The action of the play "Thunderstorm" takes place in the fictional town of Kalinov, which is collectively all provincial towns of that time.
There are not so many main characters in the play "Thunderstorm", each must be said separately.
Katerina is a young woman married without love, "in a strange direction", God-fearing and pious. In the parental home, Katerina grew up in love and care, prayed and enjoyed life. Marriage for her turned out to be a difficult test, which her meek soul opposes. But, despite outward timidity and humility, passions boil in Katerina's soul when she falls in love with a strange man.
Tikhon - Katerina's husband, a kind and gentle person, loves his wife, pities her, but, like all households, obeys his mother. He does not dare to go against the will of the "mother" throughout the play, as well as openly tell his wife about his love, since the mother forbids this, so as not to spoil his wife.
Kabanikha - the widow of the landowner Kabanov, mother of Tikhon, mother-in-law of Katerina. A despotic woman, in whose power the whole house is, no one dares to take a step without her knowledge, fearing a curse. According to one of the heroes of the play, Kudryash, Kabanikh - “a hypocrite, she gives to the poor, but eats homemade food.” It is she who tells Tikhon and Katerina how to build their family life in the best traditions of Domostroy.
Varvara is Tikhon's sister, an unmarried girl. Unlike her brother, she obeys her mother only for the sake of appearances, while she herself secretly runs on dates at night, inciting Katerina to do so. Its principle is that you can sin if no one sees, otherwise you will spend your whole life next to your mother.
The landowner Dikoy is an episodic character, but personifying the image of a “tyrant”, i.e. those in power who are sure that money gives the right to do whatever your heart desires.
Boris, Diky's nephew, who arrived in the hope of receiving his share of the inheritance, falls in love with Katerina, but cowardly runs away, leaving the woman he seduced.
In addition, Kudryash, Wild's clerk, is participating. Kuligin is a self-taught inventor, constantly trying to introduce something new into the life of a sleepy town, but is forced to ask Wild for money for inventions. The same, in turn, being a representative of the "fathers", is sure of the futility of Kuligin's undertakings.
All the names and surnames in the play are "speaking", they tell about the character of their "masters" better than any actions.
She herself vividly shows the confrontation between the "old" and "young". The former actively resist all sorts of innovations, complaining that young people have forgotten the orders of their ancestors and do not want to live "as expected." The latter, in turn, are trying to free themselves from the yoke of parental orders, they understand that life is moving forward, changing.
But not everyone decides to go against the parental will, someone - because of the fear of losing their inheritance. Someone - accustomed to obey their parents in everything.
Against the backdrop of flourishing tyranny and precepts of Domostroy, the Forbidden love Katerina and Boris. Young people are drawn to each other, but Katerina is married, and Boris depends on his uncle for everything.
The heavy atmosphere of the city of Kalinov, the pressure of the evil mother-in-law, the thunderstorm that has begun, force Katerina, tormented by remorse because of her betrayal of her husband, to confess everything in public. The boar rejoices - she turned out to be right in advising Tikhon to keep his wife "strict". Tikhon is afraid of his mother, but her advice to beat his wife so that she knows is unthinkable for him.
The explanation of Boris and Katerina further aggravates the situation of the unfortunate woman. Now she has to live away from her beloved, with her husband, who knows about her betrayal, with his mother, who will now definitely exhaust her daughter-in-law. Katerina's piety leads her to think that there is no more reason to live, the woman throws herself off a cliff into the river.
Only after losing the woman he loves does Tikhon realize how much she meant to him. Now he will have to live all his life with the understanding that his callousness and obedience to his tyrant mother led to such an ending. The last words of the play are the words of Tikhon, pronounced over the body of his dead wife: “Good for you, Katya! And why in the world did I stay to live and suffer!
Federal Agency for Education of the Russian Federation
Gymnasium No. 123
on literature
speech characteristic heroes in the drama of A.N. Ostrovsky
"Thunderstorm".
Work completed:
10th grade student "A"
Khomenko Evgenia Sergeevna
………………………………
Teacher:
Orekhova Olga Vasilievna
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Grade…………………….
Barnaul-2005
Introduction………………………………………………………
Chapter 1. Biography of A. N. Ostrovsky……………………..
Chapter 2
Chapter 3. Speech characteristics of Katerina………………..
Chapter 4
Conclusion……………………………………………………
List of used literature……………………….
Introduction
Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm" is the most significant work of the famous playwright. It was written during a period of social upsurge, when the foundations of serfdom were cracking, and a thunderstorm was really gathering in a stuffy atmosphere. Ostrovsky's play takes us to a merchant environment, where the house-building order was most stubbornly maintained. The inhabitants of a provincial town live a life closed and alien to public interests, in ignorance of what is going on in the world, in ignorance and indifference.
It is to this drama that we turn now. The problems that the author touches upon in it are very important for us. Ostrovsky raises the problem of a turning point in public life that occurred in the 50s, a change in social foundations.
After reading the novel, I set myself the goal of seeing the features of the speech characteristics of the characters and finding out how the speech of the characters helps to understand their character. After all, the image of a hero is created with the help of a portrait, with the help of artistic means, with the help of characterization of actions, speech characteristics. Seeing a person for the first time, by his speech, intonation, behavior, we can understand him inner world, some vital interests and, most importantly, his character. The speech characteristic is very important for a dramatic work, because it is through it that one can see the essence of a particular character.
In order to better understand the character of Katerina, Kabanikha and Dikoy, it is necessary to solve the following tasks.
I decided to start with the biography of Ostrovsky and the history of the creation of "Thunderstorm", in order to understand how the talent of the future master of the speech characteristics of the characters was honed, because the author very clearly shows the whole global difference between the positive and negative characters of his work. Then I will consider the speech characteristics of Katerina and make the same characterization of Diky and Boar. After all this, I will try to draw a definite conclusion about the speech characteristics of the characters and their role in the drama "Thunderstorm"
While working on the topic, I got acquainted with the articles by I. A. Goncharov “Review of the drama “Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky” and N. A. Dobrolyubov “Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”. Moreover, I studied the article by A.I. Revyakin "Features of Katerina's speech", where the main sources of Katerina's language are well shown. I found various material about the biography of Ostrovsky and the history of the creation of the drama in the textbook Russian literature of the 19th century by V. Yu. Lebedev.
To deal with theoretical concepts (hero, characterization, speech, author), I was helped by an encyclopedic dictionary of terms, published under the guidance of Yu. Boreev.
Despite the fact that many critical articles and responses of literary critics are devoted to Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm", the speech characteristics of the characters have not been fully studied, therefore it is of interest for research.
Chapter 1. Biography of A. N. Ostrovsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was born on March 31, 1823 in Zamoskvorechye, in the very center of Moscow, in the glorious cradle Russian history, about which everyone was talking about, even the names of Zamoskvoretsky streets.
Ostrovsky graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium and in 1840, at the request of his father, entered the law faculty of Moscow University. But studying at the university did not please him, a conflict arose with one of the professors, and at the end of the second year, Ostrovsky quit "due to domestic circumstances."
