The protagonist of the novel is the mother. Pavel Vlasov (Mother Gorky). Other writings on this work

Composition

Gorky's novel is called "Mother", and this already suggests that Nilovna is, along with Pavel, his central character. If “Mother” is in many ways a work about the painful process of getting rid of slavish feelings of humility and fear in people, about the complex process of turning a person from a victim into a fighter, then Nilovna is the most striking and convincing example in this regard. Nilovna's path to the new is complex and contradictory. It was not so easy for a man, especially for a woman who experienced a particularly heavy oppression, who lived most of her life in fear and humility, to understand the truth of new people, it was not so easy to free herself from the old. The image of Nilovna shows a complex interweaving of conflicting feelings and aspirations. Almost the main role, especially in the first part of the novel, is played by overcoming old ideas - faith in God, disbelief in people and fear of them. For the past taught her that people hate each other, in any case - they should hate, according to the laws of the proprietary world. Fear of people has become a habitual feeling for her. And only other people - not the same as the mother had known until now - were able to instill in her other feelings, a different faith.

Recognizing Pavel's comrades, Nilovna thought about what they were saying, "and got used to agreeing with their thoughts." But these are only the first steps on a new, unbeaten path. Agreeing, she still "deep down did not believe that they could rebuild life in a new way and that they had the strength to attract the working people to their fire." But then she saw how worried the authorities were about the leaflets distributed by Pavel and his friends, and pride for him was added to the mother's fear for the fate of her son. And it's not just maternal feelings.

Listening to Pavel's speech at the rally about the "bog penny", observing the respectful attitude towards him from the workers, the mother gradually began to get used to the idea that these brave people able to rally the working people around them. And again, Nilovna’s words to Pavel, depressed by failure, were not a simple maternal consolation: “Today they didn’t understand - tomorrow they will understand.”

After Pavel's arrest, while delivering leaflets to the factory, Nilovna saw with what greed the workers read the ardent word of truth. She hears more and more from ordinary people the words that once frightened her - "rebellion", "socialists", "politics", and her faith in revolutionaries grew stronger, moreover, she merged with faith in the people. At the same time, having believed in the people and their leaders, Nilovna finally believed in the possibility of the victory of the revolution. This discovery transformed her.

And now, at the May Day demonstration, she is next to her son. The writer fixes his attention on a very important visual detail: is the mother looking intently? on Paul and the banner over him, proudly says: “The one who carries the banner is my son!” It seems that at this moment she sees nothing - only the banner of the revolution and next to him - her son. And after the demonstration was dispersed, Nilovna picks up a fragment of a staff with a patch of a red banner and takes it away from the battlefield. And the people, "obeying a vague force that pulled them after their mother, slowly followed her." In this symbolic scene, which concludes the first part of the novel, the mother appears as a comrade-in-arms of the revolutionaries, who raised a banner that had been dropped in battle.

The division of the novel into two parts is largely due to Nilovna's spiritual growth, and this does not contradict what was said above: after all, the renewal of the whole people by the revolution is revealed in the image of the mother. If at the end of the first part Nilovna still believes in Christ, then already in the first chapter of the second part Gorky talks about the mother's symbolic dream, which opened her eyes to the priests and the church. The priest in Nilovna's dream appeared as a guardian of the old order, she saw him next to the soldiers who pointed their bayonets at her. And when she woke up, for the first time in her life she did not pray. well conveyed psychological condition a woman who was freed not from a simple, but from a spiritual burden: "there was an empty heart." If Gorky had said - "easy", it would have been false, because it is not easy for Pelageya Nilovna to part with religion, and therefore she felt emptiness.

As you can see, the spiritual turning point did not happen soon, the process of overcoming the old was long and difficult, but from that moment Nilovna finally connected her fate with Paul's associates. It is directly included in the revolutionary struggle, through it the connection with the countryside is established. From that ‘; the timid, frightened woman, who even walked sideways, as Nilovna is shown at the beginning of the novel, did not leave a trace. The apotheosis of the revolutionary mother was her extremely laconic, passionate speech at the station during the arrest - an appeal to the people to unite for a decisive battle with tsarism.

