At the center of M. Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths” is not only human destinies, but a clash of ideas, a dispute about man. The core of this dispute is the problem of truth and lies. The very composition of the play, its internal movement debunks Luke's philosophy. At the beginning of the play we see that almost all the characters are obsessed with their dreams. The appearance of Luke with his sermons of consolation and reconciliation strengthens the inhabitants of the shelter in the correctness of their thoughts. But instead of peace and silence, acute dramatic events are brewing in the Kostylevo shelter. Which culminate in the scene of the murder of old man Kostylev.
Luka suffers his biggest defeat in an argument with Satin.
Luka's helplessness is manifested in many ways, in particular in the scene of Natasha's beating. Luke is worried, he is fussing (as indicated by the author’s remark), but things do not go further than this anxiety;
Luka (fussing around). Vasilya would... call Vasya... oh, Lord! Brothers... guys... To Satin's offer to be a witness, Luke replies: What a witness I am! Where to...
In general, the attitude towards what is happening makes significant additions to the portrait characteristics of each character. So, for example, Kleshch “sits indifferently on the logs,” Tatar, Crooked Zob, Kostylev want a fight. And Vasilisa shouts to Satin: “Get away, convict!” I’ll decide on life, but I’ll tear it to pieces.” These people have long lost their human form. Vasilisa does not cover up her rudeness and greed with either feigned humility or religiosity. She brutally beats Natasha and persuades Ash to kill her husband, promising him in this case to give Natasha as his wife. Vasilisa is even worse than her husband, because she is cunning and dexterous, and in the end it happens as she wants: she scalded Natasha’s feet (Kvashnya says: “Look, what animals! They boiled the girl’s feet with boiling water.”) and in the ensuing turmoil, Ashes kills Kostylev. Discussing these events, the shelters are sure that Vasilisa will “get out”, because she is “smart.” She begins to “get out” immediately, shouting into the alley: “They killed my husband... Vaska Pepel, the thief, he killed him... I saw it, everyone saw it.” At the end of this scene, a completely broken Natasha appears before us, she suffers more than anyone, the author’s remark indicates this:
NATASHA (throws around almost unconscious). Good people, my sister and Vaska were killed! Police - listen. This one, my sister, taught... persuaded... her lover... that damned one! - they killed! Take them... judge them. Take me too... to jail me! For Christ's sake... put me in prison!
Natasha cannot bear such mental anguish, and it seems to her that it will be better in prison. Kvashnya calls these people beasts. So, the harsh truth of life refutes Luke’s comforting lies, which is probably why he disappears unnoticed.
The ending of the third act is of great importance for expressing the author's position in the future. Luka leaves, leaving people with nothing. All illusions collapse. The plot expresses Gorky’s own position on the rooming house’s dispute about man; The actor dies, thus exposing Luke's false humanism.
Essay on literature on the topic: Analysis of the finale of the third act of Gorky’s play “At the Depths”
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At the center of M. Gorky's play “At the Lower Depths” is not only human destinies, but a clash of ideas, a dispute about man. The core of this dispute is the problem of truth and lies. The very composition of the play, its internal movement debunks Luke's philosophy. At the beginning of the play we see that almost all the characters are obsessed with their dreams. The appearance of Luke with his sermons of consolation and reconciliation strengthens the inhabitants of the shelter in the correctness of their thoughts. But instead of peace and silence, acute dramatic events are brewing in the Kostylevo shelter. Which culminate in the scene of the murder of old man Kostylev.
Luka suffers his biggest defeat in an argument with Satin.
Luka's helplessness is manifested in many ways, in particular in the scene of Natasha's beating. Luke is worried, he is fussing (as indicated by the author’s remark), but things do not go further than this anxiety;
Luka (fussing around). Vasilya would... call Vasya... oh, Lord! Brothers... guys... To Satin's offer to be a witness, Luke replies: What a witness I am! Where to...
