The meaning of satin in the play at the bottom. Luke and Satin: which one is right? Truth makes a person free

"At the bottom"

Luke's "philosophy of consolation." However, Luke not only consoled, but also inspired hope, and sometimes called on the night lodgers to change their lives, and there is much in common in the philosophy of Luke and Satin.

"Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of a free man." Konstantin Satin is one of the inhabitants of the shelter, a former telegraph operator. In his own words, in his youth he played on stage, danced well and was a cheerful person; but after killing the man who had deceived his sister, he went to prison and completely changed. Satin is a card sharper and a drunkard, whose speech sometimes reveals the remnants of the former "intelligence", albeit in a grotesque form. Actor Satin says that Luka "lied" about the free hospital. To the tick, Anna's husband, who sold all the tools to bury his wife, Satin advises “to do nothing” and “just burden the earth”: “Think, you won’t start working, I won’t ... hundreds more ... thousands. .. everyone! - do you understand? Everyone quits working! " Satin jokingly advises Ash to kill Kostylev and marry Vasilisa. When the murder is indeed committed, Satine comforts Ash by volunteering to be a witness for the defense. Despite the ironic attitude towards Luke, after his disappearance, Satin says that he was not a charlatan: "The man is the truth! He understood that. He was lying ... but it was out of pity for you." Although Satin declares that "lies are the religion of slaves and masters," he said that Luke acted on him "like acid on an old and dirty coin." Satin pronounces an abstract-"revolutionary" monologue about man as the highest value: "Everything is in man, everything is for man. Only man exists, all the rest is the work of his hands and his brain! Man! This is great! It sounds. .. proudly! Man-century! We must respect a man! Do not regret, do not humiliate him with pity ... Man is above satiety! " Satin owns the last line in the play; to Bubnov's words that the Actor hanged himself, he replies: "He ruined the song ... you fool!"

"An old man? He is a clever one! He acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin ... Let's drink to his health!" He does not allow to say a single bad word about Luke: "Silence! You are all brutes! Dubier ... be silent about the old man! .. The old man is not a charlatan ... I understand the old man ... yes! He lied ... but - this is out of pity for you, damn you! There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbor ... There is a comforting lie, a reconciling lie ... "However, he not only admires Luke, but actually argues with him at the same time. It is still surprising that it is Satin, a drunkard and a card sharper, who utters the famous words in this play: "Man - it sounds proud ..." In the first productions, the role of Satin was played by the wonderful Russian artist and theatrical figure Konstantin Sergeevi and Stanislavsky. In his memoirs, he talked about how Gorky worked on this image, how the image of Satin was created: “He talked about his wandering life, his meetings, about the prototypes of the characters and about my role of Satin - in particular. whom he wrote this role, suffered because of selfless love for his sister. She was married to a postal official. The latter squandered state money. He was threatened with Siberia. Satin got the money and thus saved his sister's husband, and he brazenly betrayed him, assuring him that Satin Accidentally overhearing slander, in a fit of rage, Satin hit the traitor on the head with a bottle, killed him and was sentenced to exile. begged for alms from the ladies who willingly gave him for his picturesque romantic appearance. "

"artificial", "fiction". Leo Tolstoy also told him about this: "You are a romantic, a writer ... You embellish everything: both people and nature, especially people!" But this hardly applies to the play "At the Bottom". After all, Satin's monologue is the words of a drunken, degraded person in whom the awareness of his own human pride awakens only for a moment. Therefore, the end of the play, realistic and true, is the despair of a former person who has become a victim of his fate. This reflected Gorky's sense of the times, the writer's idea of ​​the tragic era in which he lived.