The image of Nilovna is Gorky's great success. It can be said without exaggeration that all world literature has not even made an attempt to show such a colossal spiritual growth of a simple woman. Only after the Gorky novel did we see something similar in M. Andersen-Nekse, A. Zegers, J. Amado and other writers. Gorky saw such a woman in the midst of the people and revealed her character as a symbol of the resurrection of the masses. It was not so easy to notice such people among women, all the more so it was not easy to show Nilovna as a typical phenomenon. Even the Bolshevik critic V. Borovsky questioned not only Nilovna's revolutionary nature, but also the very existence of such mothers, discovering in his view of Gorky's novel an understanding of the typical as mass-like, formed. (Note that in an article about Bunin (1911), thinking about the hero of The Village, Tikhon Krasov, Borovsky correctly interpreted the problem of artistic generalization). In the article “Maxim Gorky” (1910), the critic wrote: “The revival of Nilovna and all her activities are determined entirely and exclusively by love for her son.” On this basis, Borovsky refuses to consider Nilovna a revolutionary, considering her only as a mother, and this explains even the failure (!?) of the novel: "... the focus is transferred from real direct figures to a mediocre figure"

Indeed, Nilovna entered the fight out of love for her son. This was the first incentive. But soon the cause of Paul and his comrades, the cause of the whole people, becomes the most important for her. Sometimes the first impulse to revolutionary activity The Nilovnys consider the arrest of their son. However, we have already seen that even before the arrest of Pavel, she becomes his assistant, even before the arrest, she saw his truth. Nilovna joins the “case” directly as a fighter who replaced the one who was out of action, although she entered this path with timidity and uncertainty, which is natural for a beginner, especially a woman.

Gorky in his works often resorts to the use of leitmotifs. In revealing the spiritual world of Nilovna, this technique is used in a particularly interesting way. The writer's appeal to the same word, the description of the same feeling of the mother on different stages her path helps to show the inner movement of character, since the feeling acquires new content, the word is filled with new meaning.

One of the leitmotifs in the image of Nilovna is the motive of fear and its overcoming. And look closely - what happens to a timid woman as she joins her son in the business. At first, she was afraid of everything, “she lived in fear all her life”, her usual state was “anxious expectation of beatings”, therefore she was always tense, moving somehow sideways ... And now - the first new impulse. The mother learns that Pavel joined the fight: “She straightened up, alerted, expecting something important,” and “she became scared - for her son.” But then a sense of pride joins the feeling of fear. And soon the feeling of fear acquires new content - the writer increasingly uses the word "anxiety".

So, fear for the son is transformed into anxiety for the son, for his comrades, for the common cause. Fear of enemies is replaced by a feeling of contempt for them. The feelings of the mother are especially well conveyed in the court scene. In Pavel and his party comrades, Nilovna saw true life, spiritual health. Those who judged are perceived by her as dead, and she feels disgust for them. It is after the trial that she makes an important result for herself: “Now it’s not scary ...”

Other writings on this work

Composition

The heroes of this novel are representatives of a new historical force - the working class, which has entered the decisive phase of the struggle against the old world in the name of creating a socialist society. "Mother" is a novel about the resurrection of the human soul, seemingly crushed tightly by an unjust system, the squalor of the surrounding life. It would be possible to reveal this topic especially widely and convincingly using the example of such a person as Nilovna. This is a woman on whom her husband takes out his countless insults, and besides, she is a mother who lives in eternal anxiety for her son.

Although she is only forty years old, she already feels like an old woman. I felt old early, having not really experienced any joys in childhood, nor bright moments in my youth, not feeling the welcome, the grace of life at all. Wisdom comes to her, in essence, after forty years, when for the first time the meaning of human existence, her own destiny, the beauty of her native land are revealed to her.

