates that determine the development of the dramatic conflict. The action is transferred to the non-event series. This is typical for the genre of philosophical drama.

Outcome. The genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama.

D.Z.

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

The subject of the image in Gorky's drama "At the Bottom" is the consciousness of people thrown out as a result of deep social processes taking place in Russian society at the turn of the century, to the bottom of life. In order to embody such an object of representation by stage means, he needs to find an appropriate situation, an appropriate conflict, as a result of which the contradictions of the consciousness of the shelters, its strengths and weaknesses would appear. Is social, public conflict suitable for this?

Indeed, social conflict is presented in the play on several levels. Firstly, this is a conflict between the owners of the rooming house, the Kostylevs, and its inhabitants. It is felt by the characters throughout the play, but it turns out to be static, devoid of dynamics, not developing. This happens because the Kostylevs themselves have not gone that far from the inhabitants of the rooming house in social terms, and relations between them can only create tension, but not become the basis of a dramatic conflict that can “start” a drama.

In addition, each of the characters in the past experienced their own social conflict, as a result of which they ended up at the “bottom” of life, in a rooming house.

But these social conflicts are fundamentally taken out of the scene, relegated to the past, and therefore do not become the basis of a dramatic conflict. We see only the result of the social turmoil that so tragically affected people's lives, but not the clashes themselves.

The presence of social tension is already indicated in the title of the play. After all, the very fact of the existence of the “bottom” of life implies the presence of a “rapid stream”, its upper current, to which the characters strive to approach. But even this cannot become the basis of a dramatic conflict - after all, this tension is also devoid of dynamics, all attempts by the characters to escape from the “bottom” turn out to be futile. Even the appearance of the policeman Medvedev does not give impetus to the development of a dramatic conflict.

Perhaps the drama is organized by a traditional love conflict? Indeed, he is present in the play. It is determined by the relationship between Vaska Ash, Kostylev's wife Vasilisa, the owner of the rooming house, and Natasha.

It will be the appearance of Kostylev in the rooming house and the conversation of the roomers, from which it is clear that Kostylev is looking for his wife Vasilisa in the rooming house, who is cheating on him with Vaska Pepel. The plot is a change in the initial situation, entailing the emergence of a conflict. The plot is the appearance of Natasha in the rooming house, for the sake of which Pepel leaves Vasilisa. In the course of the development of the love conflict, it becomes clear that the relationship with Natasha enriches Ash, revives him to a new life.

The culmination, the highest point in the development of the conflict, is fundamentally moved offstage: we do not see exactly how Vasilisa scalds Natasha with boiling water, we only learn about it from the noise and screams offstage and the conversations of the roommates. The murder of Kostylev by Vaska Ash turns out to be a tragic outcome of a love conflict.

Of course, love conflict also becomes a facet of social conflict. He shows that the anti-human conditions of the “bottom” cripple a person and the most exalted feelings, even such as love, lead not to the enrichment of the individual, but to death, mutilation, murder and hard labor. Having thus unleashed a love conflict, Vasilisa emerges from it as a winner, achieves all her goals at once: she takes revenge on her former lover Vaska Peplu and her rival Natasha, gets rid of her unloved husband and becomes the sole owner of the rooming house. There is nothing human left in Vasilisa, and her moral impoverishment shows the enormity of the social conditions in which both the inhabitants of the rooming house and its owners are immersed.

But a love conflict cannot organize a stage action and become the basis of a dramatic conflict, if only because, unfolding before the eyes of the rooming-houses, it does not include them themselves. They are keenly interested in the ups and downs of these relationships, but do not participate in them, remaining only outside spectators. Consequently, a love conflict also does not create the situation that can form the basis of a dramatic conflict.

