The genre of the work is Gorky at the bottom. Genre features “At the bottom”

The play contains, as it were, two parallel actions. The first is social and the second is philosophical. Both actions develop in parallel, without intertwining. There are, as it were, two planes in the play: external and internal.
External plan. In the rooming house, owned by Mikhail Ivanovich Kostylev (51 years old) and his wife Vasilisa Karlovna (26 years old), live, according to the author’s definition, “former people,” that is, people without a solid social status, as well as working but poor people. These are: Satin and Actor (both under 40 years old), Vaska Pepel, thief (28 years old), Andrey Mitrich

Kleshch, a mechanic (40 years old), his wife Anna (30 years old), Nastya, a prostitute (24 years old), Bubnov (45 years old), Baron (33 years old), Alyoshka (20 years old), Tatarin and Krivoy Zob, hookmen (age not named). Kvashnya, a dumpling seller (about 40 years old) and Medvedev, Vasilisa’s uncle, a policeman (50 years old), appear in the house. The relationship between them is very complicated, scandals often arise. Vasilisa is in love with Vaska and persuades him to kill her elderly husband in order to be the sole mistress (in the second half of the play, Vaska beats Kostylev and accidentally kills him; Vaska is arrested). Vaska is in love with Natalya, Vasilisa’s sister (20 years old); Out of jealousy, Vasilisa beats her sister mercilessly. Satin and Actor (a former provincial theater actor named Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky) are completely degenerate people, drunkards, gamblers, Satin is also a sharper. The Baron is a former nobleman who squandered his entire fortune and is now one of the most pitiful people in the flophouse. Klesh tries to make money with his plumbing tools; his wife Anna falls ill and needs medication; at the end of the play, Anna dies, and Tick finally sinks “to the bottom.”
In the midst of drinking and scandals, the wanderer Luke appears in the shelter, feeling sorry for the people. He promises many an unrealistic bright future. He predicts happiness after death for Anna. He tells the actor about a free hospital for alcoholics. He advises Vaska and Natasha to leave home, etc. But at the most tense moment, Luka actually runs away, leaving behind hopeful people. This drives the actor to suicide. In the finale, the night shelters sing a song, and when Satin hears about the death of the Actor, he says with annoyance and bitterness: “Eh. Ruined the song. fool!"
Internal plan. In the play, two philosophical “truths” collide: Luke and Satine. The nochlezhka is a kind of symbol of humanity that finds itself in a dead end, which by the beginning of the 20th century. has lost faith in God, but has not yet gained faith in itself. Hence the general feeling of hopelessness, lack of perspective, which, in particular, is expressed by Actor and Bubnov (a pessimistic reasoner) in the words: “What’s next” and “And the threads are rotten.” The world is dilapidated, weakened, and coming to an end. Satin prefers to accept this bitter truth and not lie to himself or people. He suggests to Mite that he stop working. If everyone stops working, what will happen? “They will die of hunger.” - Kleshch answers, but thereby he only reveals the meaningless essence of work, which is aimed only at maintaining life, and not at bringing any meaning into it. Satin is a kind of radical existentialist, a person who accepts the absurdity of the universe in which “God died” (Nietzsche) and the Emptiness, Nothingness, was exposed. Luke has a different view of the world. He believes that it is precisely the terrible meaninglessness of life that should evoke special pity for a person. If a person needs a lie to continue living, then you need to lie to him and console him. Otherwise, the person will not be able to stand the “truth” and will die. So Luke tells a parable about a seeker of a righteous land and a scientist who, using a map, showed him that there is no righteous land.
The offended man left and hanged himself (a parallel with the future death of the Actor). Luke is not just an ordinary wanderer, a comforter, but also a philosopher. In his opinion, a person is obliged to live despite the meaninglessness of life, because he does not know his future, he is only a wanderer in the universe, and even our earth is a wanderer in space. Luka and Satin are arguing. But Satin somewhat accepts Luke’s “truth.” In any case, it is the appearance of Luke that provokes Satin into his monologue about Man, which he pronounces, imitating the voice of his opponent (a fundamental remark in the play). Satin does not want to pity and console a person, but, by telling him the whole truth about the meaninglessness of life, to encourage him to self-respect and rebellion against the universe. A person, having realized the tragedy of his existence, should not despair, but, on the contrary, feel his worth. The whole meaning of the universe is in it alone. There is no other meaning (for example, Christian). “Man – that sounds proud!” “Everything is in man, everything is for man.”
P. V. Basinsky

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Staging the play on the imperial stage was prohibited. Nevertheless, St. Petersburg actors took part in two readings of the play “in person”: in 1903 - in the house of N.P. Karabchevsky and in a noble meeting.

Until 1905, the production of the play was permitted with large bills and each time with the consent of local authorities.

Two opposing forces - truth and lies - come face to face in the play after the appearance of old man Luke, for whom a white lie is equivalent to the truth. “your truth, not theirs.”

Characters

• Mikhail Ivanov Kostylev - 54 years old, hostel keeper
• Vasilisa Karpovna - his wife, 24 years old
• Natasha - her sister, 20 years old
• Medvedev - their uncle, a policeman, 50 years old
• Vaska Ash - 28 years
• Tick ​​- Andrey Mitrich, mechanic, 40 years old
• Anna - his wife, 30 years old
• Nastya - girl, 24 years old
• Kvashnya - dumpling seller, under 40 years old
• Bubnov - cap player, 45 years old
• Baron - 33 years
• Satin - under 40 years old
• Actor - under 40 years old
• Luke - wanderer, 60 years old
• Alyoshka - shoemaker, 20 years old
• Crooked Zob, Tatar - hook makers
• A few tramps without names or speeches

Plot

Act one

A cave-like basement. The ceiling is heavy, with crumbling plaster. Light from the audience. To the right behind the fence is Ash's closet, next to Bubnov's bunk, in the corner there is a large Russian stove, opposite the door to the kitchen where Kvashnya, Baron, and Nastya live. Behind the stove is a wide bed behind a chintz curtain. There are bunks all around. In the foreground, on a piece of wood, is a vice with an anvil. Kvashnya, Baron, and Nastya are sitting nearby, reading a book. On the bed behind the curtain, Anna coughs heavily. On the bunk, Bubnov examines the old, torn trousers. Next to him, Satin, who has just woken up, lies and growls. The Actor is fiddling around on the stove.

The beginning of spring. Morning.

Kvashnya, talking with the Baron, promises to never marry again. Bubnov asks Satin why he “grunts”? Kvashnya continues to develop her idea that she is a free woman and will never agree to “give herself up to the fortress.” The tick rudely shouts to her: “You're lying! You will marry Abramka yourself.”

The Baron snatches the book from Nastya, who is reading, and laughs at the vulgar title “Fatal Love.” Nastya and Baron are fighting over a book.

Kvashnya scolds Kleshch as an old goat who brought his wife to death. The tick scolds lazily. Kvashnya is sure that Kleshch does not want to hear the truth. Anna asks for silence in order to die in peace, Kleshch reacts impatiently to his wife’s words, and Bubnov philosophically remarks: “Noise is not a hindrance to death.”

Kvashnya is surprised how Anna lived with such a “sinister”? The dying woman asks to be left alone.

Kvashnya and Baron are going to the market. Anna refuses the offer to eat dumplings, but Kvashnya still leaves the dumplings. The Baron teases Nastya, tries to anger her, and then hurriedly leaves to fetch Kvashnya.

Satin, who has finally woken up, asks who beat him the day before and why. Bubnov argues that it doesn’t matter, but they beat him for cards. The actor shouts from the stove that one day Satin will be completely killed. The Tick calls the Actor to get off the stove and start cleaning the basement. The actor objects, it’s the Baron’s turn. The Baron, peeking in from the kitchen, makes an excuse that he is busy - he is going with Kvashnya to the market. Let the Actor work, he has nothing to do, or Nastya. Nastya refuses. Kvashnya asks the Actor to take it away, he won’t break. The actor uses illness as an excuse: it is harmful for him to breathe dust, his body is poisoned by alcohol.

Satin utters incomprehensible words: “sycambre”, “macrobiotics”, “transcendental”. Anna invites her husband to eat the dumplings left by Kvashnya. She herself languishes, anticipating an imminent end.

Bubnov asks Satin what these words mean, but Satin has already forgotten their meaning, and in general he is tired of all this talk, all the “human words” that he has heard probably a thousand times.

The actor recalls that he once played a gravedigger in Hamlet and quotes Hamlet’s words from there: “Ophelia! Oh, remember me in your prayers!”

A tick, sitting at work, creaks with a file. And Satin recalls that once in his youth he served at the telegraph office, read a lot of books, and was an educated man!

Bubnov skeptically notes that he has heard this story “a hundred times!”, but he himself was a furrier and had his own establishment.

The actor is convinced that education is nonsense, the main thing is talent and self-confidence.

Meanwhile, Anna asks to open the door, she is stuffy. The tick does not agree: he is cold on the floor, he has a cold. The Actor approaches Anna and offers to take her out into the hallway. Supporting the patient, he takes her into the air. Kostylev, who meets them, laughs at them, what a “wonderful couple” they are.