In one form or another, many heroes of the novel experience such a spiritual resurrection. “The person needs to be updated,” says Rybin. If dirt appears from above, it can be washed off, but how can a person be cleansed from the inside? And it turns out that the struggle for justice is able to purify and renew the souls of people. The iron man, Pavel Vlasov, is gradually freed from excessive severity and from the fear of giving vent to his feelings, especially the feeling of love; his friend Andrei Nakhodka - on the contrary, from excessive softness; the son of thieves Vyesovshchikov from distrust of people, from the conviction that they are all enemies to each other; connected with its roots with the peasant masses Rybin - from distrust of the intelligentsia and ignoring culture, from a look at everyone educated people like gentlemen-whitehands.
And everything that happens in the souls of the heroes surrounding Nilovna, of course, affects her soul, but the understanding of many ordinary things is given to her with particular difficulty. From an early age, she is accustomed to not trusting people, to be afraid of any of their manifestations, to hide her thoughts and feelings from them.

She also teaches this to her son, seeing that he entered into an argument with the life familiar to everyone: “I ask only one thing - do not talk to people without fear! You need to be afraid of people - everyone hates each other! Then Nilovna admits: “I lived in fear all my life, my whole soul was overgrown with fear!” Many times Nilovna was gripped by sticky fear for every reason, but he was more and more drowned out by hatred of enemies and awareness of the lofty goals of the struggle.

This is, perhaps, even a whole poem about the fight against fear and victory over it, about how a person with a resurrected soul gains fearlessness, about the second - spiritual - birth of a person who has entered the struggle for the renewal of the world.

Other writings on this work

Neither in the work of Gorky himself before 1905, nor in the work of any other Russian or foreign writer there has never been such a penetrating depiction of the process of renewal of the soul, such a subtle disclosure of all the nuances of the formation of a new revolutionary consciousness, which we find in the novel “Mother”.

The foregoing applies primarily to the image of Nilovna. She is the main main character novel. The decisive importance of this image in the structure of the book can be seen already from its title.

The most remarkable thing in the history of Nilovna seems to be

harmonious combination of the theme of the mother's heart with the theme of social and political.

A kind of psychological chronicle unfolds before us.

And how many spiritual nuances are imprinted in it! The quiet and submissive sadness of a woman downtrodden by her degraded, feral husband; the same submissive and painful sadness caused by the fact that the young son seemed to have moved along his father's - wild and inhuman - path; the first joys in her life, experienced by her, when her son managed to overcome the cheap temptations of drunken and wild entertainments; then a new anxiety of the mother's heart at the sight of the fact that the son "concentrated and stubbornly

floats somewhere away from the dark stream of life”… The author is not in a hurry. He knows that there are no instant renewals of the soul, And before us passes day by day in the life of a mother; we observe both her doubts and the estrangement from her son and his friends that arose in separate moments - and we observe how gradually formed in her spiritual world new moods and concepts. And how complex, how rich her spiritual world turns out to be!

In Gorky's novel, the eternal acquires a new meaning and a new sharpness, for it is shown in the most complex dramatic social context; and the ideological searches and insights of a woman late XIX- the beginnings of the 20th century become quiveringly alive, because they are permeated with the eternal light of maternal feelings.

The beginning of a new historical era and a new literary era was also announced to the world by the image of Pavel Vlasov, not as saturated with psychological nuances as the image of the Mother, but also charming, monumental, full of deep meaning. This was the first image in world literature of the political leader of the workers, carrying the ideas of scientific socialism to the masses, organizing the masses for a living, practical, revolutionary cause.

The image of Paul, like the image of the Mother, is drawn both in soberly realistic and in elevated romantic tones. These colors are suggested to the writer by life itself. The revolutionary struggle of the working class demanded a scientific comprehension of social reality, a strict consideration of all its factors, and it also demanded that spiritual upsurge, that enthusiasm, without which victory would have been impossible. Therefore, Pavel Vlasov is shown as a sober analyst, as a highly restrained person, reaching “monastic severity” in understanding his duty, and he is also shown in dramatic moments of his life, when he wanted to “throw people his heart, lit by the fire of a dream of truth.” ". Reading such lines, we remember Danko. But if the hero of the legend was tragically lonely, then the hero of the novel is strong in his ever-strengthening connection with the work collective, with the progressive intelligentsia. The era of historical creativity of the broadest sections of the working people - workers and peasants, has come, an era that has put forward a completely new type of hero. And this is beautifully shown in the novel.

