“At the Lower Depths” is one of the most famous works of Maxim Gorky. In the play we see several people who, due to various circumstances, found themselves at the bottom of their lives. They all live in Kostylev's rooming house. Maxim Gorky shows the difficult living conditions in which the heroes find themselves, tells the story of each character, touching on a bunch of philosophical issues.
Particular attention should be paid to the female characters in the play. In my opinion, it was women who played an important role in the development of philosophy. Kvashnya, Anna, Natasha, Nastya - each woman has her own character, her own thoughts, dreams, activities. I would like to pay special attention to the image of Nastya, since her story is one of the most tragic and controversial.
The image of Nastya is unusual; this twenty-four-year-old girl evokes in the reader both a feeling of pity and disgust. The fact is that Nastya is a degraded woman, she has to sell her body, she often drinks, lives in poverty, dirt, and humiliation. What brought her to this life? The writer does not name the exact reason, but one can guess that Nastya, being a dreamy girl, at one point stopped fighting for her dreams.
The girl loved to read novels about pure, devoted love. She imagined how she would find the love of her life, but the young girl’s dreams were unrealistic, they were not destined to come true. Nastya found herself in a terrible situation, gave up, and found only one way out for herself to forget herself, to withdraw into herself - to drink, invent characters in her head, tell fictitious stories to others, sell her body to immoral men. She is surrounded by dirt, but her dreams are sublime, romantic, but alas, unfulfilled.
The image of Nastya makes you think about the following questions: Is it possible to give up your dreams? How not to give up in the fight for it? How to survive in difficult conditions? Is it acceptable to sell yourself, even if it is very difficult? It is difficult to have any unambiguous attitude towards the image of this fallen woman. One can sympathize with her, because she found herself in the most terrible conditions, her dreams did not come true, and this drives any person into prolonged depression. On the other hand, we can say that Nastya is weak, she retreated, did not continue to fight for her romantic dreams, and that’s why she ended up at the bottom. One can feel disgust towards her for her immoral lifestyle. But is she to blame for this? Could she continue to pursue her unrealistic dreams? Was it worth giving up?
Drawing a conclusion, I would like to say that Gorky introduces the image of Nastya in order to make the reader think: are his dreams real and what to do if nothing works out?
Option 2
Nastya is one of the heroines of Maxim Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”. She, along with the rest of the characters in the work, lives in Kostylev’s shelter for poor, “fallen” people. At the bottom - this means at the bottom of society. All the people who have lost everything valuable in their lives and forgotten about morality for completely different reasons have sunk to this deep dark bottom. Nastya is one of these women.
Nastya is about 24 years old, but even at such a young age she managed to lose everything she could. Nastya’s life story, in comparison with other heroines of the play, is the saddest and most paradoxical. A fairly young girl evokes both regret and hostility in the reader. She lives in dirt, constant swearing, and drinks bottles. And the most disgusting thing is that she is engaged in body trade.
The girl suffers eternal humiliation and bullying from the rest of the characters in the play. They call her names and discuss her. Despite this outward appearance and the attitude of those around her, Nastya is a very dreamy and romantic person. True, all the literature she reads is pulp novels. The girl came up with a mysterious man who supposedly loves her. When drunk, she usually confuses his name, calling him either Gaston or Raoul. Regardless of what Nastya does, she dreams of true, eternal, pure and bright love. I wonder how the heroine sank to the bottom and began to live this way? Gorky does not give the reader an exact answer, but hints that the girl has stopped fighting for her dreams and has stopped on the path to her goal.
Despite the fact that Nastya is often insulted and humiliated by the men around her, she managed not to lose her subtlety of soul and peacefulness.
The Baron, one of the inhabitants of the shelter, often mocks and calls the girl names, but at the same time she continues to give him money for drinks.
The image of Nastya from the play “At the Lower Depths,” created by Maxim Gorky, makes the reader think about many important questions and answer them for himself. Is it possible to give up on fulfilling your dreams? How not to give up when fighting for it? How to stay alive despite difficult conditions? And is it possible to trade yourself, even if it is very difficult?