In 1843, his father appointed him to serve in the Moscow conscientious court. For the future playwright, this was an unexpected gift of fate. The court considered the complaints of fathers against unlucky sons, property and other domestic disputes. The judge delved deeply into the case, carefully listened to the disputing parties, and the scribe Ostrovsky kept records of cases. Plaintiffs and defendants in the course of the investigation uttered such things that are usually hidden and hidden from prying eyes. It was a real school of knowledge of the dramatic aspects of merchant life. In 1845, Ostrovsky moved to the Moscow Commercial Court as a clerical officer of the table "for cases of verbal violence." Here he encountered peasants, urban philistines, merchants, and petty nobility who were engaged in trade. Judged "according to conscience" of brothers and sisters arguing about the inheritance, insolvent debtors. A whole world of dramatic conflicts unfolded before us, all the discordant richness of the living Great Russian language sounded. I had to guess the character of a person by his speech warehouse, by the features of intonation. The talent of the future “auditory realist”, as Ostrovsky called himself, was brought up and honed - a playwright, a master of the speech characterization of characters in his plays.
Having worked for the Russian stage for almost forty years, Ostrovsky created a whole repertoire - about fifty plays. The works of Ostrovsky still remain on the stage. And after a hundred and fifty years it is not difficult to see the heroes of his plays nearby.
Ostrovsky died in 1886 in his beloved Trans-Volga estate Shchelykovo, which is in the dense forests of Kostroma: on the hilly banks of small winding rivers. For the most part, the life of the writer proceeded in these core places of Russia: where from a young age he could observe the original, still little affected by contemporary urban civilization, customs and mores, and hear the native Russian speech.
Chapter 2
The creation of "Thunderstorm" was preceded by an expedition of the playwright along the Upper Volga, undertaken on the instructions of the Moscow Ministry in 1856-1857. She revived and resurrected his youthful impressions in 1848, when in 1848 Ostrovsky first went with his family on an exciting journey to his father's homeland, to the Volga city of Kostroma and further, to the Shchelykovo estate acquired by his father. The result of this trip was Ostrovsky's diary, which reveals a lot in his perception of provincial Volga Russia.
For quite a long time, it was believed that Ostrovsky took the plot of The Thunderstorm from the life of the Kostroma merchants, that it was based on the Klykov case, which made a sensation in Kostroma at the end of 1859. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Kostroma residents pointed to the place of Katerina's murder - a gazebo at the end of a small boulevard, which in those years literally hung over the Volga. They also showed the house where she lived - next to the Church of the Assumption. And when the "Thunderstorm" was for the first time on the stage of the Kostroma Theater, the artists made up "under the Klykovs."
Kostroma local historians then thoroughly examined the Klykovo case in the archive and, with documents in their hands, came to the conclusion that it was this story that Ostrovsky used in his work on Thunderstorm. The coincidences were almost literal. A.P. Klykova was extradited at the age of sixteen to a gloomy, unsociable merchant family, consisting of old parents, a son and an unmarried daughter. The mistress of the house, severe and obstinate, depersonalized her husband and children with her despotism. She forced her young daughter-in-law to do any menial work, she provided her with requests to see her relatives.
At the time of the drama, Klykova was nineteen years old. In the past, she was brought up in love and in the hall of the soul in her, a doting grandmother, she was cheerful, lively, cheerful. Now she was unkind and a stranger in the family. Her young husband, Klykov, a carefree man, could not protect his wife from the harassment of his mother-in-law and treated her indifferently. The Klykovs had no children. And then another man stood in the way of the young woman, Maryin, who works in the post office. Began suspicions, scenes of jealousy. It ended with the fact that on November 10, 1859, the body of A.P. Klykova was found in the Volga. A long legal process began, which received wide publicity even outside the Kostroma province, and none of the Kostroma residents doubted that Ostrovsky had used the materials of this case in Groz.
Many decades passed before researchers established for sure that The Thunderstorm was written before the Kostroma merchant Klykova rushed into the Volga. Ostrovsky began working on The Thunderstorm in June-July 1859 and finished on October 9 of the same year. The play was first published in the January 1860 issue of The Library for Reading. The first performance of "Thunderstorm" on stage took place on November 16, 1859 at the Maly Theater, in the benefit performance of S. V. Vasiliev with L. P. Nikulina-Kositskaya in the role of Katerina. The version about the Kostroma source of the "Thunderstorm" turned out to be far-fetched. However, the very fact of an amazing coincidence speaks volumes: it testifies to the foresight of the national playwright, who caught the growing conflict between the old and the new in merchant life, a conflict in which Dobrolyubov saw “what is refreshing and encouraging” for a reason, and the famous theater figure S. A. Yuryev said: “Thunderstorm” was not written by Ostrovsky ... “Thunderstorm” was written by Volga.
Chapter 3
The main sources of Katerina's language are folk vernacular, folk oral poetry and ecclesiastical literature.
The deep connection of her language with folk vernacular is reflected in vocabulary, figurativeness, and syntax.
Her speech is full of verbal expressions, idioms of folk vernacular: “So that I don’t see either my father or my mother”; "did not have a soul"; "Calm my soul"; “how long to get into trouble”; "to be sin," in the sense of unhappiness. But these and similar phraseological units are generally understood, commonly used, clear. Only as an exception in her speech are morphologically incorrect formations: “you do not know my character”; "After this conversation, then."
The figurativeness of her language is manifested in the abundance of verbal and visual means, in particular comparisons. So, in her speech there are more than twenty comparisons, and all the other characters in the play, taken together, have a little more than this number. At the same time, her comparisons are of a widespread, folk character: “it’s like dove me”, “it’s like a dove is cooing”, “it’s like a mountain has fallen off my shoulders”, “it burns my hands, like coal”.
Katerina's speech often contains words and phrases, motifs and echoes of folk poetry.
Turning to Varvara, Katerina says: "Why don't people fly like birds? .." - etc.
Yearning for Boris, Katerina in the penultimate monologue says: “Why should I live now, well, why? I don’t need anything, nothing is nice to me, and the light of God is not nice!
Here there is phraseological turns folk vernacular and folk song character. So, for example, in the assembly folk songs, published by Sobolevsky, we read:
No way, no way it is impossible to live without a dear friend ...
I will remember, I will remember about the dear, the white light is not nice to the girl,
Not nice, not nice white light ... I'll go from the mountain to the dark forest ...
Going out on a date with Boris, Katerina exclaims: “Why did you come, my destroyer?” In a folk wedding ceremony, the bride greets the groom with the words: "Here comes my destroyer."
In the final monologue, Katerina says: “It’s better in the grave ... There is a grave under the tree ... how good ... The sun warms her, wets her with rain ... in the spring, grass grows on it, so soft ... birds will fly to the tree, they will sing, they will bring out children, flowers will bloom: yellow , red ones, blue ones ... ".
Here everything is from folk poetry: diminutive-suffixal vocabulary, phraseological turns, images.
For this part of the monologue in oral poetry, direct textile correspondences are also abundant. For example:
... They will cover with an oak board
Yes, they will be lowered into the grave
And covered with damp earth.
You are ant grass,
More scarlet flowers!
Along with folk vernacular and the arrangement of folk poetry in the language of Katerina, as already noted, ecclesiastical literature had a great influence.
“Our house,” she says, “was full of wanderers and pilgrims. And we’ll come from the church, sit down for some work ... and the wanderers will begin to tell where they were, what they saw, different lives, or they sing poems ”(d. 1, yavl. 7).