In general, the attitude towards what is happening makes significant additions to the portrait characteristics of each character. So, for example, Kleshch “sits indifferently on the wood,” Tatarin, Crooked Zob, Kostylev want a fight. And Vasilisa shouts to Satin: “Get away, convict! I’ll decide on life, but I’ll tear it to pieces.” These people have long lost their human form. Vasilisa does not cover up her rudeness and greed with either feigned humility or religiosity. She brutally beats Natasha and persuades Ash to kill her husband, promising him in this case to give Natasha as his wife. Vasilisa is even worse than her husband, because she is cunning and dexterous, and in the end it happens as she wants: she scalded Natasha’s feet (Kvashnya says: “Look, what animals! They boiled the girl’s feet with boiling water.”) and in the ensuing turmoil, Ashes kills Kostylev. Discussing these events, the shelters are sure that Vasilisa will “get out”, because she is “dexterous.” She begins to “get out” immediately, shouting into the alley: “They killed my husband... Vaska Pepel, the thief, he killed him... I saw it, everyone saw it.” At the end of this scene, a completely broken Natasha appears before us, she suffers more than anyone, the author’s remark indicates this:
NATASHA (throws around almost unconscious). Good people, my sister and Vaska were killed! Police - listen. This one, my sister, taught... persuaded... her lover... that damned one! - they killed! Take them... judge them. Take me too... to jail me! For Christ's sake... put me in prison!
Natasha cannot bear such mental anguish, and it seems to her that it will be better in prison. Kvashnya calls these people beasts. So, the harsh truth of life refutes Luke’s comforting lies, which is probably why he disappears unnoticed.
The ending of the third act is of great importance for expressing the author's position in the future. Luka leaves, leaving people with nothing. All illusions collapse. The plot expresses Gorky’s own position on the rooming house’s dispute about man; The actor dies, thus exposing Luke's false humanism.
At the center of the play is A.M. Gorky's "At the Bottom" is not so much human destinies as a clash of ideas, a dispute about man, about the meaning of life. The core of this dispute is the problem of truth and lies, the perception of life as it really is, with all its hopelessness and the harsh truth of the life of people at the bottom, or life with illusions, in whatever various forms they may appear. The very composition of the play, its internal movement debunk Luke's philosophy. At the beginning of the play, we see that almost all the characters are obsessed with their dream, their illusion. The appearance of Luke with his preaching of consolation and reconciliation strengthens the inhabitants of the shelter in the correctness of their unclear inclinations and thoughts. But instead of peace and silence, acute dramatic events are brewing in Kostylev’s shelter, which reach their climax in the scene of the murder of old man Kostylev. The harsh truth of life refutes Luka’s comforting lies, and long before the finale, in the third act, Luka quietly disappears.
Luka suffers his biggest defeat in an argument with Satin. In the last act, when Luka is no longer in the shelter and everyone is arguing about who he is and what he is seeking, Satine first defends him. He denies that Luke is a conscious deceiver, a charlatan: “Be silent! You are all brutes! Dubye... keep quiet about the old man!.. The old man is not a charlatan! What is the truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this... you didn’t!.. He lied... but it was out of pity for you, damn you!” But in the heat of an argument, without noticing it, Satin turns into Luke’s opponent. “There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbors... I know! I read! They lie beautifully, inspiredly, stimulatingly!.. There are comforting lies, reconciling lies... lies justify the heaviness that crushed the worker’s hand... and blame those dying of hunger... I know the lies! Those who are weak in soul!.. and who live on other people's juices need lies... Some people are supported by it, others hide behind it... And who is his own master... who is independent and does not eat someone else's things - why does he need lies?.. Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” This monologue of Satin proclaims a new attitude towards man. He called the comforting lie the religion of “slaves and masters.” Lies as the “religion of the owners” are embodied by the owner of the shelter, Kostylev, who lives on other people’s juices. Luke embodies lies as the “religion of slaves,” expressing their weakness and depression, their inability to fight, their inclination toward patience and reconciliation, and forgiveness.
