(295 words) The play “At the Bottom” is based on the social stratification of society and the conflict between people of different classes. Each lodger from his birth belonged to a certain class. Some have lived all his life in it, while others have changed their status for one reason or another. One thing unites all - poverty and estrangement from the rest of the world.
The Baron was a nobleman, but went broke and ended up in a marginal environment. He enthusiastically talks about the ancestors from France who served the Russian tsars. “In the carriage of the past, you won’t go anywhere,” Satin tells him. Both of them ended up in a shelter after prison. Kartuznik Bubnov left his wife, leaving his workshop and is now barely making ends meet. The actor - the former Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky - waking up, proudly declares that his body is "completely poisoned by alcohol." Tick - works as a locksmith and is sure that he will be able to earn a better living, even if his wife, a burden, dies faster. From childhood, Vaska Pepla was called the “thief, the son of a thief”; he did not do anything else. The appearance of the wanderer Luke changes everything in the life of the inhabitants of the overnight stay. It is he who gives them hope, excites with his speeches the minds saturated with alcohol. To Vaska he gives practical advice - to run away with his beloved Natasha and start all over again. The actor talks about the miraculous hospital and instills in him the previous desire to play on stage. The dying Anna receives from Luke reassurance and faith in a calm afterlife. But Luke's sweet speech is a lie to which he gives alms to the poor. Satin speaks of the dangers of lying:
Lying is the religion of slaves and masters ... Truth is the god of a free man!
With the departure of Luke all his castles in the air collapse. Anna dies, and Tick sells her tools for her funeral. Vaska kills Kostylev. The actor settles scores with a hateful life. None of the “former people” are able to return to society. They remain at the bottom, every day destroying the right to their existence from fate. All the hopelessness of the situation of the shelters is in the words of Sateen: “Eh ... ruined the song ... dur-cancer!”.