Kostylev asks Kleshch whether Vasilisa was here this morning? I didn't see a tick. Kostylev scolds Kleshch that he takes up space in the shelter for five rubles, but pays two, he should have thrown in fifty dollars; “It’s better to throw a noose,” Kleshch retorts. Kostylev dreams that with this fifty dollars he will buy lamp oil and pray for his own and other people’s sins, because Kleshch does not think about his sins, so he brought his wife to the grave. The tick can't stand it and starts screaming at its owner. The returning Actor says that he arranged Anna well in the entryway. The owner notes that the good Actor will be credited with everything in the next world, but the Actor would be more satisfied if Kostylev now knocked off half of his debt. Kostylev immediately changes his tone and asks: “Can kindness of heart be compared with money?” Kindness is one thing, but duty is another. The actor calls Kostylev a scoundrel. The owner knocks on Ash's closet. Satin laughs that Ash will open it, and Vasilisa is with him. Kostylev is angry. Opening the door, Ash demands money from Kostylev for the watch, and when he finds out that he didn’t bring any money, he gets angry and scolds the owner. He roughly shakes Kostylev, demanding from him a debt of seven rubles. When the owner leaves, they explain to Ash that he was looking for his wife. Satin is surprised that Vaska hasn’t killed Kostylev yet. Ash replies that “he won’t ruin his life because of such rubbish.” Satin teaches Ash to “kill Kostylev cleverly, then marry Vasilisa and become the owner of the flophouse.” Ash is not happy with this prospect; the roomies will drink all his property in the tavern, because he is kind. Ash is angry that Kostylev woke him up at the wrong time, he just had a dream that he caught a huge bream. Satin laughs that it was not bream, but Vasilisa. Ash sends everyone and Vasilisa to hell. A tick returning from the street is dissatisfied with the cold. He didn’t bring Anna - Natasha took her to the kitchen.

Satin asks Ash for a nickel, but the Actor says that between them they need a dime. Vasily gives until they ask for a ruble. Satin admires the kindness of the thief, “there are no better people in the world.” Mite notices that they get money easily, that’s why they are kind. Satin objects: “Many get money easily, but few part with it easily,” he reasons that if the work is pleasant, he might work. “When work is pleasure, life is good! When work is a duty, life is slavery!”

Satin and Actor go to the tavern.

Ash asks Kleshch about Anna’s health, he replies that he will soon die. Ash advises Tick not to work. “How to live?” - he is interested. “Others live,” Ash notes. The tick speaks with contempt of those around him; he believes that he will escape from here. Ash objects: those around him are no worse than Tick, and “they have no use for honor and conscience. You can't wear them instead of boots. Those who have power and strength need honor and conscience.”

A chilled Bubnov enters and, in response to Ash’s question about honor and conscience, says that he doesn’t need a conscience: “I’m not rich.” Ash agrees with him, but Tick is against it. Bubnov asks: does Kleshch want to occupy his conscience? Ash advises Tick to talk about conscience with Satin and Baron: they are smart, although they are drunkards. Bubnov is sure: “He who is drunk and smart has two lands in him.”

Ash recalls how Satin said that it is convenient to have a conscientious neighbor, but being conscientious yourself is “not profitable.”

Natasha brings the wanderer Luka. He politely greets those present. Natasha introduces the new guest, inviting him to go to the kitchen. Luke assures: for old people, where it’s warm, there’s a homeland. Natasha tells Kleshch to come for Anna later and be kind to her, she is dying and she is scared. Ash objects that dying is not scary, and if Natasha kills him, then he will also be happy to die from a clean hand.

Natasha doesn't want to listen to him. Ash admires Natasha. He wonders why she is rejecting him; she will disappear here anyway.

“It will disappear through you,” Bubnov assures.

Kleshch and Bubnov say that if Vasilisa finds out about Ash’s attitude towards Natasha, it will not be good for both of them.

In the kitchen, Luka sings a mournful song. Ash wonders why people suddenly feel sadness? He shouts at Luka not to howl. Vaska loved to listen to beautiful singing, and this howl brings melancholy. Luke is surprised. He thought he was a good singer. Luka says that Nastya is sitting in the kitchen and crying over a book. The Baron assures that it was out of stupidity. Ash offers the Baron to bark like a dog on all fours for half a bottle of booze. The Baron is surprised at how happy Vaska is from this. After all, now they are equal. Luka sees the baron for the first time. I saw counts, princes, and the baron for the first time, “and even then he was spoiled.”

Luke says that the night shelters have a good life. But the Baron remembers how he used to drink coffee with cream while still in bed.

Luke notes: people become smarter over time. “They live worse and worse, but they want everything better, stubborn!” The Baron is interested in the old man. Who it? He answers: wanderer. He says that everyone in the world is a wanderer, and “our land is a wanderer in the sky.” The Baron goes with Vaska to the tavern and, saying goodbye to Luka, calls him a rogue. Alyosha enters with an accordion. He starts screaming and acting like a fool, which is no worse than others, so why doesn’t Medyakin allow him to walk down the street. Vasilisa appears and also swears at Alyosha, driving him out of sight. He orders Bubnov to drive Alyosha away if he appears. Bubnov refuses, but Vasilisa angrily reminds him that since he lives out of mercy, then let him obey his masters.

Interested in Luka, Vasilisa calls him a rogue, since he has no documents. The hostess is looking for Ash and, not finding him, snaps at Bubnov for the dirt: “So that there is no speck!” She angrily shouts at Nastya to clean up the basement. Having learned that her sister was here, Vasilisa becomes even more angry and shouts at the shelters. Bubnov is surprised how much anger there is in this woman. Nastya replies that with a husband like Kostylev, everyone will go wild. Bubnov explains: the “mistress” came to her lover and didn’t find him there, that’s why she’s angry. Luka agrees to clean the basement. Bubnov learned from Nastya the reason for Vasilisa’s anger: Alyoshka blurted out that Vasilisa was tired of Ash, so she was driving the guy away. Nastya sighs that she’s superfluous here. Bubnov replies that she is superfluous everywhere... and all people on earth are superfluous...

Medvedev enters and asks about Luka, why doesn’t he know him? Luka replies that not all the land is included in his plot, there is some left. Medvedev asks about Ash and Vasilisa, but Bubnov denies that he knows nothing. Kvashnya returns. She complains that Medvedev is asking her to get married. Bubnov approves of this union. But Kvashnya explains: a woman is better off in the hole than in marriage.

Luke brings Anna. Kvashnya, pointing to the patient, says that her husband drove her to death.

A noise is heard in the hallway. Kostylev calls Abram Medvedev: to protect Natasha, who is being beaten by her sister. Luka asks Anna what the sisters didn’t share. She replies that they are both well-fed and healthy. Anna tells Luka that he is kind and gentle. He explains: “They crushed it, that’s why it’s soft.”

Act two

Same situation. Evening. On the bunks, Satin, Baron, Crooked Zob and Tatar are playing cards, Kleshch and Actor are watching the game. Bubnov plays checkers with Medvedev. Luka is sitting by Anna's bedside. The stage is dimly lit by two lamps. One is burning near the gamblers, the other is near Bubnov.

Tatar and Crooked Zob sing, Bubnov sings too. Anna tells Luka about her hard life, in which she remembers nothing except beatings. Luke consoles her. The Tatar shouts at Satin, who is cheating in a card game. Anna recalls how she was hungry all her life, afraid of eating up her family, of eating an extra piece; Could there really be torment waiting for her in the next world? In the basement you can hear the screams of gamblers, Bubnov, and then he sings a song:

Guard as you wish... I won’t run away anyway... I want to be free - oh! I can't break the chain...

Crooked Zob sings along. The Tatar shouts that the Baron is hiding the card in his sleeve and is cheating. Satin calms Tatarin down, saying that he knows: they are swindlers, why did he agree to play with them? The Baron reassures him that he lost a ten-kopeck piece, but shouts at him for a three-ruble note. Crooked Zob explains to the Tatar that if the shelters begin to live honestly, they will die of hunger in three days! Satin scolds the Baron: he is an educated man, but has not learned to cheat at cards. Abram Ivanovich lost to Bubnov. Satin counts the winnings - fifty-three kopecks. The actor asks for three kopecks, and then he himself wonders why he needs them? Satin invites Luka to the tavern, but he refuses. The actor wants to read poetry, but realizes with horror that he has forgotten everything, that he has drunk away his memory. Luka reassures the Actor that there is a cure for drunkenness, but he forgot in which city the hospital is located. Luka convinces the Actor that he will be cured, pull himself together, and begin to live well again. Anna calls Luka to talk to her. The tick stands in front of his wife, then leaves. Luka feels sorry for Kleshch - he feels bad, Anna replies that she has no time for her husband. She withered away from him. Luka consoles Anna that she will die and she will feel better. “Death - it calms everything down... it is gentle for us... If you die, you will rest!” Anna is afraid that suffering will suddenly await her in the next world. Luke says that the Lord will call her and say that she lived hard, let her now rest. Anna asks what if she recovers? Luka asks: for what, for new flour? But Anna wants to live longer, she even agrees to suffer if peace awaits her later. Ash comes in and screams. Medvedev is trying to calm him down. Luka asks to be silent: Anna is dying. Ash agrees with Luka: “If you please, grandfather, I will respect you!” You, brother, are great. You lie well... you tell fairy tales nicely! Lie, there’s nothing... there’s not enough pleasant things in the world, brother!”