Essay about Nastya
This serious work by Maxim Gorky, the play At the Lower Depths, combines the ordinary life of people and the pressing problems of that time. The writer skillfully connects everyday life and the difficult conditions of the surrounding world, human characters. Female characters such as Natasha, Anna, Vasilisa, Nastya and others have a special influence on the disclosure of philosophy in the play. Their images are original and interesting, since such a life broke many individuals who sank to the bottom, selling themselves or dying from illness. But some women tried to fight fate.
The strong woman Kvashnya is rude and persistent. Her gaze is piercing and frightening. Anna is a gentle person who suffers pain and humiliation from her husband every day and no one sympathizes with her. And Nastya, a visitor to the shelter, is engaged in prostitution, while dreaming of love and passion. Looking at her, the reader has various feelings, including pity. For any person, a woman is an image filled with love for life, for motherhood. For many, a woman is a symbol of comfort in the home and family happiness, but the image of the girl Nastya is contrasted. Her life is a mirror reflection of her noble and pure nature. At a difficult moment in her life, succumbing to the pressure of problems, she decides to take up an ignoble business.
Maxim Gorky presents Nastya as a lover of pulp novels. Her dreams are lofty and unrealistic. Thoughts only about finding pure and strong romantic love. All the passion makes you dream about unrealistic dreams, but unfortunately they cannot come true. This degraded woman is surrounded by dirt, vulgarity and poverty. Finding herself in extreme conditions, she gives up and begins to work selling her body to immoral men. She stops fighting for her life and in order to forget herself, she often touches the bottle, drinking until she loses consciousness. While dreaming, she tells others about her lover, while constantly confusing his name as either Raoul or Gaston. These stories cause people around to laugh and ridicule the dreams of a woman engaged in prostitution. Only Natasha and Luka believe in her stories.
Hopelessness is reflected in the surrounding rags and in the drunkenness around Nastya. Escaping reality is accompanied by drinking alcohol. Only after reading and experiencing every moment of this play do you begin to think about the inhuman conditions that existed during that difficult time. This is how we feel the tragedy of the fate of many residents of the shelter. After all, a person must maintain courage in any situation, as well as honor.
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The play “At the Bottom” is a rather complex, but very interesting work by Gorky. The author managed to combine everyday reality and generalized symbols, real human images and abstract philosophy. Gorky's skill was especially evident in the description of the inhabitants of the shelter, so different from each other. Female images play an important role in the work.
Natasha, Vasilisa, Nastya, Anna, Kvashnya are very interesting and unique characters. These women have sunk to the very “bottom” of life, their appearance is depressing and evokes bitter feelings in the reader. Usually, a woman is a symbol of the beautiful, pure and bright. The female image is an image of tenderness, love and motherhood. However, Gorky shows the reader a completely different side of life. When a woman finds herself in terrible and cruel conditions, she is forced to behave somewhat differently.
Some will try to survive by selling themselves, while others will break down and become mortally ill, unable to withstand the heavy oppression. Let's look at specific images from the play.
Kvashnya is a dumpling seller, a free and strong woman, she does not allow any man to treat her freely. Her attitude towards marriage is sharply negative. It turns out that Kvashnya was already married once, but this bitter experience left an indelible mark on her soul for the rest of her life. One can imagine how cruel her husband was, and how unhappy their family life was, if a woman was so happy about the death of her husband that she simply could not believe her happiness. But, in spite of everything, Kvashnya remained sensitive to the grief of others and did not lose her humanity. She takes pity on the dying Anna and tries to feed her dumplings. But she won’t marry again, not even to a prince, that’s enough, she’s suffered enough.
The next heroine of the play is an unhappy woman named Anna. She is seriously ill and near death. Many people sympathize with her, feel sorry for her and try to ease the torment of her last days of life. Only Kleshch, her husband, is still rude and indifferent to Anna. She is accustomed to his cruelty and patiently accepts this behavior of her husband. Anna symbolizes all women who consider rudeness to be the norm in family relationships. Even when she is on the verge of death, she takes care of her indifferent and callous husband (she offers to eat the dumplings that Kvashnya left for her). Anna is only thirty years old, she is dying, and there is nothing bright in her existence.
The girl Nastya reads pulp novels, dreams of sublime feelings, of bright love, but in her life she is surrounded by baseness and dirt, vulgarity and rudeness. She tells her roommates sweet tales of love that are born in her imagination. They openly mock her, because Nastya is an ordinary prostitute, she can only dream of pure and true love. The only way for her to forget about all this is to get drunk.
