The play “At the Lower Depths” was conceived by Gorky as one of four plays in a cycle showing the life and worldview of people from different walks of life. This is one of the two purposes of creating a work. The deep meaning that the author put into it is an attempt to answer the main questions of human existence: what a person is and whether he will retain his personality, having sunk “to the bottom” of moral and social existence.

History of the play

The first evidence of work on the play dates back to 1900, when Gorky, in a conversation with Stanislavsky, mentioned his desire to write scenes from the life of a flophouse. Some sketches appeared at the end of 1901. In a letter to the publisher K. P. Pyatnitsky, to whom the author dedicated the work, Gorky wrote that in the planned play all the characters, the idea, the motives for the actions were clear to him, and “it will be scary.” The final version of the work was ready on July 25, 1902, published in Munich and went on sale at the end of the year.

Things were not so rosy with the production of the play on the stages of Russian theaters - it was practically banned. An exception was made only for the Moscow Art Theater; other theaters had to obtain special permission for the production.

The title of the play changed at least four times during the work, and the genre was never determined by the author - the publication read “At the Bottom of Life: Scenes.” The shortened and familiar name to everyone today first appeared on the theater poster during the first production at the Moscow Art Theater.

The first performers were the star cast of the Moscow Art Academic Theater: K. Stanislavsky played the role of Satin, V. Kachalov - Barona, I. Moskvin - Luke, O. Knipper - Nastya, M. Andreeva - Natasha.

The main plot of the work

The plot of the play is tied to the relationships of the characters and the atmosphere of general hatred that reigns in the shelter. This is the outer outline of the work. A parallel action explores the depth of a person’s fall “to the bottom,” the measure of insignificance of a socially and spiritually degraded individual.

The action of the play begins and ends with the storyline of the relationship between two characters: the thief Vaska Pepel and the wife of the owner of the rooming house Vasilisa. Ash loves her little sister Natasha. Vasilisa is jealous and constantly beats her sister. She also has another interest in her lover - she wants to free herself from her husband and pushes Ash to murder. During the course of the play, Ash actually kills Kostylev in a quarrel. In the last act of the play, the guests of the shelter say that Vaska will have to go to hard labor, but Vasilisa will still “get out.” Thus, the action loops around the destinies of the two heroes, but is far from limited to them.

The time period of the play is several weeks of early spring. The time of year is an important component of the play. One of the first titles given by the author to the work is “Without the Sun.” Indeed, there is spring all around, a sea of ​​sunshine, but in the shelter and in the souls of its inhabitants there is darkness. The ray of sunshine for the overnight shelters was Luka, a tramp whom Natasha brings in one day. Luke brings hope for a happy outcome to the hearts of people who have fallen and lost faith in the best. However, at the end of the play, Luka disappears from the shelter. The characters who trusted him lose faith in the best. The play ends with the suicide of one of them - the Actor.

Play Analysis

The play describes the life of a Moscow flophouse. The main characters, accordingly, were its inhabitants and the owners of the establishment. Also in it appear people related to the life of the establishment: a policeman, who is also the uncle of the hostess of the rooming house, a dumpling seller, loaders.

Satin and Luka

Schuler, the former convict Satin and the tramp, wanderer Luke are carriers of two opposing ideas: the need for compassion for a person, a saving lie out of love for him, and the need to know the truth, as proof of a person’s greatness, as a sign of trust in his strength of spirit. In order to prove the falsity of the first worldview and the truth of the second, the author built the action of the play.

Other characters

All the other characters form the background for this battle of ideas. In addition, they are designed to show and measure the depth of the fall to which a person is capable of falling. The drunkard Actor and the terminally ill Anna, people who have completely lost faith in their own strength, fall under the power of a wonderful fairy tale into which Luke takes them. They are the most dependent on it. With his departure, they physically cannot live and die. The rest of the inhabitants of the shelter perceive Luka's appearance and departure as the play of a spring sunbeam - he appeared and disappeared.

Nastya, who sells her body “on the boulevard,” believes that there is bright love, and it was in her life. Kleshch, the husband of the dying Anna, believes that he will rise from the bottom and begin to earn a living by working again. The thread that connects him with his working past remains a toolbox. At the end of the play, he is forced to sell them in order to bury his wife. Natasha hopes that Vasilisa will change and stop torturing her. After another beating, after leaving the hospital, she will no longer appear in the shelter. Vaska Pepel strives to stay with Natalya, but cannot get out of the networks of the powerful Vasilisa. The latter, in turn, expects that the death of her husband will untie her hands and give her the long-awaited freedom. The Baron lives on from his aristocratic past. The gambler Bubnov, the destroyer of “illusions,” the ideologist of misanthropy, believes that “all people are superfluous.”