Vaska asks Medvedev if Vasilisa beat Natasha badly? The policeman makes an excuse: “it’s a family matter, not his, Ash’s, business.” Vaska assures that if he wants, Natasha will leave with him. Medvedev is outraged that the thief dares to make plans about his niece. He threatens to expose Ash. At first, Vaska says passionately: try it. But then he threatens that if he is taken to the investigator, he will not remain silent. He will tell you that Kostylev and Vasilisa pushed him into stealing; they sell stolen goods. Medvedev is sure: no one will believe a thief. But Ash confidently says that they will believe the truth. Ash also threatens Medvedev that he himself will be confused. The policeman leaves so as not to run into trouble. Ash smugly remarks: Medvedev ran to complain to Vasilisa. Bubnov advises Vaska to be careful. But you can’t take Yaroslavl’s Ashes with your bare hands. “If there is war, we will fight,” the thief threatens.

Luka advises Ash to go to Siberia, Vaska jokes that he will wait until he is taken at public expense. Luka persuades that people like Ash are needed in Siberia: “They are needed there.” Ash replies that his path was predetermined: “My path is marked out for me! My parent spent his whole life in prison and ordered the same for me... When I was little, at that time they called me a thief, the son of a thief...” Luka praises Siberia, calls it the “golden side.” Vaska wonders why Luka keeps lying. The old man replies: “And what do you really need badly... think about it! She really might be too much for you...” Ash asks Luke if there is a God? The old man replies: “If you believe, it is; If you don’t believe it, no... What you believe in is what it is.” Bubnov goes to the tavern, and Luka, slamming the door as if leaving, carefully climbs onto the stove. Vasilisa goes to Ash’s room and calls Vasily there. He refuses; he was tired of everything and so was she. Ash looks at Vasilisa and admits that, despite her beauty, he never had a heart for her. Vasilisa is offended that Ash suddenly stopped loving her. The thief explains that it’s not all of a sudden, she doesn’t have a soul, like animals, she and her husband. Vasilisa admits to Ash that she loved in him the hope that he would get her out of here. She offers Ash her sister if he frees her from her husband: “Take this noose off me.” Ash grins: she came up with everything great: her husband - in the coffin, her lover - in hard labor, and herself... Vasilisa asks him to help through her friends, if Ash himself does not want. Natalya will be his payment. Vasilisa beats her sister out of jealousy, and then she cries out of pity. Kostylev, who entered quietly, finds them and shouts at his wife: “Beggar... pig...”

Ash drives Kostylev, but he is the master and decides where he should be. The ashes shake Kostylev vigorously by the collar, but Luka makes a noise on the stove, and Vaska lets the owner out. Ash realized that Luke had heard everything, but he didn’t deny it. He started making noise on purpose so that Ash wouldn’t strangle Kostylev. The old man advises Vaska to stay away from Vasilisa, take Natasha, and go with her away from here. Ash can't decide what to do. Luke says that Ash is still young, he will have time to “get a woman, it’s better to go from here alone before he is killed here.”

The old man notices that Anna has died. Ashes don't like dead people. Luke replies that we must love the living. They go to the tavern to inform Kleshch about his wife’s death.

The actor remembered a poem by Paul Beranger, which he wanted to tell Luke in the morning:

Gentlemen! If the holy world does not know how to find the way to truth, - Honor the madman who brings a golden dream to Humanity!

If tomorrow the sun forgot to illuminate our land, Tomorrow the whole world would be illuminated by the thought of some madman...

Natasha, who was listening to the Actor, laughs at him, and he asks where did Luka go? As soon as it gets warm, the Actor is going to go look for a city where he can be treated for drunkenness. He admits that his stage name is Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky, but no one here knows or wants to know, it’s a shame to lose his name. “Even dogs have nicknames. Without a name there is no person.”

Natasha sees the deceased Anna and tells Actor and Bubnov about this. Bubnov notes: there will be no one to cough at night. He warns Natasha: The ashes “will break her head,” Natasha doesn’t care who she dies from. Those who enter look at Anna, and Natasha is surprised that no one regrets Anna. Luke explains that the living should be pitied. “We don’t feel sorry for the living... we can’t feel sorry for ourselves... where is it!” Bubnov philosophizes - everyone will die. Everyone advises Klesh to report his wife’s death to the police. He is grieving: he only has forty kopecks, what should he use to bury Anna? Crooked Goiter promises that he will collect a nickel or a dime for each night's shelter. Natasha is afraid to walk through the dark hallway and asks Luka to accompany her. The old man advises her to be afraid of the living.

The actor shouts to Luka to name the city where he is treated for drunkenness. Satin is convinced that everything is a mirage. There is no such city. The Tatar stops them so they don’t shout in front of the dead woman. But Satin says that the dead don't care. Luka appears at the door.

Act three

A vacant lot littered with various rubbish. In the back there is a wall made of refractory bricks, to the right there is a log wall and everything is overgrown with weeds. To the left is the wall of Kostylev’s shelter. In the narrow passage between the walls there are boards and beams. Evening. Natasha and Nastya are sitting on the boards. On the firewood are Luka and Baron, next to them are Kleshch and Baron.

Nastya talks about her alleged former date with a student in love with her, who was ready to shoot himself because of his love for her. Bubnov laughs at Nastya’s fantasies, but the Baron asks not to interfere with her further lies.

Nastya continues to fantasize that the student’s parents do not give consent to their marriage, but he cannot live without her. She supposedly says a tender farewell to Raoul. Everyone laughs - last time the lover’s name was Gaston. Nastya is indignant that they don’t believe her. She claims: she had true love. Luka consoles Nastya: “Tell me, girl, it’s nothing!” Natasha reassures Nastya that everyone behaves this way out of envy. Nastya continues to fantasize about the tender words she spoke to her lover, persuading him not to take his own life, not to upset his beloved parents/The Baron laughs - this is a story from the book “Fatal Love”. Luka consoles Nastya and believes her. The Baron laughs at Nastya’s stupidity, although noting her kindness. Bubnov wonders why people love lies so much. Natasha is sure: it is more pleasant than the truth. So she dreams that tomorrow a special stranger will come and something completely special will happen. And then he realizes that there is nothing to wait for. The Baron picks up her phrase that there is nothing to wait for, and he doesn’t expect anything. Everything has already... happened! Natasha says that sometimes she imagines herself dead and she becomes terrified. The Baron takes pity on Natasha, who is being tormented by her sister. She asks: who has it easier?

Suddenly Mite shouts that not everyone is feeling bad. If only everyone wouldn't be so sad. Bubnov is surprised by Kleshch's cry. The Baron goes to make peace with Nastya, otherwise she won’t give him money for a drink.

Bubnov is unhappy that people lie. Okay, Nastya is used to “touching up her face... it puts a blush on her soul.” But why does Luka lie without any benefit to himself? Luka reprimands the Baron not to upset Nastya’s soul. Let her cry if she wants. Baron agrees. Natasha asks Luka why he is kind. The old man is sure that someone needs to be kind. “It’s time to feel sorry for a person... it happens well...” He tells the story of how, as a watchman, he felt sorry for the thieves who were breaking into the dacha guarded by Luka. Then these thieves turned out to be good men. Luka concludes: “If I hadn’t had pity on them, they might have killed me... or something else... And then - court, prison, and Siberia... what’s the point? Prison will not teach you goodness, and Siberia will not teach you... but man will teach you... yes! A person can teach goodness... very simply!”

Bubnov himself cannot lie and always tells the truth. The tick jumps up as if stung and screams, where does Bubnov see the truth?! “There is no work - that’s the truth!” The tick hates everyone. Luka and Natasha regret that Tick resembles a madman. Ash asks about Tick and adds that he does not love him - he is painfully angry and proud. What is he proud of? Horses are the most hardworking, so are they superior to humans?

Luka, continuing the conversation started by Bubnov about the truth, tells the following story. There lived a man in Siberia who believed in a “righteous land” inhabited by special good people. This man endured all the insults and injustices in the hope that someday he would go there; this was his favorite dream. And when the scientist came and proved that there was no such land, this man hit the scientist, cursed him as a scoundrel, and hanged himself. Luka says that he will soon leave the shelter for the “Khokhols” to look at the faith there.

Ash invites Natasha to leave with him, she refuses, but Ash promises to quit stealing, he is literate and will work. He offers to go to Siberia, assures us that we must live differently from how they live, better, “so that you can respect yourself.”

