The history of the creation of the novel by Foma Gordeev. Essay on the topic of portrait characteristics of Foma Gordeev

A striking figure is Yakov Mayakin, who believes that the value of every person is determined by cash capital. Mayakin considers merchants to be the first force in the state; he is very smart, calculating and cynical. He divides people into masters and into a dumb mass - simple bricks, building material in the hands of the masters.
The young generation of merchants is also shown in the novel. Taras and Lyubov Mayakin and African Smolin belong to it. They must inherit Jacob's work and ideas at a new stage. But they only outwardly differ from their fathers in education, European culture. But Taras Mayakin said goodbye to the dreams of his youth and is the owner of a ship production facility in Siberia. And nothing progressive can be expected from Afrikan Smolin, a “swindler of the first degree”.

But Gorky set the task of showing a person looking for a job within his strength and wide scope for a free and honest life. Such a person is Foma Gardeev. He inherited a lot from his silent, withdrawn mother, who was acutely aware of falsehood. He inherited his violence and uncontrollability from his father. The nanny introduced the boy into the world wonderful tales and legends. Communication with sailors also affected him. And so those around him begin to notice something not their own in Foma, “after all, you are terribly unlike a merchant,” notes Lyuba. “There is something special about you,” says Sophia. This is something that scares Ignat terribly. But reality took its toll. Yakov Mayakin inspired him: “...either bite everyone or lie in the dirt.” Looking at Foma, the captain of the Diligent remarked: “... a puppy of a good breed, a good dog from the very first hunt.” But Foma experiences dissatisfaction with himself and a tendency to riot. A life built on deception and greed plunge him into despair; he sees no way out of the impasse. Thoughts of pure love, when he lost faith in Sophia Medynskaya. He experiences delight only during the raising of the sunken barge. “It’s stuffy for me,” Foma exclaims. “Is this really life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that’s why it hurts because it’s not reconciled!” Thomas becomes a prodigal son in his midst. Finding himself on the ship Ilya Muromets, surrounded by eminent merchants, he feels the immensity of the claims and begins to rebel, he utters words of disgust: “You have not made life - a prison ...” he is defeated, ties with the merchants are severed.
Thomas is tied up and declared crazy. But one can feel his triumph in the words: “You can’t tie the truth, you’re lying!” The tragedy of Foma Gardeev is that he did not want to live according to wolf laws, he believed that joyful, honest work. And according to Yezhov, “the future belongs to people of honest labor.”

Here is Anatoly Savvich Shchurov, a major timber merchant, one of the tycoons of the merchant world, about whom Mayakin says: “The cunning old devil... The reverend fox... will raise his eyes to heaven, and put his paw in your bosom and pull out your wallet... . Be careful!..”

But Yakov Mayakin himself is not inferior to anyone in cunning. This is a kind of ideologist of the merchants, a “brain man,” as the merchants called him. He teaches his godson Thomas his “philosophy”: “The merchant in the state is the first power, because with him are millions!” Therefore, he says, nobles and officials should step aside and
give merchants room to use their strengths and invest capital. Anatoly Shchurov is a representative of the old, wild, patriarchal merchant class. He is against innovation, against machines that make life easier, against freedom. “From freedom a man perishes!” - he prophesies angrily. Yakov Mayakin is also a representative of the old merchant class, but he knows how to adapt to any conditions. His son Taras and son-in-law Afrikan Smolin continue the work of their fathers, giving it a European gloss, acting more prudently, more soberly. They are eager for power and seek to transform industry in a European manner.

But already in the older generation, among those who founded the fortune, there were people who internally protested against the order of this world, although they could not resist the emerging economic relations. This is Ignat Gordeev - gifted and smart man from the people, greedy for life, “seized with an indomitable passion for work,” a former waterman, and now a rich man - the owner of three steamships and a dozen barges. “His life did not flow smoothly, along a straight channel, like other people like him, but every now and then, rebelliously boiling, rushed out of the rut, away from profit, the main goal of existence.”

The world of possessive relations is a “prison” for him:

“...It’s stuffy for me... After all, is this life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that’s why it hurts because it can’t be tolerated!” “You didn’t create life - a prison... You didn’t create order - you forged chains for a person...” Thomas says to the merchants.
- It’s stuffy, cramped, there’s nowhere for a living soul to turn... A person is dying!.. You are not life
build - you've made a cesspool! You have created filth and stuffiness with your deeds... You
ruined life! You’ve made everything difficult... you’re suffocating... you’re making me feel suffocated!”