"Contemporary", the key figure for the play, the figure of Satin was outlined anew. Here, too, the theater tried to return "philosophy" to the real ground of concrete human life. Yevgeny Evstigneev played Satin with rare grace, not being afraid of harsh "reducing" colors and at the same time feeling some kind of spiritual purity of a drunken telegraph operator. The words about a "proud man" were born in a flophouse, and this was not at all a proclamation that Gorky proposed to throw into a heated auditorium at the beginning of the century. The modern actor seemed to follow the advice of Stanislavsky, the first performer of the role, who stubbornly sought a balance between the real figure of the night lodge and the philosophical journalism that he had to throw into the public. Evstigneev spoke "drunkenly and gradually inspired," in his voice sounded "not yet broken at all, but long silent strings, the best in his soul." After the phrase "man sounds proudly," the actor kept a pause, into which, according to the laws of theatrical perception, the viewer put a huge generalizing meaning. The audience saw the ruined life of this sobbing Socrates-Satin, sitting on a bunk, the fate of the departed Luke (it was exactly about him that Satin was constantly thinking), they managed to see a lot of other ruined lives during this long pause, who wanted and had to "sound proudly." Satin's monologue literally lit up with participation in a real, living person.

"Gorky's creativity is part of the general process of democratizing life. If we imagine the enormous distance that, for example, dramatic art had to go in order to descend from its former, once the only legitimate and possible heroes, from kings and rulers to the bottom of the sea of ​​life and take the object of our image of slavishly humiliated people standing on the very border of animal vegetation and, like ears in a field, crumpled and beaten by external blows of fate; if we imagine the obstacles that the growing life had to stubbornly break, in order so that drama has the opportunity to divert its attention from the strong to the weak, from the satiated to the hungry and embrace the backyard of society with a love picture, a wasteland fenced off from sky and air, shameless rags that barely cover the tortured human body, then we must recognize in this expansion of the sphere artistic reproduction of a deeply significant social fact, a great conquest of the sagacity ".

At the literature lesson, we got acquainted with the work of Gorky At the Bottom. Having studied the play, we got acquainted with different images of people who are difficult to attribute to any of the strata of society. These are superfluous people whom fate did not make them, but they themselves, having lost all meaning of life, and unable to return to it, sank to the very bottom. One of these people is Satin, whose image Gorky describes in his play At the Bottom.

And the image of Satin is not difficult to make. After all, for this it is enough to get acquainted with the work of Gorky at least a little. From it we learn a part of Satin's past life of the hero and his present. In the past, he has not been at the bottom of society. Satin was a well-read man working as a telegraph operator. He could be called sociable, cheerful and cheerful, but in his life everything changed dramatically when, interceding for his sister, Satin kills a man. Thus, he ends up in prison, and after a prison term he could not or simply did not want to realize himself anew, therefore, the very bottom dropped.

Satin's image

Getting acquainted with Satin, we see the singularity and uniqueness of this hero. He stands out from the crowd, and above all with his clever words. If not for one incident, he may never have ended up in a flop, but fate sent a test that he could not pass. Thus, Satin from a successful person who had prospects in the future turns into a waste of society. He falls to the bottom and becomes an unnecessary person who now prefers doing nothing.

Satin characteristic

Continuing to characterize Satin based on the work of Gorky At the Bottom, we see how he ends up in a shelter, becomes a cheat, he loses his desire to work honestly. Satin advises others not to do anything, but only burden their lives. After leaving prison, he falls into apathy, and is fenced off from reality. And he is so comfortable. He sinks to the bottom of his own free will, burning his abilities in wine and card games. Satin is indifferent to others and has no moral values ​​for him. Like other heroes, he talks about life and the truth. According to Satin, lies and compassionate words make a person miserable, and do not alleviate suffering in any way. Therefore, he does not support the views of Luke, who scattered comforting words and promises of a better life.

Role of Satin in the play

Speaking about the role of Satin in the play, we can say with confidence that she is one of the most important. After all, it was Satin who expressed the author's position in many aspects. Therefore, only this sharper was able to entrust the writer with the famous monologue about a person, and that this word sounds proudly. The person must be respected, and not humiliated with pity. Reading the work, you understand that Satin's speech does not quite match his role. Somehow it does not fit into my head that it is the sharper who is entrusted with singing the truth. But everything is understandable here. Satin himself says that even a sharpie has the right to speak beautifully. After all, decent people can afford to speak like a sharpie.

