The death of Katerina in the play Thunderstorm. The death of Katerina forced death or release from oppression based on the play The Thunderstorm (Ostrovsky A

"There is something refreshing and encouraging in" The Thunderstorm. " ...

The name of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is one of the most glorious in the history of Russian literature and Russian theater. In 1812 the great Russian writer A.I. Goncharov, welcoming Ostrovsky on the 35th anniversary of his literary career, said: "You ...

A. N. Ostrovsky was the successor and continuer of realistic traditions in Russian literature. In his works, the playwright reflected the reality of his day, the types, images characteristic of that time, showed the existing orders, their ...

Ostrovsky in his work more than once turned to the theme of patriarchal merchants. His most striking work on this topic is the drama "The Thunderstorm", written in 1859. "Thunderstorm" is without a doubt the most decisive ...

From the very first scenes of A. Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm" we find ourselves in the gloomy atmosphere of a special world, which, with the light hand of N. A. Dobrolyubov, was called "the dark kingdom". In the merchant world of the city of Kalinov, where dramatic events unfold, ...

The drama "The Thunderstorm", written in 1859, at a time of social upsurge on the eve of the peasant reform, as it were, crowned the first stage of Ostrovsky's creative activity, a cycle of his plays about the "dark kingdom". This play was extremely popular. The drama was staged ...

According to N.A. Dobrolyubov, "The Thunderstorm" is "Ostrovsky's most decisive work." In this play, the author depicts the tragedy of a freedom-loving, rebellious soul in an atmosphere of speechlessness and tyranny. Thus, the playwright expresses his strong disagreement with the soulless system of the "dark kingdom".

The life of the main character of the play, Katerina Kabanova, ends dramatically. She is taken to an extreme and forced to commit suicide. How to assess this act? Was he a manifestation of strength or weakness?

Katerina's life is impossible

To call it a struggle in the full sense of the word, and, therefore, it is difficult to talk about defeat or victory. There were no direct clashes between Katerina and the "dark kingdom". The heroine's suicide can be called rather a moral victory, a victory in the quest to gain freedom. Her voluntary departure from life is a protest against the semi-prison system in a provincial town and the heartlessness in Katerina's family.

The play describes a merchant's life with its patriarchal way of life, with its own well-established concepts of morality, largely indirect and hypocritical. People living in this closed world either fully support its order (Dikoy and Kabanikha), or are forced to put up with it outwardly (Varvara, Tikhon). But Katerina, finding herself in these conditions, is not able to come to terms with her position.

Katerina is strikingly different from the people around her. Love for freedom and sensitivity to beauty have been inherent in her since childhood. “I lived, I didn’t grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild,” the heroine recalls. Katerina finds beauty in nature, in the songs of the praying mantis, in the church service.

For her, God is a moral law that cannot be transgressed. Religiousness Katerina is light and poetic. Ostrovsky portrays a strong and solid nature, incapable of deception or pretense. Living in the house of Kabanikha, Katerina does not humiliate herself, pretending to be obedient. She always remains true to herself: "With people, that without people, I am all alone, I do not prove anything from myself."

Life with an unloved husband under the supervision of an oppressive mother-in-law seems like hell to the heroine. Katerina “wilted completely” in this inhospitable house - a miniature copy of the “dark kingdom”. However, her heart did not rest in captivity. The heroine fell in love with a man who stood out from the merchant environment. For Katerina, he personifies a different - brighter, free, kind - world.

For the sake of her love, Katerina is ready to betray her husband and is faced with a choice: either duty or deception. The heroine decides to betray, considering her the gravest sin and suffering from it. Having not accomplished anything, she already experiences the horror of a moral fall in advance: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me there, but I have nothing to hold on to.” However, this desperate step is a chance for Katerina to break free.

Having cheated on her husband, Katerina is tormented by the realization of her guilt, wants to atone for her sin. Following Christian morality, she is sincerely convinced that repentance partially atones for guilt. Moreover, the heroine cannot live by deception, since this is sickening to her open, ingenuous nature. This is its essential difference from the position of Barbara.