The work was created in conditions when, after the economic crisis of the 90s of the 19th century, factories shut down in Russia, the population was rapidly becoming poor, many found themselves on the bottom rung of the social ladder, in the basement. Each of the characters in the play experienced a fall to the bottom, social and moral, in the past. Now they live in the memory of this, but they cannot rise “to the light”: they don’t know how, they don’t have the strength, they are ashamed of their insignificance.

Main characters

Luke became a light for some. Gorky gave Luka a “speaking” name. It refers both to the image of St. Luke and to the concept of “cunning.” It is obvious that the author seeks to show the inconsistency of Luke’s ideas about the beneficial value of Faith for man. Gorky practically reduces Luka’s compassionate humanism to the concept of betrayal - according to the plot of the play, the tramp leaves the shelter just when those who trusted him need his support.

Satin is a figure designed to voice the author’s worldview. As Gorky wrote, Satin is not quite a suitable character for this, but there is simply no other character with equally powerful charisma in the play. Satin is the ideological antipode of Luke: he does not believe in anything, he sees the ruthless essence of life and the situation in which he and the rest of the inhabitants of the shelter find themselves. Does Satin believe in Man and his power over the power of circumstances and mistakes made? The passionate monologue that he delivers, arguing in absentia with the departed Luka, leaves a strong but contradictory impression.

There is also a bearer of the “third” truth in the work - Bubnov. This hero, like Satin, “stands for the truth,” only it is somehow very scary for him. He is a misanthrope, but, in essence, a murderer. Only they die not from the knife in his hands, but from the hatred that he has for everyone.

The drama of the play increases from act to act. The connecting outline is Luke's comforting conversations with those suffering from his compassion and Satin's rare remarks, indicating that he listens attentively to the speeches of the tramp. The climax of the play is Satin’s monologue, delivered after Luke’s departure and flight. Phrases from it are often quoted because they have the appearance of aphorisms; “Everything in a person is everything for a person!”, “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free person!”, “Man - this sounds proud!”

Conclusion

The bitter result of the play is the triumph of the freedom of fallen man to perish, disappear, leave, leaving behind neither a trace nor memories. The inhabitants of the shelter are free from society, moral standards, family and livelihood. By and large, they are free from life.

The play “At the Lower Depths” has been around for more than a century and continues to remain one of the most powerful works of Russian classics. The play makes you think about the place of faith and love in a person’s life, about the nature of truth and lies, about a person’s ability to resist moral and social decline.

M. Gorky’s work “At the Depths” touches on a huge layer of moral, moral and spiritual problems of society. The author used the principle of the great minds of the past: truth is born in dispute. His play, a debate, is designed to raise the most important questions for a person so that he can answer them for himself. A complete analysis of the work can be useful for 11th grade students in preparing for literature lessons, test assignments, and creative works.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– end of 1901 – beginning of 1902.

History of creation- the play was created specifically for production in the theater; Gorky put the most important questions of life into the mouths of his characters, reflecting his own view of life. The period of the late 19th century is shown, a deep economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, ruin, and the collapse of human destinies.

Subject- the tragedy of rejected people who found themselves at the very bottom of life.

Composition– linear composition, the events in the play are arranged in chronological order. The action is static, the characters are in one place, the play consists of philosophical reflections and debates.

Genre– social and philosophical drama, debate play.

Direction– critical realism (socialist realism).

History of creation

The play was conceived by Gorky a year before its creation; once in a conversation with Stanislavsky, he mentioned that he wanted to create a play about the inhabitants of a shelter who had sunk to the very bottom. In 1900 -1901 the author made some sketches. During this period, Maxim Gorky became seriously interested in the plays of A.P. Chekhov, their production on stage and the acting of the actors. This was crucial for the author in terms of working in a new genre.

In 1902, the play “At the Depths” was written, and in December of the same year it was staged on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater with the participation of Stanislavsky. It should be noted that the writing of the work was preceded by a crisis that happened in Russia in the late 90s of the 19th century, factories and plants stopped, unemployment, ruin, poverty, hunger - all this is a real picture in the cities of that period. The play was created with a specific goal - to raise the level of culture of all classes of the population. Its production caused a resonance, largely due to the genius of the author, as well as the controversial nature of the problems voiced. In any case - they talked about the play, with envy, dissatisfaction or admiration - it was a success.