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Gorky's play "At the Bottom" became a breakthrough in the world of literature of that time. The exposed "bottom" of society shocked many, even those who realized that not everything is so good in society and there are people who have completely degraded. However, for the first time in literature, Gorky showed these people not as a faceless rabble, but as individuals who became such under the influence of certain events in their life, they were unable to withstand the troubles of life and were left behind. All their attempts to change their lives for the better were doomed to failure from the very beginning. For them, a prosperous life has become a utopia. One of these “bottom” characters is Satin.

Life path of Satin

Satin did not always belong to the scum of society.
Once upon a time (in his youth), he was “a decent man and worked as a telegraph operator:
When I was a boy ... I served in the telegraph office.

In his youth, Satin was a cheerful and sociable person, he loved to sing and dance and did it masterfully:
I, brother, young - I was busy! Remember well! .. The shirt-guy ... danced great, played on stage, loved to make people laugh ... nice!
Satin was not alone in this world - he had a sister. It was the events associated with her personality that became fatal in the life of a young man.
Once he stood up for the honor of his sister. In a skirmish, he accidentally killed his opponent.

We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the analysis of the story "The Old Woman Izergil", which was written by the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky.

For this act, Satin was convicted and imprisoned for four years. After leaving prison, the young man could no longer realize himself in life and began to descend to the bottom:
Because of my sister ... And ... it was all a long time ago ... Sister - she died ... already nine years ... passed ... Nice, brother, I had a little human sister! ..

For the scoundrel ... he killed the scoundrel in passion and irritation
I served four years and seven months in prison ... and after prison - no move.
In prison, Satin learned to play cards and cheat:
In prison I learned to play cards too ...

Personality trait of Satin

Satin definitely stands out among the "bottom" of society. He has his own philosophy. In many moments related to the vision of life and its arrangement, Satin has clashes with another character of the “bottom” - the Actor. It is in such small discussions that his life position and philosophy are clarified.

Dear Readers! On our site you can familiarize yourself with the history of the creation of M. Gorky's story "Childhood", which tells about the plight of children who lived in pre-revolutionary times.

Satin likes to pronounce different words of foreign origin. He doesn't even try to remember their meaning. At the same time, he does not betray them as clever sayings, but rather as a parody in relation to the person who announces them, while Satin deliberately distorts their pronunciation:
Organism ... organon ...
Sycamber ...
Macrobiotics ... ha!
Satin. And then there is - trans-centered ...
Bubnov. What's this?
Satin. I don't know ... I forgot ...
So ... I'm tired, brother, of all human words ... all our words - tired! I have heard each of them ... probably a thousand times ...
I love incomprehensible, rare words ...
At one time, Satin was an educated person, he liked to read books:
I read a lot of books ...
There are very good books ... and many interesting words ... I was an educated person ...

Satin believes that work should not be a burden for a person. It should bring a person not only money, but also moral pleasure:
Many people easily get money, but few part with it easily ... Work? Make the work pleasant to me - maybe I will work ... yes! May be! When work is pleasure, life is good! When labor is a duty, life is slavery!
Satin often plays cards and constantly cheats while playing - he learned this in prison:

You know that we are crooks.
Tatar. We must play fair!
Satin. Why is that?
Tatar. What do you mean why?
Satin. And so ... Why?
Tatar. You do not know?
Satin. Do not know. Do you know?

Often Satin's card games end in a fight:
Satin. Who beat me yesterday?
Bubnov. Do you care? ..
Satin. Let's put it this way ... And why did they beat?
Bubnov. Played cards?
Satin. Played ...
Bubnov. For this they beat ...

Being in prison made Satin rude, he realized that sometimes defending personal interests and justice is punishable:
Do not offend a person - this is the law!
Satin. This is called the "Code of Criminal and Correctional Punishments" ...
Well, yes ... the time has come and gave the "Code of punishments" ... A strong law ... you will not wear it out soon!

Satin doesn't like to talk about his life:
I don't like being asked

Satin does not admit suicide, he thinks that it is better to go with the flow of life than to die:
I'll give you advice: don't do anything! Simply - burden the earth!

