Analysis "At the bottom". The problem of humanism, unusually presented by M. Gorky

In all the plays of Maxim Gorky, one way or another, there is a common important motive. Namely - passive humanism, which refers to such feelings as compassion and pity, as well as the active humanism opposed to it, which generates in people the desire for resistance, protest, struggle. And the play, created by the author in 1902, was no exception.

General patterns

Analysis "At the bottom" is an analysis of social drama, a deeply philosophical work in which unusual characters face common problems. Separation of the main and minor characters in the play, as can easily be seen, no. The plot is dominated not by the clash of people in certain situations, but the clash of their views and life positions. Everything in the work is subordinated to the philosophical conflict, and therefore the basis of the play is a tense dialogue, often escalating into a dispute. The number of monologues of the playwright is minimized, as a rule, they are for the most part the completion of any stage of the character dispute or even the author's declaration (Satin's monologue can be considered an example of this). Conflicting parties are trying to convince each other, and therefore the speech of each of the heroes is bright, rich, rich in aphorisms.

The peculiarity of the play "At the bottom" is the parallel development of several plots

Analysis "At the bottom" should be carried out immediately in several parallel channels, almost independent of each other - so the work itself is built. For example, the relationship between Kostylev (the owner of the doss house), his wife Vasilisa and her sister Natasha, as well as the thief Ashes, could well constitute the basis for a separate social and domestic drama. Another direction is the relationship between the unemployed and the "muck" locksmith who remained unemployed and left with his dying wife, Anna. In the work there are other subject sites: Nastya and Baron, Kvashnia and Medvedev, the stories of Bubnov, the Actor, Alyoshka and other heroes. At first glance, it even gives the impression that Gorky just described a few examples from the lives of those who live "at the bottom," and that if the number of such examples had decreased or increased, nothing would have changed much.

On the other hand, when analyzing "At the bottom", one gets the impression that the playwright achieved this effect of "disunity" consciously. The author as if dividing the scene into several sections, each of which lives its own special life and is populated by new characters. A curious multi-voiced dialogue is formed, during which replicas that sounded on one part of the scene seem to accidentally resonate in words that sound on the other. The final effect is quite unexpected. The ashes in one corner of the scene convince Natasha that nothing is afraid of anyone, and then in another Bubnov, patching the cap, gives out the phrase: "And the strings are rotten ...", which sounds like irony in the direction of Ashes. Spivshiysya Actor in one corner trying, but not able to read the poem, and Bubnov in the other corner during the game in checkers with the city Medvedev, maliciously says: "Your lady has disappeared". And again there is a feeling that this is addressed not only to Medvedev, but partly to the Actor, that these words speak not only about the game of checkers, but about human destiny in general.

The image of Luke - the link in the work of M. Gorky

Such a through action in the play is quite complex. To realize it, it is necessary to understand what role Luka plays in all of this. Analysis "At the bottom" can not be done without referring to the image of a traveling preacher who is trying to console everyone, everyone promises a quick relief from suffering and calls for not losing hope and faith. Luke is an unusual person. He is an intelligent person with a keen interest in people and a huge life experience. Luke's own convictions are very well characterized by his phrase "What you believe in, it is." The preacher is convinced that the soul can not be cured by the truth, and indeed nothing can be done at all, however, a comforting lie helps to soften the pain. Besides, Luka sincerely feels sorry for people, he wants to help them.

Such collisions help to form the end-to-end action of the play. To this end, the author also needed parallel developing stories of different characters. These people differ in the viability, ability to believe in a person, to resist. Luke's preaching also allows you to check how people who are so different will react to it, which makes such a test even more convincing.

Dying Anna, a woman who during her lifetime did not know rest, Luka says that she died "with joy, without alarm." And the patient, on the contrary, has a greater desire to live. "If there is no flour there, you can suffer here," she says. And this is Luke's first defeat. To Natasha, the preacher narrates the parable of the "righteous earth", wanting to convince her of the pernicious nature of the truth and the saving power of deception. However, Natasha, hearing his words, comes to the very opposite conclusion - she believes that the hero of the parable, who committed suicide, simply "could not stand deceit." These words, in turn, shed light on the tragedy of the actor, who believed in Luke's consolations and failed to withstand disappointment.

The analysis of Gorky's "At the Bottom" allows us to see how the short conversations of an old man with his "protege" are interwoven with each other, creating a tense internal movement in the work. The ghostly hopes of the unfortunate grow, and as soon as the illusions begin to disperse, Luka disappears imperceptibly.

Satin's speech - the anthem of life, first sounded "at the bottom"

The greatest defeat Luke suffers from Satin. In the last act, when the preacher is no longer in the doss house, people begin to argue about who he was and what he was trying to achieve. Bums are worried about how and what to live now. Expresses the general condition of the baron. Confessing that he used to live like "in a dream" and did not understand anything, he begins to think dreamily: "... for some reason I was born ...". People start to listen to each other. Satin at first defends Luke and denies that the preacher deliberately deceived everyone. However, this defense is quickly transformed into an offensive, and now Satin says that all this was done by Luka out of pity for people. The hero says that a lie is a religion of slaves and masters, and the god of a free man is true. Satin continues his heartfelt speech, and now he hears the words that "there is only a man, yet the rest is the work of his hands and brain." And in spite of the fact that even the speaker who does not go further than these words will not go, in the doss house for the first time a serious speech sounds and the pain from the lost life is felt.

The last three acts of the play end in death. At the end of the second action, Satin screams "The dead do not hear!" The movement of the drama is associated with the awakening of "living corpses", their emotions, their hearing. This is the main, moral significance of the play, although it ends tragically.

Conclusion

So far, a lot of controversy has arisen about the play "At the bottom". The analysis of the work that you have just seen allows us to make sure that this is a truly profound non-standard work, exposing the acute philosophical and moral conflicts of that era and their gradual development. For Gorky himself, it was extremely important to make the personality awaken, to urge its ability to reason, to comprehend the essence.