Gorky's innovation also manifested itself in revealing the beneficial changes that the socialist ideal brought to family relations. We see how the friendship of Pelageya Vlasova and Pavel Vlasov arises and develops, a friendship that was born not only of maternal love and filial love, but also of joint participation in a great historical cause. The most complex dialectic of the relationship between these two remarkable people is very subtly and penetratingly revealed by Gorky. Pavel has a strong spiritual influence on Nilovna. Communication with her son reopens her eyes to the world. However, she also affects her son. And her influence, as Gorky shows with the help of subtle psychological and worldly nuances, was no less significant. Maybe even more significant! Communication with the Mother was for the stern, at first somewhat straightforward and harsh Pavel, a school of cordial kindness, modesty and tact. He became softer towards close people, his soul became more flexible, sensitive and wise. He achieved through communion with the Mother that high humanity, without which a true revolutionary is inconceivable.

Sources:

Gorky M. Selected / Foreword. N. N. Zhegalova; Il. B. A. Dekhtereva.- M.: Det. lit., 1985.- 686 p., ill., 9 sheets. illus. Abstract: The volume includes selected works by M. Gorky: the stories “Childhood” and “In People”, the stories “Makar Chudra”, “Chelkash”, “Song of the Falcon”, “Once in the Autumn”, “Konovalov”, “ former people" and etc.


Other works on this topic:

1. Pavel (Vlasov Pavel Mikhailovich) is the son of the main character of the novel, a hereditary worker who became a professional revolutionary. The prototype of the character was the Sormovo worker P. Zalomov. In the same time...
2. A completely different image is the image of Pelageya Nilovna, Pavel's mother. In the first part of the novel, we see a downtrodden, oppressed woman who madly loves her unlike ...
3. Gorky wrote "Mother" in an exceptionally short time. The first drafts of the novel, made in 1903, disappeared during a search. Returning to work in July 1906...
4. The people depicted in the novel "Mother" are divided into two camps, completely hostile to each other. They stand on opposite sides barricades of the class struggle: on the one hand...
5. Gorky's later works were written in the genre of socialist realism. Now people are skeptical about the socialist past of our country, but novels like "Mother" show socialist revolutionaries with...
6. The novel is called "Mother". Thus, Gorky emphasizes the special importance for understanding the ideological meaning of the novel of the image of Pavel Vlasov's mother, Nilovna. On the example of her life, Gorky ...

For decades Soviet power and the time after its fall, we have long been accustomed to the fact that writing is available to almost everyone. All you need is one person, paper and pencil. Everyone has a little bit of literacy, and in the 21st century, almost everyone has a computer with a text editor at hand, kindly offering their services.

Has it always been like this? Of course not. Not always. If we look a little further (not far at all!), we will find exactly the opposite situation: uneducated multi-million masses of the population, exhausting work, almost complete lack of opportunities for creative realization of a person of low origin. We could have seen such a bleak historical landscape just over a hundred years ago. And for this reason, those nuggets are especially valuable who, despite the extremely difficult living conditions, managed to cultivate in their souls the ability to artistic creativity and save it.

In this context, we cannot help but turn to the man later called the founder of socialist realism, one of the most famous Russian prose writers in the world. Of course, this Maksim Gorky. And basically, the article will be devoted to his bright novel, about which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin deigned to express himself: "A very timely book."

So, Maxim Gorky, "Mother" - summary, general analysis, characters, style and cultural significance.

Today, the schoolboy knows Gorky (we still hope that he does know the great writer!) mainly from the play "At the Bottom". To be honest, even for the author of the article, the harsh and gloomy Gorky style, in contrast to Chekhov's refinement and intelligence, looked really impressive. Other famous works Maxim Gorky from school curriculum: stories like "Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash" and "Makar Chudra".

In some cases, "Mother" also passes. In Soviet times, the same author, in principle, was remembered more often - and this is understandable. The first classic of proletarian literature. In this text, we will try to understand why the novel "Mother" was called the leader October revolution a "timely book", whether it is relevant today, and in general, what led to its appearance.

A little about Gorky's biography

Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov (this is the name of the writer at birth) built his literary talent and skill, thanks to hard intellectual work and the acquisition of the most versatile life experience. Having started life path V Nizhny Novgorod, the future writer from childhood worked here and there. He managed to be in the shoes of a baker, and in the position of a cook, and as a "boy" at the shop, worked as a watchman, fisherman, journalist and many others - and all in different parts of a huge country.