Over time, Satin ceased to be ashamed of his low position in society, he noticed that many people live like this, and they are not at all embarrassed by their poverty:
Give it up! People are not ashamed that your life is worse than a dog ... Think - you won't work, I - I won't ... hundreds more ... thousands, that's it! - understand? everybody quits working! Nobody wants to do anything - what will happen then?

Satin never pity people, not because he does not feel sorry for anyone, but because he does not see the point in pity:
What good is it to you if I feel sorry for you? Satin believes that much in life depends on the person himself.
Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! There is only man, all the rest is the work of his hands and his brain! Person! It's great! It sounds ... proud! Person! We must respect the person! Do not regret ... do not humiliate him with pity ... must be respected!

Satine is not afraid to speak the truth about others, even if it is the most unsightly:
You are all brutes!
You are dumb as bricks
You, Baron, are the worst of all! .. You - do not understand anything ... and - you are lying!
Why are you swearing? After all, you have not a penny, I know ...
Satin can express himself beautifully:
Why, then, sometimes a sharper does not speak well, if decent people ... speak like a sharper? Yes ... I have forgotten a lot, but - I know something else!

Alcohol helps Satin forget about the unsightly reality:
When I'm drunk ... I like everything
Satin believes that food is not the most important goal in a person's life:
I've always despised people who care too much about being full.

The surrounding people condemn Satin and consider him a robber, society does not even try to understand the reasons for his degradation and give him a chance for a full life:
I am a prisoner, a murderer, a sharpie ... well, yes! When I walk down the street, people look at me as if I were a rogue ... and they shy away and look back ... and often say to me - “Bastard! Charlatan!

Satin thinks highly of the old man who lived with them. He was always skeptical about the old man's position and his encouragement to take active steps to change the life of the representatives of the “bottom”, but after his death, he was able to realize the full significance of his person:
Old man? He is a clever girl! .. He ... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin

Satin values ​​freedom. He used to be a free man and is aware of all the delights of such a life:
It's good ... to feel human!

Satin believes that a person should pay for everything in this life. Nothing is given to a person for free, this is what, according to Satin, makes a person free:
he pays for everything himself: for faith, for unbelief, for love, for the mind - a person pays for everything himself, and therefore he is free!

Satin believes that there are many varieties of lies in the world, and each of them has a right to exist and is needed for people with weak spirits. Only a strong-minded person, the master of his life, does not need a lie:
There are many people who lie out of pity for their neighbor ... I know! I read! There is a comforting lie, a reconciling lie ... The lie justifies the weight that crushed the worker's hand ... and blames the dying of hunger ... I - I know the lie! Who is weak in soul ... and who lives in other people's juices - those need lies ... some it supports, others hide behind it ... And who is his own master ... who is independent and does not eat someone else's - why should he lie?

Satin's image is unusual and unique

Summarize: Satin's image is unusual and unique. He clearly stands out from the general crowd of the "bottom". Satin was not always on the side of the road. In his youth, he was quite a successful and promising person, but by coincidence, his life went downhill.

Satin knows how to analyze and draw conclusions from their situation, but he no longer believes that his life will change for the better, since society does not give him the slightest chance to regain his former freedom and considers him a scoundrel.

In the play “At the Bottom,” Maxim Gorky describes the life of the inhabitants of the flophouse - people who have descended, fallen to the social bottom. Unpretentious, at first glance, history is in fact a socio-philosophical drama. The work raises many problems: the meaning of life, the search for truth, faith and unbelief, the humiliating position of a person in society and many others.

One of the tramps - Satin - is a prisoner, a murderer and a cheat. Konstantin Satin was a telegraph operator in his youth, ended up in a shelter after he was released from prison. He was convicted of murder, but, according to him, he stood up for the honor of his sister. At the time of this story, he is about 40 years old, he is daring and smart. Satin correctly evaluates other heroes: “stupid as bricks”, tries to defend the dignity of other people, to open their eyes to their own possibilities.

In the life position of Satin there are echoes of humanism, and they are revealed in his monologue about a person: “Everything is in a person, everything is for a person!”. The hero argues with the wanderer Luke about the “comforting” lie and condemns any of its manifestations. Constantine considers “a lie for good” unacceptable, for a person has the right to know the truth, whatever it may be.

