Man - that's the truth!
M. Gorky
M. Gorky's multifaceted talent was clearly manifested in the drama. In the play At the Bottom, Aleksey Maksimovich revealed to readers and viewers a hitherto unknown layer of Russian life: the aspirations, suffering, joy and hopes of the “former people”, the inhabitants of the shelter. The author did it quite harshly and truthfully.
The drama At the Bottom poses and solves philosophical questions: what is truth? do people need it? is it possible to find happiness and peace in real life? Thrown out of active life, the inhabitants of the “bottom”, meanwhile, do not refuse to solve complex philosophical questions, life situations that reality puts before them. They try on various situations, trying to "float" to the surface. Each of them wants to return to the world of "real people".
The heroes are full of illusions about the temporality of their position. And only Bubnov and Satin understand that there is no way out "from the bottom" - this is the lot of only the strong. Weak people need self-deception. They console themselves with the thought that sooner or later they will become full-fledged members of society. Luke, a wanderer who unexpectedly appeared among them, actively supports this hope in the shelters. The old man finds the right tone with everyone: he consoles Anna with heavenly happiness after death. He persuades her that in the afterlife she will find peace that she has not felt until now. Vaska Ashes Luka persuades him to leave for Siberia. There is the place for strong and motivated people. He calms Nastya, believing in her stories of unearthly love. The actor is promised healing from alcoholism in some special clinic. The most striking thing about all this is that Luke lies unselfishly. He pities people, tries to give them hope as a stimulus to life. But the consolations of the old man lead to the opposite results. Anna dies, the Actor dies, Vaska Ashes goes to prison. It seems that through the lips of Satin, the author condemns Luke, refutes the compromising philosophy of the wanderer. “There is a comforting lie, a conciliatory lie ... Who is weak in soul ... and who lives in other people's juices - those need lies ... some it supports, others hide behind it ... And who is his own master ... who is independent and does not eat someone else's - why should he lie? Lies are the religion of slaves and masters ... Truth is the god of a free man! "
But Gorky is not so simple and straightforward; it allows readers and viewers to decide for themselves: are Luke needed in real life or are they evil? Another striking thing is that over the years the attitude of society towards this character has changed. If during the creation of the play "At the Bottom" Luke was almost a negative hero, with his boundless compassion for people, then over time, the attitude towards him changed.
In our cruel time, when a person feels his loneliness and uselessness to others, Luka received a "second life", became almost a positive hero. He takes pity on the people living nearby, albeit mechanically, without wasting his mental strength on it, but he finds time to listen to the suffering, instills hope in them, and this is already a lot.
The play "At the Bottom" is one of those few works that do not get old over time, and each generation discovers in them thoughts that are in tune with their time, views, life situations. This is the great strength of the playwright's talent, his ability to look into the future.
In the play At the Bottom, one of the peculiar genres of Gorky's drama - the genre of a social-philosophical play - crystallized.
Most critics of the pre-revolutionary period viewed At the Bottom as a static play, as a series of sketches of everyday life, internally unrelated scenes, as a naturalistic play devoid of action, development, and dramatic conflicts.
In At the Bottom, Gorky develops, sharpens, makes especially evident the principle characteristic of Chekhov's drama ...
When ... Gorky wrote: “The play is done like a symphony: there is a main leitmotif and various variations, changes of it” (Letter to the LAPP Theater / Literaturnaya Gazeta. 1931. N 53), then he could have had his own dramatic experience in mind. Several "themes", ideological and thematic complexes appear in the play, which "absorb" well-known ideas and moods, character traits of the characters, their aspirations, ideals and actions, their relationships and destinies, their individual collisions. Not a single fate, not a single conflict can be traced holistically from beginning to end; they are outlined as if by a dotted line, intermittently, episodically, since they must enter a certain thematic complex, participating in the development of the "theme", in solving a socio-philosophical problem.<...>
The exposition presents all the main problems that will be solved in the play; all its main themes are embryonic. How to relate to the inhuman life of the disadvantaged, oppressed? Carry your cross patiently?
To soften the torment of others with compassion? Surrender to comforting illusions? Protest? Is everyone looking for an active way out, say, in work? Various answers to these questions separate and somehow bring together the heroes of the play, who are, as it were, in a state of expectation. Luke's appearance sets everything in motion. He removes some, supports others, guides them, gives justification to their aspirations. A practical test of various attitudes begins.
6. The dramatic conflict of the play "At the Bottom"
Most critics viewed At the Bottom as a static play, as a series of sketches of everyday life, internally unrelated scenes, as a naturalistic play devoid of action, the development of dramatic conflicts. In fact, in the play "At the Bottom" there is a deep inner dynamics, development ... The cohesion of replicas, actions, scenes of the play is determined not by everyday or plot motivations, but by the development of socio-philosophical problems, the movement of topics, their struggle. That subtext, that undercurrent that V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky discovered in Chekhov's plays, in Gorky's “At the Bottom” acquires decisive significance. ” “Gorky portrays the consciousness of people of the“ bottom ”. The plot unfolds not so much in external action as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the lodgers that determine the development of the dramatic conflict.
