M. Gorky "At the bottom": description, characters, analysis of the play. Analysis of the play "at the bottom" Traditional definition of the genre of the play at the bottom

The revival of the name of Maxim Gorky after the revision of the place of his work in Russian literature and the renaming of everything that bore the name of this writer must definitely happen. It seems that the most famous of Gorky's dramatic legacy, the play "At the Bottom", will play a significant role in this. The genre of drama itself implies the relevance of the work in a society where there are many unresolved social problems, where people know what a rooming house and homelessness are. M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" is defined as a socio-philosophical drama. drama

Works are determined by the presence in it of an acute conflict affecting the relationship of a person with the environment, with society. In addition, the drama, as a rule, is characterized by the veiled position of the author. Although it may seem that the material of the play is too difficult to perceive, however, the realism of the conflict, the lack of moralizing are the virtues of a truly dramatic work. All of the above is present in the Gorky play. It is interesting that "At the Bottom" is perhaps Gorky's only book where there is no open didacticism, where the reader himself is invited to make a choice between two "truths of life" - the positions of Luke and Sateen.

Among the features of the play, we can name the presence in it of several conflicts expressed in varying degrees at once. Thus, the presence among the heroes of people from different strata of society determines the development of social conflict. However, it is not very dynamic, since the social status of the owners of the Kostylevs' rooming house is not much higher than that of its inhabitants. But the social conflict in the play has another facet: each of the rooming houses carries a lot of contradictions related to their place in society, each hero has his own social conflict, which threw them to the "bottom" of life.

The development of a love conflict is connected with the relationship between Vaska Pepel and Natasha, in which Vasilisa and her husband's claims to love interfere. Vaska Pepel, without the slightest doubt, leaves Vasilisa, who cheated on her husband, for the sake of a truly high feeling for Natasha. The heroine seems to return the thief Vaska to the true values ​​of life, relations with her, of course, enrich his inner world and awaken dreams of an honest life. But the envy of the older sister interferes with the successful outcome of this love story. The culmination is the dirty and cruel revenge of Vasilisa, and the denouement is the murder of Kostylev. Thus, the love conflict is resolved by the triumph of the disgusting Vasilisa and the defeat of two hearts in love. The author shows that at the "bottom" there is no place for true feelings.

The philosophical conflict in the drama is the main one; it affects all the heroes of the work in one way or another. Its development provokes the appearance of the wanderer Luke in the rooming house, who brings a new view of the world to the inhabitants of the "bottom". Two positions in life come into conflict: a white lie and the truth without embellishment. What turns out to be more necessary for people? Luke preaches pity and compassion, he inspires hope for the possibility of a different, better life. Those heroes who believed him began to dream again, make plans, they had an incentive to live on. But the old man did not tell them about the difficulties that are inevitable on the way to a brighter future. It seems to give an impetus to the beginning of a new life, but then a person must go on his own, but will he have enough strength for this? Can illusions always become support in difficulties? The antipode hero Satin believes that pity humiliates a person, for life a person needs the truth, no matter how cruel it may seem.

All philosophical thoughts in the play are expressed by the characters in direct dialogues and monologues. From the lips of Luke it sounds: “She, really, is not always due to illness to a person ... you can’t always cure the soul with the truth ...”. Satin, on the other hand, utters: “Lie is the religion of slaves and masters ... Truth is the god of a free man!” Yes, the exclamations that “only man exists are very attractive to us, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! It's great! It sounds…proud! Human! You have to respect the person! The author's position in the drama is hidden. Gorky does not give a direct assessment of the words of his heroes. True, in his other prose work, The Life of Klim Samgin, the author says that we love people for the good we have done to them, and we do not love for the evil brought to them. When a person is deceived, they hide something from him, they, of course, bring harm to him, since they deprive him of the right to information and, consequently, to an objectively made choice. From this point of view, Luke's philosophy cannot be saving, his pity and compassion are not identical with love for a person. But Satin is also powerless to help the inhabitants of the rooming house, since he has nothing to respect even himself for, in fact, he does not see a person in himself, his words are not supported by action. This is the common tragedy of all heroes. Words and dreams hang in the air without finding support in the people themselves.

