Pure and beautiful at the bottom of society. The image of Natasha in the play

In all ages, man has sought to know his "I". One of the main, perhaps, the main goals of art is the disclosure of this secret. To reveal to a person the depths of his soul, to make him better, stronger - to one degree or another, every writer achieves this. This is especially characteristic of Russian literature with its deepest moral and philosophical roots.

The problem of good and evil, the strength and weakness of man, tried to solve the great minds, people who have suffered and experienced a lot - Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. M. Gorky encountered this problem very early. Already in the first works of the young writer, not only the outstanding talent of the storyteller and artist was manifested, but also the ability to defend his convictions. And later, the experience of life did not dull the talent, faith in one's rightness only grew stronger. In this regard, the most important question arises: how does a really strong person relate to others? This is one of the main questions, the answer to which cannot be given by all world literature.

In later works, Gorky complicates the question: is loneliness among people a consequence of strength or weakness? And he gives the answer: the strong cannot be alone, he is always among people - albeit alien in spirit, but suffering. And Satin understands this after meeting with Luka. But the views of these heroes still diverge in the main. Luke believes that the weak must find support in life and the duty of the strong is to help him in this. Satin is sure that in fact, the strong do not need support and waiting for a better future in inaction is not for a real person.

He does not come to this conviction immediately. It is quite possible to follow its development in the course of the play. At the first meeting with the inhabitants of the rooming house, it is clear that before us are people who are deeply suffering and lonely. Having fallen to the very "bottom" of life after many hardships, they became ruthless towards themselves and others. Everyone is closed in on his grief and leads an endless story about him, not listening to anyone and not wanting to be heard. The answer to complaints is laughter, bullying. The baron, who lives at the expense of Nastya, is only amused by her tears and fantasies. The tick despises everyone, he, the "working man", will break out of the rooming house, he is not like all its inhabitants. And only after the death of Anna, having sold all his tools and having lost all hope, he understands and accepts them as comrades in misfortune.

Each hero of the play is looking for support in avoiding cruel reality. Natasha and Vaska Pepel dream of the future. Anna hopes for peace after death. The actor dreams about the past, each time coloring it with brighter colors. Nastya, who has neither past nor future, leaves the present for an imaginary world of "pure love". Luka tried to bring their dreams into the real world, and they failed one by one. After all, these dreams do not facilitate reality, but only to a small extent replace it. All they have left is unrestrained drunkenness, for awakening is terrible.

Only a strong man, Gorky argued, is capable of facing reality. But without a goal in life, without confidence in his abilities to change the world, he is not able and cannot withstand adversity. And we see people who are strong in spirit, but who do not know duty to themselves and others. Bubnov, to whom much has been given, has already lost himself. The Baron mocks everyone and quickly loses his human features. Sateen is only at the beginning of this path. Who knows what fate awaited him if he didn't show up at Luka's rooming house. No wonder Satin would later say that Luke had an effect on him, like acid on a tarnished coin. Satin understands that the purpose of the strong is not to console the suffering, but to eradicate / suffering, evil. This is one of Gorky's firmest convictions.

For Gorky, strength lies in striving forward, "to freedom, to light." Only a warm heart and a strong will, faith in victory will help to pass this path. And the memory of those who on this path sacrificed themselves for the sake of others, like stars - the sparks of Dan-ko's heart will illuminate the path for those who follow.

The creative concept of the play "At the Bottom" dates back to the very beginning of 1900. M. Gorky was going to create a "cycle of dramas" of four plays, each of which is dedicated to the image of a certain layer of Russian society. In the middle of 1901, he wrote about the last of them to K. P. Pyatnitsky: “One more thing: tramps. Tartar, Jew, actor, hostess of a lodging house, thieves, detective, prostitutes. It will be scary. I already have plans ready, I see faces, figures, I hear voices, speeches, motives for actions - everything is clear, everything is clear! in which the main thing is the conflict of people who find themselves at the bottom of life with the outside world. In one of the manuscript editions, the play was called: "At the bottom of life." But at the same time, these people are also at the bottom of feelings, thoughts, each of them has to fight the decline in himself. These conflicts develop in parallel throughout the play.

At the beginning of the play, we see the inhabitants of the rooming house, dissatisfied with life, with themselves, with each other. Many of them used to live better, but they got here because of some kind of misfortune. So, the Baron and Satin ended up here after prison, Bubnov left his wife, leaving her his workshop, the Actor drank himself. Some, like Nastya, have never seen another life. Some have already come to terms with this situation and understand that it is impossible to rise from the bottom, while others hope that all this is happening to them temporarily. So, Kleshch thinks that after the death of his wife, he will work hard and be able to secure a better existence for himself. He believes that if you live "by honor", then you can achieve everything. The actor, on the contrary, is trying to find solace in alcohol, thereby further aggravating his plight.