An amazing thing: the more the bed-lodgers want to hide the real state of affairs from themselves, the more delight they begin to convict others of lies. It gives them a special pleasure to torture their comrades in misfortune, trying to take from them the last thing they have - the illusion
What do we see? It turns out there is no one truth. And there are at least two truths - the truth of the "bottom" and the truth of the best in man. What truth wins in Gorky's play? At first glance - the truth of the "bottom". None of the lodgers has no way out of this "dead end of being." None of the characters in the play gets better - only worse. Anna dies, Tick finally "sinks" and gives up hope to escape from the shelter, Tatar loses his hand, which means that he also becomes unemployed, Natasha dies morally, and perhaps physically, Vaska Ashes goes to prison, even the bailiff Medvedev becomes one of the night shelters ... The shelter accepts everyone and does not let anyone out, except for one person - the wanderer Luke, who amused the unfortunate with fairy tales and disappeared. The culmination of general disappointment is the death of the Actor, to whom it was Luke who instilled a vain hope for recovery and a normal life.
“The comforters of this series are the most intelligent, knowledgeable and eloquent. That is why they are the most harmful. Luke should be such a comforter in the play At the Bottom, but I, apparently, did not manage to make him that way. “At the Bottom” is an outdated play and, perhaps, even harmful in our days ”(Gorky, 1930s).
7. Images of Satin, Baron, Bubnov in the play "At the Bottom"
Gorky's play At the Bottom was written in 1902 for the troupe of the Moscow Art Public Theater. For a long time Gorky could not find the exact title of the play. Initially it was called "Nochlezhka", then "Without the sun" and, finally, "At the bottom". The name itself has a huge meaning. People who have fallen to the bottom will never rise to the light, to a new life. The theme of the humiliated and insulted is not new in Russian literature. Let us recall the heroes of Dostoevsky, who, too, “have nowhere else to go”. Many similarities can be found in the heroes of Dostoevsky and Gorky: this is the same world of drunkards, thieves, prostitutes and pimps. Only he is shown even more terribly and realistically by Gorky. In Gorky's play, the audience for the first time saw the unfamiliar world of the rejected. Such a harsh, merciless truth about the life of the lower classes, about their hopeless fate, world drama has not yet known. Under the arches of the Kostylevskaya shelter were people of the most diverse character and social status. Each of them is endowed with its own individual characteristics. Here is the worker Tick, dreaming of honest work, and Ashes, longing for the right life, and the Actor, all absorbed in the memories of his former glory, and Nastya, passionately striving for great, true love. They all deserve a better fate. The more tragic is their situation now. The people living in this cave-like basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be human and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the characters in the play, but even the few features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. In a few words, the tragedy of Anna's life is described. “I don’t remember when I was full,” she says. - I was shaking over every piece of bread ... All my life I was trembling ... I was tormented ... as if I could not eat more ... All my life I walked in rags ... all my unhappy life ... "Worker Tick says about his hopeless share:" There is no work ... there is no strength ... That's the truth! There is no refuge, no refuge! You have to die ... That's the truth! " The inhabitants of the “bottom” are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. Man is left to himself. If he stumbles, gets out of a rut, he faces a "bottom", inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree. And even here, in this terrible world of outcasts, the wolf laws of the "bottom" continue to operate. The figure of the landlord Kostylev, one of the "masters of life", who is ready to squeeze the last kopeck even from his unfortunate and disadvantaged guests, is disgusting. His wife Vasilisa is just as disgusting for her immorality. The terrible fate of the inhabitants of the shelter becomes especially obvious if we compare it with what a person is called to. Under the dark and gloomy arches of an overnight house, among the wretched and crippled, unhappy and homeless vagrants, the words about man, about his vocation, about his strength and his beauty sound like a solemn hymn: “Man is the truth! Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! There is only man, all the rest is the work of his hands and his brain! Man! It's great! It sounds proudly! " Proud words about what a person should be and what a person can be, even more sharply set off the picture of the real situation of a person that the writer paints. And this contrast takes on a special meaning ... Satin's fiery monologue about a person sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luka left, the Actor hanged himself, and Vaska Ashes was put in prison. The writer himself felt this and explained this by the fact that the play should have a reasoner (the exponent of the author's thoughts), but the heroes portrayed by Gorky can hardly be called the spokesmen of anyone's ideas in general. Therefore, Gorky puts his thoughts into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and just character.
The author began to write a play in Nizhny Novgorod, where, according to the observation of Gorky's contemporary, Rozov, there was the best and most convenient place for the gathering of any rabble of people ... (she always believed that Gorky took prototypes of heroes in Nizhny Novgorod, because he lived in this city and knew all his future heroes personally). This explains the realism of the characters, their complete resemblance to the originals.