Since childhood he was called a thief, so he became a thief. “Call me something else, Natasha,” Vaska asks. But Natasha doesn’t trust anyone, she’s waiting for something better, her heart aches, and Natasha doesn’t love Vaska. At times she likes him, and at other times it makes her sick to look at him. Ash persuades Natasha that over time she will love him as he loves her. Natasha asks mockingly how Ash manages to love two people at the same time: her and Vasilisa? Ash replies that he is drowning, as if in a quagmire, no matter what he grabs, everything is rotten. He could have loved Vasilisa if she had not been so greedy for money. But she doesn’t need love, but money, will, debauchery. Ash admits that Natasha is a different matter.

Luka persuades Natasha to leave with Vaska, just to remind him more often that he is good. And who does she live with? Her relatives are worse than wolves. And Ash is a tough guy. Natasha doesn't trust anyone. Ash is sure: she has only one road... but he won’t let her go there, he’d rather kill her himself. Natasha is surprised that Ash is not her husband yet, but is already going to kill her. Vaska hugs Natasha, and she threatens that if Vaska touches her with a finger, she will not tolerate it and will hang herself. Ash swears that his hands will wither if he offends Natasha.

Vasilisa, standing at the window, hears everything and says: “So we got married! Advice and love!..” Natasha is scared, but Ash is sure: no one will dare to offend Natasha now. Vasilisa objects that Vasily does not know how to either offend or love. He was more daring in words than in deeds. Luka is surprised by the poisonousness of the “mistress’s” language.

Kostylev drives Natalya to put the samovar and set the table. Ash intercedes, but Natasha stops him so as not to command her, “it’s too early!”

Ash tells Kostylev that they mocked Natasha and that’s enough. “Now she is mine!” The Kostylevs laugh: he hasn’t bought Natasha yet. Vaska threatens not to have much fun, so that they don’t have to cry. Luka drives Ashes, whom Vasilisa incites and wants to provoke. Ash threatens Vasilisa, and she tells him that Ash’s plans will not come true.

Kostylev wonders if it’s true that Luka decided to leave. He replies that he will go wherever his eyes lead him. Kostylev says that it is not good to wander. But Luke calls himself a wanderer. Kostylev scolds Luka for not having a passport. Luke says that “there are people, and there are men.” Kostylev does not understand Luka and gets angry. And he replies that Kostylev will never be a man, even if “the Lord God himself commands him.” Kostylev drives Luka away, Vasilisa joins her husband: Luka has a long tongue, let him get out. Luke promises to leave into the night. Bubnov confirms that it is always better to leave on time, tells his story about how, by leaving on time, he avoided hard labor. His wife got involved with the master furrier, and so cleverly that, just in case, they would poison Bubnov so as not to interfere.

Bubnov beat his wife, and the master beat him. Bubnov even thought about how to “kill” his wife, but came to his senses and left. The workshop was registered to his wife, so he turned out to be as naked as a falcon. This is also facilitated by the fact that Bubnov is a heavy drinker and very lazy, as he himself admits to Luka.

Satin and Actor appear. Satin demands that Luka confess to lying to the Actor. The actor didn't drink vodka today, but worked - he washed the street. He shows the money he earned - two five-altyn. Satin offers to give him the money, but the Actor says that he earns his way.

Satin complains that he blew the cards “all to smithereens.” There are “sharps smarter than me!” Luke calls Satin a cheerful person. Satin recalls that in his youth he was funny, loved to make people laugh, and to represent on stage. Luke wonders how Satin got to his present life? It’s unpleasant for Satin to stir up his soul. Luka wants to understand how such a smart person suddenly ended up at the very bottom. Satin replies that he spent four years and seven months in prison, and after prison there is no going anywhere. Luka wonders why Satin went to prison? He replies that he is a scoundrel, whom he killed in passion and irritation. In prison I learned to play cards.

For whom did he kill? - asks Luka. Satin replies that because of his own sister, but he does not want to say anything more, and his sister died nine years ago, she was nice.

Satin asks the returning Tick why he is so gloomy. The mechanic doesn’t know what to do, there is no tool - the whole funeral was “eaten”. Satin advises not to do anything - just live. But Kleshch is ashamed of living like this. Satin objects, because people are not ashamed that they doomed Tick to such a bestial existence.

Natasha screams. Her sister hits her again. Luka advises calling Vaska Ash, and the Actor runs away after him.

Crooked Zob, Tatarin, Medvedev take part in the fight. Satin is trying to push Vasilisa away from Natasha. Vaska Pepel appears. He pushes everyone aside and runs after Kostylev. Vaska sees that Natasha’s legs are scalded with boiling water, she, almost unconscious, says to Vasily: “Take me, bury me.” Vasilisa appears and shouts that Kostylev was killed. Vasily does not understand anything, he wants to take Natasha to the hospital, and then settle accounts with her offenders. (The lights on the stage go out. Individual surprised exclamations and phrases are heard.) Then Vasilisa shouts in a triumphant voice that Vaska Ash killed her husband. Calling the police. She says that she saw everything herself. Ash approaches Vasilisa, looks at Kostylev’s corpse and asks if she should also be killed, Vasilisa? Medvedev calls the police. Satin reassures Ash: killing in a fight is not a very serious crime. He, Satin, also beat the old man and is ready to act as a witness. Ash admits: Vasilisa encouraged him to kill her husband. Natasha suddenly shouts that Ash and her sister are at the same time. Vasilisa was disturbed by her husband and sister, so they killed her husband and scalded her by knocking over the samovar. Ash is stunned by Natasha's accusation. He wants to refute this terrible accusation. But she does not listen and curses her offenders. Satin is also surprised and tells Ash that this family “will drown him.”

Natasha, almost delirious, screams that her sister taught her, and Vaska Pepel killed Kostylev, and asks to be put in prison.

Act four

The setting of the first act, but there is no Ashes room. Kleshch sits at the table and repairs the accordion. At the other end of the table are Satin, Baron, Nastya. They drink vodka and beer. The Actor is fiddling with the stove. Night. It's windy outside.

The tick did not even notice how Luka disappeared in the confusion. The Baron adds: “... like smoke from the face of fire.” Satin says in the words of a prayer: “In this way sinners disappear from the presence of the righteous.” Nastya stands up for Luka, calling everyone present rusty. Satin laughs: For many, Luka was like a crumb for the toothless, and the Baron adds: “Like a plaster for abscesses.” Kleshch also stands up for Luka, calling him compassionate. The Tatar is convinced that the Koran should be a law for people. Mite agrees - we must live according to Divine laws. Nastya wants to leave here. Satin advises her to take the Actor with her, they are on their way.

Satin and Baron list the muses of art, but cannot remember the patroness of the theater. The actor tells them - this is Melpomene, calls them ignoramuses. Nastya screams and waves her arms. Satin advises the Baron not to interfere with the neighbors doing what they want: let them scream and go to God knows where. The Baron calls Luka a charlatan. Nastya indignantly calls him a charlatan.

Kleshch notes that Luka “really did not like the truth and rebelled against it.” Satin shouts that “man is the truth!” The old man lied out of pity for others. Satin says that he read: there is a truth that is comforting and reconciling. But this lie is needed by those who are weak in soul, who hide behind it like a shield. He who is the master is not afraid of life, does not need lies. “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the God of a free man."

The Baron recalls that their family, which came from France, was rich and noble under Catherine. Nastya interrupts: the Baron made it all up. He's angry. Satin reassures him, “... forget about grandfather’s carriages... in the carriage of the past, you won’t go anywhere...”. Satin asks Nastya about Natasha. She replies that Natasha left the hospital a long time ago and disappeared. The night shelters are discussing who will “seat” whom more tightly, Vaska Ashes Vasilisa or she Vaska. They come to the conclusion that Vasili

and the cunning one will “turn out”, and Vaska will go to hard labor in Siberia. The Baron again quarrels with Nastya, explaining to her that he is no match for him, the Baron. Nastya laughs in response - the Baron lives on her handouts, “like a worm on an apple.”

Seeing that the Tatar went to pray, Satin says: “Man is free... he pays for everything himself, and therefore he is free!.. Man is the truth.” Satin claims that all people are equal. “Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain. Human! It's great! That sounds… proud!” He then adds that a person should be respected, and not humiliated with pity. He talks about himself that he is a “convict, a murderer, a sharpie”; when he walks down the street, people avoid him, call him a charlatan, and say that he needs to work. Why work? To be full? Satin is convinced: “Man is above satiety!” The Baron admires Satin, but he himself is a coward. From the time he became aware of himself, “his head was foggy.” The impression he had from life was that he was just changing clothes: first he wore a uniform, then a tailcoat, then poor clothes. When he squandered government money, he put on a convict uniform. This is all pretty stupid. The Baron asks himself: “And... for some reason I was born... huh?” Satin responds with the words of Luke: “Man is born for the best.”

The actor slides off the stove and asks Tatarin to pray for him, but Tatarin replies: “Pray yourself.” The actor, having drunk vodka, almost runs out into the hallway. Satin is surprised by the Actor's behavior. Bubnov and Medvedev, drunk, enter the shelter. They are surprised by the absence of people and wonder where everyone has gone. Bubnov says that he is kind, if he were rich, he would keep a free tavern for the poor. I would take Satin. But Satin now wants to get something from Bubnov, and he gives the only ruble he has left, and small change of five and two kopecks. Satin claims that this money will be safer for him.