Thus, Katerina confesses everything to her husband, thereby cutting off her path to salvation. Now life in Kabanikha's house is doubly burdensome for Katerina. Life in a spiritual vacuum loses all meaning for her: “Why should I live now, well for what? I don’t need anything ... ”, the heroine decides. She sees no other way to break free, except to take her own life.

Katerina cannot leave the house, because in the 19th century a woman was almost powerless, belonged to her husband in body and soul, and could not control herself on her own. Katerina could not leave with Boris either, since he turned out to be an absolutely insignificant, weak, spineless person, incapable of decisive action.

We can say that by taking her own life, Katerina went against God, became a great sinner, for whom it was impossible even to pray. However, the heroine is sure: "He who loves, he will pray ...". Death does not frighten her. Even in death, Katerina sees beauty: she draws a picture of calmness and pacification.

So, the suicide of Katerina, in my opinion, is to a certain extent a justified action, which the heroine saw for herself as the only possible one under the given conditions. The death of Katerina is a kind of moral victory, a manifestation not of weakness, but of strength of mind. The death of Katerina is another step towards the already begun destruction of the "dark kingdom" of tyrants.

The death of the main character ends Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm", the genre of which could be safely designated as a tragedy. The death of Katerina in The Thunderstorm is the denouement of the work and carries a special semantic load. The suicide scene of Katerina gave rise to many questions and interpretations of this plot twist. For example, Dobrolyubov considered this act a noble one, and Pisarev adhered to the point of view that such an outcome was “completely unexpected for her (Katerina) herself”. Dostoevsky de believed that the death of Katerina in the play "The Thunderstorm" would have occurred without despotism: "this is a victim of his own purity and his beliefs." It is easy to see that the opinions of critics differ, but each is partly true. What made the girl make such a decision, to make a desperate step on the table? What does the death of Katerina - the heroine of the play "The Thunderstorm" mean?

In order to answer this question, you need to study the text of the work in detail. The reader meets Katerina in the first act. Initially, we see Katya as a silent witness to the quarrel between Kabanikha and Tikhon. This episode makes it possible to understand the unhealthy environment of bondage and oppression in which Katya has to survive. Every day she is convinced that the former life, such as it was before marriage, will never be. All power in the house, despite the patriarchal way of life, is concentrated in the hands of the hypocritical Marfa Ignatievna. Katya's husband, Tikhon, is not able to protect his wife from hysterics and lies. His weak-willed submission to his mother shows Katerina that one cannot count on help in this house and in this family.

From childhood, Katya was taught to love life: go to church, sing, admire nature, dream. The girl "breathed deeply", feeling safe. She was taught to live by the rules of Domostroi: to respect the word of the elders, not to contradict them, to obey her husband and love him. And now Katerina is given in marriage, the situation is radically changing. There is a huge, unbridgeable gap between expectations and reality. The tyranny of Kabanikha knows no boundaries, her limited understanding of Christian laws terrifies believing Katerina. And what about Tikhon? He is not at all the kind of man who is worthy of respect or even compassion. Katya feels only pity for the frequently drinking Tikhon. The girl admits that no matter how hard she tries to love her husband, nothing happens.

In no sphere can a girl realize herself: neither as a mistress of the house, nor as a loving wife, nor as a caring mother. The girl regards the appearance of Boris as a chance for salvation. Firstly, Boris is unlike the rest of Kalinov's residents, and he, like Katya, does not like the unwritten laws of the dark kingdom. Secondly, Katya was visited by thoughts about how to achieve a divorce and then live with Boris honestly, without fear of condemnation from society or the church. Relations with Boris are developing rapidly. One meeting was enough for two young people to fall in love with each other. Even without the opportunity to talk, Boris dreams of Katya. The girl is very worried about the feelings that have arisen: she was brought up differently, Katya cannot walk with another secretly; purity and honesty "prevent" Katya from hiding her love, pretending that everything is "embroidered covered" and others do not guess.