Alexey Maksimovich Gorky explores the soul and characters of tramps from different positions, in different life situations, trying to understand who they are, which brought such different people to the bottom of life. The author tries to prove that the night lodgers are ordinary people, they dream of happiness, they know how to love, compassion, and most importantly they think.
In terms of genre, the play At the Bottom can be classified as philosophical, because from the lips of the heroes we hear interesting conclusions, sometimes whole social theories. For example, the Baron consoles himself with the fact that there is nothing to wait ... I do not expect anything! Everything has already ... been! It's over! .. Or Tambourines So I drank and I'm glad!
But the true talent for philosophizing comes from Satin, a former telegraph clerk. He talks about good and evil, about conscience, about the destiny of man. Sometimes we feel that he is the author's mouthpiece, there is no one else in the play to say so neatly and cleverly. His phrase Man it sounds proudly! became winged.
But Sateen justifies his position by these reasoning. He is a kind of bottom ideologist, justifying its existence. Satin preaches contempt for moral values \u200b\u200bWhere are honor and conscience? You cannot put on your feet, instead of boots, neither honor nor conscience ... The spectators are amazed by the gambler and the sharper, who talks about the truth, about justice, the imperfection of the world, in which he himself is an outcast.
But all these philosophical searches of the hero are just a verbal duel with his antipode in worldview, with Luke. Satin's sober, sometimes cruel realism collides with the soft and docile speeches of the wanderer. Luke fills the lodgers with dreams, encourages them to be patient. In this respect, he is a truly Russian person, ready for compassion and obedience. This type is deeply loved by Gorky himself. Luke does not receive any benefit from the fact that he gives people hope, there is no self-interest in this. This is the need of his soul. The researcher of Maxim Gorky's creativity I. Novich spoke about Luka this way ... he consoles not from love for this life and the belief that it is good, but from surrender to evil, reconciliation with it. For example, Luke assures Anna that a woman must endure her husband's beatings. Be patient! Everyone, dear, endures.
Suddenly appearing, just as suddenly, Luke disappears, revealing his possibilities in every inhabitant of the shelter. The heroes thought about life, injustice, their hopeless fate.
Only Bubnov and Satin were reconciled to their position as night lodgers. Bubnov differs from Satin in that he considers a person a worthless creature, which means that he is worthy of a dirty life. People all live ... like chips on the river float ... build a house ... chips away ...
Gorky shows that in an embittered and cruel world, only people who stand firmly on their feet, who are aware of their position, who do not disdain anything, can survive. Defenseless night lodgers Baron, living in the past, Nastya, substituting fantasy for life, perish in this world. Anna dies, the Actor lays hands on himself. He suddenly realizes the impossibility of his dream, the unreality of its realization. Vaska Ashes, dreaming of a bright life, goes to prison.
Luke, regardless of his will, becomes the culprit of the death of these not bad people at all, the inhabitants of the shelter do not need promises, but. specific actions that Luke is not capable of. He disappears, rather runs, proving by this the inconsistency of his theory, the victory of reason over the dream of Tako, sinners disappear from the face of the righteous!
But Satin, like Luca, is equally responsible for the death of the Actor. After breaking the dream of a hospital for alcoholics, Satin tears the last threads of the Actor's hope that connect him with life.
Gorky wants to show that, relying only on his own strength, a person can get out of the bottom. A person can do anything ... if only he wants to. But there are no such strong characters striving for freedom in the play.
In the work we see the tragedy of individuals, their physical and spiritual death. At the bottom, people lose their human dignity along with their surnames and first names. Many lodgers have nicknames Crooked Goiter, Tatarin, Actor.
How does Gorky the humanist approach the main problem of the work Does he really recognize the insignificance of man, the baseness of his interests? No, the author believes in people not only strong, but also honest, hardworking, diligent. Such a person in the play is the locksmith Klesh. He is the only bottom dweller with a real chance of rebirth. Proud of his job title, Tick despises the rest of the hostels. But gradually, under the influence of Satin's speeches about the futility of labor, he loses confidence in himself, giving up his hands before fate. In this case, it was no longer the crafty Luke, but the Satin-tempter who suppressed the hope in the person. It turns out that, having different views on life positions, Satin and Luke are equally pushing people to death.
Creating realistic characters, Gorky emphasizes everyday details, acting as a brilliant artist. A gloomy, crude and primitive existence fills the play with something ominous, oppressive, increasing the feeling of the unreality of what is happening. The shelter, located below ground level, devoid of sunlight, somewhat reminds the viewer of hell in which people are dying.
Horror is caused by the scene when the dying Anna talks to Luca. This last conversation of hers is like a confession. But the conversation is interrupted by the screams of drunken gamblers, a sullen prison song. It becomes strange to realize the frailty of human life, to neglect it, because even at the hour of death, Anna is haunted.