He no longer expects to leave this rooming house and bitterly recalls his former life. And among these oppressed people, an outsider appears - Luka, a wandering old man without a passport.

Full of compassion for all people, he brings hope to many inhabitants of the rooming house. Anna, the wife of Kleshch, lies near death and experiences terrible suffering. And this old man makes her last hours easier. Expecting the same torment after death, she hopefully hears his words: “Nothing will happen! Nothing! You - believe! Calm and - nothing else! .. ”He tells the actor about the existence of a free hospital for alcoholics, and he even refrained from drinking for one day and worked sweeping the street. Luka advises Peplu to leave with Natasha for Siberia and start a new life there. In the inhabitants of the rooming house, there is confidence that they can escape from the captivity of a hard life to freedom. And here the author raises a deeply philosophical question: “Do these people need a lie?” After all, most of Luke's words are lies uttered out of pity, with the aim of comforting, helping. He also supports Nastya in her stories about “true love”, although it is quite obvious that nothing like this happened to her, that all this was read from books. The answer to this question is in the words of Satin: “Whoever is weak in soul ... and who lives on other people's juices - those need a lie ... she supports some, others hide behind it ... And who is his own master ... who is independent and does not eat someone else's - why should he lie? Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!”

The answer is the whole development of the action. We see the collapse of all hopes: Anna dies, and Klesh's tools are sold for her funeral - he is left without a livelihood; Vaska Pepel kills Kostylev in a fight, which will apparently land him in jail; The Tatar crushed his hand and lost his job. It seems that Luke brought only the worst changes in their lives, since after his departure the situation in the rooming house becomes even more deplorable than at the beginning of the play. These tramps plunged even deeper into the “bottom”, they lost another clash with their fate, they finally lost faith in their strength.

All this is emphasized at the end of the play. The actor, deprived of Luka's support and constantly convinced by Satine that all the talk about a free clinic for alcoholics is a lie, commits suicide. And, as an illustration of the hopelessness of the situation of the shelters, Sateen's ordinary words sound: “Eh.

Natasha is the sister of the hostess' wife. She was extremely honest, kind and wonderful girl. The author treated this heroine very well, endowing her with the most wonderful and good qualities. As very often happens, people with a good disposition get a difficult fate.

This girl has had a hard time. Natasha lived in absolute poverty, living from penny to penny, in addition, she was a victim of constant ridicule from her older sister, who constantly undeservedly reproached her for all sorts of little things.

Even though her sister behaved inappropriately with Natasha, she did not get angry, did not hatch a plan of revenge, she also strongly and sincerely loved the whole world around her, not blaming anyone for her troubles and problems.

The thief Vaska Pepel falls in love with the girl. He seriously offers the girl to move to Siberia and be with him for the rest of her life. He even gives his word that he will completely change his way of life, become completely different - honest, real, he was sincerely ready to radically change.

The girl is doing the right thing in this situation. She honestly says that she does not love Vaska enough to take such a responsible and decisive step. She admits that she is not indifferent to him, but not to such an extent as to change her life for him.

Then Natasha's older sister, Vasilisa, finds out about this and, naturally, falls into anger. In a verbal skirmish, terrible things happen - Natasha is doused with boiling water by Vasilisa, but as a result of a skirmish, Kostylev dies. After this fight, Natasha begins to scream and complain to her sister for the first time.

After that, the author writes that the girl is in the hospital. After all this situation, the girl just disappears. Probably, she does not want to return to the rooming house to such an extent that she is ready for anything, if only what happened to her for such a long time would not be repeated.

Natasha is an amazingly pure and kind girl, she has a good heart. She does what her heart tells her, does not get angry at anyone and lives honestly and correctly, unlike her older sister, who mocks her more defenseless younger sister with complete impunity, who does not have the courage to fight back.

Life is not easy for people like Natasha, they are too sacrificial and honest, and other people begin to believe that they can use it.

Composition Natasha in the story At the bottom

In Gorky's wonderful work "At the Bottom" we can see many images that are most interesting for acquaintance, which the author created with the aim of conveying to the reader any idea that he presented in his, in this case "At the Bottom", work. It should highlight the image of a girl named Natasha.

Natasha is a young beautiful girl who is the sister of the hostess of the flophouse, and therefore helps her manage and monitor this enterprise, although she is not at all happy about this, as she constantly becomes the object of ridicule from her sister and her husband.

