For more than 100 years, performances based on M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" have not left the national stage. She went around the largest theaters in the world. And the interest is not weakening! What explains the phenomenal success of the play, why even today, 100 years after its creation, it continues to excite the minds of mankind? Apparently, because it is directed to the most essential questions of life for a person. In the center of it are not so much human destinies as a clash of ideas, a dispute about a person, about the meaning of life. The core of this dispute is the problem of truth and lies, the perception of life as it really is, with all the hopelessness and truth for the characters - people of the "bottom", or life with illusions, in whatever diverse and bizarre forms they may appear. This controversy begins long before Luke's appearance and continues after his departure.

The plot of the play "At the Bottom" is the appearance of Luka. Depicting the egregious conditions of Kostylev's rooming house, where hunger, filth, illness, drunkenness, and anger have become commonplace, Gorky shows that hope awakens in the inhabitants of the bottom, there is a desire to change life for the better. Already at the very beginning of the play, Kvashnya consoles herself with hopes that she is a free woman, and Nastya - with dreams of a great feeling, borrowing it from the book Fatal Love. The tick retains the dream of breaking out of the basement and achieving well-being through honest work. But those who have no illusions are trying to destroy the pink dreams of anyone who dares to hope for something else. And in the midst of these hardened people, the wanderer Luke appears. His mere appearance brings something soothing and pacifying to the tense atmosphere of the life of the overnight stays: “Good health, honest people! .. Where, dear, can I adapt? For an old man - where it is warm, there is a homeland ... "He easily and quickly finds mutual language with each of the roomers, does not take offense at Ash's remark to stop humming the song. Turning to the Baron, he says: “I saw the count, and I saw the prince ... but I meet the baron for the first time, and even that is spoiled ...” Heavy life experience Luke's homeless quest determined the main features of his psychology. Among them is a keen interest in people. “I want to understand human affairs,” Luke defines his main desire. He will curse words of sympathy for everyone and for everyone: “Ehe-he! I’ll look at you, brothers - your life is - “Oh-oh!”, “... I respect crooks, gyu-my, not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps ... so-and-so ”, “... is it possible to leave a person like that? He - whatever he is - is always worth his price ... "Carefully looking at others, Luka sees how hard it is for Anna, and finds words of comfort for her, supports her, helps her to get out of the kitchen:" Well, they crawled ... Oh you! And is it possible to walk alone in such a weak composition? At the same time, Luka is able to fight back Vasilisa. When she severely interrogates him, demands a passport, calls him a rogue, he calmly objects to her: “Passing ... wandering ...” Luka is in no hurry to characterize her, but tactfully remarks: “Oh, and you are unkind, mother ... Serious butterfly". Just as worthily, he keeps himself in the presence of policeman Medvedev. To his words that he should know everyone in the section, but he doesn’t know him, Luka replies: “This is because, uncle, that not all of the land fit in your plot ... there is little left and besides it ... "

Luke evokes a different attitude from the overnight stays. For the Baron, he is “a kikimora and a rogue”, for the sick Anna he is a sensitive and sympathetic person: “I look at you ... you look like my father ... like a father ... just as affectionate ... soft ... " To which Luka reasonably replies: “They crumpled a lot, that’s why he is soft ...” In these words, Luka’s whole life immediately appears: he had to see a lot, go through difficult minutes before he began to feel sorry for people and understand them.

The second act of the play ends with the scene of the beating of Natasha by Vasilisa. Hearing screams coming from the kitchen, Luka asks what is going on there: - “Who is fighting there? .. What are they sharing?”

Luke's personality with its complexity and contradictions is displayed in his speech characteristics, his speech portrait. Coming from a folk environment, he mainly uses colloquial vocabulary: “ali”, “say”, “seem”, “you”. There are words in his speech used in peasant vocabulary: “do not hesitate”, “get angry”, “prevent”, “okrom”, “calm”, etc. There are many words in his speech with diminutive suffixes: “little”, “ bread”, “bread”, which reflects his attitude towards others. The special brilliance of Luke's speech is striking. He uses many aphorisms: “No matter how you pretend, no matter how you wobble, but you were born a man, you will die a man ...”, “they live - everything is worse, but they want everything better ...”, etc.

