Man and society according to the work are at the bottom. Social issues in the play M

Man is an unchanging part of society, his main element. In the complex mechanism of life, he always has to subordinate personal motives and interests to a social framework that protects him and, at the same time, becomes the cause of spiritual lack of freedom. Restrictions and standards put forward by the environment sometimes cannot curb the strength of human character, his desire to understand the world and self-expression. Therefore, conflicts between the individual and the collective are reflected in many works of Russian literature. One of these works is M. Gorky’s drama “At the Lower Depths”. The action takes place in a shelter for beggars, where people of all kinds have gathered, but all of them are rejected by society. Each of them has their own life tragedy, which is based on simple human weaknesses.

Once rejected by society, finding himself on the “ social day“A person is no longer able to rise up and cope with the vicissitudes of fate. This is what one of the inhabitants of the shelter, Bubnov, thinks. Life has lost its significance for him: the hero, who once owned a dyeing shop, suddenly loses everything. Thrown “to the bottom,” having lost faith in people and the truth, having experienced his wife’s betrayal, he is now convinced that everything in the world is subject to cruel and immutable laws, which are pointless to resist. The idea of getting out of the shelter, changing the usual course of things and starting new life seems absurd to Bubnov. “All people on earth are superfluous...” notes the hero. Abandoned by his surroundings, he is embittered towards society and is incapable of faith and forgiveness.
“A person can do anything, as long as he wants to,” says another hero of the play, the new guest of the shelter, the wanderer Luka, who enters into a conditional conflict with Bubnov’s ideological statements. Luke is a mysterious old man, almost blessed, who came from nowhere and where he is going. No one knows about his fate, however, according to the preacher, he suffered a lot of grief and difficulties. However, the righteous man is confident that one can cope with the external ugliness and cruelty of life and society; it is enough to believe in a person, to instill hope in him, even if sometimes deceptive. “You can’t always heal a soul with truth,” the old man is convinced as he consoles the heroes of the shelter. Rejected by society, like the other characters in the play, Luka continues to believe in the inhabitants of the “bottom”, in the high destiny of each of them.
Despite the seeming doom of life, some of the heroes do not lose faith in a bright future and dream of rising from the bottom of the social to a better stage in life. Vaska Ash is a rebellious character in the play. His father was a thief, and he himself was accustomed to such a craft since childhood. Unlike others characters, Ash was rejected by society initially, as lost man, whose fate is predetermined and known in advance. He strives to change himself, thereby proving to the team that his lot can be better, and he himself can become an honest and decent citizen. He loves Natasha, dreams of taking her away from the shelter, where she is forced to endure beatings from her sister, and moving to Siberia, where no one will know about his past, and, therefore, will not judge him for past mistakes.
“Man – that sounds proud!” - another guest of the shelter, former telegraph operator Satin, asserts his bitter truth. He is convinced that human life is expensive, so everyone needs sympathy. Satin, like Luke, is compassionate towards his neighbors and is ready to help those in need. However, being on the social “bottom” makes him indifferent to life in general. He does not see the point in action, so he consciously destroys himself. Once sent to prison for murder, and now living in a flophouse, he does not want to change, because he considers existence “at the bottom” to be the natural course of existence. He rejects a society in which he no longer sees the truth. The truth, in his opinion, is in the person himself, however, Satin has nothing to do with this. Broken by circumstances, he refuses to fight, remaining indifferent to his future fate.
The characters of the play, doomed to death, inevitably go to the bottom. They are connected by the common destinies and the situation in which they find themselves, the tragedy of the surrounding world, which rejected each of the guests of the shelter for various reasons. The actor, who has successfully performed on stage in the past, now drinks heavily. He dreams of recovering from alcoholism and returning to the stage, constantly quoting famous literary passages. However, awareness of his own weakness, oblivion of society, and the inability to get out of poverty push the hero to commit suicide. Other characters in the drama are also looking for “truth in wine”: Andrei Mitrich Kleshch, a mechanic, found himself at the bottom due to his wife’s illness. With her death, he expects relief from the burden of responsibility, but he loses his job, having become even more embittered towards people and having lost the last purpose of existence, he is idle with Satin. Heroes are unable to find the right way, expelled from the collective to the social “bottom”, they die there, deprived of hope for the future.