In character, Natasha stands out from the rest of her environment. She is a kind, sympathetic, always ready to help, believing in goodness and miracle girl. In contrast with other characters and images of the work, her image stands out very, very much, since all the others are the complete opposite of her character, and her lifestyle in general. That is why she becomes the object of ridicule, simply because she is so different from all the other people around her. This is the idea that Gorky is trying to convey to us. He says that they always try to belittle such kind and good people as Natasha, since they do not like manifestations of weakness and tenderness, and especially simple human feelings.

Also in her character, the reader can see exorbitant honesty in front of all the people around her. For her, honesty is one of the fundamental factors of a good person and good manners, as she believes that there is nothing worse than a lie, in any of its manifestations. Telling the truth to everyone, she can offend someone, but still she tries to tell only the truth, and nothing but the truth, letting the person know only dry facts. She is guided by this all her life, which is why she is also attacked by others, but still she speaks only the truth. This deserves respect for the character, and gives us her characterization as a very good and principled person.

I believe that the author made it just like that in order to convey to the reader the idea that even in such an unsightly, even disgusting place, you can meet such a wonderful person who, in contrast to everyone else, adds to this unpleasant place, her own ray of goodness and positive which gives the attentive reader food for thought.

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There are five female characters in the play. Anna is the wife of Kleshch, who humbly dies in the second act, the compassionate and economic Kvashnya, the young Vasilisa is the wife of the owner of the rooming house and the lover of Vaska Pepel, the young and downtrodden Natasha, and Nastya, indicated in the author's remark with the bashful word "maiden".
In the semantic context of the work, female images are represented by two pairs of opposite characters: Kvashnya - Nastya and Vasilisa - Natasha. Outside of these pairs is Anna, who personifies pure suffering in the play. Her image is not clouded by passions and desires. She patiently and meekly dies. He dies not so much from a mortal disease, but from the consciousness of his uselessness to the world. She is one of those "naked people" for whom the truth of life is unbearable. "I'm sick of it," she admits to Luka. The only aspect of death that worries her is: "And how is it - also flour?" Clogged, fit for nothing in this world, it resembles a thing. She does not move around the stage - she is moved. Take out, leave in the kitchen, forget. Just like with a thing, it is treated even after death. "You have to get out! - We'll pull it out ... ”She passed away - as if the props had been taken away. “Coughing means it has stopped.”
Not so with the rest. In the first pair, Kvashnya represents the semantic dominant. She is almost always doing housework. He lives from his labors. Makes dumplings and sells them. What these dumplings are made of and who eats them, only God knows. She lived married and now for her that she is married, that she is in a loop: “I did it once - I remember it for the rest of my life ...” And when her husband “died”, she “sat alone” with happiness and joy all day. She is always alone in the play. Conversations and events are touched by the edge, as if the inhabitants of the rooming house are afraid of her. Even Medvedev, the personification of law and power, her cohabitant, talks to Kvashnya respectfully - there is too much inquisitive reason, common sense and hidden aggression in her.
Her opposite, Nastya, is unprotected and accessible. She does nothing, does nothing. She is a "girl". She almost does not react to the realities of the world around her. Her mind is not burdened with reflection. She is as self-sufficient as Kvashnya. Gorky implanted in her a strange, not invented by him world of "women's novels", a meager and meaningless dream of a beautiful life. She is literate and therefore reads. “There, in the kitchen, the girl is sitting, reading a book and crying,” Luka is surprised. This is Nastya. She weeps over a fiction that miraculously feels like her own life. She resembles a little girl who dreamed of a toy. Waking up, she pulls her parents, demands this toy for herself. At a tender age, children do not separate dream from reality. This happens later, in the process of growing up. Nastya not only does not grow up - she does not wake up. She dreams of these confectionary, sinless dreams in reality: “And his left-hander is agro-sized, and loaded with ten bullets ... My unforgettable friend ... Raoul ...” The baron rolls over her: “Nastka! Why ... after all, the last time - Gaston was! Nastya behaves like a child. Having poked her nose into reality, she is capricious, gets excited, throws a cup on the floor, threatens the inhabitants: "I'll get drunk today ... I'll get drunk." Getting drunk means getting away from reality again. Forget yourself. Judging by indirect hints, the Baron is with her in gigolos, but she is not aware of this either. Rays of reality only glare on the surface of her consciousness, not penetrating inside. Once Nastya opens up a little, and it becomes clear that her life is powered by the energy of hatred. Running away, she shouts to everyone: “Wolves! For you to breathe! Wolves! She utters this remark at the end of the fourth act, and therefore, there is a hope of waking up.
Vasilisa represents the imperious beginning of the play. She is Pallas Athena of the rooming house, her evil genius. She alone acts - all others exist. The criminal and melodramatic intrigues of the plot are connected with her image. There are no internal prohibitions for Vasilisa. She, like everyone in the rooming house, is a "naked person", she is "everything is allowed." And Vasilisa takes advantage of this while the others are just talking. The author gave her a cruel and merciless character. The concept of "impossible" lies outside of her moral consciousness. And she thinks consistently: "To enjoy - to kill in order to enjoy." Her antipode Natasha is the purest and brightest image of the play. Out of jealousy for Vaska Pepl, Vasilisa constantly beats and torments Natasha, her husband, old Kostylev, helps her. The instinct of the pack kicks in. Natasha alone of all believes and still hopes, she is waiting not for haberdashery, but for true love, she is looking for it. But,
unfortunately, the geography of its search takes place on that section of the bottom, on which the Spanish galleons loaded with gold do not rest. The dim light coming "from above, from the viewer" allows you to see only the faces of permanent residents. Natasha doesn't trust anyone. Neither Luka nor Ashes. It's just that she, like Marmeladov, "has nowhere to go." When they kill Kostylev, she shouts: “Take me too ... put me in prison!” It is clear to Natasha that Ashes did not kill. All the fault. Everyone was killed. This is her truth. Her, not Satin. Not the truth of a proud, strong man, but the truth of the humiliated and offended.
The female images in Gorky's play "At the Bottom" carry a serious semantic load. The flawed world of the inhabitants of the rooming house, thanks to their presence, becomes closer and more understandable. They are, as it were, guarantors of its authenticity. It is with their voices that the author openly speaks of compassion, of the unbearable boredom of life. They have their own bookish forerunners, many literary projections from the previous artistic tradition converged on them. The author does not hide it. Another thing is more important: it is they who evoke the most sincere feelings of hatred or compassion in the readers and viewers of the play.