Subject

The work intertwines several topics: fate, hope, the meaning of life, truth and lies. The heroes of the play talk about lofty topics, being so low that it is no longer possible to sink further. The author shows that a poor person can have a deep essence, be highly moral, and spiritually rich.

At the same time, any person can sink to the very bottom, from which it is almost impossible to rise; it is addictive, gives freedom from conventions, allows you to forget about culture, responsibility, education and moral aspects. Gorky only voiced the most acute problems modernity, he did not solve them, did not give a universal answer, did not show the way. Therefore, his work is called a debate play; it is based on a dispute in which a truth is born, unique for each character.

Issues The works are varied, perhaps the most pressing are the characters’ dialogues about saving lies and bitter truths. Meaning of the name The play is that the social bottom is a layer where there is also life, where people love, live, think and suffer - it exists in any era and no one is immune from this bottom.

Composition

The author himself defined the composition of the play as “scenes,” although its genius corresponds to the masterpiece plays of Russian and foreign classics. The linearity of the play's construction is due to the chronological sequence of events. The plot of the play is the appearance of Luka in the rooming house with his dissimilarity and facelessness. Then, in several acts, events develop, moving to the most powerful intensity - a dialogue about the meaning of existence, about truth and lies. This is the culmination of the play, followed by the denouement: the suicide of the Actor, the loss of hopes of the last inhabitants of the shelter. They are unable to save themselves, which means they are doomed to death.

Genre

In the play “At the Lower Depths,” the analysis allows us to draw a conclusion about the uniqueness of Gorky’s genre – the debate play. The main thing in the development of the plot is conflict; it drives the action. The characters are in a dark basement and dynamics are achieved through the collision of opposing points of view. The genre of the work is usually defined as socio-philosophical drama.

Work test

Rating analysis

Average rating: 4.3. Total ratings received: 2394.

History of creation. At the beginning of the 20th century, Gorky turned to drama. He writes his first plays almost simultaneously. “At the Lower Depths” was conceived earlier than “Bourgeois”; the plan for “Dachnikov” was outlined even before the first premiere of “At the Lower Depths”. Work on the play began in 1900. In January of the following year, Gorky wrote to Stanislavsky: “I started another play. Bosyatskaya. There are about twenty characters. I’m very curious what will happen!” The play “At the Lower Depths” was written in 1902 for the troupe of the Moscow Art Public Theater. According to Gorky, the play appeared as a result of twenty years of observations of the world of “former people,” to whom he included “... not only wanderers, inhabitants of night shelters and generally “lumpen proletarians,” but also some of the intellectuals, offended and humiliated by failures in life.” . As the writer himself pointed out, he observed the prototypes of his heroes in Nizhny Novgorod: the artist Kolosovsky-Sokolovsky served as the prototype of the Actor: Gorky wrote Bubnov not only from his acquaintance, but also from an intellectual, his teacher; The image of Nastya is largely borrowed from the stories of Claudia Gross. The production of Gorky's plays was prohibited. To stage “At the Depths,” a petition from the theater society or the local governor was necessary. “I had to go to St. Petersburg, defend almost every phrase, make concessions with a creaky heart, and, in the end, achieve permission for only one Art Theater,” V. N. Nemirovich-Danchenko later recalled about the production of “At the Lower Depths.” From conversations with the then head of the Main Directorate for Press Affairs, Professor Zverev, he was left with the impression that “At the Depths” was allowed only because the authorities were counting on the deafening failure of the play. On December 18, four and a half months after its creation, the first performance of the play took place; it was published only a month and a half later. The play was a huge success. Proof of this is many newspaper publications
It is known that the image of the bottom was interpreted as a metaphor for the spiritual atmosphere. However, there is every reason to believe that the tragic state of the heroes is given a grotesque character. The author’s assessment of the heroes’ inability to achieve physical or spiritual salvation is quite ironic; even the Actor is sometimes perceived as a fool of the bottom; in Satin’s eyes, he is the bearer of the stupid principle (“Eh... ruined the song... fool!”). In general, the tragedy described in the play is devoid of catharsis. The genre essence of Gorky's dramas is ambiguous. Thus, I. Annensky also pointed out the presence of irony in the tragic situations of “At the Bottom.” The tragic ironic pathos of Gorky’s play is obvious primarily due to its language. The characters' remarks sometimes introduce a farcical element into the emotional world of the drama. Due to rhymes, including internal ones, essentially tragic heroes allow themselves to speak in buffoonish language. The phonetic capabilities of the Russian language are conducive to sound parallels and identities, which were widely used by poets; this property of Russian speech was also in demand by Gorky the playwright. Following Gogol, Gorky introduces into the text clownish language like Satin’s “Many people get money easily, but few easily part with it...” Due to phonetic identities, Gorky creates a grotesque, anomalous atmosphere of laughter and spiritual death, fun and horror. Apparently, believing that the ugliness of life is not only outside a person, in society, but also inside a person, he makes his characters speak in “funny” phrases. Phonetically, Nastya’s remarks are colored by internal rhyme; for example: “Give me... give me back! Well... don’t spoil me!” Almost all the characters in the play resort to sound repetitions: “Christ felt sorry for everyone and told us...” (Luke), “Once again I play, I don’t play anymore...” and “We know what kind of person you are...” (Tatar ), “Life is such that you get up in the morning and start howling…” (Bubnov), “More interesting than you… Andrey! Your wife is in our kitchen..." (Natasha). Sound becomes a means of creating the character of a bottom person. It is not difficult to notice Satin’s “phonetic preferences”. Quite often in his dictionary there are words based on “r” (labor, good, slavery, etc.). As you know, Satin is tired of “all human words”; he loves “incomprehensible, rare words”, and in their phonetic pattern there is the same dominant sound: “Gibraltarr”, “Sardanapalus”. The tendency towards alliteration is noticeable in phrases like “Work? Make the work enjoyable for me - maybe I will work... yes! Satin's speech resembles an animal growl. It is no coincidence that in the very first remark it is indicated: “Satin growls.”
The text, like the instructions in the stage directions, emphasizing the farcical nature of what is happening, contains information about the animal, non-human nature of the inhabitants of the bottom. If Satin growls, then Bubnov remarks about this: “Why are you grunting?” Turning to the text of “Dead Souls,” the researchers pointed to such means of creating a portrait of a dead soul as the presence in the hero’s appearance of animal features or characteristics of inanimate nature, which initiates the grotesque. In Gorky’s text, in addition to the zoological “speech,” it is also indicated that there is an inorganic nature in the heroes; So, Kostylev asks Kleshch: “Are you creaking?”
Thus, an analysis of the vocabulary of the play “At the Lower Depths” confirms the version of its tragic-farcical, tragic-ironic basis.