Possessing a relatively rich vocabulary, Katerina speaks freely, drawing on various and psychologically very deep comparisons. Her speech is flowing. So, such words and turns of the literary language are not alien to her, such as: a dream, thoughts, of course, as if all this happened in one second, something so unusual in me.
In the first monologue, Katerina talks about her dreams: “What dreams I had, Varenka, what dreams! Or golden temples, or some extraordinary gardens, and everyone sings invisible voices, and it smells of cypress, and mountains and trees, as if not the same as usual, but as they are written on the images.
These dreams, both in content and in the form of verbal expression, are undoubtedly inspired by spiritual verses.
Katerina's speech is original not only lexico-phraseologically, but also syntactically. It consists mainly of simple and compound sentences, with predicates at the end of the phrase: “So the time will pass before lunch. Here the old women would fall asleep and lie down, and I would walk in the garden… It was so good” (d. 1, yavl. 7).
Most often, as is typical for the syntax of folk speech, Katerina connects sentences through conjunctions a and yes. “And we’ll come from the church ... and the wanderers will begin to tell ... Otherwise it’s like I’m flying ... And what dreams I had.”
Katerina's floating speech sometimes takes on the character of a folk lament: “Oh, my misfortune, misfortune! (Crying) Where can I, poor thing, go? Who can I grab onto?"
Katerina's speech is deeply emotional, lyrically sincere, poetic. To give her speech emotional and poetic expressiveness, diminutive suffixes are also used, so inherent in folk speech (key, water, children, grave, rain, grass), and amplifying particles (“How did he feel sorry for me? What words did he say?” ), and interjections (“Oh, how I miss him!”).
Lyrical sincerity, poetry of Katerina's speech is given by epithets that come after defined words (golden temples, unusual gardens, with evil thoughts), and repetitions, so characteristic of the oral poetry of the people.
Ostrovsky reveals in Katerina's speech not only her passionate, tenderly poetic nature, but also strong-willed power. Willpower, Katerina's determination are set off by syntactic constructions of a sharply assertive or negative nature.
Chapter 4
Kabanikhi
In Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm", Dikoy and Kabanikh are representatives of the "Dark Kingdom". One gets the impression that Kalinov is fenced off from the rest of the world by the highest fence and lives some kind of special, closed life. Ostrovsky focused on the most important, showing the wretchedness, the savagery of the customs of the Russian patriarchal life, because all this life only stands on the usual, outdated laws, which, obviously, are completely ridiculous. The "Dark Kingdom" tenaciously clings to its old, well-established. This is standing in one place. And such a standing is possible if it is supported by people who have power and authority.
A more complete, in my opinion, idea of a person can be given by his speech, that is, the usual and specific expressions inherent only to this hero. We see how Wild, as if nothing had happened, just like that can offend a person. He does not put in anything not only those around him, but even his relatives and friends. His household live in constant fear of his wrath. Wild in every possible way mocks his nephew. It is enough to recall his words: “I told you once, I told you twice”; "Don't you dare meet me"; you will get everything! Is there enough space for you? Wherever you go, here you are. Pah you damned! Why are you standing like a pillar! Are you being told or not?" Wild frankly shows that he does not respect his nephew at all. He puts himself above everyone around him. And no one offers him the slightest resistance. He scolds everyone over whom he feels his power, but if someone scolds him himself, he will not be able to answer, then hold on, all at home! On them, the Wild will take all his anger.
Wild - a "significant person" in the city, a merchant. Here's how Shapkin says about him: For no reason will a person be cut off.
“The view is extraordinary! The beauty! The soul rejoices! ”- exclaims Kuligin, but against the background of this beautiful landscape, a bleak picture of life is drawn, which appears before us in The Thunderstorm. It is Kuligin who gives an accurate and clear description of the life, customs and customs that prevail in the city of Kalinov.
So, like Wild, Kabanikha is distinguished by selfish inclinations, she thinks only of herself. Residents of the city of Kalinov talk about Dikoy and Kabanikh very often, and this makes it possible to obtain rich material about them. In conversations with Kudryash, Shapkin calls Diky "a scolder", while Kudryash calls him a "shrill peasant". The boar calls Wild a "warrior". All this speaks of the grumpiness and nervousness of his character. Reviews about Kabanikh are also not very flattering. Kuligin calls her "a hypocrite" and says that she "clothes the poor, but completely ate her home." This characterizes the merchant from a bad side.
We are struck by their heartlessness in relation to people dependent on them, their unwillingness to part with money in settlements with workers. Recall what Dikoy says: “I was talking about a fast, about a great one, and then it’s not easy and slip a little man, he came for money, he carried firewood ... I sinned: I scolded, so scolded ... I almost nailed it.” All relationships between people, in their opinion, are built on wealth.
The boar is richer than the Wild Boar, and therefore she is the only person in the city with whom the Wild Boar must be polite. “Well, don’t open your throat very much! Find me cheaper! And I love you!"
Another feature that unites them is religiosity. But they perceive God, not as someone who forgives, but as someone who can punish them.
Kabanikha, like no other, reflects the whole commitment of this city to old traditions. (She teaches Katerina, Tikhon how to live in general and how to behave in a particular case.) Kabanova tries to seem kind, sincere, and most importantly an unhappy woman, tries to justify her actions with her age: “Mother is old, stupid; well, you young people, smart, should not exact from us fools. But these statements are more like irony than sincere confession. Kabanova considers herself the center of attention, she cannot imagine what will happen to the whole world after her death. The boar is blindly devoted to her old traditions to the point of absurdity, forcing all households to dance to her tune. She makes Tikhon say goodbye to his wife in the old way, causing laughter and a feeling of regret among those around him.
On the one hand, it seems that the Wild is rougher, stronger and, therefore, scarier. But, looking closer, we see that Wild is only capable of screaming and rampaging. She managed to subdue everyone, keeps everything under control, she even tries to manage people's relationships, which leads Katerina to death. The boar is cunning and smart, unlike the Wild Boar, and this makes her more scary. In the speech of Kabanikhi, hypocrisy and duality of speech are very clearly manifested. She talks to people very boldly and rudely, but at the same time, while communicating with him, she wants to seem kind, sensitive, sincere, and most importantly, an unhappy woman.
We can say that Dikoy is completely illiterate. He says to Boris: “Fail you! I don't want to talk to the Jesuit with you." Dikoy uses in his speech "with the Jesuit" instead of "with the Jesuit". So he also accompanies his speech with spitting, which finally shows his lack of culture. In general, throughout the drama, we see him sprinkle his speech with abuse. “What are you doing here! What the hell is the water one here! ”, Which shows him as an extremely rude and ill-mannered person.
Wild is rude and straightforward in his aggressiveness, he does things that sometimes cause bewilderment and surprise among others. He is able to offend and beat a peasant without giving him money, and then, in front of everyone, stand in front of him in the dirt, asking for forgiveness. He is a brawler, and in his rampage he is able to throw thunder and lightning at his household, hiding from him in fear.