Once, in a rooming house, Luke, in response to the question of whether there is a God, said: “If you believe, there is; if you don’t believe, no...” This thought was the basis of his philosophy: if you like it, believe and be comforted. Satin, starting from Luke’s thoughts, draws a completely different conclusion: a person is free to choose his attitude towards faith, and towards life, towards its structure and its order: “Does he pray? Wonderful! A person can believe or not believe... It's his business! Man is free... he pays for everything himself: for faith, for unbelief, for love, for intelligence - man pays for everything himself, and therefore he is free!.. Man - that’s the truth!” Satin pronounces a monologue in praise of man in moments of spiritual elation. Gorky understood how inorganic such a speech was for the character of the hero: “... Satin’s speech about man is pale. However, besides Satin, there is no one to say it to, and he cannot say it better, more clearly. This speech already sounds alien to his language.”
Gorky posed the problem of true and false humanism in the drama “At the Bottom” - he was the first to pose it so broadly and passionately, forcing millions of people in the world to think about this problem. Pondering the images of people thrown to the “bottom” of life, millions of people said to themselves: if even thrown back, almost to cave life, a person does not turn into a beast, it means that the human is stronger than the bestial; if even at the very bottom of a person’s life, sparks of faith in the possibility of happiness on earth flare up in a person, it means that this faith is unquenchable. And millions of people on earth began to repeat the inspired words from the play “At the Bottom”: “Man is the truth!”, “Man – this sounds proud!”, “Everything is in man, everything is for man!” Filled with a bright faith in Man with a capital M, Satin’s words have long ceased to be Satin’s aphorism in the minds of people, and began to live as a wise saying of Gorky himself.
Satin’s monologue also acquires a special romantic coloring because the hymn to Man sounds at the very “bottom” of life, in the most cruel circumstances, “in a cave-like basement” in which “former” people live, thrown out and useless to anyone. Satin's monologue sounds like a challenge to these circumstances and at the same time as a challenge to humility and comforting compassion. This challenge is in consonance with Satin’s monologue to the growing revolutionary sentiments in the country. The reader was faced with a question: what needs to be done in order for a person to become human again and gain independence and freedom? The conclusion was suggested by the ending of the play and Satin’s sublime monologue: “Man – that’s the truth! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! This is wonderful!..” If a person is beautiful in his essence and only a system based on exploitation reduces him to a terrifying state, everything must be done to create conditions when a person becomes truly free and beautiful. This is exactly how Satin’s words were perceived in the early 1900s. Artist of the Moscow Art Theater V.I. Kachalov recalled: “The play was perceived as a storm-petrel play, which foreshadowed the coming storm and called to the storm.”
The times described by Gorky in the play “At the Lower Depths” are long gone. But Gorky’s sacred need - to awaken the personality, its ability to think, to comprehend what exists - does not grow old. Now, when the difficult task of rebuilding life and human relationships has arisen, requests for a meaningful spiritual life have become unprecedentedly widespread. A thinking reader and viewer can learn a lot for themselves. And this is the secret of the unfading value of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”.