From the end of the first to the denouement of the third act, Luke is on stage. He looks ubiquitous: he manages to talk to almost everyone, appears where it comes to important life problems, tirelessly “comforts” the suffering. And although the usual life goes on in the rooming house: they get drunk, play cards, swear, Tick creaks with a file, Anna coughs and groans, the outer plane of existence is more and more permeated with the growing emotional excitement of those whom Luke inspires on a new path.

Gorky himself considered Luka a "negative type". He wrote. “The main question I wanted to ask is, which is better, truth or compassion? What is more needed? Is it necessary to bring compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? The questions posed by Gorky worried many generations of actors representing Luka on stage. One of the best performers of this role, artist I. Moskvin, in the Moscow Art Theater in 1902 created the image of such Luka, which allowed theater critics to recognize him as "the spokesman for the highest truth." The modern viewer will find some new interpretations of the famous Gorky hero and will be able to determine from the perspective of a person of the 21st century how correctly this image is embodied on stage, Luke's story about the "righteous land"

The original title of M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" is "The Nochlezhka". It is neutral in nature and indicates that the subject of the writer's artistic research is the life of people deprived of a home, "tramps". The second name "Without the Sun" indicates not only the weak light in the basement, but also the internal state of the inhabitants of the rooming house.

The sun in religious consciousness is a symbol of Christ and love for one's neighbor. The shelters are deprived of faith in themselves and in life, the relationship between them is deprived of warmth, love, mutual understanding. Before Luka appears in the basement, the stage is an exposition of a play from which we learn about the life of the overnight stays. The lengthy remark prefixed to the first act is meaningful. The description of the cave-like basement is reminiscent of hell. Before us are heavy stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster. The light coming from top to bottom emphasizes that people are at the very bottom of life and their souls. From the remark, you can make an initial idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe characters. Only three rooming-houses are occupied with business. Tick ​​sits in front of an anvil, trying on keys to old locks. The souls of the inhabitants of the rooming house are locked. The path from the bottom of life seems to be blocked by an insurmountable barrier. Where is the key to the souls of heroes? Where is the key to the door that will lead them from the bottom of life to the top? Bubnov is trying on old ripped trousers on a blank for hats, figuring out how to cut them. How to make a new life out of an old one? Exit from the bottom of life is the main motive of the play. The business-like Kvashnya hosts the table, proud of her independence. “The baron chews black bread” - this phrase contains an oxymoron. "Baron" is a noble title. "Black bread" is the food of the common people. Here the life metamorphosis that happened to this character is emphasized. Nastya reads a disheveled book. This remark conveys the attitude of the girl to reality. Life is disgusting, miserable, terrible, and the heroine sees the way out of it in a fictional world. The two heroes cough. Both characters will die at the end of the play: Anna of natural causes, and the Actor will commit suicide. Satin growls. This growl is a protest against a hopeless life. Remarque “The beginning of spring. Morning "contains a deep subtext, brings hope for the beginning of a new, a better life for spiritual resurrection.