June 12 2011

At the heart of Maxim Gorky's play "At the Bottom" (1902) is a dispute about Man and his capabilities. The action of the work takes place in the Kostylevs' rooming house - a place outside the world of people. Almost all the inhabitants of the rooming house are aware of their situation as abnormal: between them and the world all the most important ties have been cut off - social, professional, spiritual, social family. Nothing connects the hostels themselves - they are just people who accidentally come together in one place, not wanting to know anything about each other. Each of them knows the truth about himself, and each has his own.

The heroes of the drama are philosophical disputes, not coming to a single conclusion in the end. Gorky's work shows the "bottom" of life and human souls. And in this mud, in the darkness of hopelessness, women, sung by many poets and writers, traditionally described as lovely, gentle and airy creatures, are forced to exist.

In the ongoing dispute about a person, three positions are especially important - Bubnov, Luka and Satina. Bubnov's position is fatalistic. powerless to change anything in his destiny. Hence the indifference not only to the suffering of others, but also to one's own destiny. In his opinion, all people are “superfluous”, since the world is dominated by ruthless laws that control a person and dominate him. People go with the flow, like chips, powerless to change anything. The truth of Bubnov is the truth of the external circumstances of life. Satin is an exponent of a different life position: “Everything is in a person, everything is for a person. There is only man, everything else is the work of his hands and brain. A person must be respected, Satin believes, pity only humiliates. Luka is the most difficult in. It is with him that the main philosophical question of the work is connected: “Which is better: truth or compassion? Is it necessary to bring compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? In essence, Luke, with his theory of pity, is the main image of the play. With his appearance, the actual dramatic development of the plot begins. Luke stirred up the stagnant swamp of the "bottom", made people think and reason.

And the female images in Gorky's play also take part in this dispute. And they, too, must find the answer to the question "What is more important - the bitter truth or the hopeful lie?"

In the play "At the Bottom" five women stand out among the characters. These are Vasilisa Karpov-na, the wife of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, her sister, Klesch's wife Anna, dumplings seller Kvashnya and girl Nastya. Judging by the lines from the "Characters" of the play, all these are young women - aged from 20 (Natasha) to 30 (Anna) years, with the exception of Kvashnya, who is 40 years old. What are they? Why are they included in the play?

Vasilisa - her image is usually evaluated by the following epithets: “immoral”, “cynical”, etc. Her behavior really seems to be so. Vasilisa systematically beats her sister, she cheats on her husband and tries to persuade Pepel to kill her husband, as a result, she brings Pepel under arrest, accusing him of killing Kostylev, and scalds her sister Natasha with boiling water. But it is worth re-reading the pages and thinking: is Vasilisa's nature the only reason for this? And at the very beginning, we see that Vasilisa's husband is 54 years old, she is 26, that is, almost thirty years of age difference. This to some extent explains Vasilisa's infidelity.