Same situation. Satin, Baron, Crooked Zob and Tatar are playing cards. The Tick and the Actor are watching the game. Bubnov plays checkers with Medvedev. Luka is sitting on a stool by Anna's bed. Bubnov and Crooked Zob sing a prison song (“The sun rises and sets...”). Anna complains to Luka about her life: “Beatings... insults... I didn’t see anything except... I don’t remember when I was full... All my life I walked around in rags.” She is afraid that she will have to suffer in the next world too. Luka consoles her and persuades her to be patient. During their conversation, the card players cheat. The Tatar is indignant. Crooked Goiter: “If they start living honestly, they will die of hunger in three days.” The actor tries to read poetry to Luka, but cannot remember anything; he repents that he drank his soul away. Luka advises him to be treated for drunkenness in the hospital, but for now to abstain. Luka: “A person can do anything... If only he wants to...” Anna asks Luka to talk to her. He consoles the woman, assuring her that rest is just around the corner, that God will forgive her and she will go to heaven. Anna still hopes to recover and live a little. Luke says that in this life nothing but torment awaits her. Ash arrives, asks Medvedev whether Vasilisa beat Natasha badly, threatens to take the girl away and tell the police that Kostylev and his wife are buying stolen goods. Enraged, Medvedev (Vasilisa’s uncle) leaves. Luke persuades Ash to go to Siberia. Ash refuses, as he expects to be sent to Siberia at public expense, as his father was in his time. Ash asks Luke if there is a god. Luke: “If you believe, it is; If you don’t believe it, no... What you believe in is what it is...” Vasilisa enters “on business” to Ashes. Ash tells Vasilisa that he is tired of her because she “has no soul.” Vasilisa replies that you won’t be nice by force, thanks you for the truth and offers to marry Natasha. Ash asks to free her from her husband. Ash: “You cleverly came up with this. That means the husband is in the coffin, the lover is in hard labor, and she herself...” Vasilisa promises to give him money, marry his sister to him and arrange their departure. Kostylev appears - he screams, stomps his feet, reproaches Vasilisa: “I forgot to pour oil into the lamps... Oh, you! Beggar!.. Pig!..” Ash throws itself at Kostylev. Luka moves on the stove, and Ash releases Kostylev. Ash realizes that Luka heard his conversation with Vasilisa. Luka advises Ash to quickly get rid of Vasilisa, take Natasha and leave with her, if he seriously likes her. Anna is dying. An actor appears reciting a poem:
“Gentlemen! If the Holy World does not know how to find the way to truth, - Honor to the madman who brings a golden dream to Humanity!”
The actor tells Natasha, who comes in, that he is leaving to be treated for drunkenness in a bright and clean hospital. He laments that no one in the shelter knows his real name: “Do you understand* how offensive it is to lose your name? Even dogs have nicknames... Without a name, there is no person...” Natasha is waiting for Ash, notices that Anna has died. Luka, Tatar, Crooked Zob and Tick appear, who looks at his wife over the shoulders of others. Natasha is horrified that no one, not even her husband, regrets Anna. Klesh admits that he has no money for burial. People promise to lend him something. Natasha says that she is afraid of the dead, and Luka advises her to be afraid of the living. A drunk Actor appears and asks Luka where the city is located in which a free hospital for alcoholics is located. Satin: “Fata Morgana! The old man lied to you: there is nothing! No cities, no people... nothing!”
At the center of the play is A.M. Gorky's "At the Bottom" is not so much human destinies as a clash of ideas, a dispute about man, about the meaning of life. The core of this dispute is the problem of truth and lies, the perception of life as it really is, with all its hopelessness and the harsh truth of the life of people at the bottom, or life with illusions, in whatever various forms they may appear. The very composition of the play, its internal movement debunk Luke's philosophy. At the beginning of the play, we see that almost all the characters are obsessed with their dream, their illusion.
The appearance of Luke with his preaching of consolation and reconciliation strengthens the inhabitants of the shelter in the correctness of their unclear inclinations and thoughts. But instead of peace and silence, acute dramatic events are brewing in Kostylev’s shelter, which reach their climax in the scene of the murder of old man Kostylev. The harsh truth of life refutes Luka’s comforting lies, and long before the finale, in the third act, Luka quietly disappears.