The play begins with the baron's remark: "Next!" This remark emphasizes the ordinariness, monotony, and invariability of the course of the life that the overnight stays lead. The picture of hell is complemented by the image of sinners and their relationship with each other. These relationships are expressed metaphorically in Bubnov's remark: "But the threads are rotten!" The threads of love do not bind the inhabitants of the rooming house, they are divided. People seem to feel pleasure from the fact that they torment and annoy each other. Kvashnya is proud that she is free, that she is her own mistress and will never marry policeman Medvedev. Tick ​​with pleasure and malevolent triumph objects to her: "You're lying!" The Baron snatches the book from Nastya and teases her. Curses are heard. Kvashnya calls Tick a "red goat". He, in turn, calls the tradeswoman an "old dog" when she reproaches him for "hitting his wife half to death." The Baron calls Nastya a durra and hits her on the head with a book. Sick Anna's remark: "The day has begun!" - emphasizes that this scene is a common occurrence for a rooming house. Bubnov does not at all sympathize with the dying Anna, indifferently declaring that "noise is not a hindrance to death." Sateen's remark that you can't kill twice" emphasizes that the heroes are spiritually dead, they have nothing to lose. They have nothing in the present, the only thing they have left is the past, which they love to talk about so much. The actor recalls how he played the grave digger in the drama "Hamlet", is proud that his "organism is poisoned by alcohol." Satin recalls how he served as a boy on the telegraph office and read many books. From the depressing reality, he escapes with incomprehensible words: “organon”, “sicambre”, “macrobiotics”, although the author puts a deep subtext into these words. "Organon" in translation means "organ of vision, intelligence." Satin is talking about the fact that the mind is poisoned, the rationality of the dispensation of life is violated. Satin calls the actor "sicambre". The Sicambri are an ancient Greek historical tribe. An actor is a savage because he cannot rationally arrange his life. "Macrobiotics" is the title of the book by the German physician Hufeland "The Art of Prolonging Human Life".

Bubnov likes to remember how he was a furrier and had his own establishment. He has now washed his hands of yellow paint as proof of his profession and draws a deeply philosophical conclusion about a person: “... outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased.” The main thing in a person is not his place and position in society - external coloring, but internal content. But the souls of the heroes are scooped out to the bottom, "erased".

With the appearance of the owner of the rooming house, Kostylev, the social motive of the play is intensified. The remark conveys Kostylev's hypocrisy: "Singing something divine under his breath, he suspiciously examines the rooming house." His religious "verbiage" is restrictive, covering up his sins: jealousy of his wife, greed. He is going to “throw half a ruble” to Kleshch in order to buy “butter” in a lamp. Kostylev praises the actor for taking care of Anna, but does not want to "cut off" half of the debt to him, hypocritically asserting that the Actor's kindness will be credited to him in the next world. And he does not hesitate to sell stolen watches received from the thief Vaska Pepel.

The scene ends with an argument about conscience. Kleshch is proud of the fact that he has been working from an early age, and condemns his co-beds for the fact that they "live without honor, without conscience." Pepel declares that "honor - those who need conscience" who have power and strength. Bubnov completely agrees with him: “What is the conscience? I am not rich…” After this argument, Luka appears. From this moment, the plot of the action begins.

The scene of the appearance of the wanderer Luka in the rooming house (analysis of the 1st act of M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom")

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" is deeply philosophical and extraordinarily interesting. A gallery of living images passes before the reader's eyes throughout the entire work. Each character in the play has its own position, its own idea of ​​the world. Particularly interesting is the fact that the action takes place in a rooming house, at the very "day" of life.

Many heroes of M. Gorky's play "At the bottom" - the Actor, Ashes, Nastya, Natasha, Kleshch - strive to break free from the "bottom" of life. But they feel their own impotence before the constipation of this "prison". They have a feeling of hopelessness of their fate and a craving for a dream, an illusion that gives at least some hope for the future. For the Baron, this is past wealth, which he thinks about and dreams of returning. The Actor has his former service to art, Natasha has the expectation of some extraordinary event that will turn her whole life upside down, Nastya has a fictional romance with a student.

Thus, the characters of the play are prepared for the appearance of such as Luke with his "gospel of mirages." And he appears and maintains all illusions or sows new ones.

This character appears in the first act of the play. His first phrase is indicative: "Good health, honest people!" For the first time on the pages of this work, good, not swear words appear, spoken without ridicule. Such an appeal is so unusual for the inhabitants of the rooming house that Luka is immediately called "amusing": "What an amusing old man you brought, Natasha ...". At first glance, he really seems to be a simple and sweet person, but a little later the reader is convinced of the opposite.