Thomas is “a healthy person who wants freedom of life, who is cramped within the framework of modernity.” He stubbornly “breaks out” from the world of his masters, and in this Gorky sees an indicator of instability modern life, an indicator that her time will come
change. Thomas does not fully understand the structure of life, does not know the ways and methods

Her changes, far from the progressive intelligentsia and people, do not find a common language with them, although in her soul she is drawn to them. He thinks a lot about life, but he has no desire for knowledge and books (“...let the hungry study, I don’t need it...”), the society of smart and
educated people are scared away by Thomas. He does not feel the desire to have friends. World
property, which Thomas rejects, the merchant's way of life imposed on him
your seal; he early learned “the condescending pity of the well-fed for the hungry.” At the end
in the story Thomas is defeated and humiliated; Mayakin's world triumphs over the rebel. Victory over a weak and confused person, but not over the reader, to whom Alexey Maksimovich Gorky revealed all the ugliness of the kingdom of the Shchurovs and Mayakins.

Vividly, with irreconcilable hatred, he depicts the bitter world of the “masters of life”, profit, dooming millions of people to poverty, hunger and lawlessness. But this world is already splitting from the inside; it is not monolithic, as its inhabitants would like.
In the novel “Foma Gordeev,” Gorky shows the vices of society that are destroying the “master” class from within. This system is doomed, but it is still trying to maintain its former power and authority, clinging to every opportunity, neglecting all human principles. What is the reason for the degeneration of the “master” class? Gorky examines this problem in detail and shows it using the example of the Gordeev family.

Ignat Gordeev is the founder of the business. He started as a water-handler at the stock exchange of the rich man Zaev, and at the age of forty became the owner of three steamships. This is a powerful and controversial personality.
It was as if three people coexisted in him at once: a frantic and greedy worker for any task; a “naughty” reveler and sinner begging for God’s forgiveness. Ignat is able to calmly watch the destruction of his barges during the ice drift, throw a huge sum at the construction of a lodging house, go on a spree and drink away a huge amount of money. He is not greedy for them, reasoning philosophically: “The Volga gave, and it also took away.” He understands that “business is a living and strong beast, it needs to be managed skillfully.” Ignat is the owner who builds the business.

The long-awaited heir, Thomas, grows withdrawn and taciturn. Ignat sees in him a lot of strange, unnecessary and superfluous things for the “master of life.” Thomas does not understand the benefits of teaching, does not want to read books, and grows up as a favorite of Ignat and Uvalny. The premature death of his father stunned Foma, completely confused him and led him astray.
Godfather Mayakin’s speeches about the value of money do not inspire confidence in him. It’s scary and hard for a young man to live. He sees no reliable support. Money is like a burden for him. He is ready to spend them aimlessly and meaninglessly. Mayakin says about him: “The man crashed.” There is no “core” or support in it.

Thomas stands “against everyone... against falsehood.” His protest is spontaneous, destructive, primarily for Thomas himself. He fights and brawls, breaks his own and other people’s barges; through his fault, innocent people working for him are killed and maimed.

Gorky shows that this protest does not bring any positive result, since there is no visible goal behind the brute and dark power of Thomas. He doesn't know what he wants, and that's the worst thing. Captain Efim says about him: “And it’s not the master of the matter, but a fierce enemy.”
The “master class” is surprisingly unanimous when it is threatened with trouble from the outside. Defending Ignat Gordeev’s capital, his friend’s life’s work, Mayakin drives his son to “madness.” No one in this world is given the right to live independently. Money rules here. They are the God of this society. For their sake, these people - the “pillars of society” - will commit any crime.

Foma turned out to be “superfluous” and was thrown out of the “society of businessmen” without any regret.
Gorky showed in the novel that protest, even the most sincere and ardent, becomes meaningless if there is no knowledge, real goals and a clear idea of what you want to achieve behind it.

Reading the work leaves a bitter feeling of a wasted young life, although you latently understand that thanks to such “madmen” this seemingly unshakable system was shaken and fell.

On the eve of 1900, Gorky published the novel Foma Gordeev. In Tolstoy's Anna Karenina it was said that everything had turned upside down, but had not yet settled into post-reform times. “Foma Gordeev” depicts the “laying down” that has begun.

As a participant in the populist circles of the 80s, Gorky was critical of the teachings of the populists, but echoes of his influence can still be found in early works writer; These are, for example, the motives of sacrifice in the legend of Danko and in the “Song of the Falcon.” The novel “Foma Gordeev” testified to the obsolescence of such hobbies. This is the largest anti-populist work, which left no doubt that Gorky began to master the Marxist knowledge of social development.

After the appearance of Foma Gordeev, readers and critics began to talk about him as a Marxist writer. Thus, the future People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin wrote to a comrade in 1901: “Instead of the worldview of the era of natural economy, a completely new worldview of the urban proletariat is emerging<...>Marxism and Gorky are the main phenomena in our country. recent years. (And in “Foma Gordeev” there is a great influence of Marxism).”