Let us repeat once again: the subject of depiction in Morky's play is not only and not so much the social contradictions of reality or possible ways of resolving them; he is interested in the consciousness of the overnight stays in all its inconsistency. Such an object of the image is typical for the genre of philosophical drama. Moreover, it also requires non-traditional forms of artistic expression: the traditional external action (event series) gives way to the so-called internal action. Ordinary life is reproduced on the stage, with its petty quarrels between the roommates, one of the characters appears and disappears again, but these circumstances are not the plot-forming ones. Philosophical issues force the playwright to transform the traditional forms of drama: the plot is manifested not only in the actions of the characters, but in their dialogues. It is the conversations of the roommates that determine the development of the dramaturgical conflict: the action is translated by Gorky into an off-event sequence.

In the exposition, we see people who, in essence, have come to terms with their tragic situation at the “bottom” of life. Everyone, with the exception of Tick, does not think about the possibility of getting out of here, but is only occupied with thoughts about today or, like the Baron, turned to nostalgic memories of the past.

The beginning of the conflict is the appearance of Luke. Outwardly, it does not affect the life of overnight shelters in any way, but in their minds hard work begins. Luka is immediately at the center of their attention, and the entire development of the plot is concentrated on him. In each of the heroes, he sees the bright sides of his personality, finds the key and approach to each of them - and this produces a true revolution in the lives of the heroes. The development of inner action begins at the moment when the characters discover in themselves the ability to dream of a new and better life. It turns out that those bright sides that Luka guessed in each character of Gorky constitute his true essence. It turns out that the prostitute Nastya dreams of beautiful and bright love; An actor, a drunk man, a degenerate alcoholic, recalls his work and seriously thinks about returning to the stage; The “hereditary” thief Vaska Pepel discovers in himself a desire for an honest life, he wants to leave for Siberia and become a strong master there. Dreams reveal the true human essence of Gorky's heroes, their depth and purity. This is how another facet of social conflict manifests itself: the depth of the characters' personalities, their noble aspirations are in blatant contradiction with their current social position. The structure of society is such that a person does not have the opportunity to realize his true essence.

Luka, from the first moment of his appearance in the rooming house, refuses to see swindlers in the rooming houses. “I respect crooks too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps ...” - this is how he says, justifying his right to call his new neighbors “honest people” and rejecting Bubnov’s objection: “ It was honest, but the spring before last.” The origins of this position are in the naive anthropologism of Luke, who believes that a person is initially good and only social circumstances make him bad and imperfect.

Luke's position in the drama is very complex, and the author's attitude towards him looks ambiguous. Luke is absolutely disinterested in his preaching and in his desire to awaken in people the best, hidden for the time being sides of their nature, which they did not even suspect: they contrast so strikingly with their position at the very “bottom” of society. Luke sincerely wishes good to his interlocutors, shows real ways to achieve another, better life. And under the influence of his words, the heroes really experience a metamorphosis. The actor stops drinking and saves up money in order to go to a free hospital for alcoholics, not even suspecting that he does not need it: the dream of returning to creativity gives him the strength to overcome his illness, and he stops drinking. Ash subordinates his whole life to the desire to leave with Natasha for Siberia and there to get on his feet, to become a strong master. The dreams of Nastya and Anna, Klesh's wife, are quite illusory, but these dreams also give them the opportunity to feel happier. Nastya imagines herself the heroine of tabloid novels, demonstrating in her dreams about the non-existent Raul or Gaston the feats of self-sacrifice that she is really capable of; the dying Anna, dreaming of the afterlife, even partly escapes from a sense of hopelessness. Only Bubnov and Baron, people who are completely indifferent to others and even to themselves, remain deaf to Luke's words. Luka's position is exposed by a dispute about what truth is, which arose between him and Bubnov and Baron, when he ruthlessly exposes Nastya's groundless dreams of Raul: "Here ... you say - the truth ... She, the truth, is not always for a person’s illness ... you can’t always cure the soul with the truth ... ". In other words, Luke affirms that a comforting lie is life-giving for a person. But is Luke only asserting a lie?

Our literary criticism has long been dominated by the concept that Gorky unequivocally rejects Luke's consolatory sermon. But the writer's position is more difficult.