Therefore, we can conclude that Diky and Kabanikha cannot be considered typical representatives of the merchant class. These characters in Ostrovsky's drama are very similar and differ in egoistic inclinations, they think only of themselves. And even their own children, to some extent, seem to be a hindrance to them. Such an attitude cannot decorate people, which is why Dikoy and Kabanikha evoke persistent negative emotions in readers.
Conclusion
Speaking of Ostrovsky, in my opinion, we can rightfully call him an unsurpassed master of words, an artist. The characters in the play "Thunderstorm" appear before us as living, with bright embossed characters. Each word spoken by the hero reveals some new facet of his character, shows him from the other side. The character of a person, his mood, attitude towards others, even if he does not want it, are manifested in speech, and Ostrovsky, a true master of speech characteristics, notices these features. The style of speech, according to the author, can tell the reader a lot about the character. Thus, each character acquires its own individuality, unique flavor. This is especially true for drama.
In Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm, we can clearly distinguish goodie Katerina and two negative characters Wild and Kabanikh. Undoubtedly, they represent dark kingdom". And Katerina is the only person who tries to fight them. The image of Katerina is drawn brightly and vividly. The main character speaks beautifully, figurative folk language. Her speech abounds in subtle semantic nuances. Katerina's monologues, like a drop of water, reflect her entire rich inner world. In the speech of the character, even the attitude of the author towards him appears. With what love, sympathy, Ostrovsky treats Katerina, and how sharply he condemns the tyranny of Kabanikh and Diky.
He draws Kabanikha as a staunch defender of the foundations of the "dark kingdom". She strictly observes all the orders of patriarchal antiquity, does not tolerate the manifestation of personal will in anyone, and has great power over others.
As for Wild, Ostrovsky was able to convey all the anger and anger that boils in his soul. All households are afraid of the wild, including nephew Boris. He is open, rude and unceremonious. But both powerful heroes are unhappy: they do not know what to do with their unrestrained character.
In Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm", with the help of artistic means, the writer managed to characterize the characters and create bright picture that time. "Thunderstorm" is very strong in its impact on the reader, the viewer. The dramas of the heroes do not leave indifferent the hearts and minds of people, which not every writer succeeds. Only a true artist can create such magnificent, eloquent images, only such a master of speech characteristics is able to tell the reader about the characters only with the help of their own words, intonations, without resorting to any other additional characteristic.
List of used literature
1. A. N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". Moscow "Moscow worker", 1974.
2. Yu. V. Lebedev "Russian literature of the nineteenth century", part 2. Enlightenment, 2000.
3. I. E. Kaplin, M. T. Pinaev "Russian Literature". Moscow "Enlightenment", 1993.
4. Yu. Borev. Aesthetics. Theory. Literature. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Terms, 2003.
He opened the "locks" of two rich merchant houses in the city of Kalinov - the houses of Kabanova and Savel Dikgo.
Boar. Domineering and cruel, the old woman Kabanova is a living personification of the rules of false, sanctimonious "piety": she knows them well, she herself fulfilled them and steadily demands their implementation from others. These rules are as follows: the younger in the family must submit to the elder; they are not entitled to his opinion, their wishes, mine world - they must be "impersonal", they must be mannequins. Then they should be “afraid”, live in fear.” If there is no fear in life, then, in her opinion, the world will cease to stand. When Kabanova convinces her son, Tikhon, to act on his wife with "fear", he says that he does not want Katerina to be "afraid" of him at all - it is enough for him if she "loves" him. “Why be afraid? - she exclaims, - Why be afraid? Yes, you're crazy, right? You will not be afraid - me and even more so! What is the order in the house will be? After all, you, tea, live with her in law? Ali, do you think the law means nothing? Finally, the third rule is not to introduce anything "new" into life, to stand for the old in everything - in views on life, in human relations, customs and rituals. She laments that "the old man is being brought out." “What will happen when the old people die? How the light will stand, I don’t know!” she says with complete sincerity.
A. N. Ostrovsky. Thunderstorm. Performance
These are the views of Kabanova, and her cruel nature is reflected in the way they are implemented. She crushes everyone with her lust for power; she does not know pity and condescension for anyone. She not only “observes” the fulfillment of her rules, she invades with them into someone else’s soul, finds fault with people, “grinds” them for no reason, for no reason ... And all this is done with the full consciousness of her “right”, with the consciousness of "necessity" and with constant concerns about external deanery ...
The despotism and tyranny of Kabanikha is much worse than that shown by Gordey Tortsov in the play " Poverty is not a vice", or Wild. They do not have any support outside themselves, and therefore they can still, albeit rarely, by skillfully playing on their psychology, be forced to become ordinary people how does it do We love Tortsov with his brother. But there is no force that would bring down Kabanova: in addition to her despotic nature, she will always find support and support for herself in those foundations of life that she considers an inviolable shrine.
Savel Wild. Another “tyrant” of this drama is not like that - the merchant Savyol Diky. This is the brother of Gordey Tortsov: - rude, always drunk, who considers himself entitled to scold everyone because he is rich, Wild is despotic not “on principle”, like Kabanov, but out of a whim, a whim. There are no reasonable grounds for his actions - this is unbridled, devoid of any logical grounds, arbitrariness. Wild, according to the apt definition of the Kalinovites, is a “warrior”: according to him own words, with him, "there is always a war going on at home." "You are a worm! If I want - I will have mercy, if I want - I will crush! - here, the basis of his relationship with those people who are weaker, or poorer than him. A characteristic echo of antiquity was expressed by one feature of him - having scolded the peasant during his shit - he "in the yard, in the mud bowed to him, - in front of everyone ... bowed!"... This "nationwide repentance" expressed in him a glimpse of respect for some higher moral order of things established by antiquity.
Tikhon Kabanov. In the Kabanova family, the younger generation is represented by her son Tikhon, daughter-in-law Katerina and daughter Varvara. The influence of the old woman Kabanova was reflected in different ways on all these three faces.
Tikhon is a completely weak-willed, weak creature, impersonal by his mother .. He, an adult man, obeys her like a boy, and, afraid of disobeying her, is ready to humiliate and insult his beloved wife. His striving for freedom is expressed in pitiful, cowardly drunkenness on the side and the same cowardly hatred of his own home ...
Barbara Kabanova. Barbara is a more courageous nature than her brother. But even she can not afford an open struggle with her mother, face klitsu. And she wins her freedom by deceit and cunning. By "deanery", by hypocrisy, she covers up her wild life. Oddly enough, girls in the city of Kalinovo looked through their fingers at such a life: “when to take a walk, if not in girls!” - says Kabanova herself. "Sin is not a problem, rumor is not good!" - they said in Famusov's circle. The same point of view is here: publicity, according to Kabanova, is the worst thing.
Varvara also tried to arrange for Katerina the same "deceitful happiness" that she herself enjoyed with a clear conscience. And this led to a terrible tragedy.
Feklush. The pilgrim-prayer Feklusha represents in The Thunderstorm the exact opposite of the inquisitive mechanic Kuligin. Silly and cunning, an ignorant old woman, she pronounces an accusation against all new cultural life, - glimpses of which disturb the "dark kingdom" with their novelty. The whole world, with its vanity, seems to her to be the "kingdom of the flesh", the "kingdom of the Antichrist". Whoever serves "the world" serves the devil and destroys the soul. From this point of view, she converges with Kabanikha and with many other inhabitants of Kalinov and the entire “dark kingdom” depicted by Ostrovsky.
