Gorky was always attracted by the unity and struggle of opposites (not without reason he was a Marxist): society and personality, wealth and poverty, good and evil, truth and falsehood. In the drama “At the Bottom”, the author was especially vividly able to show the unbearable severity of truth and the salvation of lies for a weak, broken man. Many controversial Russian works were published not at home, but abroad. The drama “At the Bottom” was no exception. Gorky wrote it in late 1901 - early 1902. Original names: "At the bottom of life," "Without the sun," "Nochlezhka," "Bottom."
The play was allowed only at the Moscow Art Theater, where the first production was performed on December 18, 1902 by directors Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. In 1904 she received the Griboedov Prize.
Slum world
For the first time, “bottom” people appeared on the scene - thieves, prostitutes, gamblers and drunkards, whom the author collected in a nightmare nighting-house.
The sad atmosphere is painted for his heroes by Maxim Gorky - at the bottom of society it should be scary: “a basement that looks like a cave”, a low heavy ceiling, “unpainted and dirty” furniture. Of course, debauchery, drunkenness, gambling, fights, endless squabbles, poverty and indifference reign here. The author does not spare black paint - the heroes of the work are in no way inferior to their habitat.
The inhabitants of the "bottom"
A young thief, Ash, a prostitute Nastya, a ruined nobleman (baron), living at Nastya’s expense, locksmith Kleshch and his dying wife, alcoholic actor, card cheater Satin, a cardholder Bubnov and others, live under the same name. This stash contains greedy and disgusting in its pretentious piety, Kostylev, sincerely confident that "the kindness of the heart can not be equated with money." Therefore, he tears three skins from his poor guests, so that there is nothing to buy oil in the lamp. We can say that Gorky created the noir style in this drama - however, many Russian dramas sin with exaggerated hopelessness.
At first, the characters of the play endlessly get bogged down on everyday topics - either the baron does not want revenge on the room, then Mite snarls in response to accusations of indifference to his sick wife, then the merchant Kvashnya discusses the feasibility of marriage. When the wandering old man Luke appears in the rooming house, the conversations of her regulars suddenly take on a philosophical turn. It is here that the truth and the lie in the drama “At the Bottom” truly enter into the struggle.
The trace of Christianity in the work
The alien compares favorably with the permanent inhabitants of the “Kostylevsky mansions” in that it has preserved elementary humanity. Some critics claim that Luke is a negative character, and even his name comes from the "evil one." But apparently, this is not so: at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gorky was a supporter of the theory of God-building, which tried to reconcile Marxism with Christianity, based on some similarities of philosophies.
The truth and falsehood in the drama “At the Bottom” are most intricately interwoven in the
image of Luke, who is more likely an evangelical character. His ideas are largely Christian: he really is trying to comfort the mourners (and, perhaps, Gorky sees this as the main purpose of religion). The old man calms the dying Anna, sympathetically listens to the fictional love story of the prostitute Nastya, tells the alcoholic actor about the hospital, where he will be surely cured, persuades the thief Vaska to go to Siberia and start a new honest life there.
Luke believes that he who has lost hope is doomed to death, and tells the parable about a man who had dreamed all his life of going to the “righteous land”. Upon learning that it does not exist, he hangs himself (in the same way, an alcoholic actor who has lost faith in cure ends up with it, which, in fact, ends Gorky's play).
So still: true or false? Respect or pity?
It is not known whether the author intentionally equates hope with illusion, thereby turning it into a lie, but it is precisely for this reason that Sateen enters into a kind of polemic with Luke. He read a lot as a boy, then he killed a man defending his sister, in prison he became addicted to cards and began to earn a living by cheating. Satin is ironic, smart, educated. His worldview somewhat coincides with the views of Luke: both believe that the center of the universe is a man and his free choice. But if Luke urges “to regret a person in time,” then pity is unacceptable for Sateen: “One must respect a person ... not humiliate him with pity ...”
When the roommates accuse the old man of lying, the intellectual gambler passionately defends him: “There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbor ... There is a comforting lie, a reconciliation lie.” He himself, however, considers it a clear evil, but partially admits the inevitability: "Who is weak in soul ... and who lives in other people's juices ... so lies are needed."
Literary criticism and authorship
True and false in the drama “At the Bottom” are contrasted not only in the opinions of the heroes. The main contradiction is, as usual, between a word and a deed, an idea and a reality. Satin can reasonably argue that a person "sounds proud" - he himself, nevertheless, is nothing more than a card sharpie who despises labor: "To work?" For what? To be full? ” No, of course, one must be “above satiety”. Work, therefore, is reprehensible, but cheating on cards is not.
It is very good that now we are free from the socialist ideology, which Maxim Gorky has become a hostage to. “At the Bottom” is an interesting and deep drama, it is unlikely that it should be taken only as a criticism of capitalist society. It is possible that the author tried to draw a line not only between truth and falsehood, but also a person who sounds proudly, and one in which there is nothing left of past greatness.
Look into the abyss
One of the characters in the play very clearly describes the reasons for his stay “at the bottom”: “When I start pouring, I’ll drink it all, one skin remains ... And yet - I'm lazy. I don’t like passion for work. ”
In the last act, Nastya formulates this line finally: "... would sweep you like rubbish ... somewhere in the pit." This sounds like a rather unpleasant idea that “extra people” must be destroyed, and not at all comforted by a humane lie, as if the life of every person is not in vain. In this case, the death of the actor, who finally realized the futility of his existence, is very symbolic.