The author's remarks help us to better represent the heroes of the play. Concise and clear, they contain a description of the characters, help us to reveal some aspects of their characters. In addition, a new, hidden meaning is guessed in the prison song introduced into the narrative canvas. The lines I want to be free, yes, eh! .. I cannot break the chain ..., they show that the bottom tenaciously holds its inhabitants, and the hostels cannot escape from its embrace, no matter how hard they try.
The play is over, but to the main questions of what is the truth of life and what a person should strive for, Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer, leaving it to us to decide. The final phrase of Satin Eh ... ruined the song ... the fool is ambiguous and makes you think. Who is the fool? The Hanged Actor or the Baron who brought the news about it Time passes, people change, but, unfortunately, the topic of the bottom remains relevant today. More and more people are going to the bottom of life due to economic and political turmoil. Their ranks are growing every day. Don't think they are losers. No, many smart, decent, honest people go to the bottom. They strive to get away from this kingdom of darkness as soon as possible, to act in order to live a full life again. But poverty dictates its terms to them. And gradually a person loses all his best moral qualities, preferring to surrender to chance.
Gorky with a play At the bottom wanted to prove that only in struggle is the essence of life. When a person loses hope, stops dreaming, he loses faith in the future.
First of all, the position of the author is expressed in the ambiguous, non-linear development of the plot action. The plot is motivated by the dynamics of the standard "conflict polygon" - the relations of Kostylev, Vasilisa, Ash and Natasha. The key events that make up the plotline of the play take place outside the stage (a fight between Vasilisa and Natasha, Vasilisa's revenge - overturning a boiling samovar on her sister, the murder of Kostylev). The author deliberately takes all these events "out of focus", inviting the viewer to take a closer look and, first of all, to listen to the content of the numerous conversations and disputes of the night lodgers.
Compositionally, the plot disunity of the characters, their alienation from each other (everyone thinks "about his own", worries about himself) - is expressed in the organization of the stage space. The characters are dispersed in different corners of the stage and "locked" in unconnected, sealed microspaces. Gorky organizes communication between them with an eye on Chekhov's principles of composition. At the same time, the author needs to keep the viewer's attention on the semantic supports of the text. Leitmotifs (truth is faith, truth is falsehood), organizing the movement of the speech stream, become such a support in the play.
There are also other techniques that compensate for the relative weakness of the plot action and deepen the meaning of the drama. Thus, Gorky introduced "rhyming" (that is, repetitive, mirror-reflected) episodes into the play. The precise rhyme in the play is made up of Luke's parable about the righteous land and the episode with the Actor's suicide. Both fragments literally coincide in the final lines: "And then I went home - and hanged myself ..." / "Hey ... you! Go ... come here!<...Там... Актер... удавился!" Подобное композиционное связывание проявляет позицию автора по отношению к результатам "проповеднической" деятельности Луки. Впрочем, как уже говорилось, автор далек от того, чтобы возлагать всю вину за гибель Актера на Луку. С судьбой Актера связан и дважды повторяющийся эпизод, в котором ночлежники поют свою песню - "Солнце всходит и заходит". Актер "испортил" именно эту песню - в заключительном действии в ней так и не были спеты строчки "Мне и хочется на волю.../ Цепь порвать я не могу".
In the same way, two dialogues of Nastya and Baron, symmetrically located relative to each other, are mirrored. At the very beginning of the play, Nastya defends herself against the Baron's skeptical remarks: his attitude to Nastya's stories about "fatal love" and Gaston is formulated by the saying "If you don't like it, don't listen, but don't bother lying." After Luka leaves, Nastya and Baron seem to change roles: all the Baron's stories about "wealth ... hundreds of serfs ... horses ... cooks ... carriages with coats of arms" are accompanied by the same remark from Nastya: "It was not!"
The "rhyming" episodes do not carry new information about the characters, but connect the disparate fragments of the action, giving it semantic unity and integrity. Even more subtle methods of compositional "arrangement", such as, for example, the system of literary and theatrical allusions, serve the same purpose.
In one of the early episodes, the Actor mentions "a good play", referring to Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet", a quote from which ("Ophelia! Oh ... remember me in your prayers! ..") already in the first act predicts his own tragic destiny. His last words before his suicide, addressed to the Tatar, are: "Pray for me." In addition to Hamlet, the Actor quotes King Lear several times ("This way, my faithful Kent ..."). Lyre is credited with the phrase "I am on the way to rebirth", which is important for the Actor. The Actor's favorite poem was Beranger's poem, which in the context of the play acquired the meaning of a philosophical declaration: "Honor to the madman who will bring / to Mankind a golden dream." Along with quotes from Western classics, the Actor's speech unexpectedly slips in Pushkin's line: "Our nets have dragged a dead man" (from the poem "The Drowned Man"). These words seem to remind of a disastrous fate, the inevitability of death. Thus, the plot path of the Actor is set already at the very beginning of the work by those artistic means that define his profession - a "foreign" word, a stage quote.