Gorky built his great works (from “Foma Gordeev” to “The Life of Klim Samgin”) as chronicle novels, which allowed him to show not only the development of human life over time, as N. Leskov did in his chronicles, but also the movement of time itself as a historical category.

The heroes turned out to be correlated with the historical steps of Russia. Some of them became active figures, others convinced that a person and “his time” are not always the same values. The tendency towards such a correlation was clearly manifested already in the first novel, the hero of which did not hear the true calls of his time.

The greatest attention in the novel is paid to two figures: the guardian and affirmer of bourgeois consciousness - Yakov Mayakin and the renegade of his class, who becomes a "side" to him - Foma Gordeev. In the 90s capitalism has taken a strong position in the country.

The image of the “grimy”, so expressively captured in the works of Shchedrin, Uspensky and Ostrovsky, was becoming a thing of the past, giving way to money tycoons and factory owners. Gorky’s predecessors in creating the image of the offensive bourgeois (P. Boborykin - “Vasily Terkin”, Vas. Nemirovich-Danchenko - “Wolf’s Fill”, etc.) noted the emergence of a new type of merchant, “who begins to realize his strength,” but did not create a typical figure his.

Yakov Mayakin is a social type who embodied the potential strength of the bourgeoisie at the end of the century. Class, master consciousness permeates the entire life activity of a successful merchant, all his moral principles. This is a merchant who thinks not only about himself, but also about the fate of his class.

Capitalism began to penetrate into all areas of social and economic activity, and it turned out that Mayakin was no longer satisfied with domination only in the economic field. He is striving for power on a larger scale. Noteworthy is the review of the Volga millionaire Bugrov, who told Gorky that he had not met the Mayakins on his way, but felt: “this is how a person should be!”

The author of “Foma Gordeev” learned from the classics a comprehensive understanding of human characters and the determination of their native environment and society as a whole. But, penetrating deeper and deeper as an artist into the class structure of society, he introduced something new into his study of man.

In his works, the social dominance of the heroes’ worldview was strengthened, and in connection with this, their class coloring became more noticeable. inner world. The organic fusion of the class with the peculiar allowed Gorky to create a large gallery of related, but nevertheless so different from each other, heroes.

Modern criticism has caught on characteristic feature Gorky psychologist. The critic L. Obolensky wrote, referring to Yakov Mayakin, that Gorky “grabs”, along with the individual traits of the hero, also traits “family, hereditary, formed under the influence of the profession (class), and strengthens these latter to such brightness that we already see not an ordinary figure, which we would not even notice in life, but a half-real, half-ideal, almost symbolic statue, a monument to an entire class in its typical features.”

Along with the merchant, who traces his ancestry back to the 18th century, “Foma Gordeev” also shows one of the first accumulators of capital in the post-reform era. Despite all the limitations of the reform of 1861, it gave the opportunity to manifest the dormant energy and ingenuity of the people. Hence Gorky’s enormous interest in capitalists who emerged from the people’s environment and have not yet completely broken ties with it. Ignat Gordeev, Savely Kozhemyakin, Yegor Bulychev - all these are rich people, endowed not only with the desire for money, but also with “insolence of heart”, which prevents them from completely merging with the world of their masters.

Gorky's novel spoke about the development of capitalism in Russia and at the same time about the instability of the new way of life. Evidence of this is the emergence of protest among the workers, as well as the emergence of those who disagree with bourgeois practice and morality in the ranks of the bourgeoisie itself.

At first, Gorky wanted to create a novel about the prodigal son of capitalism. The break with one's environment, breaking out of it, became an increasingly remarkable phenomenon in life, attracting the attention of other writers. The hero of Chekhov's story “Three Years” stands on the threshold of such a breaking out. However, in the process creative work Gorky came to the conclusion that Thomas “is not typical as a merchant, as a representative of a class” and, in order not to violate the “truth of life,” it is necessary to place another, more typical figure next to him.

This is how an equal-sized image of the second arose central character. These are characters that mutually condition each other. Fearing that the typical image of a merchant, striving not only for economic, but also for political power, would cause a censorship ban, and trying to preserve this new figure in Russian literature, Gorky, in his words, “blocked” her with the figure of Thomas (“I blocked Thomas Mayakin, and the censorship did not touch him").

Mayakin and Foma are opposing heroes. For one of them, everything is subordinated to the desire to get rich and rule. At the heart of his ideal is an economic principle. He subordinates everything to him, including the lives of people close to him. For another, the attitude towards life is connected with social and moral knowledge of it. The master's principle will manifest itself more than once in the behavior and consciousness of Thomas (he is the son of his environment), but it is not what dominates his inner world.