For a very long time, the girl decided on a date with Boris, and yet she went to the garden at night. The author does not give a description of the ten days when Katerina saw her lover. This, in fact, is not necessary. It is easy to imagine their leisure and the growing sense of warmth that was in Katherine. Boris himself said “only those ten days he lived”. The arrival of Tikhon Kabanov revealed new sides in the characters' characters. It turned out that Boris does not want publicity at all, he would rather refuse Katya than involve himself in intrigues and scandals. Katya, unlike the young man, wants to tell her husband and mother-in-law about the current situation. Being a somewhat suspicious and impressionable person, Katya, driven by thunder and the words of a mad lady, confesses everything to Kabanov.

The scene ends. Further, we learn that Marfa Ignatievna has become even tougher and more demanding. She humiliates, insults the girl much more than before. Katya understands that she is not as guilty as her mother-in-law wants to convince, because Kabanikha needs such tyranny only for self-assertion and control. It is the mother-in-law that becomes the main catalyst for the tragedy. Tikhon, most likely, would have forgiven Katya, but he can only obey his mother and go off to drink at the Wild.

Imagine yourself in the place of the heroine. Imagine everything that she had to deal with every day. How the attitude towards her changed after the recognition. A husband who cannot contradict his mother, but at every convenient opportunity finds solace in alcohol. The mother-in-law, personifying all that filth and abomination, from which a pure and honest person wants to stay as far away as possible. The husband's sister, the only one who is interested in your life, but at the same time cannot fully understand. And a loved one, for whom public opinion and the possibility of inheritance turned out to be much more important than feelings for a girl.

Katya dreamed of becoming a bird, flying away forever from the dark world of tyranny and hypocrisy, breaking free, flying, being free. The death of Katerina was inevitable.
However, as mentioned above, there are several different points of view on Katerina's suicide. After all, on the other hand, couldn't Katya just run away without making such desperate decisions? The fact of the matter is that I could not. It was not for her. To be honest with oneself, to be free - this is what the girl so passionately desired. Unfortunately, all this could only be obtained at the cost of one's own life. Is the death of Katerina a defeat or a victory over the "dark kingdom"? Katerina did not win, but she did not remain defeated either.

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The drama "The Thunderstorm" is the pinnacle of Ostrovsky's work. In his work, the writer shows the imperfection of the patriarchal world, the influence of the order on the morals of people, he reveals to us society with all its vices and shortcomings, and at the same time he introduces into the drama a hero different from this community, alien to it, reveals the influence of society on this person, how the character enters the circle of these people. In "Thunderstorm" this new, different from the others hero, "ray of light" becomes Katerina. She belongs to the old patriarchal world, but at the same time enters into irreconcilable conflict with him. Using her example, the writer shows how awful it is to be in the “kingdom of despots and tyrants” for a person with such a pure soul as Katerina. The woman comes into conflict with this society, and, along with external problems, internal contradictions are brewing in Katerina's soul, which, together with fatal circumstances, lead Katerina to suicide.

Katerina is a woman with a strong character, but meanwhile even she cannot resist the “kingdom of tyrants and despots”.

Mother-in-law (Kabanikha) is a rude, domineering, oppressive, ignorant nature, she is closed to everything beautiful. Of all the characters, Marfa Ignatievna exerts the strongest pressure on Katerina. The heroine herself admits: “If it weren’t her mother-in-law! .. She crushed me ... she made me sick and tired of the house: the walls are even disgusting”. Kabanikha constantly accuses Katerina of almost all mortal sins, reproaches and finds fault with her with or without reason. But Kabanikha does not have the moral right to scoff and condemn Katerina, because the inner qualities of her son's wife in their depth and purity cannot be compared with the hardened, callous, low soul of Martha Ignatievna, and meanwhile Kabanikha is one of those through whose fault Katerina comes to thoughts of suicide. After the death of the main character, Kuligin says: "... the soul is now not yours: it is before a judge who is more merciful than you." Katerina cannot come to terms with the oppressive, oppressive atmosphere that reigns in Kalinov. Her soul strives for freedom at any cost, she says, “whatever I want, I will do it”, “I will leave, and I was like that”. With her marriage, Katerina's life turned into a living hell, this is an existence in which there are no joyful moments, and even love for Boris does not relieve her of melancholy.

