Former People is a work created in 1897. It is based on the personal impressions of the author, which he received when he had to live in a rooming house on the outskirts of Kazan. This work in genre terms can be defined as an essay, since it is characterized by the reliability of the image, the lack of dynamics, attention to everyday life, as well as detailed portrait characteristics. In Former People, Gorky reassesses the type of tramp. There is no romantic halo familiar to us from his early works.
Former People: Summary
A significant place in the first part is given to the description. First, a suburban street appears before us. She is dirty, dull. The houses located here are plain: with skewed windows and curved walls, perforated roofs. We see piles of rubbish and rubble. The following describes the house of the merchant Petunnikov. This is a rickety building with broken glass. Its walls are all dotted with cracks. In this house, not very similar to housing, an overnight stay is located. It resembles a gloomy, long hole.
Portraits of the shelters
From the description of the interior, the author proceeds to portraits of the shelters. What are the "former people" in M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom"?
Aristide Sledgehammer - the owner of a rooming house, previously served as a captain. He heads the company of the so-called "former people" and represents its "general staff". Gorky describes him as a tall, broad-shouldered man about 50 years old, with a pockmarked face swollen from drunkenness. He is dressed in a ragged and dirty officer overcoat, and on his head is a greasy cap.
The following are portraits of other shelters. One of them is Teacher. This is a stooped tall man with a bald skull and a long sharp nose. Another overnight seller is Simtsov Aleksey Maksimovich, also known as Kubar. This man is a former forester. Gorky notes that he is "as fat as a barrel." He has a small crimson nose, a thick white beard and cynical watery eyes.
The next inhabitant of the rooming house is Martyanov Luka Antonovich, nicknamed the End. He used to work as a prison keeper, but now he is one of the "former people." This is a silent and gloomy drunkard.
Here lives Pavel Solntsev (Snack), a mechanic. This consumptive crooked man about thirty years old. Further, the author describes Kiselnikov. This lodger is a former convict. He is bony and tall, "crooked in one eye." He was nicknamed One and a half Taras, because his friend Taras, a former deacon, was one and a half times lower than him. Next, we get acquainted with the long-haired "absurd" youth "with a silly cheekbone mug." His nickname is Meteor. Then the author introduces us to the ordinary inhabitants of the shelter, men. One of them is Tyapa, an old rag-man.
Characteristics of the shelters
Maxim Gorky draws our attention to how indifferent these people are to their fate, as well as to the life and fate of others. They are apathetic, show impotence in front of external circumstances. At the same time, anger is growing in their souls, which is directed against wealthy people. By the way, the world of “former people” in M. Gorky’s play “At the Bottom” is very reminiscent of the one created in the essay that interests us.
Conflict with Petunnikov
In the second part of the work, the discontent of all these characters results in an open conflict with Petunnikov, the local merchant. The nature of this conflict is social. The captain noticed that some part of the merchant’s factory is on Vavilov’s land. He persuades the innkeeper to file a lawsuit against Petunnikov. It should be noted that in this case Aristide Sledgehammer is not driven by the desire to profit. He just wants to annoy Petunnikov, whom he calls to himself the hated Judas.
Result of the confrontation
However, the lawsuit, which promised 600 rubles, ends with the world. The business, educated and cruel son of Petunnikov convinces Vavilov of the need to withdraw the lawsuit. Otherwise, he threatens to close the pub, which contains the innkeeper. The inhabitants of the rooming house understand that now they will need to leave their homes, because the merchant, of course, will not forgive them this misconduct.
Soon Petunnikov really demands to leave the shack immediately. But the troubles do not end there. Uchiel dies, whose death is accused of Aristide the Sledgehammer. So the community of shelters finally disintegrates. Petunnikov triumphs.
Psychology of Heroes
Maxim Gorky pays great attention not only to the study of the life of the so-called former people. He is also interested in their psychology, inner world. The author believes that life in a rooming house gives rise to weak people who are not capable of regeneration, of self-realization. They deny everything, including their own lives. Such a position (its ideologist is Sledgehammer) is destructive and unpromising. It lacks a constructive, positive beginning. And the discontent caused by impotence can only give rise to despair and anger.
