THE BRIEF CONTENTS, READ A BRIEF SUMMARY, A BRIEF RESTORATION - A. M. GORKY AT THE BOTTOM
Play (1902)
The play contains, as it were, two parallel actions. The first is social and everyday and the second is philosophical. Both actions develop in parallel, without intertwining. There are, as it were, two planes in the play: external and internal.
External plan. In the rooming house, owned by Mikhail Ivanovich Kostylev (51 years old) and his wife Vasilisa Karlovna (26 years old), live, according to the author’s definition, “former people,” that is, people without a solid social status, as well as working but poor people. These are: Satin and Actor (both under 40 years old), Vaska Pepel, a thief (28 years old), Andrei Mitrich Kleshch, a mechanic (40 years old), his wife Anna (30 years old), Nastya, a prostitute (24 years old), Bubnov (45 years old) years old), Baron (33 years old), Alyoshka (20 years old), Tatarin and Crooked Zob, hook makers (age not specified).
Kvashnya, a dumpling seller (about 40 years old) and Medvedev, Vasilisa’s uncle, a policeman (50 years old), appear in the house.
The relationship between them is very complicated, scandals often arise. Vasilisa is in love with Vaska and persuades him to kill her elderly husband in order to be the sole mistress (in the second half of the play, Vaska beats Kostylev and accidentally kills him; Vaska is arrested). Vaska is in love with Natalya, Vasilisa’s sister (20 years old); Out of jealousy, Vasilisa beats her sister mercilessly. Satin and Actor (a former provincial theater actor named Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky) are completely degenerate people, drunkards, gamblers, Satin is also a sharper.
The Baron is a former nobleman who squandered his entire fortune and is now one of the most pitiful people in the flophouse. Klesh tries to make money with his plumbing tools; his wife Anna falls ill and needs medication; at the end of the play, Anna dies, and Tick finally sinks to the bottom.
In the midst of drinking and scandals, the wanderer Luke appears in the shelter, feeling sorry for the people. He promises many an unrealistic bright future. He predicts happiness after death for Anna. He tells the actor about a free hospital for alcoholics. He advises Vaska and Natasha to leave home, etc. But at the most tense moment, Luka actually runs away, leaving behind hopeful people. This drives the actor to suicide. In the finale, the night shelters sing a song, and when Satin hears about the death of the Actor, he says with annoyance and bitterness: “Eh... You ruined the song... you fool!”
Internal plan. In the play, two philosophical “truths” collide: Luke and Satine. The nochlezhka is a kind of symbol of humanity that finds itself in a dead end, which by the beginning of the 20th century. has lost faith in God, but has not yet gained faith in itself. Hence the general feeling of hopelessness, lack of perspective, which, in particular, is expressed by Actor and Bubnov (a pessimistic reasoner) in the words: “What’s next” and “And the threads are rotten...” The world has become dilapidated, weakened, and is coming to an end. Satin prefers to accept this bitter truth and not lie to himself or people. He suggests to Mite that he stop working.
If everyone stops working, what will happen? “They will die of hunger...” answers Kleshch, but in doing so he only reveals the meaningless essence of labor, which is aimed only at maintaining life, and not at bringing any meaning into it. Satin is a kind of radical existentialist, a person who accepts the absurdity of the universe, in which “God died (Nietzsche) and the Emptiness, Nothingness, was exposed. Luke has a different view of the world.
He believes that it is precisely the terrible meaninglessness of life that should evoke special pity for a person. If a person needs a lie to continue living, then you need to lie to him and console him. Otherwise, the person will not be able to stand the “truth” and will die. So Luke tells a parable about a seeker of a righteous land and a scientist who, using a map, showed him that there is no righteous land. The offended man left and hanged himself (a parallel with the future death of the Actor). Luke is not just an ordinary wanderer, a comforter, but also a philosopher.
In his opinion, a person is obliged to live despite the meaninglessness of life, because he does not know his future, he is only a wanderer in the universe, and even our earth is a wanderer in space. Luka and Satin are arguing. But Satin somewhat accepts Luke’s “truth.” In any case, it is the appearance of Luke that provokes Satin into his monologue about Man, which he pronounces, imitating the voice of his opponent (a fundamental remark in the play).
Satin does not want to pity and console a person, but, by telling him the whole truth about the meaninglessness of life, to encourage him to self-respect and rebellion against the universe. A person, having realized the tragedy of his existence, should not despair, but, on the contrary, feel his worth. The whole meaning of the universe is in it alone. There is no other meaning (for example, Christian). “Man, that sounds proud!” “Everything is in man, everything is for man.”
THE BRIEF CONTENTS, READ A BRIEF SUMMARY, A BRIEF RESTORATION - A. M. GORKY AT THE BOTTOM
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