At the end of the drama, there is one murder and one suicide. But the author does not pass judgment on any of the life philosophies underlying the play. Rather, one can feel a general regret about the passivity and weakness of people who find themselves at the “bottom”, see their own guilt in what happened and realize the futility of helping someone who is not ready for it himself. The ambiguity and diversity of the play are connected with the depth of the problems raised. You can’t see in Luka a stupid “crafty” old man who lies all the time, but you can’t idealize his compassionate love either. At the same time, Satin, at first glance, pronounces his monologue, as if in a delirium, phrases that he picked up from different places pop up in his inflamed brain. But with his enthusiasm he is trying to infect the people, to raise them to the revolution. Although in his words the substitution of values ​​is obvious. And perhaps in this way Gorky warned us about the substitution of values ​​that has always existed in the revolution, which is its tragedy.

True drama is always contemporary. The relevance of the play "At the Bottom" will never die, in my opinion, because when reading or watching it on stage, we think about the eternal problems of choosing our path. Today's pathos of the work, in my opinion, is connected with the attempt of our entire society to rise from the "bottom", to understand why some people manage to get out, while others do not. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds in a positive desire to raise their heads. And some don't even try. This is also a philosophy of life. Thus, the vitality of the drama "At the Bottom" is due to its truthfulness.

I am the connection of worlds that exist everywhere,
I am the extreme degree of matter;
I am the center of the living
The trait of the initial deity;
I'm rotting in the ashes,
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 Bottom" (1902) is a drama, while its genre originality manifested itself in the close interweaving of social and philosophical content.

The play depicts the life of "former people" (tramps, thieves, vagabonds, etc.), and this is the theme of the social content of this work. Gorky begins the play with the fact that in the first remark he gives a description of the rooming house: “A basement that looks like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone arches, sooty, with crumbling plaster. One window under the ceiling” (I). And in these conditions people live! The playwright shows in detail the different accommodations from Kostylev's establishment. The main characters in the play have a short biography, according to which one can judge what kind of people fell to the "bottom" of life. These are former criminals who served various terms in prison (Satin, Baron), drunkards (Actor, Bubnov), a petty thief (Ash), a ruined artisan (Kleshch), a girl of easy virtue (Nastya), etc. Therefore, all overnight stays are people of a certain sort, they are usually called "dregs of society."

Describing the "former people", Gorky shows that they have no way to rise from the "bottom". This idea is especially vividly revealed in the image of the Tick. He is a craftsman, a good locksmith, but he ended up in a rooming house 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 roommates that they are not his comrades: they are loafers and drunkards, and he is an honest worker. Turning to the Ashes, the Tick says: “Do you think I won’t break out of here? I'll get out..." (I). Tick ​​never manages to fulfill his cherished dream: formally, because Anna needs money for the funeral, and he sells his locksmith tools; in fact, because the Tick wants well-being only for himself. In the last act of the play, he lives in the same rooming house. He no longer thinks about a decent life and, along with other tramps, is loafing, drinking, playing cards, completely resigned to his fate. So Gorky shows the hopelessness of life, the desperate situation of people at the "bottom".

The social idea of ​​the play is that people on the “bottom” live in inhuman conditions, and a society that allows the existence of such shelters is unfair and inhumane. Thus, in Gorky's play, a reproach is expressed to the modern state structure of Russia. The playwright, realizing that in their plight the rooming houses are largely to blame themselves, nevertheless sympathizes with them and does not make negative heroes out of "former people".