Maksim Gorky

Maxim Gorky received a very fragmentary education - a couple of years in a parochial school, a little more in a suburban elementary school, he even tried to go to university, but to no avail. Therefore, the young man was forced to acquire knowledge on his own, thanks to his own inquisitive mind. In many ways, this is why Gorky spent most of his life writing with big amount spelling and punctuation errors (the manuscript was corrected by his wife Ekaterina), but at the same time he was well acquainted with the works of the world's largest philosophers, thinkers and writers. In general, the literary genius was forged in the harsh conditions of cruel life tsarist Russia. A kind of "street" study makes Gorky related to the American classic Jack London (we'll talk about this separately somehow).

Even in his youth, Maxim Gorky was fond of socialist and Marxist ideas. Gradually, he becomes involved in the revolutionary movement. In 1905 he already famous writer and financially helps Marxist organizations. Actually, it is precisely for the political position of the writer that the tsarist law enforcement agencies begin to persecute him, and he is forced to emigrate. In the USA, in a foreign land, he wrote the novel "Mother", which embodied his civic position and sympathy for the labor movement in Russia.

Maxim Gorky, "Mother" - summary

In accordance with the Hobbibook guidelines, we do not disclose the plots of the literary works from the beginning to the end. We only try to interest, motivate the reader to pick up the book on their own and taste the charm of new knowledge and artistic impressions. Let's follow this rule now.

book mother

The plot of the book takes its start at the beginning of the 20th century in a small working settlement inhabited by proletarians working in a local factory, along with their families. Gorky immediately takes the bull by the horns and shows the family of the locksmith Mikhail Vlasov, with harsh conditions prevailing in it, in which the husband is an evil beast, the wife is an enslaved servant, and the teenage son is a witness to all this squalor.

But we do not have time to go through dozens of pages, as the author leads the father of the family to death - he dies of a hernia, and it seems that he is sent to another world like a homeless dog. Pavel Vlasov, a slightly matured son, at first even imitates the hated habits of his late father: he gets drunk, is rude, but internally feels that he does not want to live like a parent.

His mother, Pelageya Nilovna (who is mostly called only by her patronymic), tries to surround the guy with affection and care, especially since, apart from love, a woman has nothing more to give her son. Pavel, on the other hand, is endowed with natural curiosity, he is trying to find some right path in life, so as not to perish in the exhausting physical labor of a factory worker, comparable to the labor of cattle.

So one day Nilovna finds her son reading some books - as it turns out, forbidden. And the son simply explains to an illiterate woman: “They tell the truth about our working life… They are published quietly, secretly, and if they are found with me, they will put me in jail — in jail because I want to know the truth.” Of course, Nilovna cannot understand anything. She only feels intuitive anxiety for the fate of Paul, the need to protect him from trouble, therefore at first she tries to drive the rebel son away from his new oppositional interests.

But in the future, the woman will also meet Paul's new friends, his associates, with whom he participates in the revolutionary movement. She will see with her own eyes how new emancipatory ideas have captured Paul's dreams, how important they have become to him. Nilovna will have to see the difficult path of her son, full of hardships and righteous struggle, and at the same time she herself will fundamentally change her attitude to reality.

Of course, such a novel was simply necessary for Russia, which had just survived the unsuccessful revolution of 1905.

The country was plunging into a bloody abyss of reaction. Links, "Stolypin ties" and so on. The workers who hoped to turn the world upside down were crushed and oppressed. And "Mother" was something like a breath of fresh air.

Today, "Mother" is consigned to oblivion largely because of its acute political orientation. In the novel, Gorky draws the reader's attention to the existing capitalist exploitation, to the animal life to which workers are doomed by representatives ruling countries. But much more important is that the book of the Soviet classic has such artistic power that it can really begin the formation of class consciousness in those who open it. Maxim Gorky achieves a phenomenal power of influence thanks to an accurate, hitting right on target language.