And if the “prodigal son” of the bourgeoisie, Taras Mayakin, quickly forgetting his former opposition, returns to his father’s house in order to increase what his father has earned, then Thomas, endowed with a pure moral sense and an unsleeping conscience, acts as an exposer of the masters of life - a return to his father’s house for him impossible.

The novel is permeated with the idea of the need to awaken the consciousness of the people. This idea, manifested in the depiction of the character of the leading character, in the disputes of the characters in the novel, in the author’s thoughts about the fate of the homeland, holds together the heterogeneous vital material. In his early work, Gorky showed himself to be a master of the bright southern landscape. In “Foma Gordeev” the same impressive paintings Volga nature, reminiscent of the greatness and painful slumber of the Russian people.

“Everything around bears the imprint of slowness; everything - both nature and people - lives clumsily, lazily, but it seems that behind laziness lies a huge force - an irresistible force, but still devoid of consciousness, which has not created clear desires and goals for itself... And the absence of consciousness in this half-asleep life casts shadows of sadness over its entire beautiful expanse.” The lack of clear consciousness is also characteristic of young Gordeev. Foma has a warm heart. He does not accept Mayakin’s everyday commandments; he is concerned about the humiliation and poverty of some and the unjust power of others.

But, like early heroes Gorky, he does not understand the causes of social inequality. Like the tramp rebels, he is socially blind, and this makes his anger less effective. The radical journalist Yezhov, who observes the growth of Gordeev’s spontaneous indignation against those in power, tells him: “Drop it! You can't do anything! There is no need for people like you... Your time, the time of the strong but stupid, has passed, brother! You're late..."

Thomas’s spontaneous, “internal” rebellion is colored in romantic tones, and this has given rise to a number of literary scholars to argue that Gorky created a romantic image. But Gorky set himself the task not to approve, but to debunk a romantic of this type. He was already an anachronism. Thomas is above his environment in the world moral values, but his intellect is low, and his dreams are chaotic.

The frenzied heart of young Gordeev longs to overthrow social evil, but he is incapable of social generalizations. His mind is asleep, and Gorky emphasizes this many times in the novel. The revealing speech on the ship is the highest expression of the angry rebellion of the prodigal son of the bourgeoisie and at the same time evidence of the archaic nature of his rebellion.

The hero, freedom-loving by nature, suffers defeat not only because those exposed take up arms against him, but primarily because he himself is not yet ripe for effective social protest. Gorky's novel was the last novel of the century about a lonely romantic hero as a hero who does not meet the requirements of the new time.

Gorky combines recognition of the futility of spontaneous rebellion with the search for carriers of effective social protest. He finds them in the proletarian environment. The workers depicted in the novel “Foma Gordeev” had not yet embarked on the path of revolutionary struggle, but the dispute between the journalist Yezhov and the worker Krasnoshchekov about the “spontaneous” and “conscious” beginning in the labor movement testified to the workers’ desire for such a struggle.

This will be said more clearly in the story about three comrades looking for their path in life (“Three”, 1900). One of them dies, choosing the path of non-resistance. The second one also dies, trying not to change, but only somewhat to soften the ugliness of the possessive world. And only the third, the worker Grachev, will find the true path, drawing closer to the revolutionary circle.

Gorky could not yet create a full-blooded image of a hero-worker - this hero had only just begun to manifest himself in life, but he captured the ever-deepening revolutionary spirit of social aspirations. A romantic call to heroism, which always has a place in life, was heard in “Old Woman Izergil.” The Song of the Falcon called for heroism. In 1899, the author strengthened its revolutionary sound by creating a new ending with the famous slogan:

We sing glory to the madness of the brave!

The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life!

In Foma Gordeev, Yezhov talks about an approaching storm. Soon many heroes of Russian literature will be gripped by a premonition of the storm. Chekhov's Tuzenbach (“Three Sisters”) will say: “The time has come, a huge force is approaching all of us, a healthy, strong storm is preparing, which is coming, is already close and will soon blow away laziness, indifference, prejudice towards work, rotten boredom from our society.”

In the prose poem “Lights” V. Korolenko will remind you that, no matter how dark life is, “there are still lights ahead!..”. Chekhov's play is fraught with a premonition of impending changes; in "Ogonki" hope for these changes is manifested. It was a response to the burning problems of the day, but both artists do not yet feel the immediate breath of the menacing storm.

This breath is embodied in the famous “Song of the Petrel” (1901), in which not only a call for revolution was heard, but also the confidence that it would win. This song gained even greater popularity than the Song of the Falcon, which glorified the revolutionary feat.

The image of the storm that Burevestnik called for went back simultaneously to two literary sources: to the tradition of freedom-loving poetry (Yazykov, Nekrasov, etc.) and to the socialist journalism of the turn of the century. New song It was widely used in revolutionary propaganda, it was read at student parties, and distributed in the form of leaflets.