Sounding speech is an important means of deepening the meaning of dramatic action. An example of this is the incredibly thick aphorism against the background of the literary tradition. Here are just a few examples from a real waterfall of aphorisms and sayings: "Such a life that both got up in the morning and howling"; "Expect a sense from the wolf"; "When labor is a duty, life is slavery!"; "Not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone is jumping"; "Where it is warm for an old man, there is a homeland"; "Everyone wants order, but there is a lack of reason."
Aphoristic judgments acquire special significance in the dialogues of the main "ideologues" of the play - Luka and Bubnov, whose positions are outlined most vividly. The philosophical dispute, in which each of the heroes of the play takes his own position, is supported by common folk wisdom, concentrated in proverbs and sayings. Although this wisdom also contains a certain craftiness. In this regard, it is interesting that the central monologue of Satin, very saturated with "chased" formulations, is deliberately dotted with ellipses, which speaks of how difficult it is in the mind of Satin the most important words in his life are born.
The purpose of the lesson: to show the innovation of Gorky; determine the components of the genre and conflict in the play.
Methodological techniques: lecture, analytical conversation.
Lesson equipment: portrait and photographs of A.M. Gorky of different years, illustrations "At the bottom".
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During the classes.
- Conversation on the content of the play "At the Bottom".
Some of Nietzsche's philosophical and aesthetic works were reflected in Gorky's early romantic works. The central image of early Gorky is a proud and strong personality who embodies the idea of \u200b\u200bfreedom. Therefore, Danko sacrificing himself for the sake of people is on a par with the drunkard and the thief Chelkash, who does not perform any feats for the sake of anyone. “Strength is virtue,” Nietzsche argued, and for Gorky, the beauty of a person lies in strength and feat even aimless: a strong person has the right to be “on the other side of good and evil”, to be outside ethical principles, like Chelkash, and feat, from this point view is resistance to the general flow of life.
In 1902, Gorky created the drama At the Bottom.
How is the scene depicted?
The scene is described in the author's remarks. In the first act, it is a cave-like basement, heavy, stone vaults, smoked, 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 night shelters from the basement window, as if looking for people among the basement inhabitants. Thin partitions line 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 chintz canopy separating the bed of dying Anna from the others (by this, she is, as it were, separated from life). There is dirt everywhere: a dirty chintz curtain, an unpainted and dirty table, benches, a stool, tattered cardboard boxes, pieces of oilcloth, rags.
The third action takes place in the early spring in the evening on a vacant lot, "littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds in the yard." Let's pay attention to the color of this place: a dark wall of a “barn or stable”, a “gray wall covered with plaster remnants” of a shelter, a red wall of a brick firewall covering the sky, reddish light of the setting sun, black elderberry branches without buds.
In the context of the fourth act, significant changes take place: the partitions of the former Ashes room are broken, the Mite's anvil has disappeared. The action takes place at night, and the light from the outside world no longer breaks into the basement - the stage is lit by a lamp in the middle of the table. However, the last act of the drama is still performed on 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, marginals, "former people". All social strata of society are here: the ruined nobleman Baron, the owner of the shelter Kostylev, the policeman Medvedev, the locksmith Klesh, the captain Bubnov, the merchant Kvashnya, the sharper Satin, the prostitute Nastya, the thief Ash. All are equalized by the waste of society. Here live very young (Alyoshka the shoemaker is 20 years old) and still not old people (the oldest, Bubnov, 45 years old). However, their lives are almost over. The dying Anna seems to us an old woman, and she is 30 years old.
Many of the lodgers do not have names; only nicknames remain, expressively describing their carriers. The appearance of the Kvashni dumplings trader, the character of the Tick, the Baron's ambition are clear. The actor once bore the sonorous surname Sverchkov-Zadunaisky, and now there are almost no memories left - “I forgot everything”.
What is the subject of the play? What is the conflict of the drama?
Reference: A sharp conflict situation playing out in front of the audience is the most important feature of drama as a kind of literature.
The subject of the image in the drama is the consciousness of people thrown as a result of deep-seated social processes to the bottom of life. Social conflict has several levels in the play. Social poles are clearly marked: on one - the owner of the shelter Kostylev and the police officer Medvedev who supports his power, on the other - essentially disenfranchised night shelters. Thus, the conflict between the authorities and disenfranchised people is obvious. This conflict hardly develops, because the Kostylevs and Medvedevs are not so far from the inhabitants of the shelter.
Each of the lodgers experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves in a humiliating position.
What brought its inhabitants to the shelter - Satin, Baron, Klesh, Bubnov, Actor, Nastya, Ash? What is the backstory for these characters?