In Moscow, life is teeming, they are fussing, in a hurry, as if they are looking for something, says Feklusha, and contrasts this “vanity” with the peace and silence of Kalinov, who was sinking into sleep at sunset. Feklusha explains the reasons for the “city fuss” in the old fashioned way: the devil invisibly scattered the “seeds of the tares” into human hearts, and people moved away from God and serve him. Any novelty frightens Feklusha into her like-minded people - she considers the steam locomotive a “fire-breathing snake”, and the old woman Kabanova agrees with her ... And at this time, here, in Kalinovo, Kuligin dreams of perpetuum mobile ... What an inconsistent conflict of interests and worldviews !
Boris. Boris Grigorievich, Dikoi's nephew, is an educated young man who listens to Kuligin's enthusiastic speeches with a slight, polite smile, because he does not believe in perpetuum mobile. But, despite his education, culturally, he is lower than Kuligin, who is armed with both faith and strength. Boris does not apply his education to anything, and he has no strength to fight life! He, without a struggle with his conscience, captivates Katerina and, without a struggle with people, leaves her to the mercy of her fate. He is a weak person, and Katerina was carried away by him simply because "in the wilderness, even Thomas is a nobleman." Some gloss of culture, cleanliness and decency in manners, that's what made Katerina idealize Boris. Yes, and it was unbearable for her to live, if there were no Boris, she would idealize another.
The play "Thunderstorm" by the famous Russian writer of the XIX century Alexander Ostrovsky, was written in 1859 in the wake of a public upsurge on the eve of social reforms. It became one of the best works of the author, opening the eyes of the whole world to mores and moral values the then merchant class. It was first published in the Library for Reading magazine in 1860 and, due to the novelty of its subject matter (descriptions of the struggle of new progressive ideas and aspirations with old, conservative foundations), immediately after publication caused a wide public outcry. She became a topic for writing a large number of critical articles of that time (“Ray of Light in dark kingdom" Dobrolyubov, "Motives of Russian Drama" by Pisarev, criticism by Apollon Grigoriev).
History of writing
Inspired by the beauty of the Volga region and its vast expanses during a trip with his family to Kostroma in 1848, Ostrovsky began writing the play in July 1859, after three months he finished it and sent it to the court of St. Petersburg censorship.
Having worked for several years in the office of the Moscow Conscientious Court, he knew well what the merchants were like in Zamoskvorechye (the historical district of the capital, on the right bank of the Moscow River), more than once, on duty, faced with what was happening behind the high fences of the merchants' choir , namely with cruelty, tyranny, ignorance and various superstitions, illegal transactions and scams, tears and suffering of others. The basis for the plot of the play was tragic fate daughter-in-law in the wealthy merchant family of Klykovs, which happened in reality: a young woman rushed into the Volga and drowned, unable to withstand the harassment from the imperious mother-in-law, tired of her husband’s spinelessness and secret passion for the postal clerk. Many believed that it was stories from the life of the Kostroma merchants that became the prototype for the plot of the play written by Ostrovsky.
In November 1859, the play was performed on the stage of the Maly Academic Theater in Moscow, and in December of the same year at the Alexandrinsky Drama Theater in St. Petersburg.
Analysis of the work
Story line
At the center of the events described in the play is the wealthy merchant family of the Kabanovs, who live in the fictional Volga city of Kalinovo, a kind of peculiar and closed little world, symbolizing the general structure of the entire patriarchal Russian state. The Kabanov family consists of a domineering and cruel woman-tyrant, and in fact the head of the family, a wealthy merchant and widow Marfa Ignatievna, her son, Tikhon Ivanovich, weak-willed and spineless against the backdrop of the heavy temper of his mother, the daughter of Varvara, who learned by deceit and cunning to resist the despotism of her mother , as well as daughter-in-law Katerina. A young woman, who grew up in a family where she was loved and pitied, suffers in the house of an unloved husband from his lack of will and the claims of her mother-in-law, in fact, having lost her will and becoming a victim of the cruelty and tyranny of the Kabanikh, left to the mercy of fate by a rag-husband.
From hopelessness and despair, Katerina seeks solace in love for Boris Diky, who also loves her, but is afraid to disobey her uncle, the wealthy merchant Savel Prokofich Diky, because the financial situation of him and his sister depends on him. Secretly, he meets with Katerina, but at the last moment he betrays her and runs away, then, at the direction of his uncle, he leaves for Siberia.
Katerina, being brought up in obedience and submission to her husband, tormented by her own sin, confesses everything to her husband in the presence of his mother. She makes the life of her daughter-in-law completely unbearable, and Katerina, suffering from unhappy love, reproaches of conscience and cruel persecution of the tyrant and despot Kabanikhi, decides to end her torment, the only way in which she sees salvation is suicide. She throws herself off a cliff into the Volga and dies tragically.
Main characters
All the characters in the play are divided into two opposing camps, some (Kabanikha, her son and daughter, merchant Dikoy and his nephew Boris, maids Feklusha and Glasha) are representatives of the old, patriarchal way of life, others (Katerina, self-taught mechanic Kuligin) are new, progressive.
A young woman, Katerina, the wife of Tikhon Kabanov, is the central character of the play. She was brought up in strict patriarchal rules, in accordance with the laws of the ancient Russian Domostroy: a wife must obey her husband in everything, respect him, fulfill all his requirements. At first, Katerina tried with all her might to love her husband, to become a submissive and good wife for him, but due to his complete spinelessness and weakness of character, she can only feel pity for him.
Outwardly, she looks weak and silent, but in the depths of her soul there is enough willpower and perseverance to resist the tyranny of her mother-in-law, who is afraid that her daughter-in-law can change her son Tikhon and he will no longer obey the will of his mother. Katerina is cramped and stuffy in the dark realm of life in Kalinovo, she literally suffocates there and in her dreams she flies away like a bird away from this terrible place for her.
Boris
Having fallen in love with a visitor young man Boris, the nephew of a wealthy merchant and businessman, she creates in her head the image of an ideal lover and a real man, which is completely untrue, breaks her heart and leads to a tragic ending.
In the play, Katerina's character is opposed not to a specific person, her mother-in-law, but to the entire existing patriarchal way of life at that time.
Boar
Marfa Ignatyevna Kabanova (Kabanikha), like the merchant-tyrant Dikoy, who tortures and insults his relatives, does not pay wages and deceives his workers, are vivid representatives of the old, petty-bourgeois way of life. They are distinguished by stupidity and ignorance, unjustified cruelty, rudeness and rudeness, complete rejection of any progressive changes in the ossified patriarchal way of life.
Tikhon
(Tikhon, in the illustration near the Kabanikhi - Marfa Ignatievna)
Tikhon Kabanov throughout the play is characterized as a quiet and weak-willed person, who is under the complete influence of a despotic mother. Distinguished by his gentle nature, he makes no attempt to protect his wife from the attacks of his mother.
At the end of the play, he finally breaks down and the author shows his rebellion against tyranny and despotism, it is his phrase at the end of the play that leads readers to a certain conclusion about the depth and tragedy of the current situation.