Alyosha enters. Having learned that Kleshch repaired the accordion, he takes it and sings.

Kvashnya comes and complains that it’s cold outside. She sees that Medvedev has been drinking and scolds him. Satin intercedes. And Kvashnya explains that she took Medvedev as her roommate so that he would protect her, but he decided to drink. This is no good. Satin laughs that Kvashnya chose a bad assistant. She agrees, but Satin will not go to her roommate, and if he did, he would lose her at cards in a week. He agrees: “That’s right, mistress! I'll lose..."

The night shelters are going to have fun at night. In the meantime, they sing a song: “The sun rises and sets, But it’s dark in my prison!”

The Baron runs in and shouts that the Actor hanged himself. Satin says quietly: “Eh... ruined the song... fool!”

Theater productions

First productions

• December 18 - Moscow Art Theater, directors K. S. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, art. Simov; Kostylev - Burdzhalov, Vasilisa - Muratova, Natasha - Andreeva, Medvedev - Gribunin, Ash - Kharlamov, Kleshch - Zagarov, Anna - Savitskaya, Nastya - Knipper, Kvashnya - Samarova, Bubnov - Luzhsky, Satin - Stanislavsky, Actor - Gromov, Baron - Kachalov, Luka - Moskvin, Alyoshka - Adashev, Krivoy Zob - Baranov, Tatarin - Vishnevsky). By the 60th anniversary of the first production (December 18, 1962), the play was performed at the Moscow Art Theater 1451 times.

Among subsequent pre-revolutionary and Soviet performers at the Moscow Art Theater (in chronological order): Khmelev, Raevsky (Kostylev), Shevchenko (Vasilisa), Aleksandrov, Kaluzhsky, Batalov, Gribov, Gotovtsev (Medvedev), Leonidov, Sudakov, Dobronravov, Yarov (Ashes), Giatsintova, Tarasova, Popova (Nastya), Istrin, Tarkhanov, Toporkov, V. Verbitsky (Bubnov), Sudbinin, Massalitinov, Podgorny, Boleslavsky, Ershov, Prudkin (Satin), Geirot, Ershov; V. Verbitsky, Massalsky (Baron), Artem, Shakhalov, Orlov, Sinitsyn, Sudakov, V. Popov (Actor), Tarkhanov, Shishkov, Gribov (Luka).

Staging the play on the imperial stage was prohibited, but with the participation of St. Petersburg actors there were two readings of the play “in person”: in 1903 - in the house of N.P. Karabchevsky and in the noble assembly (Vasilisa - Strepetova, Natasha - Muzil-Borozdina, Ashes - Apollonsky , Nastya - Pototskaya, Bubnov - Sanin, Satin - Dalsky, Baron - Dalmatov, Luka - Davydov).

Until 1905, the production of the play was permitted with large bills and with the consent of local authorities. Nevertheless, productions took place in 1903: Vyatka City Theater; Kyiv theaters of Solovtsov (dir. Ivanovsky, Satin - Nedelin, Luka - Borisovsky) and Borodaya (dir. Sokolovsky, Ashes - Muromtsev, Baron - Ludvigov); Nizhny Novgorod Theater (Basmanov's enterprise), St. Petersburg theaters: Vasileostrovsky Theater, Nekrasova-Kolchitskaya Theater, New Nemetti Theater (Actor -

I am the connection of worlds that exist everywhere,
I am an extreme degree of substance;
I am the center of the living
The trait is the initial of the deity;
My body is crumbling into dust,
I command thunder with my mind.
I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am a god!
G. R. Derzhavin

The genre of the play “At the Lower Depths” (1902) is a drama, while its genre originality was manifested in the close interweaving of social and philosophical content.

The play depicts the life of “former people” (tramps, thieves, tramps, etc.), and this is the theme of the social content of this work. Gorky begins the play by describing the shelter in the first remark: “A basement like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoked, with crumbling plaster. One window under the ceiling" (I). And people live in these conditions! The playwright shows in detail the different roommates from Kostylev’s establishment. The main characters in the play have a short biography, from which one can judge what kind of people got to the “bottom” of life. These are former criminals who served various terms in prison (Satin, Baron), heavy drunks (Aktor, Bubnov), a petty thief (Ashes), a bankrupt artisan (Kleshch), a girl of easy virtue (Nastya), etc. Therefore, all night shelters are people of a certain type; they are usually called “the dregs of society.”

Describing “former people,” Gorky shows that they have no opportunity to rise from the “bottom.” This idea is revealed especially clearly in the image of the Tick. He is a craftsman, a good mechanic, but he ended up in a shelter together with his sick wife. Klesh explains the catastrophic turn in his fate by the fact that he went bankrupt due to Anna’s illness, which, by the way, he himself brought to illness with beatings. He proudly and decisively declares to the night shelters that they are not his comrades: they are slackers and drunkards, and he is an honest worker. Turning to Ash, Mite says: “Do you think I won’t break out of here? I’ll get out...” (I). Kleshch never manages to fulfill his cherished dream: formally because Anna needs money for her funeral, and he sells his plumbing tools; essentially because Mite wants well-being only for himself. In the last act of the play, he still lives in the same shelter. He no longer thinks about a decent life and, together with other tramps, sits back, drinks, plays cards, completely resigned to his fate. This is how Gorky shows the hopelessness of life, the desperate situation of people at the “bottom”.

The social idea of ​​the play is that people at the “bottom” live in inhumane conditions, and a society that allows the existence of such shelters is unjust and inhumane. Thus, Gorky’s play expresses a reproach to the modern state structure of Russia. The playwright, realizing that the homeless shelters are largely to blame for their plight, still sympathizes with them and does not make negative heroes out of the “former people”.

The only definitely negative characters in Gorky are the owners of the shelter. Kostylev, of course, is far from being the real “masters of life,” but this “owner” is a merciless bloodsucker who does not hesitate to “throw in some money” (I), that is, to increase the cost of living in a rooming house. He needs the money, as he himself explains, to buy oil for the lamp, and then the lamp in front of his icons will be unquenchable. Despite his piety, Kostylev does not hesitate to offend Natasha, reproaching her with a piece of bread. Matching the owner of the shelter is his wife Vasilisa, a vicious and evil woman. Feeling that her lover Vaska Pepel has lost interest in her charms and has fallen in love with Natasha, she decides to take revenge on her hated husband, the traitor Vaska, and her happy rival-sister at once. Vasilisa persuades her lover to kill her husband, promising both money and consent to marry Natalya, but Ash quickly understands the cunning of the annoying mistress. Both Kostylev and Vasilisa, as Gorky portrays them, are hypocrites who are ready to cross any moral and legal laws for the sake of profit. The social conflict in the play arises precisely between the guests and the owners of the shelter. True, Gorky does not sharpen this conflict, since the night shelters have completely resigned themselves to their fate.

The play presents desperate characters, crushed by life's circumstances. Is it possible to help them? How to support them? What do they need - sympathy and consolation or truth? And what is the truth? Thus, in the play “At the Lower Depths”, in connection with the social content, a philosophical theme arises about truth and lies-consolation, which begins to actively unfold in the second act, after the appearance of the wanderer Luke in the shelter. This old man completely disinterestedly helps the homeless shelters with advice, but not everyone. He, for example, does not seek to console Satin, because he understands: this man does not need anyone’s sympathy. Luke has no soul-saving conversations with the Baron, since the Baron is a stupid and empty person, it is useless to waste mental strength on him. Giving advice, the old man is not embarrassed when some heroes accept his sympathy with gratitude (Anna, Actor), and others with condescending irony (Ashes, Bubnov, Kleshch).

However, in reality it turns out that Luka only helps dying Anna with his consolations, calming her down before her death. His simple-minded kindness and consolation cannot help the rest of the characters. Luka tells the Actor about a hospital for alcoholics, where everyone is treated for free. He lured the weak-willed drunkard with a beautiful dream of a quick cure, that’s all he could do, and the Actor hanged himself. Having overheard Ash's conversation with Vasilisa, the old man tries to dissuade the guy from making an attempt on Kostylev's life. Vasily, according to Luka, must tear Natasha out of the Kostylev family and go with her to Siberia, and there begin the new, honest life he dreams of. But Luka’s good advice cannot stop the tragic events: Vasily accidentally, but still kills Kostylev, after Vasilisa cruelly cripples Natalya out of jealousy.