Vasilisa is a representative of the “masters of life”, because she is the wife of the owner of the shelter. But the owners of the “bottom” are little different from its inhabitants. It is almost impossible to maintain a human appearance if you are constantly in a menagerie. Vasilisa is a domineering, insensitive and cruel woman who loves only money. Her lover Vaska Pepel, a thief who has no moral principles, notices that this woman has no soul. Her outer beauty is contrasted with inner ugliness. She swears her love to Ash and pushes him to steal. Then she finds out that he loves her sister Natasha and promises to give her to him if Ash kills Kostylev, Vasilisa’s husband. Then the hostess of the shelter begins to cruelly mock her sister. She is angry with Natasha and takes revenge on her because her lover left her. Natasha cannot answer her; she, by nature, is a kind and gentle person, capable of sympathizing with the grief of others. Having once seen Natasha with Ash, Vasilisa becomes furious and, locking her sister in the house, beats her half to death. Natasha is already ready to go even to prison for Ashes, just so as not to return to Vasilisa’s house. She ends up in a clinic, and from there disappears in an unknown direction, fleeing the cruelty of her sister.
Vasilisa will probably be able to get out and avoid prison. She will continue her old life, because only with a character like hers can she survive in these monstrous conditions.
Each heroine of the play is interesting in its own way. It is through female characters that the reader is best able to feel the inhuman living conditions in which the inhabitants of the shelter found themselves.
The drama "At the Lower Depths" is a landmark work in Gorky's creative biography. Descriptions of the heroes will be presented in this article.
This work was written at a turning point for the country. In Russia in the 90s of the 19th century, a serious outbreak broke out. Masses of impoverished, ruined peasants left the villages after each crop failure in search of work. Plants and factories were closed. Thousands of people found themselves without means of livelihood and shelter. This led to the emergence of a large number of “tramps” who sank to the bottom of life.
Who lived in the dosshouses?
Enterprising slum owners, taking advantage of the fact that people found themselves in a hopeless situation, found how to extract benefit from fetid basements. They turned them into shelters in which beggars, the unemployed, thieves, vagabonds and other representatives of the “bottom” lived. This work was written in 1902. The heroes of the play "At the Bottom" are just such people.
Throughout his entire career, Maxim Gorky was interested in personality, man, his secrets. Feelings and thoughts, dreams and hopes, weakness and strength - all this is reflected in the work. The heroes of the play "At the Bottom" are people who lived at the beginning of the 20th century, when the old world collapsed and a new life arose. However, they differ from the rest in that they are rejected by society. These are people from the bottom, outcasts. The place where Vaska Pepel, Bubnov, Actor, Satin and others live is unsightly and scary. According to Gorky's description, this is a cave-like basement. Its ceiling is stone vaults with crumbling plaster, smoked. Why did the inhabitants of the shelter find themselves “at the bottom” of life, what brought them here?
Heroes of the play "At the Bottom": table
| hero | How did you end up at the bottom? | hero characteristics | dreams |
| Bubnov | Previously he owned a dyeing shop. However, circumstances forced him to leave. Bubnov's wife got along with the master. | Believes that a person cannot change his fate. Therefore, Bubnov just goes with the flow. Often displays skepticism, cruelty, and lack of positive qualities. | It is difficult to determine, given the negative attitude towards the whole world of this hero. |
| Nastya | Life forced this heroine to become a prostitute. And this is the social bottom. | A romantic and dreamy person who lives in love stories. | For a long time he dreams of pure and great love, continuing to practice his profession. |
| Baron | He was a real baron in the past, but lost his wealth. | He does not accept the ridicule of the inhabitants of the shelter, continuing to live in the past. | He wants to return to his previous position, becoming a wealthy person again. |
| Alyoshka | A cheerful and always drunk shoemaker who never tried to rise from the bottom where his frivolity had led him. | As he himself says, he doesn’t want anything. He describes himself as “good” and “cheerful.” | Everyone is always happy, it’s hard to say about his needs. Most likely, he dreams of a “warm breeze” and “eternal sun.” |
| Vaska Ash | This is a hereditary thief who has been in prison twice. | A weak-willed man in love. | She dreams of leaving for Siberia with Natalya and becoming a respectable citizen, starting a new life. |
| Actor | Sank to the bottom due to drunkenness. | Quotes often | He dreams of finding a job, recovering from alcoholism and getting out of the shelter. |
| Luke | This is a mysterious wanderer. Not much is known about him. | Teaches empathy, kindness, comforts heroes, guides them. | Dreams of helping everyone in need. |
| Satin | He killed a man, as a result of which he went to prison for 5 years. | He believes that a person needs not consolation, but respect. | He dreams of conveying his philosophy to people. |
What ruined the lives of these people?