The author's position is expressed primarily in the development of the plot. After Luke's departure, everything happens in a completely different way, as the heroes expected and what Luke convinced them of. Vaska Pepel will indeed go to Siberia, but not as a free settler, but as a convict accused of killing Kostylev. An actor who has lost faith in his own strength will exactly repeat the fate of the hero of the parable of the righteous land told by Luke. Trusting the hero to tell this plot, Gorky himself will beat him in the fourth act, drawing directly opposite conclusions. Luke, telling a parable about a man who, having lost faith in the existence of a righteous land, strangled himself, believes that a person should not be deprived of hope, albeit an illusory one. Gorky, showing the fate of the Actor, assures the reader and the viewer that it is precisely false hope that can lead a person to a noose. But let us return to the previous question: in what way did Luke deceive the heroes of the play?

The actor accuses him of not leaving the address of the free clinic. All the heroes agree that Luke instilled false hope in their souls. Ho, after all, he did not promise to bring them out of the "bottom" of life - he simply gave them hope that there is a way out and that it was not ordered for them. That self-confidence that woke up in the minds of the roommates turned out to be too fragile and lifeless, and with the disappearance of the hero who was able to wake her up, it immediately died out. The point is the weakness of the heroes, their inability and unwillingness to do at least a little in order to resist the ruthless social circumstances that doom them to the Kostylevs' rooming house. Therefore, he addresses the main accusation not to Luke, but to the heroes who are not able to find the strength in themselves to oppose their will to reality. Thus, Gorky manages to reveal one of the characteristic features of the Russian national character: dissatisfaction with reality, a sharply critical attitude towards it and a complete unwillingness to do anything to change this reality. That is why Luka finds such a warm response from the roomers: after all, he explains the failures of their lives by external circumstances and is not at all inclined to blame the heroes themselves for the failed life. And the thought of trying to somehow change these circumstances does not occur to either Luka or his flock. Therefore, the heroes experience the loss of Luke so dramatically: the hope awakened in their souls cannot find inner support in their characters; they will always need external support, even from a person as helpless in a practical sense as Luka, who is “unpatched”.

Luka is the ideologist of passive consciousness, which is so unacceptable to Gorky.

According to the writer, a passive ideology can only reconcile the hero with his current situation and will not induce him to try to change this situation, as happened with Nastya, Anna, the Actor, who, after the disappearance of Luka, lost all hope and gained inner strength for its realization - and laid the blame for this not on himself, but on Luke. But who could object to this hero, who could oppose at least something to his passive ideology? There was no such hero in the rooming house. The bottom line is that the “bottom” cannot develop a different ideological position, which is why the ideas of Luke are so close to its inhabitants. Ho, his sermon gave impetus to a certain antithesis, to the emergence of a new position in life. Satin became its spokesman.

He is well aware that his state of mind is a reaction to the words of Luke:

“Yes, it was he, the old yeast, who fermented our roommates ... Old man? He is clever!.. The old man is not a charlatan! What is truth? Man is the truth! He understood this... you - no!.. He... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin...”.

And his famous monologue about a person, in which he affirms the need for respect, but not pity, and considers pity as a humiliation, affirms a different position in life. However, this is only the beginning, only the very first step towards the formation of an active consciousness capable of changing social circumstances, of resisting them, and not a simple desire to isolate themselves from them and try to get around them, as Luke insisted.

The tragic finale of the drama (the actor's suicide) also raises the question of the genre nature of the play "At the Bottom".

Do we have reason to consider "At the Bottom" as a tragedy? Indeed, in this case, we will have to define the Actor as a hero-ideologist and consider his conflict with society as ideological, because the hero-ideologist affirms his ideology by death. Tragic death is the last and often the only opportunity not to bow before the opposing force and to approve ideas.

It seems not. His death is an act of despair and disbelief in one's own strength and rebirth. Among the heroes of the “bottom” there are no obvious ideologists who oppose reality. Moreover, their own situation is not comprehended by them as tragic and hopeless. They have not yet reached that level of consciousness when a tragic worldview of life is possible, because it involves a conscious opposition to social or other circumstances.