Before the appearance of the wanderer Luke, there is an argument about conscience in the rooming house. Locksmith Kleshch sets himself apart in front of his “compatriots”, declares that he is surrounded by a solid “twang, a golden company ...” He says that he “works from an early age” and dreams of breaking out of the situation in which he finds himself. The tick does not accept the way of life of overnight stays: "they live without honor, without conscience." To which Vaska Pepel, a thief since childhood, declares to Kleshch: “Where are they - honor, conscience? On your feet, instead of boots, you can’t put on either honor or conscience ... Honor-conscience is needed for those who have power and strength ... "

And in fact, these people are placed in such social conditions when the concepts of "honor" and "conscience" are incredibly transformed. Here, at the bottom, “every person wants his neighbor to have a conscience, but, you see, it’s not profitable for anyone to have one ...”

And it is in the midst of this dispute that Luke appears, uttering the phrase: “Good health, honest people!” This is where another conversation begins. Bubnov replies to the wanderer's remark: "I was honest, but the spring before last ..."

From the very appearance of Luke, the author begins to reveal to us the life position of this person. His answer to Bubnov is very important: “I don’t care! I respect crooks too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps ... ”What a vivid comparison! It instantly reveals Luke's attitude towards people. They are all the same, insignificant, worthy only of pity. They jump, imitating some kind of activity, but in fact all this is vanity, their movements are fussy, their life is fussy.

When talking with Natasha, we understand that Luka is not tied to any place, he does not have a home: “For an old man - where it is warm, there is a homeland ...”. He is a wanderer who does not even have a homeland. This is also evidenced by the song that Luka sings while sitting in the kitchen: “Midnight ... you can’t see the way, the road ...” It is worth noting that Gorky does not have a single extra phrase in this work, each of them is weighty, carrying a great meaning.

Luka from the very first minutes of his appearance on stage introduces a completely different philosophy into the production. The moment when the wanderer sings a song is memorable, and he is asked to shut up, saying that he sings badly. His response makes readers think: “Look at you! And I thought I sing well. It always turns out like this: a person thinks to himself - I'm doing well! Grab it - but people are dissatisfied ... ”And in fact, in simple phrases of an illiterate old man, Gorky expresses very interesting thoughts that occurred to every person, but he could not articulate them so clearly and clearly.

Indicative in this part of the work is the moment when Vaska Pepel suffers from boredom. What kind of entertainment does a young man invent for himself? He says to the Baron: “Well, lay down! It will be funny for me... You are a gentleman... you had a time when you did not consider our brother to be a person... and all that...» This moment very clearly shows the level of moral degradation of the characters. And you can not call Ash a negative hero. He is able to love, he wants to take care of a dear person ... But the best entertainment for him is to humiliate another person. In this case, the Baron’s remark seems very wise: “What pleasure can you get from this, if I myself know that I have become almost worse than you? You would then make me walk on all fours when I was not equal to you ... "

Bubnov’s position on this question is revealed by one remark: “What was - was, but what remains is nothing but nothing ... There are no masters here ... everything has faded, one naked person remains ...” Indeed, at the very bottom of life there are no longer and cannot be such differences between people - in the face of hunger and poverty, all are equal. And all the former regalia no longer have absolutely no meaning, they only callous eyes and soul, like smallpox, "and a person will recover, but the signs remain ...". What is Luke's position? “All of them are people! No matter how you pretend, no matter how you wobble, but you were born a man, you will die a man ... And everything, I see, people are becoming smarter, more and more interesting ... and even though they live - everything is worse, but they want - everything is better ... stubborn!