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In the play "At the Bottom" M. Gorky explores the consciousness of people thrown to the "bottom" of life as a result of deep-seated social processes. Researchers characterize this work as a social, everyday and socio-philosophical drama. In social conflict, three levels can be distinguished. Firstly, this is the problem of the relationship between the masters of life, endowed with power, and the powerless roomies. Secondly, this is the problem of human fate in an unjust society.

Thirdly, the problem of love as a boundary social conflict.

The conflict between the owners of the shelter, the Kostylev spouses, and its inhabitants is felt throughout the entire play.

Kostylev appears on stage in the first act, “humming something divine under his breath and suspiciously inspecting the shelter.” Already in this remark the author reveals the hypocrisy and falsehood of this hero. He is looking for his wife Vasilisa, suspecting her of treason. His selfishness and greed are shown in the dialogue with the former locksmith Kleshch. The owner is going to charge the guest “fifty dollars” for the place he occupies. The worker answers him rudely, without hiding his hatred: “You throw a noose over me and crush me... You’ll die soon, but you’re still thinking about fifty dollars.”

Kostylev behaves like Judas Golovlev: he pours out his affectionate, unctuous speech, using diminutive suffixes, often mentioning the name of God, hiding his greed behind his honeyed speech. Having praised the Actor for taking care of the sick Anna, the owner of the flophouse hypocritically declares: “In the next world, brother... there everything, every deed of ours is taken into account.” In response to his unctuous reasoning about kindness, the Actor remarks: “You are a rogue, old man.” Satin directly declares his dislike for the owner: “Who - except the devil - loves you? getting lost." It should be noted that another “crafty old man,” whom the residents of the shelter call both a “scoundrel” and a “charlatan,” is Luke. He also speaks of his special love for people: “I respect swindlers, too, In my opinion, not a single flea is bad: all are black, all jump. .." Are these roll calls random? Perhaps the author wanted to emphasize by this that Luke is sowing a comforting lie. But Luke plants illusions in the souls of the night shelters, pitying them. Kostylev covers up selfish interests and the desire for profit with lies.

By exposing the exploitative nature of the owners, Gorky shows that they are not far from the inhabitants of the shelter in social terms. Kostylev takes the stolen goods from the thief Vaska Pepel and resells them. The relationship between the owners and the night shelters only creates tension, but is not the basis of the dramatic conflict.

The fate of most of the residents of the shelter develops like a drama and ends like a tragedy. There is only one reason for this: indifference to people in a society based on the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality. People feel unwanted and rejected by society. “You are superfluous everywhere... and all the people on earth are superfluous...” - Bubnov declares to Nastya.

Each of the heroes experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves at the “bottom” of life, in a shelter.

Satin once worked at a telegraph office and read a lot of books. While defending his sister, in the heat of anger he accidentally kills the offender. loved one. So he ended up in prison, where he learned to play cards.

The actor once had the stage name Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky, and played a gravedigger in the drama “Hamlet”. But binge drinking began, and he lost his job in the theater.

Bubnov was a furrier and had his own establishment, but his wife got involved with the master. The hero leaves, leaving everything to his wife.

The tick has been working since an early age. He is proud to be a worker and at first considers himself superior to the rest of the night shelters. He has only been at the bottom for only six months, but hopes that after his wife’s death he will start a new life.

Anna trembled all her life over every bite, was afraid to eat too much, and endured beatings from her husband.

The Baron proudly reports that he belongs to “an old family from the time of Catherine,” and loves to remember how coffee with cream was served to him in bed in the morning. He graduated from the noble institute and got married. Having lost government money, he was forced to put on a prison robe.

Vaska Ash becomes a thief “by inheritance.” “...my parent spent his whole life in prison and ordered it for me too,” he says about himself.

Nastya - "a girl who lives on her own" - lives with dreams of beautiful love, about the feat of self-sacrifice.