Satin voluntarily sinks to the bottom of life, despises moral values ​​and rejects the work: “Man is above satiety! ..”. He exclaims: "The rich need honor and conscience, yes!" Satin's monologues do not correspond to his image, but the hero himself says: "Why sometimes a sharper does not speak well if decent people ... speak like a sharper?" Satin's words often convey the position of Gorky himself, and his image is undoubtedly very important in the play. Also, Satin utters the last terrible remark in the work - a reaction to the death of the Actor: “You ruined the song ... you fool!”.

Some changes are always expected at the turn of the century. They occur not only in the lives of ordinary people, but also in art and literature. The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries becomes a truly turning point for Russia and for the people.

The writer Maxim Gorky is becoming a new phenomenon for Russian literature. He is the founder of Soviet socialist literature. But even a long time before the appearance of the Soviet Union, the writer turned to the acute topics of his time. This is how his famous play At the Bottom appeared, which received great recognition and was subsequently staged by director Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theater.

Essay about Satin

The work "At the Bottom" by Gorky tells us a tragic story, which is based on almost every third story of the life of an ordinary person at that time. The work reveals amazing images, which in turn reveal the work itself.

You should take a closer look at the image of Satin. Satin - middle-aged men with very strong atheistic convictions, with which he lived all his life and continues to live on. The author describes him as a reasonable person, trying to be optimistic, but long disillusioned with life, which for him has lost all colors and contrasts. He is used to relying only on himself, not placing his problems on those around him, which is why few of his roommates really know him.

He is also accustomed to despising people who try to deceive others for their good, he despises the very idea of ​​lying for the good, also at the same time, despising religion and all its followers, arguing that there is no point in hoping for some non-existent forces, the existence of which and impossible to prove. It is for this reason that he disagrees with Luke.

In the episode of the conflict with the preacher Luca, the author shows us that Satin is ready to defend his interests and beliefs, since he has repeatedly witnessed that good people suffered from misinformation. And then he promised himself to tell only the truth, and only what he thinks.

Then the author reveals it to us from the opposite side. Although he almost always upsets people with his harsh and hard truth, he can also support it. In one of the episodes, he delivers a fiery speech in which he says that only work and perseverance will save a person, and not some promises of salvation of the soul and paradise. He makes his listeners turn to the voice of reason. He does not even blame Luka for his lies, as he understands his situation, and accepts it. Through this episode and the image, the author tries to convey to us his opinion that he is doing well, since the image was thought out perfectly, and he also perfectly conveys his idea to the reader.

Option 3

The play by Maxim Gorky "At the Bottom" was significantly different from the literary works of that time. The play shows more than just the lower class of society. The main characters of the play are people who cannot even be attributed to this layer. M. Gorky, before writing the play, communicated and studied people who have lost not only material well-being, but also humanity. All images are revealed close to real people and their stories. The lives of heroes can evoke compassion, and their habitat can shock. At the bottom you can meet the dreamer Nastya, Anna, who is living out her last days, the skeptic Satin and the worker Luka. All heroes are different, but their common feature remains - passivity and acceptance of all life circumstances.

Satin is the main character of the play, this is a man who went down to the bottom. His life was not always like this. He was an educated person, read a lot, worked in the theater. But he went to jail for the murder of his sister's rapist. Now he drinks all his free time and engages in card fraud. He is always gloomy and embittered all over the world. From the previous life, only the ability to express herself beautifully and insert clever words remained. Satin was significantly different from the other residents of the shelter. It seems that he absolutely happened to be here and he lacks the inner core to radically change his life. At heart, he is a kind and cheerful person, he loved his sister, but life circumstances changed his appearance. Satin is a skeptic and knows that another future does not await him. It is convenient for him to be passive and not expect anything from life.