In the play, almost every character expresses his opinion on the philosophical problem of truth and lies-consolation. Having led the Actor to suicide, and the love story of Vaska Ash to a tragic ending, Gorky apparently expresses his negative attitude towards Luka’s consolation. However, in the play, the old man’s philosophical position is supported by serious arguments: Luke, seeing during his travels only the poverty and grief of the common people, generally lost faith in the truth. He tells a real-life case when the truth drives a person who believed in a righteous land to suicide (III). The truth, according to Luke, is what you like, what you consider right and fair. For example, to Ash’s tricky question whether there is a God, the old man replies: “If you believe, there is, if you don’t believe, there is no... What you believe in, that is...” (II). When Nastya once again talks about her beautiful love and none of the shelters believe her, she screams with tears in her voice: “I don’t want it anymore! I won’t say... If they don’t believe... if they laugh...” But Luka calms her down: “... nothing... don’t be angry! I know... I believe. Your truth, not theirs... If you believe, you had true love... that means you had it! Was!" (III).

Bubnov also talks about the truth: “But I... I don’t know how to lie! For what? In my opinion, tell the whole truth as it is! Why be ashamed? (III). Such truth does not help a person live, but only crushes and humiliates him. A convincing illustration of this truth is a small episode that emerges from the conversation between Kvashnya and the shoemaker Alyosha at the end of the fourth act. Kvashnya beats his roommate, former police officer Medvedev, under hot hand. She does this easily, especially because she probably never gets back: after all, Medvedev loves her and, moreover, is afraid that she will drive him away if he behaves like her first husband. Alyoshka “for fun” told the whole neighborhood the truth about how Kvashnya “pulled” her roommate by the hair. Now all his acquaintances make fun of the respectable Medvedev, a former policeman, and he is offended by such “fame”; out of shame, he “started drinking” (IV). This is the result of the truth that Bubnov preaches.

Raising the problem of truth and lies-consolation, Gorky, of course, wanted to express his own opinion on this philosophical issue. It is generally accepted that the author’s point of view is voiced by Satin, as the most suitable hero of the play for this role. This refers to the famous monologue about the Man from the last act: “What is truth? Man - that's the truth! (...) We must respect the person! Don't feel sorry... don't humiliate him with pity... you must respect him! (...) Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” (IV). This is a high truth that supports a person and inspires him in the fight against life’s obstacles. This is the kind of truth, according to Gorky, that people need. In other words, Satin’s monologue about Man expresses the idea of ​​the philosophical content of the play.

The playwright himself did not define the genre of his work, but simply called “At the Bottom” a play. Where should this play be classified as a comedy, drama or tragedy? Drama, like comedy, shows the private life of the heroes, but, unlike comedy, it does not ridicule the morals of the heroes, but puts them in conflicting relationships with the life around them. Drama, like tragedy, depicts acute social or moral contradictions, but, unlike tragedy, it avoids showing exceptional heroes. In the play “At the Lower Depths,” Gorky does not ridicule anything; on the contrary, the Actor dies in the finale. However, the Actor is not at all like a tragic hero who is ready to assert his ideological beliefs and moral principles even at the cost of his own life (like Katerina Kabanova from A.N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”): the cause of the death of Gorky’s character is weakness of character and inability to withstand life’s difficulties . Therefore, according to genre criteria, the play “At the Lower Depths” is a drama.

To summarize the above, it can be noted that the drama “At the Bottom” is a wonderful work of art, where two problems are posed and intertwined - the problem of social justice in the Russian society of the author’s time and the “eternal” philosophical problem of truth and lies-consolation. The convincingness of Gorky's solution to these problems can be explained by the fact that the playwright does not give an unambiguous answer to the questions posed.

On the one hand, the author shows how difficult it is to rise from the “bottom” of society. The story of Kleshch confirms that it is necessary to change the social conditions that gave rise to the shelter; Only together, and not alone, can the poor achieve a decent life. But, on the other hand, the homeless shelters, corrupted by idleness and begging, themselves do not want to work to get out of the shelter. Moreover, Satin and Baron even glorify idleness and anarchism.

Gorky, by his own admission, planned to expose in the drama “At the Lower Depths” the idea of ​​beautiful-hearted, lulling lies of consolation and Luka, the main propagandist of the idea of ​​consolation. But the image of the extraordinary wanderer in the play turned out to be very complex and, contrary to the author’s intention, very attractive. In a word, there was no unambiguous exposure of Luka, as Gorky himself wrote about in his article “On Plays” (1933). More recently, Satin’s phrase (one should not feel sorry for a person, but respect it) was understood literally: pity humiliates a person. But modern society seems to be moving away from such straightforward judgments and recognizing not only the truth of Satin, but also the truth of Luke: weak, defenseless people can and even should be pitied, that is, sympathize with and help them. There is nothing shameful or offensive for a person in such an attitude.

] The central image of early Gorky is a proud and strong personality who embodies 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 said, and for Gorky, the beauty of a person lies in strength and feat, even aimless ones: a strong person has the right to be “beyond good and evil”, to be outside of ethical principles, like Chelkash, and a feat, from this point of view, is resistance to the general flow of life.
After a series of romantic works of the 90s, full of rebellious ideas, Gorky created a play that became, perhaps, the most important link in the entire philosophical and artistic system of the writer - the drama “At the Lower Depths” (1902). Let's see what heroes inhabit the “bottom” and how they live.

II. Conversation on the content of the play “At the Depths”
- How is the scene of action depicted in the play?
(The location of the action is described in the author's remarks. In the first act it is “a cave-like basement”, “heavy, stone vaults, smoke-stained, with crumbling plaster”. It is important that the writer gives instructions on how the scene is lit: "from the viewer and from top to bottom" the light reaches the night shelters from the basement window, as if searching for people among the basement inhabitants. Thin partitions screen off Ash's room.
“Everywhere along the walls there are bunks”. Apart from Kvashnya, Baron and Nastya, who live in the kitchen, no one has their own corner. Everything is on display in front of each other, a secluded place is only on the stove and behind the chintz canopy separating the dying Anna’s bed from the others (by this she is already, as it were, separated from life). There is dirt everywhere: "dirty chintz canopy", unpainted and dirty tables, benches, stools, tattered cardboards, pieces of oilcloth, rags.
Third act takes place in an early spring evening in a vacant lot, “a yard littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds”. Let's pay attention to the coloring of this place: the dark wall of a barn or stable “gray, covered with remains of plaster” the wall of the bunkhouse, the red wall of the brick firewall blocking the sky, the reddish light of the setting sun, the black branches of the elderberry without buds.
In the setting of the fourth act, significant changes occur: the partitions of Ash’s former room are broken, the Tick’s anvil has disappeared. The action takes place at night, and light from the outside world no longer penetrates into the basement - the scene is illuminated by a lamp standing in the middle of the table. However, the last “act” of the drama takes place in a vacant lot - there the Actor hanged himself.)

- What kind of people are the inhabitants of the shelter?
(People who have sunk to the bottom of life end up in a shelter. This is the last refuge for tramps, marginalized people, “former people”. All social strata of society are here: the bankrupt nobleman Baron, the owner of the shelter Kostylev, the policeman Medvedev, the mechanic Kleshch, the cap maker Bubnov, the merchant Kvashnya , the sharper Satin, the prostitute Nastya, the thief Ashes. Everyone is equalized by the position of the dregs of society. Very young (shoemaker Alyoshka is 20 years old) and not very old people live here (the oldest, Bubnov, is 45 years old). However, their lives are almost over. Dying Anna introduces herself we are an old woman, and she, it turns out, is 30 years old.
Many night shelters do not even have names, only nicknames remain, expressively describing their bearers. The appearance of the dumpling seller Kvashnya, the character of Kleshch, and the Baron’s ambition are clear. The actor once bore the sonorous surname Sverchkov-Zadunaisky, but now there are almost no memories left - “I forgot everything.”)

- What is the subject of the image in the play?
(The subject of the drama “At the Bottom” is the consciousness of people thrown as a result of deep social processes to the “bottom” of life).

- What is the conflict of the drama?
(Social conflict has several levels in the play. The social poles are clearly indicated: on one, the owner of the shelter, Kostylev, and the policeman Medvedev, who supports his power, on the other, the essentially powerless roomies. Thus it is obvious conflict between government and disenfranchised people. This conflict hardly develops, because Kostylev and Medvedev are not so far from the inhabitants of the shelter.
Each of the night shelters experienced in the past your social conflict , as a result of which he found himself in a humiliating position.)
Reference:
A sharp conflict situation, playing out in front of the audience, is the most important feature of drama as a type of literature.

- What brought its inhabitants - Satin, Baron, Kleshch, Bubnov, Actor, Nastya, Ash - to the shelter? What is the backstory of these characters?
(Satin fell “to the bottom” after serving time in prison for murder: “I killed a scoundrel in passion and irritation... because of my own sister”; Baron went broke; Mite lost my job: “I’m a working person... I’ve been working since I was little”; Bubnov he left home out of harm’s way so as not to kill his wife and her lover, although he himself admits that he is “lazy” and also a heavy drunkard, “he would drink away the workshop”; Actor he drank himself to death, “drank away his soul... died”; fate Ashes was predetermined already at his birth: “I have been a thief since I was a child... everyone always told me: Vaska is a thief, Vaska’s son is a thief!”
The Baron talks in more detail about the stages of his fall (act four): “It seems to me that all my life I’ve only been changing clothes... but why? I don't understand! I studied and wore the uniform of a noble institute... and what did I study? I don’t remember... I got married, put on a tailcoat, then a robe... and took a nasty wife and - why? I don’t understand... I lived through everything that happened - I wore some kind of gray jacket and red trousers... and how did I go broke? I didn’t notice... I served in the government chamber... uniform, cap with a cockade... squandered government money - they put a prisoner’s robe on me... then I put on this... And everything... like in a dream. .. A? That's funny? Each stage of the thirty-three-year-old Baron’s life seems to be marked by a certain costume. These changes of clothes symbolize a gradual decline in social status, and nothing stands behind these “changes of clothes”; life passed “like in a dream.”)