These people are victims of social circumstances, and the events of the play confirm this. Vaska Pepel accidentally kills the owner of the shelter, Kostylev, in a fight, and hard labor awaits him in Siberia. He will go to the “golden side” not of his own free will, as Luke advised him. Her sister Natasha, mutilated by Vasilisa, goes missing more than once.

comforting the residents of the shelter. Anna, who was poor before her death, dies. After the death of his wife, Mite loses hope for decent life worker: “the funeral ate” the tool. Nastya becomes embittered against everyone because the kind Luka who knew how to support her is not around. The actor commits suicide, despairing and losing hope of a cure in a free hospital.

The fate and life of people at the bottom serves as irrefutable evidence of violence against the human person, which inevitably arises under the conditions of a bourgeois state based on the principles of lies and indifference to people.

A vivid accusation of this sounds in the speeches of Satin. “Make my work pleasant... When work is pleasure, life is good!” - he polemically objects to Klesh, who reproaches the residents of the shelter for not working.

In the finale, Satin makes a speech in defense of the freedom and dignity of man, no matter what level of the social ladder he is at. He rebels against the lies that justify “the weight that crushed the hand of the worker... and blames the man dying of hunger.” “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters,” says Gorky’s reasoner. He opposes obedience and humility, calls on people to fight for their rights.

The “love polygon” - the relationship between Kostylev, Vasilisa, Ash and Natasha - is a facet of social conflict. Vasilisa is cheating on her husband with Ash and hopes, with the help of her lover, to get rid of her old and boring husband. Ash leaves Vasilisa for Natasha. Love for a pure, modest girl instills in his soul hope for an honest working life. Climax love conflict taken off stage. We only learn from the remarks of the night shelters that the “beast woman” scalded her own sister with boiling water out of jealousy.

The murder of Kostylev becomes the tragic outcome of a love conflict. We see that the inhumane conditions of the “bottom” cripple people’s souls. Love here does not lead to personal enrichment, but to injury and hard labor.

Thus, from this love conflict, it is the cruel hostess of the flophouse who achieves all goals at once: revenge ex-lover and his rival, gets rid of unloved husband and becomes the sole owner of the shelter. Her moral impoverishment emphasizes her monstrosity social conditions, in which both the inhabitants of the shelter and its owners are located.

“Freedom at any cost..” (Based on the play “At the Depths” by M. Gorky)

A notable phenomenon of Russian literature at the beginning of the 20th century was Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”. What explained its exceptional success? Strong impression The viewer was impressed by the combination of an extremely realistic depiction of people who had reached the last degree of squalor, despair and lawlessness, with the glorification of Man and his truth. For the first time, an unprecedented world of thieves, tramps, cheaters, that is, people who had sunk to the “bottom” of life, appeared before the eyes of the public. And in it, as in an overturned mirror, was reflected the world from which these people were overthrown. M. Gorky's play was imbued with a protest against the social unrest of capitalist society and a passionate call for a just and peaceful life. “Freedom at any cost is its spiritual essence,” this is how K. S. Stanislavsky defined the idea of the play, who staged it on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater.

The gloomy life of the Kostylevo doss house is depicted by Gorky as the embodiment of social evil. The fate of the inhabitants of the “bottom” is a formidable indictment against the unjust social order. The people living in this cave-like basement are victims of an ugly and cruel order, in which a person ceases to be a person, turning into a powerless creature, doomed to drag out a miserable existence. The inhabitants of the "bottom" are thrown out of normal life due to the wolf laws that reign in society. Man is left to his own devices. If he stumbles, gets out of line, then he faces inevitable moral, and often physical death. Lack of faith in justice forced Satin to take revenge on the scoundrel who killed his sister. This revenge brought him to prison, which defined him future fate. Bubnov is forced to leave home, leaving the workshop to his wife and her lover, since he did not hope for protection from representatives of the law. Of course, the people who find themselves in the Kostylevo shelter are not at all ideal. They make mistakes, do stupid things, but they do not deserve to be thrown to the bottom of life by society without providing any support. Vaska Pepel, the son of a thief, born in prison, is doomed to follow in the footsteps of his parent, because no other path has been ordered for him. The hard work and perseverance of Kleshch, who did not want to accept the fate of a homeless shelter, did not help him rise from the “bottom” of life.