Satin went to the bottom after serving in prison for murder; The baron went broke; The tick has lost its job; Bubnov 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 even a drunken drunkard; The actor got drunk; Ash's fate was predetermined already at his birth: "I - from childhood - a thief ... everyone always told me: thief Vaska, thief son Vaska!" The Baron tells about the stages of his fall in more detail than others (act 4). Each stage of the 33 Baron's life seems to be marked with a certain costume. These disguises symbolize a gradual decline in social status, and there is nothing behind these disguises, life passed as in a dream.
What is the peculiarity of the social conflict of each inhabitant of the shelter?
How is social conflict related to dramatic conflict?
These social conflicts have been taken out of the scene, pushed back into the past, they do not become the basis of dramatic conflict.
What kind of conflicts other than social conflicts are highlighted in the play?
There is a traditional love conflict in the play. It is conditioned by relationships
Vaska Ash, Vasilisa, the wife of the owner of the hostel, Kostylev and Natasha, sister of Vasilisa. The exposition of this conflict is a conversation between the hostels, from which it is clear that Kostylev is looking for his wife Vasilisa in the shelter, who is cheating on him with Ash. The plot of this conflict is the appearance of Natasha in the shelter, for the sake of which Ash leaves Vasilisa. In the course of the development of a love conflict, it becomes clear that relations with Natasha revive Ash, he wants to leave with her and start a new life. The culmination of the conflict is taken off stage: at the end of the third act, we learn from Kvashnya's words that “the girl’s legs were boiled with boiling water” - Vasilisa knocked over the samovar and scalded Natasha’s legs. The murder of Kostylev by Ashes turns out to be a tragic denouement of a love conflict. Natasha stops believing Ash: “They are at the same time! Damn you! You both…"
What is the originality of a love conflict?
A love conflict becomes a facet of social conflict. He shows that antihuman 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, one Vasilisa achieves all her goals: she takes revenge on Ash's former lover and her rival sister Natasha, gets rid of her unloved and disgusted husband and becomes the sole mistress of the hostel. Nothing human remains in Vasilisa, and this shows the enormity of the social conditions that have disfigured both the inhabitants of the shelter and its owners. Nightcrawlers do not directly participate in this conflict, they are just outside spectators.
- Teacher's word.
The conflict in which all the heroes are involved is of a different kind. Gorky depicts the consciousness of the people of the bottom. The plot unfolds not so much in external action - in everyday life, as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the lodgers that determine the development of the dramatic conflict. The action is transferred to an extra-event series. This is typical of the genre of philosophical drama.
The bottom line. The genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama.
D.Z.
Identify Luke's role in the play. Write out his statements about people, about life, about truth, about faith.
Homework for the lesson
2. Collect material on each inhabitant of the shelter.
3. Think about how you can group the characters.
4. What is the nature of the conflict in the play?
The purpose of the lesson: to show the innovation of Gorky; determine the components of the genre and conflict in the play.
The main question I wanted to pose was which is better, truth or compassion. What is more 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 play
For more than 80 years, performances based on the play "At the Bottom" have not left the national stage. She has bypassed the largest theaters in the world, and the interest in her does not wane!
In 1901, Gorky said about the idea of \u200b\u200bhis play: "It will be scary." The author has repeatedly changed the title: "Without the sun", "Nochlezhka", "Bottom", "At the bottom of life". The title “At the bottom” first appeared on the posters of an art theater. It is not the place of action that is highlighted - the "shelter", not the nature of the conditions - "no 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 is happening “at the bottom”? “At the bottom” - what, only life? Maybe - and souls?
The ambiguity of Gorky's play led to her various theatrical performances.
The most striking was the first stage incarnation of the drama (1902) by the Art Theater by the 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 Griboyedov Prize.
Features of the composition
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 shelter is located below ground level, people are deprived of the sun here, the light falls "from top to bottom", the characters feel themselves "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 cave-like basement", "heavy, stone vaults, smoked, with fallen plaster." It is important that the writer makes instructions on how the scene is illuminated: “from the viewer and from top to bottom”, the light reaches the night shelters from the basement window, as if looking for people among the basement inhabitants. Thin partitions divide Ash's room. There are bunks all over the walls. 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 chintz canopy separating the dying Anna's bed from the others (by this, she seems to be separated from life). There is dirt everywhere: "dirty chintz curtains", unpainted and dirty table, benches, stool, tattered cardboard boxes, pieces of oilcloth, rags.
Question
List the characters in the play with their brief characteristics. What groups can you conventionally divide all the characters into?
Answer
All the inhabitants of the shelter 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 the Actor, Nastya, Ash, Natasha. These characters are predisposed to meet the wanderer Luke. Each of them lives with some kind of dream or hope. So the Actor expects to recover from alcoholism, 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 towards artistic glory. Nastya is dreaming of a French student whom she supposedly loves passionately. Ash dreams of a free and free 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 divided.