Addiction to alcohol ruined the Actor. By his own admission, he used to have a good memory. Now the Actor believes that everything is over for him. Vaska Pepel is a representative of the “thieves’ dynasty”. This hero had no choice but to continue his father’s work. He says that even when he was little, even then he was called a thief. Former furrier Bubnov left his workshop because of his wife’s infidelity, as well as out of fear of his wife’s lover. He went bankrupt, after which he went to serve in one “treasury chamber”, in which he committed embezzlement. One of the most colorful figures in the work is Satin. He was a former telegraph operator, and went to prison for the murder of a man who insulted his sister.
Who do the shelter's inhabitants blame?
Almost all the characters in the play “At the Bottom” tend to blame life circumstances rather than themselves for the current situation. Perhaps, if they had turned out differently, nothing would have changed significantly, and the same fate would have befallen the night shelters anyway. The phrase that Bubnov said confirms this. He admitted that he actually drank the workshop away.
Apparently, the reason for the fall of all these people is their lack of a moral core, which constitutes a person’s personality. You can cite the words of the Actor as an example: “Why did you die? I had no faith...”
Was there a chance to live a different life?
By creating the images of the characters in the play “At the Lower Depths,” the author provided each of them with the opportunity to live a different life. That is, they had a choice. However, for each, the first test ended in the collapse of life. The baron, for example, could improve his affairs not by stealing government funds, but by investing money in profitable businesses that he had.
Satin could have taught the offender a lesson in another way. As for Vaska Ash, would there really be few places on earth where no one would know anything about him and his past? The same can be said about many of the inhabitants of the shelter. They have no future, but in the past they had a chance not to get here. However, the heroes of the play "At the Bottom" did not use it.
How do the heroes console themselves?
All they can do now is live with unrealistic hopes and illusions. Baron, Bubnov and Actor live. The prostitute Nastya amuses herself with dreams of true love. At the same time, the characterization of the heroes of the play “At the Bottom” is complemented by the fact that these people, rejected by society, humiliated, wage endless debates about moral and spiritual problems. Although it would be more logical to talk about since they live from hand to mouth. The author's description of the characters in the play "At the Bottom" suggests that they are interested in such issues as freedom, truth, equality, work, love, happiness, law, talent, honesty, pride, compassion, conscience, pity, patience, death, peace and much more. They are also concerned about an even more important problem. They talk about what a person is, why he is born, what is the true meaning of existence. The philosophers of the shelter can be called Luka, Satina, Bubnova.
With the exception of Bubnov, all the heroes of the work reject the “losing” lifestyle. They hope for a lucky turn of fortune that will bring them from the “bottom” to the surface. Mite, for example, says that he has been working since he was a small child (this hero is a mechanic), so he will definitely get out of here. “Wait a minute... my wife will die...” he says. The actor, this chronic drunkard, hopes to find a luxurious hospital in which health, strength, talent, memory and the applause of the audience will miraculously return to him. Anna, an unfortunate sufferer, dreams of bliss and peace in which she will finally be rewarded for her torment and patience. Vaska Pepel, this desperate hero, kills Kostylev, the owner of the shelter, because he considers the latter the embodiment of evil. His dream is to go to Siberia, where he will start a new life with his beloved girl.
Luke's role in the work
Luke, the wanderer, supports these illusions. He masters the skill of a comforter and preacher. Maxim Gorky portrays this hero as a doctor who considers all people to be terminally ill and sees his calling in softening their pain and hiding it from them. However, at every step, life refutes the position of this hero. Anna, to whom he promises divine reward in heaven, suddenly wants to “live a little more....” Having first believed in a cure for alcoholism, the Actor commits suicide at the end of the play. Vaska Pepel determines the true value of all these consolations of Luka. He claims that he “tells fairy tales” pleasantly, because there is so little good in the world.