Turning to the depiction of the life of the urban lower classes, the playwright touched upon current problem modernity: what is the way out of this situation, what is the salvation of the people of the “bottom”? According to Gorky himself, the main question of the play

Which is better: truth or compassion? Is it necessary to use lies like Luke? Will the passive-compassionate humanism of a comforting lie be healing for the inhabitants of the shelter? Its bearer, pitying and comforting people, is the wanderer Luke in the play. He sincerely sympathizes with the victims of life, humiliated and insulted people, selflessly strives to alleviate their suffering and help them. He promises the dying Anna life in paradise after death, where she will rest from earthly suffering. The old man advises Ash and Natasha to start a new life in the golden country of Siberia. He tells the actor about a free hospital for alcoholics, the address of which he has forgotten, but will definitely remember, giving this drunken person hope of returning to his former life.

Luke's position is the idea of compassion for man, the idea of a "sublime deception" that allows man to bear the burden of " low truths" found on his thorny path. Luke himself formulates his position. Turning to Ash, he says: “...why do you really need it? Think about it, maybe it’s just for you.” Then he talks about the “righteous land.” Luke, without returning her, knows that she is gone. He is too short-sighted to see this land that Satine foresees. Luke is ready to welcome any idea if it can console a person, alleviate his suffering even for a minute. He does not think about the consequences of a lie that will sooner or later be revealed. Trying to protect a person, Luka at the same time does not believe in him, for him all people are insignificant, weak, pathetic, in need of consolation: “I don’t care! I respect swindlers too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: they’re all black, everyone is jumping."

Thus, the main feature of Luke's ideology is the feature of slavery. And here Luka echoes Kostylev, the philosophy of patience - with the philosophy of oppression, the point of view of a slave

From the owner's point of view. Gorky puts this thought into Satin’s mouth: “Whoever is weak at heart and who lives on other people’s juices needs a lie... Some people are supported by it, others hide behind it... But whoever is his own master, who is independent and does not take what someone else has, why should he lie?" Luke's humanism is based on passive compassion, which, while bringing momentary relief, deepens the gap between a person's dream of happiness and his real hopeless situation. The Actor, who learned that the old man had lied and that there was no hospital, which means there was no hope for the future, could not bear this breakup. There is only one way out - suicide instead happy life in Siberia, which Luke promised to Ash, he goes to hard labor for the murder of Kostylev. This means that Luke’s comforting lie only worsens the situation of the outcasts.

Luke's lies lead the night shelters into a world of illusions that deprives them last bit of strength to fight social evil, social injustice, because of which Kostylev’s shelters exist. The antipode of Luke Satin verbally refutes the philosophy of comforting lies: “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters,” “Truth is god free man"He believes in man, in his ability to withstand the truth, no matter how bitter it may be. “Man is the truth,” says the hero. Unlike Luke, Satin is demanding of man and believes that man can do anything, since everything depends from his deeds and ideas. He does not need consolation with lies generated by pity. To feel sorry for a person means to humiliate him with disbelief in his ability to achieve his happiness, it means to seek support in all types of deception and lies that will replace the missing will to live. Under the dark and gloomy in the vaults of the flophouse, among the pitiful, unfortunate, homeless tramps, words about Man, about his calling, strength and beauty sound like a solemn hymn: “Man - this is the truth! Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and brain! Human! It's great! It sounds... proud!"

Man himself is the creator of his own destiny, hidden within him are the forces with the help of which he is able to overcome the most severe hardships, the treachery of fate, the injustice of the world, his own mistakes and the social ills of society. Pity and compassion are wonderful qualities that are very necessary for all of us, but only a truthful, adequate understanding of one’s mistakes and capabilities can give a person a chance to overcome his evil lot and become truly free and happy.