Features of compositional construction
(Fragment from a dramatic production)
The work begins with a description of the city on the Volga of Kalinov, whose image is a collective image of all Russian cities of that time. The landscape of the Volga expanses depicted in the play contrasts with the musty, dull and gloomy atmosphere of life in this city, which is emphasized by the dead isolation of the life of its inhabitants, their underdevelopment, dullness and wild lack of education. The author described the general state of urban life as if before a thunderstorm, when the old, dilapidated way of life is shaken, and new and progressive trends, like a gust of furious thunderstorm wind, will carry away outdated rules and prejudices that prevent people from living normally. The period of life of the inhabitants of the city of Kalinov described in the play is just in a state when outwardly everything looks calm, but this is only the calm before the coming storm.
The genre of the play can be interpreted as a social drama, as well as a tragedy. The first is characterized by the use of a thorough description of living conditions, the maximum transfer of its "density", as well as the alignment of characters. The attention of readers should be distributed among all participants in the production. The interpretation of the play as a tragedy suggests that it is more deep meaning and thoroughness. If we see in the death of Katerina the consequence of her conflict with her mother-in-law, then she looks like a victim of a family conflict, and all the unfolding action in the play seems small and insignificant for a real tragedy. But if we consider the death of the main character as a conflict of a new, progressive time with a fading, old era, then her act is best interpreted in a heroic way, characteristic of a tragic narrative.
The talented playwright Alexander Ostrovsky from the social drama about the life of the merchant class gradually creates a real tragedy, in which, with the help of a love and domestic conflict, he showed the onset of an epoch-making turning point in the minds of the people. Ordinary people are aware of the awakening sense of their own dignity, they begin to relate to the world around them in a new way, they want to decide their own destinies and fearlessly express their will. This nascent desire comes into irreconcilable contradiction with the real patriarchal way of life. The fate of Katerina acquires a social historical meaning, expressing the state of the people's consciousness at the turning point of two eras.
Alexander Ostrovsky, who noticed in time the doom of decaying patriarchal foundations, wrote the play "Thunderstorm" and opened the eyes of the entire Russian public to what was happening. He depicted the destruction of the usual, outdated way of life, with the help of the ambiguous and figurative concept of a thunderstorm, which, gradually growing, will sweep away everything from its path and open the way for a new, better life.
Short description
Boris Dikoy and Tikhon Kabanov are the two characters most closely associated with main character, Katerina: Tikhon is her husband, and Boris becomes her lover. They can be called antipodes, which stand out sharply against the background of each other. And, in my opinion, preferences in their comparison should be given to Boris, as a character who is a more active, interesting and pleasant reader, while Tikhon causes some compassion - brought up by a strict mother, he, in fact, cannot make his own decisions and defend his own opinion. In order to substantiate my point of view, below I will consider each character separately and try to analyze their characters and actions.
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BORIS AND TIKHON
Boris Dikoy and Tikhon Kabanov are the two characters most closely associated with the main character, Katerina: Tikhon is her husband, and Boris becomes her lover. They can be called antipodes, which stand out sharply against the background of each other. And, in my opinion, preferences in their comparison should be given to Boris, as a character who is a more active, interesting and pleasant reader, while Tikhon causes some compassion - brought up by a strict mother, he, in fact, cannot make his own decisions and defend his own opinion. In order to substantiate my point of view, below I will consider each character separately and try to analyze their characters and actions.
To begin with, consider Boris Grigorievich Diky. Boris came to the city of Kalinov not out of his own whim, but out of necessity. His grandmother, Anfisa Mikhailovna, disliked his father after he married a noble woman, and after her death left her entire inheritance to her second son, Savel Prokofievich Diky. And Boris would not have cared about this inheritance if his parents had not died of cholera, leaving him and his sister orphans. Savel Prokofievich Dikoi was supposed to pay part of the inheritance of Anfisa Mikhailovna to Boris and his sister, but on the condition that they would be respectful to him. Therefore, throughout the play, Boris tries in every possible way to serve his uncle, not paying attention to all the reproaches, discontent and abuse, and then he leaves for Siberia to serve. From this we can conclude that Boris not only thinks about his future, but also takes care of his sister, who is in an even less advantageous position than he is. This is expressed in his words, which he once said to Kuligin: “If I were alone, it would be nothing! I would have left everything and left.
Boris spent all his childhood in Moscow, where he received a good education and manners. It also adds positive features to his image. He is modest and, perhaps, even somewhat timid - if Katerina had not responded to his feelings, if not for the complicity of Varvara and Curly, he would never have crossed the boundaries of what is permitted. His actions are driven by love, perhaps the first, a feeling that even the most reasonable and reasonable people are unable to resist. Some timidity, but sincerity, his gentle words to Katerina make Boris a touching and romantic character, full of charm that cannot leave girlish hearts indifferent.
As a person from the metropolitan society, from secular Moscow, Boris has a hard time in Kalinov. He does not understand local customs, it seems to him that he is a stranger in this provincial city. Boris does not fit into the local society. The hero himself says the following words on this occasion: “... it’s hard for me here, without a habit! Everyone looks at me wildly, as if I’m superfluous here, as if I’m disturbing them. I don’t know the local customs. I understand that this is all our , Russian, native, but still I can’t get used to it in any way. Boris is overwhelmed by heavy thoughts about his future fate. Youth, the desire to live, desperately rebel against the prospect of staying in Kalinovo: "And I, apparently, will ruin my youth in this slum. I walk completely dead ...".
So, we can say that Boris in Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm" is a romantic, positive character, and his rash actions can be justified by falling in love, which makes young blood boil and do completely reckless things, forgetting how they look in the eyes of society.
Tikhon Ivanovich Kabanov, on the other hand, can be considered as a more passive character, unable to make his own decisions. He is strongly influenced by his imperious mother, Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, he is under her thumb. Tikhon strives for the will, however, it seems to me that he himself does not know what exactly he wants from it. So, breaking free, the hero acts as follows: "... and as soon as I left, I went on a spree. I'm very glad that I broke free. And I drank all the way, and in Moscow I drank everything, so a bunch, what the heck! So much so that I can take a walk for a whole year. I never once thought about the house. " In his desire to escape "from captivity," Tikhon closes his eyes to other people's feelings, including the feelings and experiences of his own wife, Katerina: "..and with a sort of bondage, you will run away from whatever beautiful wife you want! Just think about it: Whatever it is, but I'm still a man; to live like this all your life, as you see, that's how you will run away from your wife. Yes, as I know now that there will be no thunderstorm over me for two weeks, there are no these shackles on my legs, so up to my wife?". I believe that this is Tikhon's main mistake - he did not listen to Katerina, did not take her with him, and did not even take a terrible oath from her, as she herself asked in anticipation of trouble. In the events that followed, there is a share of his guilt.
Returning to the fact that Tikhon is not able to make his own decisions, we can give the following example. After Katerina confesses her sin, he cannot decide what to do - listen to his mother again, who calls her daughter-in-law cunning and tells everyone not to believe her, or show indulgence to his beloved wife. Katerina herself speaks about it this way: "Now he is affectionate, then he is angry, but he drinks everything." Also, in my opinion, an attempt to get away from problems with the help of alcohol also indicates Tikhon's weakness.