In this "dark kingdom" everything is alien to her, everything oppresses her. She, according to the customs of that time, did not marry of her own free will and to an unwelcome person whom she would never love. Katerina soon realized how weak and pitiful her husband was, he himself could not resist his mother, Kabanikha, and, naturally, was not able to protect Katerina from constant attacks from her mother-in-law. The main character tries to convince herself and Varvara that she loves her husband, but nevertheless later confesses to her husband's sister: “I feel sorry for him very much”. Pity is the only feeling she has for her husband. Katerina herself perfectly understands that she will never love her husband, and the words she uttered when her husband left (“how I would love you”) are words of despair. Katerina was already seized by another feeling - love for Boris, and her attempt to grab hold of her husband in order to prevent trouble, a thunderstorm, the approach of which she feels, is futile and useless. Tisha does not heed her, he stands next to his wife, but in his dreams he is already far from her - his thoughts about drinking and walking outside Kalinov's border, he himself says to his wife: “I cannot understand you, Katya!” Yes, how could he "make out" it! Katerina's inner world is too complicated and incomprehensible for people like Kabanov. Not only Tikhon, but also his sister says to Katerina: “I don’t understand what you are saying.”

In the "dark kingdom" there is not a single person whose spiritual qualities would be equal to Katerinins, and even Boris, a hero singled out by a woman from the whole crowd, is not worthy of Katerina. Her love is a stormy river, his love is a small stream that is about to dry up. Boris is only going to take a walk with Katerina during Tikhon's departure, and then ... then it will be seen. He is not too worried about how the hobby will turn out for Katerina, Boris is not even stopped by Kudryash's warning: "You want to ruin her completely." At the last meeting, he says to Katerina: “Who knew that for our love we suffer so much with you,” because at the first meeting the woman said to him: “Ruined, ruined, ruined”.

The reasons that prompted Katerina to commit suicide are hidden not only (and even not so much) in the society around her, but in herself. Her soul is a precious stone, and the invasion of foreign particles is impossible. She cannot, like Barbara, act according to the principle “if only everything was sewn and covered”, she cannot live keeping such a terrible secret within herself, and even confession in front of everyone does not bring her relief, she realizes that she will never atone for himself, and cannot come to terms with it. She took the path of sin, but she will not aggravate it by lying to herself and everyone, and understands that the only deliverance from her mental anguish is death. Katerina asks Boris to take her to Siberia, but even if she runs away from this society, she is not destined to hide from herself, from remorse. To some extent, Boris understands this too and says that “you have to ask God for only one thing, so that she would die as soon as possible, so that she would not suffer for a long time!” One of Katerina's problems is that “she cannot deceive, she cannot hide anything”. She cannot deceive or hide from herself, much less from others. Katerina is constantly tormented by the consciousness of her sinfulness.

Translated from Greek, the name Catherine means “always pure”, and our heroine, of course, always strives for spiritual purity. All kinds of lies and untruths are alien to her, even when she finds herself in such a degraded society, she does not betray her inner ideal, she does not want to become the same as many people of that circle. Katerina does not absorb dirt, she can be compared to a lotus flower that grows in a swamp, but, in spite of everything, blooms with unique snow-white flowers. Katerina does not live to see a lush bloom, her half-blooming flower wilted, but no poisonous substances penetrated it, he died innocent.