- How is social conflict interconnected with dramaturgical conflict?
(The social conflict is taken off stage, pushed into the past; it does not become the basis of the dramatic conflict. We observe only the result of off-stage conflicts.)

- What kind of conflicts, other than social ones, are highlighted in the play?
(The play has traditional love conflict . It is determined by the relationships between Vaska Pepla, Vasilisa, the wife of the owner of the shelter, Kostylev and Natasha, Vasilisa’s sister.
Exposition of this conflict- a conversation between the shelters, from which it is clear that Kostylev is looking for his wife Vasilisa in the shelter, who is cheating on him with Vaska Ash.
The origin of this conflict- the appearance of Natasha in the shelter, for whose sake Ashes leaves Vasilisa.
During development of love conflict it becomes clear that the relationship with Natasha revives Ash, he wants to leave with her and start a new life.
Climax of the conflict taken off stage: at the end of the third act, we learn from Kvashnya’s words 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 Vaska Ash turns out to be tragic outcome of a love conflict. Natasha stops believing Ash: “She’s at the same time! Damn you! You both…")

- What is unique about a love conflict?
(Love conflict becomes the brink of social conflict . It shows that anti-human 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 Ash and her rival sister Natasha, gets rid of her unloved and disgusted husband and becomes the sole mistress of the shelter. There is nothing human left in Vasilisa, and this shows the monstrosity of the social conditions that disfigured both the inhabitants of the shelter and its owners. The night shelters are not directly involved in this conflict, they are only third-party spectators.)

III. Teacher's final words
The conflict in which all the heroes participate is of a different kind. Gorky depicts the consciousness of people at the “bottom”. The plot unfolds not so much in external action - in everyday life, but in the dialogues of the characters. Exactly the conversations of the night shelters determine development of dramatic conflict . The action is transferred to a non-event series. This is typical for the genre philosophical drama .
So, the genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama .

Additional material for teachers
To record at the beginning of the lesson, you can offer the following: plan for analyzing a dramatic work:
1. Time of creation and publication of the play.
2. The place occupied in the playwright’s work.
3. The theme of the play and the reflection of certain life material in it.
4. Characters and their grouping.
5. The conflict of a dramatic work, its originality, the degree of novelty and acuteness, its deepening.
6. Development of dramatic action and its phases. Exposition, plot, twists and turns, climax, denouement.
7. Composition of the play. The role and significance of each act.
8. Dramatic characters and their connection with action.
9. Speech characteristics of the characters. The connection between character and words.
10. The role of dialogues and monologues in the play. Word and action.
11. Identification of the author's position. The role of stage directions in drama.
12. Genre and specific uniqueness of the play. Correspondence of the genre to the author's predilections and preferences.
13. Comedy means (if it's a comedy).
14. Tragic flavor (in the case of analyzing a tragedy).
15. Correlation of the play with the aesthetic positions of the author and his views on the theater. The purpose of the play for a specific stage.
16. Theatrical interpretation of drama at the time of its creation and subsequently. The best acting ensembles, outstanding directorial decisions, memorable embodiments of individual roles.
17. The play and its dramatic traditions.

Homework
Identify Luke's role in the play. Write down his statements about people, about life, about truth, about faith.

Lesson 2. “What you believe in is what it is.” The role of Luka in the drama “At the Bottom”
The purpose of the lesson: create a problematic situation and encourage students to express their own point of view on the image of Luke and his life position.
Methodical techniques: discussion, analytical conversation.

During the classes
I. Analytical conversation
Let us turn to the extra-event series of the drama and see how the conflict develops here.

- How do the inhabitants of the shelter perceive their situation before Luka appears?
(IN exposition we see people, in essence, resigned to their humiliating situation. The night shelters sluggishly, habitually squabble, and the Actor says to Satin: “One day they will completely kill you... to death...” “And you are a fool,” Satin snaps. "Why?" - the Actor is surprised. “Because you can’t kill twice.”
These words of Satin show his attitude towards the existence that they all lead in the shelter. This is not life, they are all already dead. Everything seems clear.
But the Actor’s response is interesting: “I don’t understand... Why not?” Perhaps it is the Actor, who has died more than once on stage, who understands the horror of the situation more deeply than others. After all, it is he who commits suicide at the end of the play.)

- What is the meaning of using past tense in the self-characteristics of the heroes?
(People feel "former":
“Satin. I was educated person"(the paradox is that the past tense is impossible in this case).
“Bubnov. I'm a furrier was ».
Bubnov pronounces a philosophical maxim: “It turns out - don’t paint yourself how you look on the outside, everything will be erased... everything will be erased, Yes!")

- Which of the characters contrasts itself with the others?
(Only one The tick hasn't calmed down yet with your fate. He separates himself from the rest of the night shelters: “What kind of people are they? Ragged, golden company... people! I’m a working man... I’m ashamed to look at them... I’ve been working since I was little... Do you think I won’t break out of here? I’ll get out... I’ll rip off the skin, and I’ll get out... Just wait a minute... my wife will die...”
Kleshch's dream of a different life is associated with the liberation that his wife's death will bring him. He does not feel the enormity of his statement. And the dream will turn out to be imaginary.)

- Which scene is the beginning of the conflict?
(The beginning of the conflict is the appearance of Luke. He immediately announces his views on life: “I don’t care! I respect swindlers too, in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: all are black, all jump... that’s how it is.” And one more thing: “For an old man, where it’s warm, there’s a homeland...”
Luka turns out to be in the center of attention of guests: “What an interesting little old man you brought, Natasha...” - and the entire development of the plot is concentrated on him.)

- How does Luka behave with each of the inhabitants of the shelter?
(Luka quickly finds an approach to the shelters: “I’ll look at you, brothers - your life - oh-oh!..”
He feels sorry for Alyoshka: “Eh, guy, you’re confused...”
He does not respond to rudeness, skillfully avoids questions that are unpleasant for him, and is ready to sweep the floor instead of the bunkhouses.
Luka becomes necessary for Anna, he takes pity on her: “Is it possible to abandon a person like that?”
Luka skillfully flatters Medvedev, calling him “under,” and he immediately falls for this bait.)

- What do we know about Luke?
(Luka says practically nothing about himself, we only learn: “They crushed a lot, that’s why he’s soft...”)

- How does Luka affect night shelters?
(In each of the shelters, Luke sees a person, reveals their bright sides, the essence of personality , and it produces life revolution heroes.
It turns out that the prostitute Nastya dreams of beautiful and bright love;
the drunken Actor receives hope for a cure for alcoholism - Luke tells him: “A man can do anything, if only he wants to...”;
The thief Vaska Pepel plans to leave for Siberia and start a new life there with Natasha, becoming a strong master.
Luke gives Anna consolation: “Nothing, dear! You - hope... That means you will die, and you will be at peace... you won’t need anything else, and there’s nothing to be afraid of! Silence, peace - lie down!”
Luke reveals the good in every person and instills faith in the best.)

- Did Luka lie to the night shelters?
(There may be different opinions on this matter.
Luke selflessly tries to help people, instill in them faith in himself, and awaken the best sides of nature.
He sincerely wishes well shows real ways to achieve a new, better life . After all, there really are hospitals for alcoholics, Siberia really is the “golden side”, and not just a place of exile and hard labor.
As for the afterlife with which he beckons Anna, the question is more complicated; it is a matter of faith and religious belief.
What did he lie about? When Luka convinces Nastya that he believes in her feelings, in her love: “If you believe, you had true love... that means you had it! Was!" - he only helps her find the strength for life, for real, not fictitious love.)

- How do the inhabitants of the shelter react to Luke’s words?
(The lodgers are at first incredulous of Luka’s words: “Why are you lying all the time?” Luka doesn’t deny this, he answers the question with a question: “And... what do you really desperately need... think about it! She really can , butt for you..."
Even to a direct question about God, Luke answers evasively: “If you believe, he is; If you don’t believe it, no... What you believe in is what it is...")

- What groups can the characters of the play be divided into?
(The characters in the play can be divided into "believers" and "non-believers" .
Anna believes in God, Tatar believes in Allah, Nastya believes in “fatal” love, Baron believes in his past, perhaps invented. Kleshch no longer believes in anything, and Bubnov never believed in anything.)

- What is the sacred meaning of the name “Luke”?
(Name "Luke" double meaning: this name reminds Evangelist Luke, means "light", and at the same time associated with the word "sly"(euphemism for "crap").)