Luke is a very important character in the play. It appears and breaks the habitual rhythm of life and thoughts of overnight stays. He speaks to everyone those words that cannot leave indifferent, for everyone he has a consoling phrase. Luke knows how to notice the main thing in a person. The old man says good-naturedly to the young Alyoshka, who also thoughtlessly burns his life in constant drinking, “Oh, boy, you are confused ...”. He shames the inhabitants of the rooming house for their attitude towards the dying Anna: “... is it possible to leave a person like that? He - whatever he is - is always worth his price ... "

Already at the beginning of the play, Gorky denotes the principle of Luke's attitude to man - the principle of compassion. Its practical expression is a comforting deceit, a comforting illusion, in the name of which one can sacrifice the terrible, oppressive truth of life.

On the threshold of the doss house, Luka appears with words of participation and sympathy. From his first words, a dispute about a person and attitudes towards a person begins. For Luke, people are weak and insignificant before the circumstances of life, which, in his opinion, cannot be changed.

Gorky's passion for drama - the beginning of the twentieth century - based on Chekhov's experience. Gorky uses Chekhov's discoveries: 1) there are no central characters (polyphony), 2) the traditional intrigue (Ash kills Kostylev out of love for Natasha) does not play a major role, because its denouement comes already in the 3rd act, and not in the last; 3) on the stage they talk more than they act; 4) many pauses, abstract conversations, favorite words, etc.

But there are also differences. In Chekhov, everything that is important for the characters is not spoken out loud, but is hidden in the subtext, turns into an "undercurrent", the characters are contradictory, ambiguous. Sometimes changeable. In Gorky, the characters speak openly, in the center there are not personal conflicts, but a struggle of views, positions, ideologies, so the characters approach types, carriers of a certain program.

Analysis of Act 1 of M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom"

What can be seen already in the poster? The hosts of the hostel have a surname, first name and patronymic, and the hostels most often have either a surname (Satin, Bubnov), or a first name (Anna, Nastya), or nicknames - loss of a name (Kvashnya, Actor, Pepel, Baron). The "former" people are still quite young: from 20 (Alyoshka) to 45 years (Bubnov).

In his remarks, Gorky continues the tradition of Chekhov. In the description of the situation in Act 1, there is a contrast: “A cellar that looks like a cave”, all the gloomiest tones, the characters “cough, fuss, growl” in inhuman conditions - and at the end: “The beginning of spring. Morning". Maybe not all is lost? There are not animals here, but people, passions boil here and real life goes on. It is interesting that each hero is engaged in the most characteristic for him: Klesh makes crafts, Kvashnya hosts, Nastya reads, etc. Later in the play, remarks are short and usually only indicate the action or state of the hero. There are only two pauses in act 1: when Kostylev asks Kleshch about his wife and when Pepel asks Kleshch about Anna (moments of awkwardness).

The exposition is until the appearance of Luke in the middle of the 1st act. All the leading themes are outlined here: the past of heroes, talent, work, honor and conscience, dreams and dreams, love and death, illness and suffering, attempts to escape from the "bottom" (in a lowly environment they talk and argue about the high and the eternal). Everyone has their own philosophy, it is expressed not only through dialogues, but also through aphorisms. BUBNOV: 1) The noise of death is not a hindrance, 2) What is the conscience? I'm not rich ..., 3) Who is drunk and smart - two lands in him. SATEEN: 1) You can’t kill twice, 2) Tired of ... all human words ..., 3) There are no better people in the world than thieves, 4) Money is easy for many, but few part with it easily, 5) When work is pleasure, life is good ! When work is a duty, life is slavery.

Each of the characters gradually opens up, speaking on a favorite topic. Kostylev always talks either about his wife, whom he is jealous of, or about money. Tick ​​- about his plans to step over his dying wife and "get out." Ashes are about conscience and dreams. Natasha - about the dying Anna. Satin is about “new words”, about work (he speaks the most, and in his cynical irony one feels the greatest hopelessness, because he seems to be the smartest).