Luke, which we will talk about in detail in the next lesson, is designed to reveal the essence of each.
Baron and Bubnov are 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, does not dream of anything. The second - Tambourine - also sometimes refers to the past years, when he suffered from life, but basically lives in the present and recognizes only what he sees and feels. Bubnov is an indifferent cynic. For him, only the facts are clear, they are a "stubborn thing." The truth of the Baron and Bubnov is a tough, wingless truth, far from the true truth.
The fourth position is taken 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 stark 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 stranger that “people live for the better”, that the truth is connected with the idea of \u200b\u200ba person, that one should not interfere with him and belittle him (“Do not offend a person!”)
The images should be placed on the "ladder" of ranks and positions, since we have a social cut of the life of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century: Baron, Kostylev, Bubnov, Satin, Actor; Ash, Nastya.
Question
What is the conflict of the drama?
Answer
The conflict in this drama is social. Each of the lodgers experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves in a humiliating position. Life has deprived the people gathered in this hell. She deprived the right to work of Klesh, to the family - Nastya, to the profession - the Actor, to the former comfort - the Baron, doomed Anna to a hungry existence, to the theft - Ash, unrestrained binge - Bubnov, prostitution - Nastya.
A sharp conflict situation playing out in front of the audience is the most important feature of drama as a kind of literature.
Question
How is social conflict related to dramatic conflict?
Answer
Social conflict has been taken out of the scene, pushed back into the past; it does not become the basis of dramatic conflict. We see only the result of non-stage conflicts.
Question
What kind of conflicts, besides social, stand out in the play?
Answer
There is a traditional love conflict in the play. It is determined by the relationship between Vaska Pepla, Vasilisa, the wife of the owner of the hostel, Kostylev and Natasha, Vasilisa's sister. The exposition of this conflict is a conversation between the hostels, 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 plot of this conflict is the appearance of Natasha in the shelter, for the sake of which Ash leaves Vasilisa. In the course of the development of a love conflict, it becomes clear that relations with Natasha revive Ash, he wants to leave with her and start a new life. The culmination of the conflict is 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 Ashes turns out to be a tragic denouement of a love conflict. Natasha stops believing Ash: “They are at the same time! Damn you! You both…"
Question
What is the originality of the love conflict in the play?
Answer
A love conflict becomes a facet of social conflict. He shows that antihuman 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, one Vasilisa 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 hostel. Nothing human remains in Vasilisa, and this shows the enormity of the social conditions that disfigured both the inhabitants of the shelter and its owners. Nightcrawlers do not directly participate in this conflict, they are just outside spectators.
Question
What does this shelter remind you of?
Answer
The shelter is a kind of model of the cruel world from which its inhabitants were thrown out. Here, too, there are "masters", the police, the same alienation, hostility, the same vices are manifested.
Final words of the teacher
Gorky depicts the consciousness of people of the "bottom". The plot unfolds not so much in external action - in everyday life, as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the lodgers that determine the development of the dramatic conflict. The action is transferred to an extra-event series. This is typical of the genre of philosophical drama.
So, the genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama.
Homework
Prepare for the lesson-debate 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 piece. Why did Chekhov consider the last act unnecessary?
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: Parity, 2002
N.V. Egorova. Lesson developments in Russian literature of the XX century. Grade 11. 1st half of the year. M .: VAKO, 2005
The dramatic work is intended to be staged on stage. The play is divided into parts, actions, acts. Inside the action there can be scenes, pictures, phenomena. At the heart of the dramatic work is conflict. In the play, the speech of the characters is recreated in dialogical and monological forms, their actions and behavior as a whole are reproduced. Each period of the characters' speech is called a replica. The plays contain remarks (author's explanations) that help to introduce the characters and understand their actions. Features of a dramatic work
The play was conceived in 1901. "It will be scary" - this is how Gorky defined the essence of the future work - the year of creation. On December 18, 1902, the premiere took place at the Moscow Art Theater. The play is dedicated to Konstantin Petrovich Pyatnitsky (creator of the folk song choir).
Gorky reads the play "At the Bottom" to the artists of the Moscow Art Theater.
The semantic dominant of the name Nochlezhka is the scene of action Without the sun, the bottom is the nature of the conditions The bottom of life is the social position What happens to a person “at the bottom”? At the bottom of what? Life? Souls? So Gorky outlined the specifics of the dramatic conflict, which also determined the GENRE of the play.
The system of characters 1. There are no main and secondary characters, no non-stage characters. 2. The poster informs about the age (for all characters), profession or occupation, social status (owner), family relations. 3. The names of the heroes or their nicknames are given (?!). 4. The heroes of the play are divided according to their social (material) status. (?!) 5. A group of "reluctant philosophers" stands out: heroes - carriers of any philosophy of life (ideas, concepts) (Bubnov, Satin, Luka, Klesh)
External conflict "love": Vasilisa - Ashes - Natasha Internal conflict "philosophical": the clash of different "truths" about a person By the time Luka appeared, the value system of the inhabitants of the house was already formulated. There is a need for a different, POLEMIC outlook on their lives in order to "trigger" the mechanism of the drama.
