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Essay "Former People" by Maxim Gorky

"Former People" is a work created in 1897. It is based on personal impressions of the author, which he received when he had to live in a doss house on the outskirts of Kazan. This work in the genre can be defined as an essay, since it is characterized by the reliability of the image, the lack of dynamics, attention to everyday life, as well as detailed portrait characteristics. In "Former People" Gorky reassesses the type of tramp in a new way. There is no romantic halo, familiar to us from his early works.

"Former people": a summary

Essential place in the first part is given to the description. First we see the outskirts of the street. It is dirty, dull. The small houses located here are plain-looking: with skewed windows and curved walls, hollow roofs. We see heaps of debris and rubble. Next, the house of the merchant Petunnikov is described. It is a sagging building with broken glass. Its walls are all cracked. In this house, a little like a house, there is a doss house. It looks like a gloomy, long hole.

Portraits of doss-mitters

From the description of the interior the author proceeds to the portraits of the doss-lodgers. What are the "former people" in M. Gorky's play "At the bottom"?

Aristide Kuvalda - the owner of the lodging house, previously served as captain. He heads the company of the so-called "former people" and represents its "General Staff". Gorky describes him as a tall, broad-shouldered man about 50 years old, with a pockmarked face swollen with drunkenness. He is dressed in a ragged and dirty officer's overcoat, and on his head is a seamed cap.

Next are portraits of other doss-lodgers. One of them is Teacher. This stooping tall man with a bald skull and a long pointed nose. Another accommodation - Simtsov Alexei Maksimovich, also known as Kubar. This man is a former forester. Gorky notes that he is "fat, like a barrel." He has a small, crimson nose, a thick white beard, and cynical, watery eyes.

The next inhabitant of the doss house is Martyanov Luka Antonovich nicknamed the End. Previously, he worked as a prison superintendent, and now - one of the "former people." It is a silent and gloomy drunkard.

Here also lives Pavel Solntsev (Saddle), a mechanic. It's a consumptive little man about thirty years old. Next, the author describes Kiselnikov. This dweller is a former convict. He is bony and tall, "crooked for one eye." He was nicknamed Poltor Taras, since his friend Taras, a former deacon, was one and a half times lower than him. Next, we get acquainted with the long-haired "ridiculous" boys "with a stupid cheeky erysipelas". His nickname is Meteor. Then the author presents us and ordinary inhabitants of the doss house, men. One of them is Tyapa, an old rag-taker.

Characteristics of doss-lodgers

Maxim Gorky draws our attention to how indifferent these people are towards their destiny, and also to the life and destiny of others. They are apathetic, they show impotence before external circumstances. In their souls, at the same time, bitterness, which is directed against the well-off people, is growing. By the way, the world of "former people" in M. Gorky's play "At the bottom" is very similar to the one created in the essay of interest to us.

Conflict with Petunnikov

In the second part of the work the discontent of all these characters pours out into open conflict with Petunnikov, a local merchant. The nature of this conflict is social. The captain noticed that some part of the merchant's factory was on the land of Vavilov. He persuades the innkeeper to sue Petunnikov. It should be noted that Aristide Kuvalda in this case is not motivated by the desire to profit. He just wants to annoy Petunnikov, whom he calls humble Judas.

Result of confrontation

However, the claim, which promised 600 rubles, ends the world. Business, educated and cruel son Petunnikov convinces Vavilov of the need to withdraw the claim from the court. Otherwise, he threatens to close the pub, which contains innkeeper. Inhabitants of the doss house understand that now they will need to leave their homes, because the merchant, of course, will not forgive them this misconduct.

Soon, Petunnikov really demands to immediately leave "hibarochka." But this is not the end of the disaster. Die Ucheel, whose death is accused Aristide Kuvalda. So finally the community of doss-mongers breaks up. Petunnikov is triumphant.

Psychology of heroes

Maksim Gorky pays much attention not only to the study of the life of the so-called former people. He is also interested in their psychology, the inner world. The author believes that living in a doss house gives rise to weak people who are not capable of revival, of self-realization. They deny everything, including their own lives. This position (its ideologist - Kuvalda) is destructive and unpromising. It lacks a constructive, positive beginning. And discontent, which is caused by impotence, can only give rise to despair and anger.