Definitely negative characters in Gorky are only the owners of the rooming house. Kostylev, of course, is far from the real "masters of life", but this "owner" is a merciless bloodsucker who does not hesitate to "throw some money" (I), that is, to increase the rent in a rooming house. The money, as he himself explains, he needs to buy lamp oil, and then in front of his icons the lamp will be inextinguishable. With his piety, Kostylev does not hesitate to offend Natasha, reproaching her with a piece of bread. To match the owner of the rooming house, his wife Vasilisa, a vicious and vicious woman. Feeling that her lover Vaska Pepel has lost interest in her charms and fell 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 Pepel quickly understands the cunning of an annoying mistress. Both Kostylev and Vasilisa, as Gorky portrays them, are hypocrites who are ready to transgress any moral and legal laws for the sake of profit. The social conflict in the play is tied just between the guests and the owners of the rooming house. True, Gorky does not exacerbate this conflict, since the rooming-houses have completely resigned themselves to their fate.

The play presents heroes who are desperate, crushed by life circumstances. Can you help them? How to support them? What do they need - sympathy-consolation or truth? And what is the truth? So in the play “At the Bottom”, 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 rooming house. This old man completely unselfishly helps with advice to the rooming-houses, but not to everyone in a row. For example, he does not seek to console Sateen, because he understands that this person does not need anyone's sympathy. There are no soul-saving conversations between Luka and the Baron, since the Baron is a stupid and empty person, it is useless to spend mental strength on him. Giving advice, the old man is not embarrassed when some heroes accept his sympathy with gratitude (Anna, Actor), while others - with condescending irony (Ash, Bubnov, Kleshch).

However, it really turns out that Luke with his consolations helps only the dying Anna, calming her before her death. For the rest of the heroes, his ingenuous kindness and consolation cannot help. Luka tells the Actor about a hospital for alcoholics that treats everyone for free. He beckoned the weak-willed drunkard with a beautiful dream of a quick cure, the only thing he could do, and the Actor hanged himself. Having overheard Ash's conversation with Vasilisa, the old man tries to dissuade the guy from the attempt on Kostylev's life. Vasily, according to Luka, should tear Natasha out of the Kostylev family and go with her to Siberia, and there start a new, honest life, which he dreams of. But the good advice of Luke cannot stop the tragic events: Vasily accidentally, but still kills Kostylev, after Vasilisa cruelly maims Natalya out of jealousy.

In the play, almost every hero expresses his opinion on the philosophical problem of truth and lie-consolation. Having brought the Actor to suicide, and the love story of Vaska Pepel to a tragic ending, Gorky apparently expresses his negative attitude towards Luka's consolation. However, in the play, the philosophical position of the old man is supported by serious arguments: Luke, seeing only the poverty and grief of the common people during his wanderings, generally lost faith in the truth. He tells a life story when the truth brings a person who believed in a righteous land to suicide (III). Truth, according to Luca, is what you like, what you think is 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, no... What you believe in, that is..." (II). When Nastya tells once again about her beautiful love and none of the roomers believe her, she shouts with tears in her voice: “I don’t want more! I won't say... If they don't believe... if they laugh...' But Luke reassures her: “... don't be angry! I know... I believe. Your truth, not theirs... If you believe, you had true love... so it was! Was!" (III).

Bubnov also talks about the truth: “But I ... I don’t know how to lie! For what? In my opinion - bring down the whole truth as it is! Why be ashamed? (III). Such truth does not help a person to 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 Alyoshka at the end of the fourth act. Kvashnya beats his roommate, the former policeman Medvedev, under a hot hand. She does it 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 a laugh" told the whole neighborhood the truth about how Kvashnya "dragged" her roommate by the hair. Now all the acquaintances make fun of the respectable Medvedev, the former policeman, and such “glory” is insulting to him, he “began drinking” out of shame (IV). Here is the result of the truth preached by Bubnov.