Luka suffers his biggest defeat in an argument with Satin. In the last act, when Luka is no longer in the shelter and everyone is arguing about who he is and what he is seeking, Satine first defends him. He denies that Luke is a conscious deceiver, a charlatan: “Be silent! You are all brutes! Dubye... keep quiet about the old man!.. The old man is not a charlatan! What is the truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this... you didn’t!.. He lied... but it was out of pity for you, damn you!” But in the heat of an argument, without noticing it, Satin turns into Luke’s opponent. “There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbors... I know! I read! They lie beautifully, inspiredly, stimulatingly!.. There are comforting lies, reconciling lies... lies justify the heaviness that crushed the worker’s hand... and blame those dying of hunger... I know the lies! Those who are weak in soul!.. and who live on other people's juices need lies... Some people are supported by it, others hide behind it... And who is his own master... who is independent and does not eat someone else's things - why does he need lies?.. Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!” This monologue of Satin proclaims a new attitude towards man. He called the comforting lie the religion of “slaves and masters.” Lies as the “religion of the owners” are embodied by the owner of the shelter, Kostylev, who lives on other people’s juices. Luke embodies lies as the “religion of slaves,” expressing their weakness and depression, their inability to fight, their inclination toward patience and reconciliation, and forgiveness.
Once, in a rooming house, Luke, in response to the question of whether there is a God, said: “If you believe, there is; if you don’t believe, no...” This thought was the basis of his philosophy: if you like it, believe and be comforted. Satin, starting from Luke’s thoughts, draws a completely different conclusion: a person is free to choose his attitude towards faith, and towards life, towards its structure and its order: “Does he pray? Wonderful! A person can believe or not believe... It's his business! Man is free... he pays for everything himself: for faith, for unbelief, for love, for intelligence - man pays for everything himself, and therefore he is free!.. Man - that’s the truth!” Satin pronounces a monologue in praise of man in moments of spiritual elation. Gorky understood how inorganic such a speech was for the character of the hero: “... Satin’s speech about man is pale. However, besides Satin, there is no one to say it to, and he cannot say it better, more clearly. This speech already sounds alien to his language.”
Gorky posed the problem of true and false humanism in the drama “At the Bottom” - he was the first to pose it so broadly and passionately, forcing millions of people in the world to think about this problem. Pondering the images of people thrown to the “bottom” of life, millions of people said to themselves: if even thrown back, almost to cave life, a person does not turn into a beast, it means that the human is stronger than the bestial; if even at the very bottom of a person’s life, sparks of faith in the possibility of happiness on earth flare up in a person, it means that this faith is unquenchable. And millions of people on earth began to repeat the inspired words from the play “At the Bottom”: “Man is the truth!”, “Man – this sounds proud!”, “Everything is in man, everything is for man!” Filled with a bright faith in Man with a capital M, Satin’s words have long ceased to be Satin’s aphorism in the minds of people, and began to live as a wise saying of Gorky himself.
Satin’s monologue also acquires a special romantic coloring because the hymn to Man sounds at the very “bottom” of life, in the most cruel circumstances, “in a cave-like basement” in which “former” people live, thrown out and useless to anyone. Satin's monologue sounds like a challenge to these circumstances and at the same time as a challenge to humility and comforting compassion. This challenge is in consonance with Satin’s monologue to the growing revolutionary sentiments in the country. The reader was faced with a question: what needs to be done in order for a person to become human again and gain independence and freedom? The conclusion was suggested by the ending of the play and Satin’s sublime monologue: “Man – that’s the truth! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! This is wonderful!..” If a person is beautiful in his essence and only a system based on exploitation reduces him to a terrifying state, everything must be done to create conditions when a person becomes truly free and beautiful. This is exactly how Satin’s words were perceived in the early 1900s. Artist of the Moscow Art Theater V.I. Kachalov recalled: “The play was perceived as a storm-petrel play, which foreshadowed the coming storm and called to the storm.”
The times described by Gorky in the play “At the Lower Depths” are long gone. But Gorky’s sacred need - to awaken the personality, its ability to think, to comprehend what exists - does not grow old. Now, when the difficult task of rebuilding life and human relationships has arisen, requests for a meaningful spiritual life have become unprecedentedly widespread. A thinking reader and viewer can learn a lot for themselves. And this is the secret of the unfading value of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”.