Let us give as an example a description of a disgruntled crowd of proletarians gathered near the factory:

“Muffled by the heavy fuss of cars, the difficult sighs of steam and the rustle of wires, the voices merged into a noisy whirlwind. From everywhere people hurriedly ran, waving their arms, inflaming each other with hot, sharp words. Irritation, always drowsily hidden in tired breasts, woke up, demanded an outlet, triumphantly, flew through the air, spreading its dark wings more and more, embracing people more and more tightly, dragging them along, pushing them against each other, reborn into fiery malice. A cloud of soot and dust swayed over the crowd, sweat-drenched faces burned, the skin of the cheeks wept with black tears. Eyes sparkled on dark faces, teeth gleamed.

Majestic, isn't it? The author achieves no less expressiveness when he touches on unpleasant details:

“After dinner, he threw the dishes from the table to the floor if his wife did not have time to remove it in time, put a bottle of vodka in front of him and, leaning back against the wall, in a dull voice that made melancholy, howled a song, opening his mouth wide and closing his eyes. Mournful, ugly sounds tangled in his mustache, knocking bread crumbs off them, the locksmith straightened the hair of his beard and mustache with thick fingers and sang. The words of the song were somehow incomprehensible, stretched out, the melody was reminiscent of the winter howling of wolves.

It's a typical evening family life Pelageya Nilovna with Pavel's father, mechanic Mikhail Vlasov.

As for the speech of the heroes of "Mother", here Gorky follows a realistic rendering of the manner of conversation of the working class of that time - with its characteristic emotionality, imperfect literacy, rudeness. Unless, for obvious reasons, he avoids obscene vocabulary, but for this it is unlikely that anyone would think of condemning the writer.

So what is the relevance of the novel today? Maybe now the book is "timely"?

The Hobbibook editors suggest that the answer should be yes. Modern realities throw many challenges to a citizen, especially a young one. He has to survive in conditions of predatory capitalist competition with the active withering away of elements welfare state. The classes have not disappeared. The conflict of interests did not dissolve. This means that there is a class struggle. A doubting, searching person needs answers to his questions. And "Mother" is one of those works of art, which is capable of prompting appropriate reflections. Lead to a nascent understanding of one's own class interests.

In addition, the very history of Nilovna could be instructive for today's older generation. The heroine is initially of the opinion that one should not stick out, one should not be rude to the authorities, there is no need to seek justice - her heart is intimidated, morally subordinate to the established “correct” way of life. What if it's not so "correct" after all? What if trying to leave things as they are is detrimental to her child's personality? These are the questions the Mother has to face. Perhaps today's fathers and mothers should also think about it?

There are also three adaptations of the novel "Mother"

Maxim Gorky. The most famous, of course, is the production of Vsevolod Pudovkin from the era of silent films - this picture brought Pudovkin world fame. The plot of Pudovkin's "Mother" rather relatively follows the history of Gorky's work, and this to some extent benefits him, because. it is hard to imagine that in silent cinema it was possible to convey the complexity of the communication of characters from a literary source.

Subsequent screen versions appeared already in the era of sound cinema (in 1955 and 1989), but, from our subjective point of view, to artistic expressiveness the original failed to come close to any of these projects. Which only confirms the hypothesis that great books are extremely difficult to film adaptation - they initially have high level inner harmony, the chemistry of all contained elements.

History of the creation of the novel

The novel "Mother" is considered to be the first novel in the spirit of social realism. Later, this direction will dominate for 70 years in Russian literature. The novel "Mother" was written after the first Russian revolution, in 1906. The novel was first published in the United States, then subjected to great censorship, it was released in 1907 in Russia, and only after the 1917 revolution was the novel published in its original form.

The writing of the novel was facilitated by the origin of the writer and his early acquaintance with the revolutionaries. Gorky began working on the novel back in the United States, then he moved to Italy, where he finished work on the first edition of the novel. Work on this work began in 1901-1902, when Gorky had just begun to get closer to the communists.

The main characters of the work

The main characters of the novel:

• Vlasova Pelageya Nilovna - the main character of the novel, this image in the novel symbolizes Russia. Changes in the character of Pelageya Nilovna reflect changes in the people's consciousness.
• Vlasov Pavel Mikhailovich (Pavel) - the son of the main character, worked at a factory in a suburb, became interested in revolutionary ideas, and soon became a professional revolutionary.
• Andrei Onisimovich Nakhodka (Andrey - "crest") - revolutionary underground worker, adopted son of Nilovna and friend of Pavel Vlasov. His image is the image of a humane revolutionary principle.