Raising the problem of truth and lie-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 hero of the play most suitable for this role. This refers to the famous monologue about the Man from the last act: “What is truth? Man is the truth! (...) One must respect a person! Don't feel sorry... don't humiliate him with pity... you have to respect him! (...) Falsehood is the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” (IV). This is a high truth that supports a person, inspires him in the fight against life's obstacles. It is this kind of truth, according to Gorky, that people need. In other words, Sateen'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 attributed - to comedy, drama or tragedy? Drama, like comedy, shows the private life of heroes, but, unlike comedy, it does not ridicule the morals of the heroes, but puts them in conflict with the surrounding life. Drama, like tragedy, depicts sharp social or moral contradictions, but, unlike tragedy, it avoids showing exceptional characters. In the play "At the Bottom" 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 convictions and moral principles even at the cost of his own life (like Katerina Kabanova from A.N. Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm"): the cause of death of the Gorky character is weakness of character and inability to withstand life's difficulties . Consequently, according to genre features, the play "At the Bottom" is a drama.

Summarizing 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 contemporary Russian society of the author and the "eternal" philosophical problem of truth and lie-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 history of Klesch confirms that it is necessary to change the social conditions that gave rise to the rooming house; only together, and not alone, the poor can achieve a decent life. But, on the other hand, the bunkhouses, corrupted by idleness and begging, do not themselves want to work to get out of the bunkhouse. Moreover, Satin and Baron even glorify idleness and anarchism.

Gorky, by his own admission, planned to expose in the drama "At the Bottom" the idea of ​​​​a beautiful-hearted, lulling lie-consolation and Luka, the main propagandist of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bconsolation. But the image of an extraordinary wanderer in the play turned out to be very complex and, contrary to the author's intention, very attractive. In a word, Luke's unequivocal exposure did not work out, as Gorky himself wrote about in the article "On Plays" (1933). More recently, Sateen's phrase (one must not pity a person, but respect) was understood literally: pity humiliates a person. But modern society seems to be moving away from such straightforward judgments and recognizes not only the truth of Sateen, but also the truth of Luke: weak, defenseless people can and should even be pitied, that is, sympathize with and help them. There is nothing shameful and insulting for a person in such an attitude.

Maxim Gorky is a versatile writer who tried to work in different genres, looking for new forms. He inquisitively peered into the world around him, trying to understand the causes of the ongoing chaos, to explain to himself and others the ways out of the situation. At the turn of the century, the writer turns to drama - one of the most effective literary forms, in which there is direct communication with the audience, the reaction to the work is visible. In the play "At the Bottom", written in 1902, Gorky raises one of the sharpest
problems of contemporary reality - the life of outcasts, "former people" thrown out of the active life of society, not noticed by him. The writer is concerned about the life of these people, their suffering and joy, thoughts, experiences.
It would seem that the play should be attributed to the tragedy - the characters Anna and the Actor die, Natasha and Pepel disappear. However, this is far from a high tragedy. Gorky shows these unfortunate and defenseless people as not so innocent victims. Each of the inhabitants of this terrible place came "to the bottom" in his own way, due to life circumstances. Many unfortunates have not yet realized that they have no way out of here - this is their last refuge. The tick passionately hates parasites and cheaters living next to him, dreams of regaining his former life. He is a working man, it is even impossible for him to imagine that they exist here without working, that this will soon become his way of life.
Nastya with bitterness and tears tells others about her unearthly love. She believes her own fantasies, leaving in illusions, escaping from the terrible and inevitable reality.
With the appearance of the wanderer Luke in the rooming house, the inhabitants of the basement receive hope for deliverance. The actor passionately dreams of being cured of drunkenness and returning to the stage. Pepel persuades Natasha to leave for Siberia, to start an honest and happy life. But the author, unlike his heroes, knows for sure: there is no way out of here. The “Bottom” firmly holds its inhabitants, they only freed themselves from this terrible reality in their dreams for a while, fantasized about a better life, and the more terrible was the reality that was revealed to the Actor, Natasha, Pepl. "At the Bottom" is a socio-philosophical drama, in which the author discusses the causes and conditions that led these people to collapse, and explains the essence of the Russian national character, which is not capable of changing anything in the outside world. Heroes are only dissatisfied with the existing reality, but sooner or later come to terms with it. Anna and the Actor die not in a collision with the world of evil, but because of their own weakness, realizing the hopelessness of their situation. Ashes ends up in prison, never having had time to embark on the path of an honest working life. Nastya almost came to terms with the surrounding evil. She only powerlessly curses everyone and everything. The tick has lost his last hope of getting out of the basement.
Gorky also shows other inhabitants of the rooming house: Satin, Bubnov, Baron. They knew from the very beginning that it was impossible to get out of here, and therefore they live in momentary problems, they spend the rest of their lives in drunkenness and a card game. According to Gorky, it is even worse to understand reality and do nothing to change life for the better. But the author sees the Russian mentality in this.
For the most part, the heroes of the play still do not see a way out of their terrible situation, just as Gorky himself did not see it. The author, as it were, stands above his heroes, not sharing their ideals and thoughts, suggesting that they themselves look for a way out of this situation.