- What is the author’s position in relation to Luke?
(The author's position is expressed in the development of the plot.
After Luke left everything is not happening at all as Luke convinced and as the heroes expected .
Vaska Pepel does end up in Siberia, but only to hard labor, for the murder of Kostylev, and not as a free settler.
The actor, who has lost faith in himself and in his strength, exactly repeats the fate of the hero of Luke's parable about the righteous land. Luke, having told a parable about a man who, having lost faith in the existence of a righteous land, hanged himself, believes that a person should not be deprived of dreams, hopes, even imaginary ones. Gorky, showing the fate of the Actor, assures the reader and viewer that it is false hope that can lead a person to suicide .)
Gorky himself wrote about his plan: “ The main question I wanted to pose is what is better, truth or compassion. What is more necessary? Is it necessary to take compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? This is not a subjective question, but a general philosophical one.”

- Gorky contrasts not truth and lies, but truth and compassion. How justified is this opposition?
(Discussion.)

- What is the significance of Luke’s influence on the shelters?
(All the characters agree that Luke instilled in them false hope . But he didn’t promise to lift them from the bottom of life, he simply showed their own capabilities, showed that there is a way out, and now everything depends on them.)

- How strong is the self-confidence awakened by Luka?
(This faith did not have time to take hold in the minds of the night shelters; it turned out to be fragile and lifeless; with the disappearance of Luka, hope fades away)

- What is the reason for the rapid decline of faith?
(Maybe it's in the weaknesses of the heroes themselves , in their inability and unwillingness to do at least something to implement new plans. Dissatisfaction with reality and a sharply negative attitude towards it are combined with a complete unwillingness to undertake anything to change this reality.)

- How does Luke explain the failures of the life of the night shelters?
(Luke explains failures in the lives of homeless shelters due to external circumstances , does not at all blame the heroes themselves for their failed lives. That’s why she was so drawn to him and became so disappointed, having lost external support with Luka’s departure.)

II. Teacher's final words
Gorky does not accept passive consciousness, whose ideologist he considers Luka.
According to the writer, it can only reconcile a person with the outside world, but will not encourage him to change this world.
Although Gorky does not accept Luka’s position, this image seems to be out of the author’s control.
According to the memoirs of I.M. Moskvin, in the 1902 production, Luka appeared as a noble comforter, almost a savior of many desperate inhabitants of the shelter. Some critics saw in Luke “Danko, to whom only real features were given,” “an exponent of the highest truth,” and found elements of Luke’s exaltation in Beranger’s poems, which the Actor shouts:
Gentlemen! If the truth is holy
The world doesn't know how to find a way -
Honor the madman who inspires
A golden dream for humanity!
K. S. Stanislavsky, one of the directors of the play, planned path "decrease" hero.“Luka is cunning”, “looking slyly”, “slyly smiling”, “ingratiatingly, softly”, “it’s clear that he’s lying.”
Luke is a living image precisely because he is contradictory and ambiguous.

Homework
Find out how the issue of truth is resolved in the play. Find statements from different characters about the truth.

Lesson 3. The question of truth in Gorky’s drama “At the Depths”
The purpose of the lesson: identify the positions of the characters in the play and the author’s position in relation to the issue of truth.
Methodical techniques: analytical conversation, discussion.

During the classes
I. The teacher's word
The philosophical question that Gorky himself posed: What is better - truth or compassion? The question of truth is multifaceted. Each person understands the truth in his own way, still keeping in mind some final, highest truth. Let's see how truth and lies relate in the drama “At the Bottom.”

II. Working with a dictionary
- What do the characters in the play mean by “truth”?
(Discussion. This word is ambiguous. We advise you to look in an explanatory dictionary and find out the meaning of the word “truth”.

Teacher's comment:
You can select two levels of "truth".
One is " private truth which the hero defends, assures everyone, and above all himself, of the existence of extraordinary, bright love. The Baron is in the existence of his prosperous past. Kleshch truthfully calls his situation, which turned out to be hopeless even after the death of his wife: “There is no work... no strength! That's the truth! Shelter... there is no shelter! You have to breathe... here it is, the truth!” For Vasilisa, the “truth” is that she is “tired” of Vaska Ash, that she mocks her sister: “I’m not bragging - I’m telling the truth.” Such a “private” truth is at the level of fact: it was - it wasn’t.
Another level of "truth" "worldview"- in Luke's remarks. Luke's "truth" and his "lies" are expressed by the formula: “What you believe in is what it is.”

III. Conversation
- Is the truth necessary at all?
(Discussion.)

- Which character's position contrasts with Luke's position?
(Luke’s position, compromise, consoling, Bubnov's position is opposed .
This is the darkest figure in the play. Bubnov enters into the argument implicitly, as if talking to myself , supporting the polyphony (polylogue) of the play.
Act 1, scene at the bedside of dying Anna:
Natasha (to the tick). If only you could treat her more kindly now... it won't be long...
Mite. I know...
Natasha. You know... It's not enough to know, you - understand. After all, dying is scary...
Ash. But I'm not afraid...
Natasha. How!.. Bravery...
Bubnov (whistles). And the threads are rotten...
This phrase is repeated several times throughout the play, as if

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Gorky defined the play “At the Lower Depths” as a socio-philosophical drama in which the main ones are the conflict of people with the outside world and internal conflict. One of the original titles of the play is “At the Bottom of Life,” but the writer shortened it, thereby expanding its meaning: the characters of the play are not only at the bottom of life, but also at the bottom of their own feelings and thoughts, each of them has to fight not only with circumstances , but also with yourself.

First we are introduced to social conflict. The author depicts Kostylev’s doss house for us: “A basement that looks like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoked, with crumbling plaster... Everywhere along the walls there are bunks... In the middle of the bunkhouse there is a large table, two benches, a stool, everything is unpainted and dirty » -it looks more like a prison; it’s not for nothing that its inhabitants sing the prison song “The Sun Rises and Sets.” As the play progresses, we learn about the events that led people to such a life. For example, Bubnov was married in the past, “the wife got in touch with the master” and decided to “overcome” her husband; as a result, Bubnov almost committed a crime himself, but “came to his senses in time” and left. Satin served time in prison for the murder of a “scoundrel” and now, like almost all the inhabitants of the flophouse, he drinks, plays cards, and steals. The baron came from a noble family, he “studied,” “married,” “served,” and “wasted government money.” The fates of all the heroes are different and at the same time surprisingly similar: they were at the bottom of their lives, hardships and suffering brought them here. This portrayal of the lives of the poorest sections of society is the social essence of the drama. drama conflict truth play

However, the main, philosophical question of the work is different. What is better, more saving for a person: truth or compassion?

The society of night shelters described by Gorky can be called insensitive truth-seekers. “In my opinion, tell the whole truth as it is! Why be shy?” Bubnov asserts, and the Baron behaves boorishly towards Nastya, convicting her of lying in front of everyone when she talks about her “true love”: “Do you think this is true? This is all from the book “Fatal Love”. Heroes like Anna, Nastya, and Akter are trusting, dreamy, and easily wounded by the bitter truth. They yearn for compassionate kindness, but find little sympathy from the “truth of fact” advocates. Like a ray of light, Luke appears in their joyless life. He consoles everyone, respects every person (“not a single flea is bad, all are black”), believes that a person can do anything if he wants. This faith in man is expressed in a story about two escaped convicts, the main idea of ​​which is that it is not violence or prison that can save a person and teach goodness - “A person can teach goodness...” The elder’s words that “The truth is not always true for the soul.” you will cure...”, meet resistance from many of the characters in the play. The opinion of Satin especially disagrees with this point of view. He says: “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” As an illustration of these ideas, we are told the parable of the righteous land. In it, a “man” with his belief in the existence of a righteous land and a “scientist” who refutes this dream with his maps and numbers collide with each other. Here, it would seem, lies the key to unraveling the ideological contradiction of the play “At the Bottom”: if reality does not allow a person to maintain self-esteem, then let the “truth about man” be replaced by “the truth of man,” that is, “holy faith.” After all, the naked truth that the night shelters heard from each other before the appearance of Elder Luke is of no value. It is not clear what is more in their words - a thirst for truth or a desire to humiliate and insult a person. But you also cannot live by illusions alone; we see this in the example of the Actor. Luke gave him hope for the opportunity to start a new life and return to work. The actor even “completioned” and exalted the elder’s advice about going to a hospital for alcoholics: “An excellent hospital... Marble... marble floor! Light...cleanliness, food...all for free! And marble floor, yes!” , but never did anything to implement this trip, he just continued to dream and eventually hanged himself.

The uniqueness of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths” lies precisely in its truthfulness, starting with the description of the shelter and ending with the unresolved dispute about what is better for a person: to live in false hope or to bring down the bitter, evil truth on everyone. The value of these two points of view seems to be tested on all the characters throughout the play, but this dispute never receives a final answer. Everyone decides it for themselves.

Those who are weak at heart... and those who live on other people's juices need lies... some are supported by it, others hide behind it... And who is his own master... who is independent and does not eat someone else's things - why does he need lies?

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