We can say that Maxim Gorky ( his portrait is presented above) in his essay “Former People” pronounces a sentence on the inhabitants of the “bottom”. These are deserted, powerless and inactive characters. Analysis of the essay “Former people” shows that they are not capable of good feelings and actions. In this regard, the episode of the death of the Master is indicative. The sledgehammer, who considered this man his friend, could not even find human words for him. The social problems reflected in the stories of the Bosyak cycle will continue to develop in the plays of Maxim Gorky.
The difference between the work and physiological essays
In the physiological sketch, the main subject of the image was the social roles of the heroes, rather than specific characters. The authors were interested, for example, in the St. Petersburg organ grinder, the St. Petersburg janitor, cabmen, officials, merchants. In the artistic sketch created by M. Gorky (Former People), the main attention is paid to the study of the characters' characters, which are united by social status. The heroes were in a rooming house, at the very bottom of life. Aristide Sledgehammer, who himself is a "former" man, is keeping the night shelter, because he is a retired captain.
The lack of an autobiographical hero
You can note some other features of the work. For example, in Former People there is no autobiographical hero, an image so familiar to Gorky. The narrator in this work seems to want to distance himself from everything and not betray his presence. We can say that his role in the work "Former People" by Gorky Maxim is somewhat different than in the cycle "In Russia" or in the author’s romantic stories. The autobiographical hero is not a listener to the characters, their interlocutor. Only the details of the portrait of the young man, whom Sledgehammer called Meteor, and the description of how he relates to others, allow us to discern an autobiographical hero in him. True, he is somewhat distanced from the narrator in this work.
The transition from romanticism to realism
The main thing that distinguishes “Former People” from Gorky's works related to early work is the transition from a romantic interpretation of character to a realistic one. The author still portrays people from the people. However, his appeal to realism allows him to show much more clearly the contrast between the dark and light, weak and strong sides of the national character, its contradictory nature. That is what is the subject of research in the work "Former People".
It seems that the author, having embarked on the position of realism, cannot find a way to resolve the conflict between the destiny of a person (his height) and his tragic unfulfillment in the life of "former" people, the low social position that they occupy. The irresistibility of this conflict makes Gorky in the final landscape return to the attitude of romanticism. Only in the elements can one find the solution of the insoluble. The author writes that there was something inexorable and intense in the strict gray clouds that completely covered the sky. As if they were about to burst in a shower and wash away all the dirt from the sad and exhausted earth. However, the overall landscape is realistic. It is necessary to say a few words about him.
Landscape
In the author’s early stories, the romantic landscape was intended to emphasize the exceptional character, and the spirituality and beauty of the southern night, the horror of the dark forest or the endless free steppe could be the backdrop on which the romantic hero was revealed, at the cost of his life affirming his ideal. Now Gorky Maxim ("Former People") turns to a realistic landscape. He is interested in his anti-aesthetic features. We see the ugly outskirts of the city. Turbidity of colors, dimness, pallor are needed to create a sense of abandonment of the environment in which the shelters live.
Conflict
The author tries to understand how great the social and personal potential of the so-called "former people" is. It is important for him to find out whether, having found themselves in difficult domestic and social conditions, they can preserve spiritual, intangible values ​​that can be opposed to a world so unfair to them. The originality of the conflict is determined by this particular aspect of the problem. The conflict in the work has a social character. After all, the shelters led by the Sledgehammer confront the merchant Petunnikov, as well as his son - the cold, strong, intelligent and educated representative of the Russian bourgeoisie.
The author is more interested in not the social aspect of this confrontation, but the heroes' unwillingness to comprehend their own situation, possible prospects, their needs. It’s not someone else’s land that interests them, and not even money. This is only a manifestation of the hatred of a poor drunkard to a working and wealthy person.
Gorky reveals the complete absence in "former people" of creativity, inner growth, activity, self-improvement. But these qualities are very important for the author. They are presented in the novel "Mother", as well as in the hero of his autobiographical trilogy. The inhabitants of the shelter can not oppose anything to the surrounding reality, except for malice. This brings them to the very bottom. Their anger is turning against themselves. The "former people" achieved nothing by confronting the merchant.