From the pages of the play it becomes clear what the owner of the rooming house Kostylev is. He is the owner of the rooming house and considers himself the master of life. From the description of the conditions of the rooming house, we see what conditions he creates for his "guests". In general, as Nastya says, with a husband like Kostylev, everyone will go wild.

Natasha, Vasilisa's sister, is a gentle and spiritually pure creature. Natasha is kind, and this becomes clear from the pages of the play. Natasha tells Tick to come for Anna later and be kind to her, she is dying and she is scared. When Anna dies, Natasha is surprised that no one regrets her. Natasha is the only one who sympathizes with Nastya's fantasies. She herself dreams that tomorrow a special stranger will come and something very special will happen. But unlike the romantic Nastya, she understands that there is nothing to wait for - a miracle will not happen to her, no matter how much she wants it.

The final fate of the heroine remains in question. After Vasilisa scalded her legs, Natasha ended up in the hospital. And in the last act, it turns out that Natasha left the hospital a long time ago and disappeared. Maybe she found hers? But, unfortunately, such an outcome is hard to believe.

Anna, a woman sick with consumption and tired of life, dies. She says that “she was shaking all over every piece of bread ... she was tormented ... She walked in rags all her life.” For this heroine, Luke's theory paid off. Luke reassures and encourages the dying woman with the hope that for her earthly torments, after death, she will find peace and eternal bliss in heaven. A miserable, meaningless, joyless existence on earth is compensated by eternal bliss in heaven.

The fallen woman Nastya is naive, touching and helpless at heart. She dreams of pure and devoted love, and in these illusions she seeks to hide from the surrounding dirt, darkness and hopelessness. Her fantasies are incomprehensible. The Baron, who exists at her expense, only laughs in response to her tears and fantasies. Nastya loves to read novels, the content of which is for the most part her dreams.

Kvashnya - Kvashnya, a forty-year-old dumpling vendor, seems to be a kind of optimist. Perhaps she has already got used to the life of the “bottom”. But this woman is strikingly different from all the other heroines of the play. Her thought that she is a free woman and will never agree to “give herself to the fortress”, that is, to get married, runs like a refrain through the whole play. And in the finale, he begins to cohabit with Medvedev, the uncle of Vasilisa and Natasha, a policeman. Kvashnya is the only heroine who was not affected by the "coming" of Luke. The rest were influenced in one way or another.

Anna dies, comforted by Luke's lie about the bright and tender "that world". Nastya, even without the influence of Luka, created for herself a "saving lie" - in her fantasies. And she still remains in the rooming house, without outwardly striving for any accomplishments. Vasilisa is taken under arrest along with Vaska Pepel, and the roomers are arguing about who will put whom in jail for a longer period. In essence, everything remains practically unchanged. Only the fate of Natasha seems incomprehensible. After leaving the hospital, she disappeared. But where and why? Maybe she decided to seek her happiness?

In my opinion, with the female images in the play "At the Bottom" Gorky sought to show both the depth of moral decline and the spiritual purity of "tender, charming creatures." Here, as in the whole piece, there is polyphony. Gorky does not have a single answer to the question of how to live, is it possible to get out of a difficult situation? But even in the difficult, gloomy conditions of life, not each of Gorky's heroines finally sinks to its bottom. Someone is trying to adapt, someone does not lose faith in the future, trying to keep in himself at least tiny particles of goodness and light and love.

Natasha is one of the female images in Gorky's play "At the Bottom", the sister of the hostess of the rooming house, a kind and soft-hearted girl. Her image is noticeably different from other guests. Natasha combines kindness, purity, dignity and pride. It was with these qualities that she charmed Vaska Ash. The intrigue of the play is whether she will be able to retain these qualities under the influence of a rough and cruel environment. In fact, she is a victim of her ruthless sister and her husband. Her lot fell on hard trials, ranging from poverty, and ending with constant bullying from her sister.

She is also characterized by honesty and directness. When Vaska invites her to give up everything and go with him to Siberia for a new life, she frankly admits that she does not really love him and does not fully trust his intentions. The sister, having learned that Vaska is in love with Natasha and wants to leave with her, locks her at home and severely beats her, even douses her with boiling water. The girl is rescued in time, but then Vaska accidentally kills Kostylev during a fight. Natasha believes that this is an evil plot between her sister and Vaska and leaves him.

Unable to withstand such tests, she ends up in the hospital. The girl is broken physically and mentally. She no longer returns to the rooming house and disappears in an unknown direction.