Gorky began to be perceived as a singer of the revolution, as a writer calling for active revolutionary resistance. The revolutionary romanticism that permeates “The Petrel Song” was an expression of a new ideal, a new historical perspective.

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.

Analysis of an episode of the work "Foma Gordeev" - "The Death of Ignat"

Ignat Gordeev is a gifted and intelligent man from the people, greedy for life, “seized with an indomitable passion for work,” a former waterman, and now a rich man - the owner of three steamships and a dozen barges. “His life did not flow smoothly, along a straight channel, like other people like him, but every now and then, rebelliously boiling, rushed out of the rut, away from profit, the main goal of existence.”

The image of Ignat Gordeev very clearly shows the type of merchant-robber, whom spiritual depravity pushes towards physical depravity, and the feeling of his vileness makes him repent hysterically. “Three souls lived in Ignat’s body”: profit, debauchery, repentance.

He belonged to people who internally protested against the order of this world, although they could not resist the emerging economic relations.

Some of last words Ignat Gordeev, his last parting words to his son: “Don’t rely on people... don’t expect much from them... We all live to take, not to give...” clearly illustrate his attitude to life. As this character lived his whole life, so he died. Everything he did, he did for himself and only for himself. Even his son, whom he was waiting for so much, was for him only something that he left behind, so that his goods would not be lost, would not leave him even after his death.

Thomas's father is Ignat Gordeev, a rather rich merchant. He created his fortune himself. Having left the working environment, Ignat managed to preserve some spiritual values that had long ago lost any meaning for other merchants. However, the thirst for accumulation took over, and Ignat began to spend all his energy on creating capital. “But, giving so much energy to this pursuit of the ruble, he was not greedy in the narrow sense of the concept and even, sometimes, revealed sincere indifference to his property.” Sometimes - “this usually happened in the spring, when everything on earth becomes so charming and beautiful and something reproachfully affectionate blows onto the soul from a clear sky - Ignat Gordeev seemed to feel that he was not the master of his body, but its low slave.” Then Ignat went on reckless sprees. On such days, “it seemed like he was furiously tearing at the chains that he had bound and carried around himself, tearing at them and being powerless to break them.” This protest soon ended, and the thirst for money took over. Such impulses did not bring anything new to Ignat’s soul, and nothing changed in his life.

Of course, despite the brevity of the episode, the scene of Ignat’s death is an extremely important and striking part of the work.

The death of his father greatly influenced the life of the main character, Foma Gordeev, changed its usual course, and, in addition, it was the description of death that once again emphasized the character of Ignat Gordeev himself, and the events that developed after it showed the character of his son.

Ignat passes on his rebellious spirit to his son, and in him it develops much more strongly. In his childhood, when Aunt Anfisa reads fairy tales to him, robbers become Foma’s favorite heroes; he even counts his father among them as a child. Having become a little older, Thomas naturally stops believing in fairy tales, but his favorite pastimes are “robber raids” into neighbors’ orchards for apples, in which “he puts his heart into more than all other adventures and games.” But life gradually takes its toll, and reality bursts into beautiful world childhood. And she bursts in very rudely: his father is dying. After this, life begins to “tug at him from all sides, not allowing him to concentrate on his thoughts.” He remains alone: he did not trust anyone as much as his father, even Mayakin, although in words he could not disagree with him, in his soul he opposed almost everything that he said. And now there was simply no one to guide him. He is surrounded mostly by people who are either weak, broken by life, or dishonest, or mean and cowardly. There is no one among them who could show Thomas his “path,” although among them there are those whose fate is very similar to the fate of Thomas. This is Lyubov Mayakina, his godsister, and his school friend Yezhov. Lyubov tried to find the meaning of life in books, but she read them randomly and superficially; as a result, her own concepts were blurred, and she did not have new ones, as such. Yezhov had a slightly different situation: he received a good education, became a feuilletot writer, but life has battered him so much that he does not have the strength to move on, and he is no longer interested in almost anyone except himself. As a result, he, too, cannot help Foma.

The death of Father Thomas was a kind of turning point in the story, a transition for the main character to a new stage in his life, and this is one of the main reasons for the importance of this scene.

In my opinion, Ignat Gordeev is far from the last of the characters in the work. This is a typical hero, through the description of whose life, partly by contrasting it with the lives of other merchants, Gorky was able to show the mores and habits of his contemporary culture. In addition, the description of the life of Ignat Gordeev helps to further understand the character and feelings of Thomas himself.