We can say that Tikhon Kabanov is a weak character, like a person who evokes sympathy. It is difficult to say whether he really loved his wife, Katerina, but it is safe to assume that with his character he was better suited to another life partner, more like his mother. Brought up in strictness, not having his own opinion, Tikhon needs outside control, guidance and support.
So, on the one hand, we have Boris Grigorievich Diky, a romantic, young, self-confident hero. On the other hand - Tikhon Ivanovich Kabanov, a weak-willed, soft-bodied, unhappy character. Both characters, of course, are pronounced - Ostrovsky in his play managed to convey the full depth of these images, make you worry about each of them. But if we compare them with each other, Boris attracts more attention, he arouses sympathy and interest in the reader, while Kabanov wants to be sorry.
However, each reader himself chooses which of these characters to give his preference. After all, as folk wisdom says, there are no comrades for the taste and color.
BARBARA
Varvara Kabanova - daughter of Kabanikhi, sister of Tikhon. We can say that life in the house of Kabanikhi morally crippled the girl. She also does not want to live according to the patriarchal laws that her mother preaches. But, despite his strong character, V. does not dare to openly protest against them. Its principle is “Do whatever you want, as long as it’s sewn and covered.”
This heroine easily adapts to the laws of the "dark kingdom", easily deceives everyone around her. It became a habit for her. V. claims that it is impossible to live otherwise: their whole house is based on deceit. “And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.”
V. was cunning as long as it was possible. When they began to lock her up, she ran away from home, inflicting a crushing blow on Kabanikha.
KULIGIN
Kuligin is a character who partially performs the functions of an exponent of the author's point of view and therefore is sometimes referred to as a hero-reasoner, which, however, seems to be incorrect, since in general this hero is certainly distant from the author, quite detached is depicted, as an unusual person, even somewhat outlandish. The list of actors says about him: “a tradesman, a self-taught watchmaker, looking for a perpetuum mobile”. The name of the hero transparently hints at a real person - I. P. Kulibin (1755-1818), whose biography was published in the journal of the historian M. P. Pogodin "Moskvityanin", where Ostrovsky collaborated.
Like Katerina, K. is a poetic and dreamy nature (thus, it is he who admires the beauty of the Trans-Volga landscape, complains that the Kalinovs are indifferent to him). He appears, singing "Among the flat valley ...", a folk song of literary origin (to the words of A. F. Merzlyakov). This immediately emphasizes the difference between K. and other characters associated with folklore culture, he is also a bookish man, although of rather archaic bookishness: he tells Boris that he writes poetry “in the old way ... I read Lomonosov, Derzhavin after all ... The wise man was Lomonosov, the tester of nature ... ". Even the characterization of Lomonosov testifies to the erudition of K. precisely in old books: not a “scientist”, but a “sage”, “tester of nature”. “You are an antique, a chemist,” Kudryash tells him. "Self-taught mechanic," corrects K. K.'s technical ideas are also an obvious anachronism. The sundial, which he dreams of installing on Kalinovsky Boulevard, came from antiquity. Lightning rod - a technical discovery of the XVIII century. If K. writes in the spirit of the classics of the 18th century, then his oral stories are sustained in even earlier stylistic traditions and resemble old moralizing stories and apocrypha (“and they will begin, sir, the court and the case, and there will be no end to the torment. They are suing, suing here, yes, they will go to the province, and there they are already waiting for them, but splashing their hands with joy ”- the picture of judicial red tape, vividly described by K., recalls stories about the torment of sinners and the joy of demons). All these features of the hero, of course, are given by the author in order to show his deep connection with the world of Kalinov: he certainly differs from the Kalinovites, we can say that he is a “new” person, but only his novelty has developed here, inside this world , which gives birth not only to its passionate and poetic dreamers, like Katerina, but also to its “rationalist” dreamers, its own special, home-grown scientists and humanists. The main business of K.'s life is the dream of inventing the Perpetu Mobile and getting a million from the British for it. He intends to spend this million on Kalinov's society - "the work must be given to the bourgeoisie." Listening to this story, Boris, who received a modern education at the Commercial Academy, remarks: “It's a pity to disappoint him! What a good man! Dreaming for himself - and happy. However, he is hardly right. K. is really a good person: kind, disinterested, delicate and meek. But he is hardly happy: his dream constantly forces him to beg for money for his inventions, conceived for the benefit of society, and it does not even occur to society that there could be any benefit from them, for them K. - a harmless eccentric, something like a city holy fool. And the main of the possible "philanthropists" - Dikoy, completely lashes out at the inventor with abuse, once again confirming both the general opinion and Kabanikhe's own admission that he is not able to part with the money. Kuligin's passion for creativity remains unquenched; he pities his countrymen, seeing in their vices the result of ignorance and poverty, but he cannot help them in anything. So, the advice that he gives (to forgive Katerina, but in such a way that he never remembers her sin) is obviously impracticable in the Kabanovs' house, and K. hardly understands this. The advice is good, humane, because it comes from humane considerations, but does not take into account the real participants in the drama, their characters and beliefs. For all his industriousness, the creative beginning of his personality, K. is a contemplative nature, devoid of any pressure. Probably, this is the only reason the Kalinovites put up with him, despite the fact that he differs from them in everything. It seems that for the same reason it was possible to entrust him with the author's assessment of Katerina's act. "Here's your Katherine. Do with her what you want! Her body is here, take it; and the soul is no longer yours: it is now before the Judge, who is more merciful than you!”