Dispute about the appointment of a person !!! The truth of the fact (Bubnov) "All people on earth are superfluous ..." "... get the whole truth as it is! Why be ashamed? " "What happened was, and the rest is nothing but trifles." Tick: “No work! No strength! That's the truth! No shelter! You have to die - here it is ... You can't live. " A lie to save (Luke) “Not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone is jumping ..” “… I gave birth to a person, and you will die as a person…” “You cannot always cure a soul with the truth…” “There are people, but there are - others - people "" A man can teach good "" The lordship is like smallpox ... and a person will recover, but the signs remain ... "Man - that's the truth! (Satin) "Who is weak in soul ... - so lies are needed ..." "Truth is the god of a free man" "Everything is in a man, everything is for a man" "We must respect a man! ... Do not humiliate him with pity ..." "Man is free ... he is he pays for everything himself: for faith, for unbelief, for love, for the mind ... "" A man is above satiety! .. "
A scene from the play. Satin - K. Stanislavsky The author's position 1. Gorky develops the theme of Man and turns in his searches to the social “bottom”. 2. The writer reveals one of the peculiarities of the Russian national character: dissatisfaction with reality, a sharply critical attitude towards it and a complete unwillingness to undertake anything in order to change this reality. 3. In the reflections of the heroes, the fashionable for that time “ways of achieving happiness” were embodied: labor (Tick), invented love (Nastya), God (Anna)
Author's position 4. The writer sympathizes with his heroes, but does not accept their illusions. 5. The main question I wanted to pose is WHAT IS BETTER: TRUTH OR COMPASSION. Is it necessary to bring compassion to the point of using lies like Luke? " 6. Man - that's the truth! This is the leith - the motive in the development of the plot. Man is great with his unspent possibilities, his creative potential. The very fact of such recognition about a person is important! 7. Pain for lost souls pervades the play. This is the humanism of the writer. Luke is the bearer of the idea of \u200b\u200bcompassion, mercy. Not a battle for good, but preaching good — Luke's work. What is human is true!
Ways of expressing the author's position 1. The severity of the conflict, the dynamics of its development, the tragedy of the outcome. 2. Forms of dialogues and speech structures: a) through the continuity of dialogues, the effect of everyday life, stagnation of human relationships in a flophouse is achieved; b) leitmotif words, acquiring a symbolic meaning in the context of the play (Bubnov: “But the threads are rotten!”). 3. Speech characteristics of the heroes indicate social origin, attitude, place of the hero in the system of actions. persons. 4. A special role is played by the author's remarks (background, characteristics). 5. The use of song lyrics contrasts with the nature of relationships between people. 6. The compositional completeness of the parts - the death of the heroes - highlights the author's intention. 7. Concentration of action around one hero - Luke. 8. Mirror-like episodes create the effect of “redundancy” of the action, which helps to focus attention on important points for the author. 9. Use of literary reminiscences. The semantic core of all reminiscences in the play is the departure from life, death. (The fate of the actor is predicted by his own remarks)
Self-diagnosis (based on testing) 1. Determine the genre of the piece. a) tragedy; b) social drama; c) tragicomedy; d) socio-philosophical drama. 2. Which theater first staged the play? a) Drama Theater named after V. Komissarzhevskaya; b) Moscow Art Theater 3. What is the culmination of the play? a) the appearance of Luke; b) the murder of Kostylev; c) the death of the actor; d) the parable of the righteous land. 4. What is the essence of the philosophical conflict depicted by the author in the play? a) a reflection of the fashionable theories of the era; b) a dispute over the appointment of a person; c) a critical attitude to reality; d) the confrontation between good and evil. 5. What events of the play take place not on the stage, but “behind the scenes”? a) the murder of Kostylev; b) a quarrel between Kvashnya and Medved; c) a fight between Vasilisa and Natasha; d) Vasilisa's revenge on her sister; e) Anna's death.
6. Which of the heroes of the play before the shelter was: a) an official in the treasury chamber; b) a watchman in the country; c) a telegraph operator; d) a mechanic; e) a furrier. 7. What characters of the play belong to the following aphorisms, sayings, sayings? a) Noise is not a hindrance to death. b) Such a life that he got up in the morning and howling. c) When labor is a duty, life is slavery! d) Not a single flea is bad: everyone is black, everyone is jumping. e) everyone wants order, but there is a lack of reason f) if you don't like it - don't listen, but don't bother lying. 21 Homework Answer the question in writing (optional): What role does the last act play in the play? What are the heroes of the play At the Bottom arguing about? How is the play's humanism expressed? Which is more important: truth or compassion? (The role of the image of Luke).