Satin's monologues are captivating, he talks about truth, goodness and man. Gorky himself writes that there is no longer a hero in the play who could say this. The image of Satin plays an important role, it expresses the position of the author. And it seems to complement other characters in early works. The consonance with Satan is not accidental. Satin does not allow other heroes to throw off the shackles of poverty and start a new life. He is a free person and only feels like this at the bottom of society, because he despises labor and social shackles. Satin is a bright personality, even in the conditions in which he fell, he stands out and has his own life position, knows how to analyze and draw conclusions. This became the reason for a new position in life - skepticism. Therefore, he is the main antagonist of Luke, who wants to positively influence the other residents of the shelter.

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Satin is one of the central images of M. Gorky's play At the Bottom, antipode to the wanderer Luka. Before the shelter, Satin worked as a telegraph operator, performed on stage, then served 4 years in prison for interceding for his sister: “I served four years and seven months in prison ... and after prison I’m not going.”

Now he is a card sharper. From the hero's remarks and the comments of other characters, it is clear that Satin is more educated than others, smarter, he has read and knows a lot.

He is cruel in his assessments of the “neighbors”, exposes Luka’s “fictions”: he advises the tick who sold all the tools (and with them the hope for a normal life) to calm down and simply “burden the earth”. Actor says that there are no free hospitals for alcoholics. However, Satin ardently intercedes for Luka when the night-lodgers accuse the elder of lying. The hero admits that the wanderer acted on him like acid on an old rusty coin.

Characteristics of the hero

(K.S. Stanislavsky in the role of Satin, a scene from the Moscow Art Theater performance based on the play "At the Bottom" by M. Gorky, 1902)

Unlike others, Satin no longer dreams of changing something, he understands the full depth and hopelessness of the fall. That is why he is cheerful, does not whine and does not complain, he is indifferent to people: “People are not ashamed of the fact that your life is worse than a dog…” - it means that there is nothing to be ashamed of them: live as you want.

It seems that Satine sees little of the differences between the flophouse and the rest of the - prosperous - world. In a flop, people suffer from idleness, homelessness, the consciousness of their worthlessness. In a “prosperous” world, people are slaves, slaves of conventions, orders, work: “Work? Make my work pleasant to me - maybe I will work ... When work is pleasure, life is good! When work is a duty, life is slavery! "

Satin is tired of the whole world order - too monotonous, unfair, predictable. This is manifested symbolically in his play with words: he loves to pronounce uncommon words, change them: "I am tired of all human words, brother ... I have heard each of them ... probably a thousand times ... I love incomprehensible, rare words ..."

(Old postcard with dialogues from the play "At the Bottom" by Gorky)

Satin is a hero-resoner who migrated from the plays of classicism to realism. Gorky, a romantic at that time, puts many lofty phrases into the lips of the hero, the apotheosis of which is: "A man - it sounds proudly."

What person is Satin talking about? About Bubnov? About Nastya? About Tick? There are no "objects" for pride around him, and we are not talking about the inhabitants of the shelter. Satin speaks of another - a free and proud person who "pays for everything himself," "who is his own boss."

High and - what is there to be ashamed of - so far empty words are turned into some distant future. Satin contains the beginnings of revolutionary sentiments, because the existing world and "people" are hopeless for the hero.

The image of the hero in the work

Satin is the only hero who is able to push off the bottom to get to the surface. He has strength, he just does not want to "rise" so far - unlike others.

He is the only one who is not deceived about his position, does not dream in vain and does not despise others because of his troubles - he is simply indifferent to the hostels. Satin is skeptical about the voluntary "mission" of Luke: "The dead do not feel ... Scream ... roar ... the dead do not hear!" But Luke interested him: the elder, encouraging others, indirectly awakens in Satin the already forgotten sense of his own significance and strength.

Then there are these monologues about freedom, pride of man, about his limitless possibilities, about the desire for creative, not slave labor. Satin speaks for Gorky, expresses his romantic, so far airy and unfounded, but inspiring thoughts to life.

Something in life must change so that people like Satin “break away” from the bottom, begin to work, create, and not just rob and deceive people.

What? .. The structure of society. Satin secretly recites revolutionary slogans. And it is easy to imagine him in the ranks of sailors, soldiers, workers who will destroy the familiar world with his usual words.