The atmosphere of spiritual separation of people. The role of the polylogue. Characteristic of all literature of the early 20th century. the painful reaction to a disunited, spontaneous world in Gorky’s drama acquired a rare scale and convincing embodiment. The author conveyed the stability and extreme mutual alienation of Kostylev’s guests in the original form of a “polylogue”. In Act I, all the characters speak, but each, almost without listening to the others, talks about his own things. The author emphasizes the continuity of such “communication”. Kvashnya (the play begins with her remark) continues the argument that began behind the scenes with Kleshch. Anna asks to stop what goes on “every single day.” Bubnov interrupts Satin: “I’ve heard it a hundred times.”

In the stream of fragmentary remarks and altercations, words that have a symbolic sound are shaded. Bubnov repeats twice (while working as a furrier): “But the threads are rotten...” Nastya characterizes the relationship between Vasilisa and Kostylev: “Tie every living person to such a husband...” Bubnov remarks about Nastya’s own situation: “You’re the odd one out everywhere.” . Phrases said on a specific occasion reveal the “subtextual” meaning: the imaginary connections, the superfluity of the unfortunate.

The originality of the internal development of the play. The situation changes with the appearance of Luke. It is with his help that illusory dreams and hopes come to life in the recesses of the souls of night shelters. Acts II and III of the drama make it possible to see in the “naked man” an attraction to another life. But, based on false ideas, it ends only in misfortune.

Luke's role in this outcome is very significant. An intelligent, knowledgeable old man indifferently looks at his real surroundings, believes that “people live for a better person... For a hundred years, and maybe more, they live for a better person.” Therefore, the delusions of Ash, Natasha, Nastya, and Actor do not touch him. Nevertheless, Gorky did not at all limit what was happening to the influence of Luke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I am the connection of worlds that exist everywhere,
I am an extreme degree of substance;
I am the center of the living
The trait is the initial of the deity;
My body is crumbling into dust,
I command thunder with my mind.
I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am a god!
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The genre of the play “At the Lower Depths” (1902) is a drama, while its genre originality is manifested in the close interweaving of social and philosophical content.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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