Homework for the lesson

2. Collect material for each inhabitant of the rooming house.

3. Think about how you can group the actors.

4. What is the nature of the conflict in the play?

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

The main question I wanted to ask is what is better, truth or compassion. What is needed. Is it necessary to bring compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? This is not a subjective question, but a general philosophical one.

Maksim Gorky

The history of the creation of the play

For more than 80 years, performances based on the play "At the Bottom" have not left the domestic stage. She also went around the largest theaters in the world, and interest in her does not wane!

In 1901, Gorky said about the concept of his play: "It will be scary." The author repeatedly changed the name: “Without the sun”, “Nochlezhka”, “Bottom”, “At the bottom of life”. The title "At the Bottom" first appeared on the posters of the art theater. It is not the place of action that is singled out - "a rooming house", not the nature of the conditions - "without the sun", the "bottom", not even the social position - "at the bottom of life". The phrase "At the bottom" is much broader in meaning than all of the above. What's going on "at the bottom"? "At the bottom" - what, only life? Maybe souls?

The ambiguity of the Gorky play led to its various theatrical productions.

The most striking was the first stage incarnation of the drama (1902) by the Art Theater by renowned directors K.S. Stanislavsky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko with the direct participation of A.M. Gorky.

In 1903, the play was awarded the honorary Griboedov Prize.

Composition features

Question

Where does the play take place?

Answer

In a cave-like basement in which people are forced to lead an antediluvian existence. Separate strokes of the description introduce the symbolism of hell here: the rooming house is located below ground level, people are deprived of the sun here, the light falls “from top to bottom”, the characters feel like “dead”, “sinners”, “thrown into a pit, “killed” by society and in these vaults buried.

Question

How is the scene depicted in the play?

Answer

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

Question

List the characters in the play with their brief characteristics. What groups can conditionally divide all the characters?

Answer

All the inhabitants of the rooming house can be conventionally grouped into four groups, depending on the place they occupy in the clash of different positions, in the philosophical conflict of the play.

The first group includes Actor, Nastya, Ash, Natasha. These characters are predisposed to meeting the wanderer Luca. Each of them lives some kind of dream or hope. So the Actor expects to recover from alcoholism, to return to the stage, where he had the theatrical name Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky. Now, however, there is no name left, but he is striving in his thoughts to artistic glory. Nastya is dreaming of a French student whom she supposedly loves passionately. Ashes dreams of a free and parting life, "so that you can ... respect yourself." Natasha vaguely hopes for a happy fate, when Vasily will be her strong support. Each of these characters is not too firm in their aspirations, internally bifurcated.

Luke, which we will talk about in detail in the next lesson, is designed to bring out the essence of each.