I read M. Gorky's play<<На дне>>...What can a person at the lowest rung of society think about? What is the meaning of his existence, to what purpose? moral ideal he can strive, and in general, does he want to live for the sake of a bright future, for the sake of his life idea? What is this world to him?
Just a dark corner of a shabby room, a dim candle on a dirty table, a bottle of “bitters”... His thoughts are aimed at one thing - how to live another ridiculous day...
A person becomes a philosopher when he understands that he cannot change anything in his life, which sometimes becomes worthless. And he begins to think freely, trying to understand what the essence of his existence is. Often he comes to this state under the influence of the surrounding world, which puts pressure on the human soul and breaks life. Society always changes a person, imprinting cynicism and selfishness on him. But even at the very bottom there can always be a person who still continues to believe in his ideal, trying to find the truth in this crazy world. An example of this is Satin, a character in the play "At the Bottom".
This play, it seems to me, should be considered as social and philosophical, as a life drama of crushed souls... People in it live on their own, they are indifferent and selfish. They carry their burden on their shoulders life problems, which is by no means easy. What are their aspirations, what do they want from their life? These people, the inhabitants of Kostylev’s shelter, are no longer trying to get out of this “bottom” - they have already become an integral part of it. They were driven there social problems- poverty, hunger... Their lives were pulled down by a whirlpool of social upheaval, and they sank to the very bottom, into the abyss. Their philosophy is different - some believe in romantic ideals, in work, in human greatness, while others strive to go into the shadows, hide in a dark corner from future problems and shocks, so as not to change their lives again. They live in their past, remembering their old days, lost forever.
Sometimes the burden of life becomes simply unbearable, and then all that remains from a person is a bitter memory and pity for someone so mediocrely ruined by this crazy world human life. This, of course, primarily applies to the Actor.
We can distinguish two types of vital humanism in drama, and, accordingly, two heroes - bearers of this humanism. The first is Luke, who professes a humanism based on compassion and pity for man, who calls us to come to terms with existing conditions. Luke was able to calm the suffering soul of Anna, who probably finally received at least some help for the first time in long years. Her last days became happier than the previous few painful years of life.
Luke has a fierce opponent - Satin. He based his life philosophy faith in man, in Man with capital letters. He talks about the benefits of work, about the high purpose of man. But in all this we can see one big contradiction. Yes, the heroes talk about work, labor, human soul, but they themselves have long since lost their human appearance and stopped appreciating even life itself. Maybe the heroes are guided in their philosophy by high life principles, but in a social sense they ceased to exist as individuals. It’s very bad to answer those philosophical questions human existence, which Gorky staged in the play, definitely.
Thus, one can be convinced that “At the Lower Depths” is a drama, a socio-philosophical drama. There are many questions raised here regarding society and human life. These two problems are connected to each other by invisible threads that break the moment people lose faith in themselves. I want a person to be a Human not only in words...

The play shows the “humiliated and insulted”, thrown to the bottom of life. Each of them has their own biography, their own history, their own dream. These are in the past worthy people- victims of the conditions prevailing in society, where no one cares about anyone else, where wolf laws apply. The fate of each of them is tragic, since neither the drunken actor, nor Nastya, who is eager for love, nor Klesch, who dreams of honest work, can rise from the bottom, nor the thirsty right life Ash and Baron won't be able to. The real truth of these people is hopelessness. “There is no work... there is no strength... This is the truth. Shelter, there is no refuge! We have to die... This is the truth!”

IN scary world The night shelters sound beautifully, solemnly, but declaratively and abstractly, Satin’s words about man. Is not real truth, but what a person should be. These are his unrealized potentials. “Man is the truth! Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain. Man! This is magnificent. It sounds proud!” Satin's words sharply contrast with the actual situation of man. Satin acts as a reasoner expressing the author's thought.

Luke brings another truth about man. Gorky laid down the main problem of the play in his image:

"Which is better - truth or compassion? What is more necessary? Is it necessary to take compassion to the point of using lies?" This philosophical question, which is definitely not easy to answer.

Luka consoles everyone, tells everyone what they dream about, what a person wants to hear. It gives hope and inspires you for a while. Although Gorky emphasized that white lies are evil, he judged from the point of view of proletarian expediency. Evil - because it sows illusions, weakens a person, and does not raise him to fight. But objectively, the image of Luke turns out to be a carrier humanistic idea. After all, what happened in the shelter after Luka left (Anna’s death, Actor’s suicide, Ash’s prison) would have happened inevitably without Luka. The pattern and logic of life led to this. But at least before death, thanks to Luke, people felt that there was hope - not for them, but for others like them.

Although the play “At the Bottom” ends tragically, the consciousness of the inhabitants of the shelter is awakened - and this is the main result of Luke’s appearance.

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