Gorky obviously does not find such a hero in Kostylev's rooming house, at the "bottom" of his life. Therefore, it would be more logical to consider “At the Bottom” as a socio-philosophical and social drama.

Reflecting on the genre nature of the play, one must turn to its conflict, show what collisions are at the center of the playwright's attention, which becomes the main subject of the image. In our case, the subject of Gorky's research is the social conditions of Russian reality at the turn of the century and their reflection in the minds of the characters. At the same time, the main, main subject of the image is precisely the consciousness of the overnight stays and the aspects of the Russian national character that manifested themselves in it.

Gorky is trying to determine what are the social circumstances that influenced the characters of the characters. To do this, he shows the background of the characters, which becomes clear to the viewer from the dialogues of the characters. Ho, it is more important for him to show those social circumstances, the circumstances of the “bottom”, in which the heroes now find themselves. It is this position of theirs that equates the former aristocrat Baron with the cheater Bubnov and the thief Vaska Pepel and forms common features of consciousness for all: rejection of reality and at the same time a passive attitude towards it.

Inside Russian realism since the 40s. XIX century, with the emergence of the “natural school” and the Gogol trend in literature, a direction is revealed that characterizes the pathos of social criticism in relation to reality. It is this direction, which is represented, for example, by the names of Gogol, Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev, that was called critical realism. Gorky in the drama "At the Bottom" continues these traditions, which is manifested in his critical attitude to the social aspects of life and, in many respects, to the heroes who are immersed in this life and shaped by it.

Artistic features. The driving force of action in Gorky's drama is the struggle of ideas, and, accordingly, the whole range of artistic techniques used by the author emphasizes this. Both the plot of the play and its composition also contribute to the main line of the drama. The play does not have a bright moving storyline. The heroes of the play are disunited, concentrated in different corners of the stage.

The play "At the Bottom" is a cycle of small dramas in which traditional climaxes take place behind the scenes (Kostylev's death, Vasilisa's mockery of Natasha, the Actor's suicide). The author deliberately takes these events out of the viewer's field of vision, thereby emphasizing that the main thing in the play is conversations. Gorky's drama begins with the appearance of Kostylev, the owner of the rooming house. From the conversation of the roomers, it turns out that he is looking for his wife Vasilisa, who is infatuated with Ash. With the advent of Luke, the action begins (the end of the first act). In the fourth act, the denouement comes. Sateen's monologue: “What is truth? The man is the truth! is the highest point of action, the climax of the drama.

Researchers of Gorky's work noted another feature: the playwright uses the so-called "rhyming" episodes. Two dialogues between Nastya and Baron are mirrored. At the beginning of the play, the girl defends herself from the baron's ridicule. After the departure of Luka, the characters seem to change roles: all the stories of the Baron about his former rich life are accompanied by the same remark by Nastya: “It wasn’t!”. The exact semantic rhyme in the play is made up of Luke's parable of the righteous land and the episode about the Actor's suicide. Both fragments coincide verbatim in the final lines: “And then he went home - and hung himself ...” and “Hey ... you! Go...come here! ... There the Actor strangled himself! Such fragments, according to the author, are designed to connect parts of the composition.

The heroes of the play "At the Bottom" are not traditionally divided into main and secondary. Each character has his own story, his own destiny, carries his own semantic load in the work. In the play they are sharply contrasted. The author refers to the antithesis repeatedly. In contrast to the terrible conditions of life, poverty and hopelessness, the hymn to Man sounds loudly.

Gorky always attached great importance to language. And in the play, it is the dialogues that give the action an atmosphere of tension and conflict. The author puts bright, capacious words into the hero's mouth to express the main idea - about the purpose of Man: “There is only man, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! It's great! It sounds proud! The speech of each character reflected the fate, social origin, level of culture. For example, Luke’s speech is unusually aphoristic: “Where it is warm, there is the homeland”, “There is no order in life, there is no purity”, “... not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps.”