The plot and the beginning of the development of the action - with the appearance of Luke, who speaks in jokes, sayings, sayings. The future conflict between Ashes and Vasilisa is immediately cleared up. Luke's sympathy, his words about love for people almost immediately stirred up even such skeptics as Bubnov and Baron, reassure Nastya and Anna. It is no coincidence that Act 1 ends with Luke's remark: the further development of the action will be largely connected with him.

"At the bottom")

"At the bottom" Gorky managed to combine everyday concreteness and symbols, real human characters and abstract philosophical categories. As for the characters, according to the memoirs of the author, their composition was not immediately determined. The author removed some superfluous images, and then the noble old man Luka appeared. What in the play precedes its appearance? The curtain rises, and immediately a beggarly, swindled life: dirt, hunger, illness, bitterness. There is a normal existence of a rooming house, it can't even be called life. Rather, it is the inevitable death of people in the conditions of the bottom. And their conversations are to match: about death, fights, booze.

And in this atmosphere of general anger and hatred, such an old house-houseman suddenly somehow imperceptibly appears. None of the inhabitants of the rooming house could even imagine that with his arrival, sharp internal displacements would begin in their seemingly unshakable environment. Luke's appearance is the most common, the appearance of a wanderer: With a stick in his hand, with a knapsack behind his shoulders, a bowler hat and a teapot at his belt. But still there is something that distinguishes him from the rest of the tramps. Somehow gradually, unobtrusively, without contradicting anyone, Luka slowly begins to build relationships with the inhabitants of the rooming house. And his words are affectionate, heartfelt: dear, good health, thank you. Luka accepts any option in life: I don’t care, I respect crooks too. He does not climb into the soul, but simply, as it were, looks closely, listens, assents and agrees with everyone.

they brought an amusing old man. And for the viewer, Luke is still incomprehensible, only his speech betrays his peasant origin: just now, everything, etc. Where did this mysterious man come from? To the question of Baron Luka, he answers evasively: We are all wanderers on earth. Remaining a mystery to everyone, he throws bridges to new acquaintances. Yes, Luka has lived and seen a lot. And he defines the essence of a person immediately. He says to the drunken shoemaker Alyoshka: You are confused.

And Vasilisa gives an exact description: Oh, and you are unkind, mother. And you can also say that Luka seems to be set up for good: he sweeps the floors, helps Anna. Yes, the appearance of Luka in Gorky's play is not accidental. What does a tormented, tormented soul need? What does a destitute, useless person, living without hope for the future, want? At least a drop of sympathy, a kind look, an affectionate word, a drop of participation. And now the soul has already warmed up, opened up to meet this tiny sprout of goodness, hope has lit up in the heart. That's why the wanderer Luke came to the overnight house. The scene of Luka's appearance in the rooming house also carries a certain artistic load in the play. First, it should be noted the peculiarity of the speech style of each character. After all, it was in it that the fate, origin, social ties, and the degree of culture of the heroes of the play were reflected.

Here, for example, Vasilisa demands that Luka bring her a patchport, and Luka himself pronounces this word in the same way. But the Baron, taking on a stern look, asks Luka if he has a passport. Gorky uses the double meaning of the word and masterfully introduces it into the speech of the characters. The word nakinut changes depending on the context.

Tick: Throw a noose on me.

Luka: They crushed a lot, that's why it's soft.

Luke's speech is aphoristic: Where there is warmth there is a homeland, There is no order in life, purity, not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone jumps. The stage embodiment of the image of Luke has its own history.

At first, when this performance was first staged at the art theater by Stanislavsky, the first performer of the role of Luka, the magnificent Russian actor I. Moskvin, understood the good beginning of the Gorky drama as a ray of light in the dark kingdom of the rooming house. However, subsequently, the interpretation of the character of Luke underwent the most drastic changes both in critical literature and in the stage interpretation of this image. Luka began to be understood as the personification of Tolstoy's non-resistance to evil by violence, as a white lie. My opinion is that it is in the first act that this stage character is perceived exclusively with spiritual sympathy, his humanity and optimism make light strings sound in a person’s soul, and this is already a lot.