At the turn of the century, in 1899, Gorky published his novel Foma Gardeev. This is a broad, meaningful picture of modernity, which tells the story of the growing strength of the Russian bourgeoisie. The writer broadly and vividly depicts representatives of the entrepreneurial species. He introduces us to merchants of the patriarchal type, big tycoons, such as Ananiy Shchurov. Once this “cunning, old devil” was a counterfeiter and a murderer, now he has become a timber merchant and a steamship operator, having accumulated substantial capital from robberies and deceptions, and he feels like a ruler. He does not accept anything new, the spread of machines, and hates all kinds of freedoms. According to Mayakin, he looks like a cunning and insidious fox: “...He will lift his eyes to heaven, and he will put his paw in your bosom and pull out your wallet...” Next to him is the smart, strong-willed Ignat Gardeev, a former waterman, and now the owner of three steamships and ten barges He is obsessed with a passion for profit, is distinguished by enormous vital energy with which he rushes about trade affairs, catching gold, but Ignat knew the hard work of barge haulers, he comes from the people, he has a thirst for activity. He has an uncontrollable thirst for life. And most importantly, his soul boils up rebelliously and sometimes turns away from profit. And then he begins to drink and womanize, throwing away his wealth, be it a steamship, a barge or money. A striking figure is Yakov Mayakin, who believes that the value of every person is determined by cash capital. Mayakin considers merchants to be the first force in the state; he is very smart, calculating and cynical. He divides people into masters and into a dumb mass - simple bricks, building material in the hands of the masters. The young generation of merchants is also shown in the novel. Taras and Lyubov Mayakin and African Smolin belong to it. They must inherit Jacob's work and ideas at a new stage. But they only outwardly differ from their fathers in education and European culture. But Taras Mayakin said goodbye to the dreams of his youth and is the owner of a ship production facility in Siberia. And nothing progressive can be expected from Afrikan Smolin, a “swindler of the first degree”. But Gorky set the task of showing a person looking for a job within his strength and wide scope for a free and honest life. Such a person is Foma Gardeev. He inherited a lot from his silent, withdrawn mother, who was acutely aware of falsehood. He inherited his violence and uncontrollability from his father. The nanny introduced the boy to the world of wonderful fairy tales and legends. Communication with sailors also affected him. And so those around him begin to notice something not their own in Foma, “after all, you are terribly unlike a merchant,” notes Lyuba. “There is something special about you,” says Sophia. This is something that scares Ignat terribly. But reality took its toll. Yakov Mayakin inspired him: “...either bite everyone or lie in the dirt.” Looking at Foma, the captain of the Diligent remarked: “... a puppy of a good breed, a good dog from the very first hunt.” But Foma experiences dissatisfaction with himself and a tendency to riot. A life built on deception and greed plunge him into despair; he sees no way out of the impasse. Thoughts of pure love were destroyed when he lost faith in Sophia Medynskaya. He experiences delight only during the raising of the sunken barge. “It’s stuffy for me,” Foma exclaims. “Is this really life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that’s why it hurts because it’s not reconciled!” Thomas becomes a prodigal son in his midst. Finding himself on the ship Ilya Muromets, surrounded by eminent merchants, he feels the immensity of the claims and begins to rebel, he utters words of disgust: “You have not made life - a prison ...” he is defeated, ties with the merchants are severed. Thomas is tied up and declared crazy. But one can feel his triumph in the words: “You can’t tie the truth, you’re lying!” The tragedy of Foma Gardeev is that he did not want to live according to wolf laws, he believed that joyful, honest work. And according to Yezhov, “the future belongs to people of honest labor.” Here is Anatoly Savvich Shchurov, a major timber merchant, one of the tycoons of the merchant world, about whom Mayakin says: “The cunning old devil... The reverend fox... will raise his eyes to heaven, and put his paw in your bosom and pull out your wallet... .. Be careful!..” But Yakov Mayakin himself is not inferior to anyone in cunning. This is a kind of ideologist of the merchants, a “brain man,” as the merchants called him. He teaches his godson Thomas his “philosophy”: “The merchant in the state is the first power, because with him are millions!” Therefore, he says, nobles and officials should step aside and give merchants room to use their strength and invest capital. Anatoly Shchurov is a representative of the old, wild, patriarchal merchant class. He is against innovation, against machines that make life easier, against freedom. “From freedom a man perishes!” - he prophesies angrily. Yakov Mayakin is also a representative of the old merchant class, but he knows how to adapt to any conditions. His son Taras and son-in-law Afrikan Smolin continue the work of their fathers, giving it a European gloss, acting more prudently, more soberly. They are eager for power and seek to transform industry in a European manner. But already in the older generation, among those who founded the fortune, there were people who internally protested against the order of this world, although they could not resist the emerging economic relations. This is Ignat Gordeev - a gifted and intelligent man from the people, greedy for life, “seized with