Satin's opinion
Luka is full of sincere pity for the inhabitants of the shelter, but he cannot change anything, help people live a different life. In his monologue, Satin rejects this attitude, because he considers it humiliating, suggesting the failure and wretchedness of those to whom this pity is directed. The main characters of the play "At the Bottom" Satin and Luka express opposing opinions. Satin says that it is necessary to respect a person and not humiliate him with pity. These words probably express the author’s position: “Man!.. This sounds... proud!”
The further fate of the heroes
What will happen to all these people in the future, will the heroes of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths” be able to change anything? It is not difficult to imagine their future fate. For example, Tick. At the beginning of the work he tries to get out of the “bottom”. He thinks that when his wife dies, everything will magically change for the better. However, after the death of his wife, Kleshch is left without tools and money and gloomily sings along with others: “I won’t run away anyway.” In fact, he will not run away, like the other inhabitants of the shelter.
What is salvation?
Are there any ways to escape from the “bottom” at all, and what are they? A decisive way out of this difficult situation may be outlined in Satin’s speech when he talks about the truth. He believes that the purpose of a strong man is to eradicate evil, and not to comfort the suffering, like Luke. This is one of the firmest convictions of Maxim Gorky himself. People can rise from the bottom only by learning to respect themselves and gaining self-esteem. Then they will be able to bear the proud title of Man. It still needs to be earned, according to Gorky.
Declaring his belief in the creative powers, abilities and intelligence of a free person, Maxim Gorky affirmed the ideas of humanism. The author understood that in the mouth of Satin, a drunken tramp, words about a free and proud man sound artificial. However, they had to sound in the play, expressing the ideals of the writer himself. There was no one to say this speech to except Satin.
In his work, Gorky refuted the main principles of idealism. These are the ideas of humility, forgiveness, non-resistance. He made it clear what beliefs the future belongs to. This is proven by the fate of the heroes of the play "At the Bottom." The entire work is imbued with faith in man.
M. Gorky's play "" is filled with various female characters, each of whom has their own role. Reading the play, we get acquainted with such interesting female characters as Anna, Kvashnya, Natasha, Vasilisa, Nastya. And every woman has her own story, which touches and surprises.
All these women are trying to survive in that social inequality and poverty. Kvashnya was engaged in the dumpling trade. She was used to considering herself a free woman. Her role in this play is not entirely callous and rude. In one of the episodes of the play, she shows pity for the suffering Anna and tries to feed her hot dumplings.
Kvashnya is wary of men, since her unsuccessful marriage did not leave anything good in her memory. Her husband died and she was happy about it, she was happy that she finally got rid of him. What feeling might we, the readers, have for this woman after such words? But we have no right to judge. After all, no one knows how the late husband treated his wife. At that time, beating a woman was considered completely normal, so perhaps Kvashnya fell under the hot hand more than once. All this caused the woman to fear marriage, and she vowed not to agree to any more proposals from men.
Anna is shown to the reader as an absolutely unhappy woman. She is dying, and nothing can be done about it. Her serious condition evokes compassion from everyone except her own husband. He is cruel and callous. He repeatedly beat Anna, and she endured all the insults and considered them the norm of family life. Her character demonstrates a generalized image of all women of that time. Almost all of them fell under the cruelty of men and endured it. Therefore, in such a terrible situation, death could be the only way out for Anna.
The wild girl Nastya is constantly keen on reading romance novels. She dreams of meeting her love, she comes up with fairy tales about her lovers, whom she names differently each time. She made excuses for all the ridicule of her neighbors and kept telling them about true love. But all this is fantasy, because Nastya was a prostitute. She was surrounded by dirt and humiliation. And the only salvation was in an alcoholic glass.
Vasilisa is a special woman whose appearance is absolutely opposed to her ugly inner world. She is cruel and insensitive, she pushes her lover to kill her own husband, she eats out her younger sister because her lover abandoned her. This woman has no soul. She is dry and callous.
Natasha, Vasilisa’s sister, was a rather soft and sensual person. She does not dare to leave with Ash for Siberia. Vasilisa, hating her, locks Natasha at home and beats her almost to death. The heroine is saved, after which she ends up in a clinic and no longer wants to return to this terrible house.