KATERINA
But the most extensive subject for discussion is Katerina - "a Russian strong character", for whom truth and a deep sense of duty are above all else. First, let's turn to the childhood years of the main character, which we learn about from her monologues. As we can see, in this carefree time, Katerina was primarily surrounded by beauty and harmony, she “lived like a bird in the wild” among, maternal love and fragrant nature. The young girl went to wash herself in the spring, listened to the stories of wanderers, then sat down to some work, and so the whole day passed. She did not yet know the bitter life in "imprisonment", but everything is ahead of her, ahead of her life in the "dark kingdom". From the words of Katerina, we learn about her childhood and adolescence. The girl did not receive a good education. She lived with her mother in the countryside. Katerina's childhood was joyful, cloudless. Her mother "did not have a soul" in her, did not force her to work on the housework. Katya lived freely: she got up early, washed herself with spring water, crawled flowers, went to church with her mother, then sat down to do some work and listened to wanderers and praying women, who were many in their house. Katerina had magical dreams in which she flew under the clouds. And how strongly the act of a six-year-old girl contrasts with such a quiet, happy life when Katya, offended by something, ran away from home to the Volga in the evening, got into a boat and pushed off the shore! We see that Katerina grew up as a happy, romantic, but limited girl. She was very pious and passionately loving. She loved everything and everyone around her: nature, the sun, the church, her house with wanderers, the poor she helped. But the most important thing about Katya is that she lived in her dreams, apart from the rest of the world. Of everything that existed, she chose only that which did not contradict her nature, the rest she did not want to notice and did not notice. Therefore, the girl saw angels in the sky, and for her the church was not an oppressive and oppressive force, but a place where everything is bright, where you can dream. We can say that Katerina was naive and kind, brought up in a completely religious spirit. But if she met on her way what. contradicted her ideals, then turned into a rebellious and stubborn nature and defended herself from that outsider, a stranger that boldly disturbed her soul. It was the same with the boat. After marriage, Katya's life changed a lot. From a free, joyful, sublime world, in which she felt her merging with nature, the girl fell into a life full of deceit, cruelty and omission. It’s not even that Katerina married Tikhon against her will: she didn’t love anyone at all and she didn’t care who she married. The fact is that the girl was robbed of her former life, which she created for herself. Katerina no longer feels such delight from attending church, she cannot do her usual business. Sad, disturbing thoughts do not allow her to calmly admire nature. Katya can only endure, while she is patient, and dream, but she can no longer live with her thoughts, because the cruel reality brings her back to earth, where there is humiliation and suffering. Katerina is trying to find her happiness in love for Tikhon: “I will love my husband. Tisha, my dear, I won’t exchange you for anyone.” But the sincere manifestations of this love are suppressed by Kabanikha: "Why are you hanging around your neck, shameless? You don’t say goodbye to your lover." Katerina has a strong sense of outward humility and duty, which is why she forces herself to love her unloved husband. Tikhon himself, because of the tyranny of his mother, cannot truly love his wife, although he probably wants to. And when he, leaving for a while, leaves Katya to work up plenty, the girl (already a woman) becomes completely alone. Why did Katerina fall in love with Boris? After all, he did not exhibit his masculine qualities, like Paratov, he did not even talk to her. Perhaps the reason was that she lacked something pure in the stuffy atmosphere of the Kabanikh's house. And love for Boris was this pure, did not allow Katerina to completely wither away, somehow supported her. She went on a date with Boris because she felt like a person with pride, elementary rights. It was a rebellion against resignation to fate, against lawlessness. Katerina knew that she was committing a sin, but she also knew that it was still impossible to live on. She sacrificed the purity of her conscience to freedom and Boris. In my opinion, taking this step, Katya already felt the approaching end and probably thought: "Now or never." She wanted to be filled with love, knowing that there would be no other chance. On the first date, Katerina told Boris: "You ruined me." Boris is the reason for the discrediting of her soul, and for Katya this is tantamount to death. Sin hangs on her heart like a heavy stone. Katerina is terribly afraid of the approaching thunderstorm, considering it a punishment for what she has done. Katerina has been afraid of thunderstorms ever since she started thinking about Boris. For her pure soul, even the thought of loving a stranger is a sin. Katya cannot live on with her sin, and she considers repentance to be the only way to at least partially get rid of it. She confesses everything to her husband and Kabanikh. Such an act in our time seems very strange, naive. “I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything” - such is Katerina. Tikhon forgave his wife, but did she forgive herself? Being very religious. Katya is afraid of God, and her God lives in her, God is her conscience. The girl is tormented by two questions: how will she return home and look into the eyes of her husband, whom she cheated on, and how will she live with a stain on her conscience. Katerina sees death as the only way out of this situation: “No, it’s all the same for me to go home or to the grave It’s better to live in the grave again? Dobrolyubov defined Katerina's character as "resolute, whole, Russian." Decisive, because she decided to take the last step, to die in order to save herself from shame and remorse. Whole, because in Katya's character everything is harmonious, one, nothing contradicts each other, because Katya is one with nature, with God. Russian, because no matter how Russian a person is, he is capable of loving like that, capable of sacrificing so, so seemingly humbly enduring all hardships, while remaining himself, free, not a slave. Although Katerina's life has changed, she has not lost her poetic nature: she is still fascinated by nature, she sees bliss in harmony with it. She wants to fly high, high, touch the blue of the sky and from there, from a height, send a big hello to everyone. The poetic nature of the heroine requires a different life than the one she has. Katerina yearns for "freedom", but not for the freedom of her flesh, but for the freedom of her soul. Therefore, she is building a different world, in which there is no lie, lack of rights, injustice, cruelty. In this world, unlike reality, everything is perfect: angels live here, “innocent voices sing, it smells of cypress, and the mountains and trees, as if not the same as usual, but as they are written on the images.” But despite this, she still has to return to the real world, full of selfish and petty tyrants. And among them she tries to find a kindred spirit. Katerina in the crowd of "empty" faces is looking for someone who could understand her, look into her soul and accept her for who she is, and not for who they want to make her. The heroine is looking for and can't find anyone. Her eyes are "cut" by the darkness and wretchedness of this "kingdom", her mind has to come to terms, but her heart believes and waits for the only one who will help her survive and fight for the truth in this world of lies and deceit. Katerina meets Boris, and her clouded heart says that this is the one she has been looking for for so long. But is it? No, Boris is far from ideal, he cannot give Katerina what she asks for, namely: understanding and protection. She cannot feel with Boris "as if behind a stone wall." And the justice of this is confirmed by Boris' vile act, full of cowardice and indecision: he leaves Katerina alone, throws her "to be eaten by wolves." These "wolves" are terrible, but they cannot frighten the "Russian soul" of Katerina. And her soul is truly Russian. And Katerina unites with the people not only communication, but also communion with Christianity. Katerina believes in God so much that she prays every evening in her little room. She likes to go to church, look at the icons, listen to the ringing of the bell. She, like Russian people, loves freedom. And it is precisely this love of freedom that does not allow her to come to terms with the current situation. Our heroine is not used to lying, and therefore she talks about her love for Boris to her husband. But instead of understanding, Katerina meets only a direct reproach. Now nothing holds her in this world: Boris turned out to be not the way Katerina “painted” him for herself, and life in the house of Kabanikh became even more unbearable. The poor, innocent "bird imprisoned in a cage" could not withstand captivity - Katerina committed suicide. The girl still managed to “fly up”, she stepped from the high bank into the Volga, “spread her wings” and boldly went to the bottom. By her act, Katerina resists the "dark kingdom". But Dobrolyubov calls her a “beam” in him, not only because her tragic death revealed all the horror of the “dark kingdom” and showed the inevitability of death for those who cannot come to terms with oppression, but also because Katerina’s death will not pass and will not can pass without a trace for "cruel morals." After all, anger is already being born at these tyrants. Kuligin - and he reproached Kabanikha for the lack of mercy, even the uncomplaining executor of his mother's wishes, Tikhon, publicly dared to throw an accusation in her face for the death of Katerina. Already, an ominous thunderstorm is brewing over this entire “kingdom”, capable of destroying it “to smithereens”. And this bright ray, which awakened, even for a moment, the consciousness of destitute, unrequited people who are materially dependent on the rich, convincingly showed that there must come an end to the unbridled robbery and complacency of the Savages and the oppressive lust for power and hypocrisy of the Boar. The significance of the image of Katerina is also important today. Yes, maybe many consider Katerina an immoral, shameless traitor, but is she really to blame for this?! Most likely, Tikhon is to blame, who did not pay due attention and affection to his wife, but only followed the advice of his "mother". Katerina is only to blame for marrying such a weak-willed person. Her life was destroyed, but she tried to “build” a new one from the remains. Katerina boldly walked forward until she realized that there was nowhere else to go. But even then she took a brave step, the last step over the abyss leading to another world, perhaps a better one, and perhaps a worse one. And this courage, the thirst for truth and freedom make you bow before Katerina. Yes, she is probably not so perfect, she has her flaws, but courage makes the heroine a role model worthy of praise