an indomitable passion for work,” a former waterman, and now a rich man - the owner of three steamships and a dozen barges. “His life did not flow smoothly, along a straight channel, like other people like him, but every now and then, rebelliously boiling, rushed out of the rut, away from profit, the main goal of existence.” The world of possessive relationships is a “prison” for him: “...It’s stuffy for me... After all, is this really life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that’s why it hurts because it can’t be tolerated!” “You didn’t create life - a prison... You didn’t create order - you forged chains for a person... - Thomas says to the merchants. - It’s stuffy, cramped, there’s nowhere for a living soul to turn... A person is dying!.. You’re not building life - you’ve made a cesspool! You have created dirt and stuffiness with your deeds... You have ruined life! You’ve made everything difficult... you’re suffocating... you’re making me feel suffocated!” Thomas is “a healthy person who wants freedom of life, who is cramped within the framework of modernity.” He stubbornly “breaks out” from the world of his masters, and in this Gorky sees an indicator of the instability of modern life, an indicator that the time will come to change it. Thomas does not fully understand the structure of life, does not know the ways and methods of changing it, is far from the advanced intelligentsia and people, does not find a common language with them, although in his soul he is drawn to them. He thinks a lot about life, but he has no desire for knowledge and books (“...let the hungry study, I don’t need it...”); the society of smart and educated people scares away Thomas. He does not feel the desire to have friends. The world of property, which Thomas rejects, the merchant's way of life left their mark on him; he early learned “the condescending pity of the well-fed for the hungry.” At the end of the story, Thomas is defeated and humiliated; Mayakin's world triumphs over the rebel. Victory over a weak and confused person, but not over the reader, to whom Alexey Maksimovich Gorky revealed all the ugliness of the kingdom of the Shchurovs and Mayakins. Vividly, with irreconcilable hatred, he depicts the bitter world of the “masters of life”, profit, dooming millions of people to poverty, hunger and lawlessness. But this world is already splitting from the inside; it is not monolithic, as its inhabitants would like. In the novel “Foma Gordeev,” Gorky shows the vices of society that are destroying the “master” class from within. This system is doomed, but it is still trying to maintain its former power and authority, clinging to every opportunity, neglecting all human principles. What is the reason for the degeneration of the “master” class? Gorky examines this problem in detail and shows it using the example of the Gordeev family. Ignat Gordeev is the founder of the business. He started as a water-handler at the stock exchange of the rich man Zaev, and at the age of forty became the owner of three steamships. This is a powerful and controversial personality. It was as if three people coexisted in him at once: a frantic and greedy worker for any task; a “naughty” reveler and sinner begging for God’s forgiveness. Ignat is able to calmly watch the destruction of his barges during the ice drift, throw a huge sum at the construction of a lodging house, go on a spree and drink away a huge amount of money. He is not greedy for them, reasoning philosophically: “The Volga gave, and it also took away.” He understands that “business is a living and strong beast, it needs to be managed skillfully.” Ignat is the owner who builds the business. The long-awaited heir, Thomas, grows withdrawn and taciturn. Ignat sees in him a lot of strange, unnecessary and superfluous things for the “master of life.” Thomas does not understand the benefits of teaching, does not want to read books, and grows up as a favorite of Ignat and Uvalny. The premature death of his father stunned Foma, completely confused him and led him astray. Godfather Mayakin’s speeches about the value of money do not inspire confidence in him. It’s scary and hard for a young man to live. He sees no reliable support. Money is like a burden for him. He is ready to spend them aimlessly and meaninglessly. Mayakin says about him: “The man crashed.” There is no “core” or support in it. Thomas stands “against everyone... against falsehood.” His protest is spontaneous, destructive, primarily for Thomas himself. He fights and brawls, breaks his own and other people’s barges; through his fault, innocent people working for him are killed and maimed. Gorky shows that this protest does not bring any positive result, since there is no visible goal behind the brute and dark power of Thomas. He doesn't know what he wants, and that's the worst thing. Captain Efim says about him: “And it’s not the master of the matter, but a fierce enemy.” The “master class” is surprisingly unanimous when it is threatened with trouble from the outside. Defending Ignat Gordeev’s capital, his friend’s life’s work, Mayakin drives his son to “madness.” No one in this world is given the right to live independently. Money rules here. They are the God of this society. For their sake, these people - the “pillars of society” - will commit any crime. Foma turned out to be “superfluous” and was thrown out of the “society of businessmen” without any regret. Gorky showed in the novel that protest, even the most sincere and ardent, becomes meaningless if there is no knowledge, real goals and a clear idea of what you want to achieve behind it. Reading the work leaves a bitter feeling of a wasted young life, although you latently understand that thanks to such “madmen” this seemingly unshakable system was shaken and fell.