The plot of the work

The plot of the novel describes the events in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The action of the work takes place in a working settlement. Workers with their families live in this settlement, their life is inextricably linked with the work of the factory. The workers spend all their time at the factory, in their free time their conversations are also focused on the factory, everyone drinks a lot, fights with each other. Main character novel - a young worker Pavel Vlasov does not want to put up with such a reality, he begins to live a different life. He often travels to the city and brings forbidden books from there, he wants to know the truth, so he reads them, knowing full well that if they are found, he will be arrested.

Soon, various people begin to gather in the Vlasovs' house, together they read those very forbidden books, talk about the hard lot of workers around the world, and sing songs.

After a while, leaflets appear at the factory. They tell about the strikes of workers in St. Petersburg and call on the workers to defend their rights. Pelageya Nilovna understands that this is the work of her son, she is both proud of him and afraid.

A search is underway in the Vlasovs' house, which did not give anything to the gendarmes, but they arrest one of Pavel's assistants, Andrei.

After some time at the factory, the management announces that a penny will be deducted from each ruble earned by the workers to drain the swamp around the factory. The workers are extremely dissatisfied with such an initiative. Pavel stands at the head of the protesters against the new tax, a spontaneous rally takes place at the factory. But the director orders the workers to start their work again, and they disperse. Pavel was left without support, he was very upset that the people did not believe him and did not follow him. After this incident, Pavel is also arrested.

In addition to Pavel, 48 more people were arrested. Pavel asks his mother to distribute leaflets at the factory. She agrees, gets a job as an assistant in the distribution of food for workers.

After some time, Pavel and Andrey are released, they begin to prepare for the May Day demonstration. Pavel wants to carry the banner in front of the whole column, he knows perfectly well that he will be arrested for this. And so it happened: soldiers advanced towards the demonstrators. Pavel, Andrei and other members of the party were arrested.

After their arrest, Pelageya Nilovna goes to the city to one and those who were present at the meetings in the Vlasovs' house, to Nikolai Ivanovich. She understands that her son and other workers are fighting for truth and justice. Thus begins her active underground work. She distributes leaflets, banned books, proclamations.

After some time, the trial of the demonstrators took place. All defendants are sent to the settlement. It was decided to print Paul's fiery speech. Pelageya Nilovna volunteered to take the leaflets to another city. Soon at the station, she realizes that she is being followed. They begin to accuse her of theft, she indignantly explains that she is carrying leaflets with a speech by her son, one of the political convicts. Not wanting the leaflets to disappear, she starts handing them out to the people she meets, but the gendarmes grab her.

The main theme and problems of the work

In the novel "Mother" M. Gorky reveals the essence of the first Russian revolution. This novel is unlike any other work of M. Gorky's predecessors or contemporaries. Before him, no writer had portrayed the working class in such a light.

Gorky saw working people as his main readers, for them he tried to convey his ideas as simply, easily and freely as possible. Gorky tried to describe in detail the stages of the revolutionary activities of Pelageya Nilovna and Pavel.

In this novel, Gorky used many facts from the life of the Sormovo revolutionary organization. The prototypes of the main characters were the Sormovo worker Bolshevik Pyotr Andreevich Zalomov and his mother Anna Kirillovna Zalomova.

The novel "Mother" is a complex process of eradicating slavish feelings of humility and fear in people, about the complex transformation of a person from a victim into a fighter. Nilovna is a prime example of such a rebirth.

Remark 1

The central theme of the novel is the evolution of the social and psychological makeup of the proletariat. The main problem that Gorky raises in this work is the spiritual renewal of a person in a revolutionary struggle. All the events and details of the novel point to a positive solution to this problem.

Some critics and literary critics see religious overtones in this novel by M. Gorky. G. Mitin, referring to historical and literary analogies, defined the genre of the novel as a fantastic novel-Gospel of the Mother. Revolutionary problems in the novel are on a par with religious ones.