Baron and Bubnov - the third group. The first of them constantly lives in the past, remembering hundreds of serfs, carriages with coats of arms, coffee with cream in the morning in bed. Completely devastated, he no longer expects anything, dreams of nothing. The second - Bubnov - also sometimes refers to the past years, when he suffered from life, but mostly he lives in the present and recognizes only what he sees and touches. Bubnov is an indifferent cynic. For him, only facts are clear, they are “stubborn things”. The truth of Baron and Bubnov is a harsh, wingless truth, far from the true truth.

The fourth position is occupied by Satin in the play. For all its originality, it is also distinguished by its inconsistency. First, the words spoken by this hero are in sharp contrast to his essence. After all, a swindler by occupation, a prisoner and a murderer in the past, speaks about the truth. Secondly, in a number of cases, Satin turns out to be close to Luka. He agrees with the wanderer that “people live for the best”, that the truth is connected with the idea of ​​​​a person, that one should not interfere with him and belittle him (“Do not offend a person!”)

The images should be arranged along the “ladder” of ranks and positions, since we have before us a social cross-section of the life of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century: Baron, Kostylev, Bubnov, Satin, Actor; Ashes, Nastya.

Question

What is the drama's conflict?

Answer

The conflict of this drama is social. Each of the overnight stays experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves in a humiliating position. Life has dispossessed the people gathered in this hell. She deprived the right to work for Klesch, for the family - for Nastya, for the profession - for the Actor, for the former comfort - for the Baron, condemned Anna to a hungry existence, Ashes to theft, Bubnov to a deep drinking bout, Nastya to prostitution.

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

Question

How is the social conflict related to the dramatic one?

Answer

The social conflict is taken out of the scene, relegated to the past, it does not become the basis of the dramatic conflict. We observe only the result of off-stage conflicts.

Question

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

Answer

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

Question

What is the peculiarity of the love conflict in the play?

Answer

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

Question

What does this hostel remind you of?

Answer

The nochlezhka is a kind of model of that cruel world from which its inhabitants were thrown out. Here, too, there are their own "owners", the police, the same alienation, enmity, the same vices are manifested.

Final word of the teacher

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

So, the genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama.

Homework

Prepare for the discussion lesson about Luke. To do this: mark (or write out) his statements about people, about truth, about faith. Determine your attitude to the statements about Luke Baron and Satin (IV act).

Determine the compositional elements of the play. Why did Chekhov consider the last act superfluous?

Literature

D.N. Murin, E.D. Kononova, E.V. Minenko. Russian literature of the twentieth century. Grade 11 program. Thematic lesson planning. St. Petersburg: SMIO Press, 2001

E.S. Rogover. Russian literature of the XX century / St. Petersburg: Paritet, 2002

N.V. Egorova. Lesson developments in Russian literature of the twentieth century. Grade 11. I semester. M.: VAKO, 2005

genre features. The problem of the genre of M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom" has been little studied. Critics of the early 20th century associated Gorky's play with a genre variety of philosophical drama. “Gorky does not have a single hero who would not philosophize,” wrote K. Chukovsky. - Each one will appear on its pages a little, and so begins to express his philosophy. Everyone speaks in aphorisms; no one lives on his own, but only for aphorisms. They live and move not for movement, not for life, but to philosophize.

In one of the first books about Gorky's play "At the Bottom" (A.A. Smirnov-Treplev, 1904), the genre of the play is already defined as a "philosophical drama" "with its deep symbolic content" capable of "obscuring the everyday side: so densely the play is saturated with ideas presented in living images.

I. Annensky believed that "At the Bottom" is a real drama, only not quite ordinary, close in genre to tragedy.

Later Gorky's work was called "new drama". In the literary criticism of recent years, the genre of the play "At the Bottom" is defined as a new type of socio-philosophical drama, in which the main burden falls on the monologues and dialogues of the characters and on the dramatic conflict.

Genre features "At the bottom"

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