Next to him is the smart, strong-willed Ignat Gardeev, a former waterman, and now the owner of three steamships and a dozen barges. He is obsessed with a passion for profit, is distinguished by enormous vital energy with which he rushes about trade affairs, catching gold, but Ignat knew the hard work of barge haulers, he comes from the people, he has a thirst for activity. He has an uncontrollable thirst for life. And most importantly, his soul boils up rebelliously and sometimes turns away from profit. And then he begins to drink and womanize, throwing away his wealth, be it a steamship, a barge or money.

A striking figure is Yakov Mayakin, who believes that the value of every person is determined by cash capital. Mayakin considers merchants to be the first force in the state; he is very smart, calculating and cynical. He divides people into masters and into a dumb mass - simple bricks, building material in the hands of the masters.
The young generation of merchants is also shown in the novel. Taras and Lyubov Mayakin and African Smolin belong to it. They must inherit Jacob's work and ideas at a new stage. But they only outwardly differ from their fathers in education and European culture. But Taras Mayakin said goodbye to the dreams of his youth and is the owner of a ship production facility in Siberia. And nothing progressive can be expected from Afrikan Smolin, a “swindler of the first degree”.

But Gorky set the task of showing a person looking for a job within his strength and wide scope for a free and honest life. Such a person is Foma Gardeev. He inherited a lot from his silent, withdrawn mother, who was acutely aware of falsehood. He inherited his violence and uncontrollability from his father. The nanny introduced the boy to the world of wonderful fairy tales and legends. Communication with sailors also affected him. And so those around him begin to notice something not their own in Foma, “after all, you are terribly unlike a merchant,” notes Lyuba. “There is something special about you,” says Sophia. This is something that scares Ignat terribly. But reality took its toll. Yakov Mayakin inspired him: “...either bite everyone or lie in the dirt.” Looking at Foma, the captain of the Diligent remarked: “... a puppy of a good breed, a good dog from the very first hunt.” But Foma experiences dissatisfaction with himself and a tendency to riot. A life built on deception and greed plunge him into despair; he sees no way out of the impasse. Thoughts of pure love were destroyed when he lost faith in Sophia Medynskaya. He experiences delight only during the raising of the sunken barge. “It’s stuffy for me,” Foma exclaims. “Is this really life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that’s why it hurts because it’s not reconciled!” Thomas becomes a prodigal son in his midst. Finding himself on the ship Ilya Muromets, surrounded by eminent merchants, he feels the immensity of the claims and begins to rebel, he utters words of disgust: “You have not made life - a prison ...” he is defeated, ties with the merchants are severed.
Thomas is tied up and declared crazy. But one can feel his triumph in the words: “You can’t tie the truth, you’re lying!” The tragedy of Foma Gardeev is that he did not want to live according to wolf laws, he believed that joyful, honest work. And according to Yezhov, “the future belongs to people of honest labor.”

But already in the older generation, among those who founded the fortune, there were people who internally protested against the order of this world, although they could not resist the emerging economic relations. This is Ignat Gordeev - a gifted and intelligent man from the people, greedy for life, “seized with an indomitable passion for work,” a former waterman, and now a rich man - the owner of three steamships and a dozen barges. “His life did not flow smoothly, along a straight channel, like other people like him, but every now and then, rebelliously boiling, rushed out of the rut, away from profit, the main goal of existence.”

The world of possessive relations is a “prison” for him:

“...It’s stuffy for me... After all, is this life? Is this how they live? My soul hurts! And that’s why it hurts because it’s not reconciled!” “You didn’t create life - a prison... You didn’t create order - you forged chains for a person... - Thomas says to the merchants.
- It’s stuffy, cramped, there’s nowhere for a living soul to turn... A man is dying!.. You are not life
build - you've made a cesspool! You have created filth and stuffiness with your deeds... You
ruined life! You’ve made everything difficult... you’re suffocating... you’re making me feel suffocated!”

Thomas is “a healthy person who wants freedom of life, who is cramped within the framework of modernity.” He stubbornly “breaks out” from the world of his masters, and in this Gorky sees an indicator of the instability of modern life, an indicator that the time for it will come.

change. Thomas does not fully understand the structure of life, does not know the ways and methods

her changes, far from the progressive intelligentsia and people, does not find a common language with them, although in her soul she is drawn to them. He thinks a lot about life, but he has no desire for knowledge and books (“...let the hungry study, I don’t need it...”), the society of smart and
educated people are scared away by Thomas. He does not feel the desire to have friends. World
property, which Thomas rejects, the merchant's way of life imposed on him
your seal; he early learned “the condescending pity of the well-fed for the hungry.” At the end
in the story Thomas is defeated and humiliated; Mayakin's world triumphs over the rebel. Victory over a weak and confused person, but not over the reader, to whom Alexey Maksimovich Gorky revealed all the ugliness of the kingdom of the Shchurovs and Mayakins.

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