Thus, the artistic originality of Gorky's play "At the Bottom" is:

- posing acute philosophical problems;

- rejection of a bright moving storyline;

- "rhyming" episodes;

We have prepared for you a series of lessons under the general name "Navigator". They will help you better understand the works of Russian literature and navigate the materials dedicated to this work and posted in the public domain on the Internet.

I propose to talk about Gorky's drama "At the Bottom".

Maxim Gorky's play "At the Bottom" (read the text) was written at the very beginning of the 20th century. This is a time of acute social contradictions, disputes, searches for new ways of development of society. Phenomena and objects far from us will become clearer if you look into, and in the section you will find information about the era reflected in the work.

At the center of the play is a dispute about a human whether it is great or insignificant, as well as controversy about truth and lies: whether a person is able to bear the truth. At the same time, many questions are raised: about the meaning of life in the face of death, about calling, the burden of work, about a dream.

The drama "At the Bottom" caused mixed reviews from critics, and until now Gorky's work remains the subject of study. Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer to the questions. You can try to think about them yourself if you look at the section.

Plot in the work is somewhat weakened, but this does not mean that it is absent. Very dramatic events take place in the play, but the driving force is not external action, but the attempts of the characters to find the truth.

The composition of the play is built around two conflicts. On a surface - love conflict. Its plot is the appearance of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, who is jealous of his wife Vasilisa for Vaska Pepl. The climax remains behind the scenes: we learn that Vasilisa, out of jealousy, poured boiling water over her sister Natasha, who liked Pepl. The denouement - Vaska Pepel kills Kostylev. However, it is not this love quadrangle that drives the play.

Much more important is the second, deeper conflict - socio-philosophical. In general, its development can be represented as follows: in a rooming house (an extremely cheap hotel for the poor), the characters argue about the truth and the meaning of life. Suddenly, a man comes to the rooming house - his appearance is the beginning of a philosophical conflict. With his words, the wanderer inspires all the inhabitants with hope for the best. Fierce disputes about truth and man begin, which eventually become the climax. And the denouement is the suicide of a hero nicknamed the Actor: he could not live without saving consolation. Who is involved in this conflict? Let's get a look.

The wanderer who consoles the inhabitants of the rooming house is called Luke. In his name, you can see a hint of craftiness, as well as a reference to the evangelist Luke. For Gorky, who was an enemy of Christianity, this name is a manifestation of a skeptical attitude towards the character.

Among the inhabitants of the rooming house stands out an independent satin- he is used to telling people the truth, despises his miserable life, but is not ready to do work that he does not like. He values ​​his freedom and sees a scale and a great destiny in a person. It is he who owns the famous phrase: "Man ... it sounds proud!".

Bubnov- a cruel cynic who does not believe in anything good in a person. From the point of view of Bubnov, at the bottom of life, the true human essence is exposed: the layering of civilization is erased and only animal manifestations remain. In this case, according to Bubnov, there is only one possibility - to remain in passivity and sink, because all the same, "all people on earth are superfluous."

However, there are many other significant characters in the play, each with their own backstory and their own fate in the rooming house. You can remember the heroes with the help of.

Before us socio-philosophical drama - a play with a modern everyday theme and an emphasis on universal problems. The play "At the bottom" depicts the life of people at the very bottom of the social ladder. But it is precisely these degraded people that the author entrusts reflections on the destiny of man.

The problematics of the play is supported by artistic techniques, among which the so-called "dialogue of the deaf": the characters speak from different angles, and the lines are often unrelated. This emphasizes the disunity of the characters, the loneliness of a person in front of global issues.

We also note the mirror image of the episodes in each other. For example, the parable of Luke about the righteous land and the episode with the suicide of the Actor. Both fragments coincide verbatim in the final lines: “And after that he went home and hung himself…” — “Hey… you! Go... come here!... There. The actor... strangled himself!” This enhances the bitterly ironic, skeptical intonation of the play.