We can say that Maxim Gorky ( his portrait is presented above) in his essay "Former People" condemns the inhabitants of the "bottom". They are despondent, powerless and inactive characters. An analysis of the essay "Former People" shows that they are not capable of good feelings and actions. In this respect, the episode of Teacher's death is indicative. The sledgehammer who considered this man his friend could not find even human words for him. Social problems, reflected in the stories of the Bosnian cycle, will continue to develop in the plays of Maxim Gorky.

The difference between the work and the physiological essays

In the physiological essay, the main subject of the image were the social roles of heroes, and not specific characters. The authors were interested, for example, by the Petersburg organ-grinder, the St. Petersburg janitor, cab drivers, officials, merchants. In the artistic essay, created by M. Gorky ("Former People"), the main attention is paid to the study of character characters, which are united by social status. The heroes were in the doss house, at the very bottom of life. The housekeeper is kept by Aristide Kuvalda, who is himself a "former" man, because he is a captain in retirement.

The lack of an autobiographical hero

It is possible to note some other features of the work. For example, in "Former People" there is no autobiographical hero, an image so familiar to Gorky. The narrator in this work seems to want to distance himself from everything and not give out his presence. We can say that his role in Gorky Maxim's "Former People" product is somewhat different than in the cycle "In Russia" or in the romantic stories of the author. The autobiographical hero is not a listener of characters, their interlocutor. Only the details of the portrait of a young man whom Kuvald has nicknamed Meteor, and a description of how he relates to others, allow us to discern in him an autobiographical hero. True, he is somewhat distanced in this work from the narrator.

The transition from romanticism to realism

The main thing that distinguishes the "former people" from Gorky's works relating to early art is the transition from a romantic interpretation of the character to a realistic one. The author still depicts people from the people. However, his appeal to realism allows him to show much more clearly the contrast between dark and light, weak and strong aspects of the national character, its contradictory nature. This is the subject of research in the work "Former People".

It seems that the author, having risen to the position of realism, can not find a way to resolve the conflict between the person's destiny (his height) and his tragic unrealizability in the life of the "former" people, the low social position they occupy. The insurmountability of this conflict forces Gorky in the final landscape to return to the worldview characteristic of Romanticism. Only in the elements can you find the solution of the unsolvable. The author writes that there was something inexorable and tense in the strict gray clouds, which completely covered the sky. As if they were about to burst into a shower and wash away all the dirt from the sad, tortured earth. However, in general, the landscape is realistic. It is necessary to say a few words about him.

Landscape

In the author's early stories, the romantic landscape was intended to emphasize the exclusivity of the characters, and the spirituality and beauty of the southern night, the horror of the dark forest or the boundless free steppe could be the backdrop on which the romantic hero unfolded, at the price of his life asserting his ideal. Now Gorky Maxim ("Former People") refers to the realistic landscape. He is interested in his anti-esthetic features. Before us appears the ugly suburb of the city. Turbidity of colors, lack of brightness, pallor are needed to create a feeling of abandonment of the environment in which dwellers live.

Conflict

The author tries to understand how great is the social and personal potential of the so-called "former people". It is important for him to find out if they can, in difficult domestic and social conditions, save spiritual, intangible values that can be countered to a world so unfair to them. The peculiarity of the conflict is due to this aspect of the problem. The conflict in the work is of a social nature. After all, the lodgers, led by the Sledgehammer, confront the merchant Petunnikov, as well as his son - a cold, strong, intelligent and educated representative of the Russian bourgeoisie.

The author is more interested in not the social aspect of this confrontation, but the unpreparedness of the heroes to comprehend their own situation, possible prospects, their needs. At all, it's not someone else's land that interests them, or even money. This is only a manifestation of hatred of a poor drunkard to a hardworking and rich man.

Gorky reveals the complete absence in the "former people" of the creative principle, inner growth, activity, self-improvement. But these qualities are very important for the author. They are represented in the novel "Mother", as well as in the hero of his autobiographical trilogy. Inhabitants of the doss house can not oppose anything to the surrounding reality, except for anger. This leads them to the very "bottom". Their malice turns against them. Nothing "the former people" achieved by their confrontation with the merchant.

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