Katerina's protest in the drama "The Thunderstorm"

A.N. Ostrovsky, the author of numerous plays about the merchants, the creator of the repertoire for the Russian national theater, is rightfully considered a "singer of merchant life". And he sits, sculpted with a chisel by the sculptor Andreev, at the entrance to the Maly Theater, and reminds us of the past, of the dark, funny and terrible world of his many heroes: the Glumovs, Bolshovs, Podkhalyuzins, Wilds and Kabanikhs. The image of the world of the Moscow and provincial merchants, with the light hand of Dobrolyubov called the "dark kingdom", became the main theme of Ostrovsky's work. The drama "The Thunderstorm", which was published in 1860, is no exception. The plot of the play is simple and typical for that environment and era: a young married woman Katerina Kabanova, unable to find a response to her feelings in her husband, fell in love with another person. Tormented by remorse and not wanting to accept the morality of the "dark kingdom" ("Do what you want, so long as everything is sewn and covered"), she publicly admits her act in the church. After this confession, her life becomes so unbearable that she commits suicide. The image of Katerina is the most striking image in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm". Dobrolyubov, analyzing in detail the image of Katerina, called her "a ray of light in the dark kingdom." Katerina's life in her parents' house was going well and carelessly. Here she felt "free". Katerina lived easily, carefree, joyfully. She loved her garden very much, in which she so often walked and admired the flowers. Telling later to Varvara about her life in her home, she says: “I lived, I didn’t grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild. and doing ". Katerina differs from all representatives of the "dark kingdom" in the depth of her feelings, honesty, truthfulness, courage, and decisiveness. Growing up in a good family, she retained all the beautiful traits of the Russian character. This is a pure, sincere, ardent nature, an open soul that does not know how to deceive. “I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything,” she says to Varvara, who claims that everything in their house is based on deception. This same Varvara calls our heroine some kind of "tricky", "wonderful". Katerina is a strong, decisive, strong-willed nature. Since childhood, she was capable of bold deeds. Talking about herself to Varvara and emphasizing her hot nature, she says: "I was born this way, hot!" Katerina was very fond of nature, its beauty, Russian songs. Therefore, her speech - emotional, enthusiastic, musical, melodious - is imbued with high poetry and sometimes reminds us of a folk song. Growing up in her home, our heroine adopted all the age-old traditions of her family: obedience to elders, religiosity, obedience to customs. Katerina, who did not study anywhere, loved to listen to the stories of pilgrims and pilgrims and perceived all their religious prejudices that poisoned her young life, forcing Katerina to perceive love for Boris as a terrible sin, from which she tries and cannot get away. Once in a new family, where everything is under the rule of a cruel, harsh, rude, despotic Kabanikha, Katerina does not find a sympathetic attitude towards herself. Dreamy, honest, sincere, benevolent to people, Katerina takes especially hard on the oppressive atmosphere of this house. Gradually, life in Kabanikha's house, which constantly insults Katerina's human dignity, becomes unbearable for a young woman. A dull protest against the "dark kingdom", which did not give her happiness, freedom and independence, begins to emerge in her soul. This process develops ... Katerina commits suicide. Thus, she proved her innocence, a moral victory over the "dark kingdom". Dobrolyubov in his article, assessing the image of Katerina, wrote: "This is the true strength of character, which, in any case, you can rely on! This is the height to which our people's life reaches in its development!" The fact that Katerina's act was typical of her time is confirmed by the fact that a similar incident occurred in the Klykov family of merchants in Kostroma. And for a long time after that, the actors performing the main roles in the play made up so that in them one could see the resemblance to the Klykovs.

This is the most “favorite” occupation of the Russian classics - to look for a “hero of our time”. Ostrovsky searches for his hero on Katerina. Katerina is a female image who has come to grips with dark forces and dooms herself to certain death. Among the victims, Katerina stands out for her open character, courage and directness. Everything that I have written in the composition is the reason for the further fate of Katerina.
Katerina is a young married woman who was born and spent her childhood in another city or village with her mother. Catherine was free in childhood and flew like a bird. Mamma doted on her, she dressed me like a doll, did not force me to work. Having married the son of a tyrant, this light went out. Living in Kabanikha's house, Katerina's personality is suppressed. Everyone humiliates Katerina, that is, Kabanova. Kabanova is one of the representatives of this gloomy dark corner, and he believed that he was the only one. She shows everyone that she is a saint, and wants everyone to be so. Kabanova lived and made Katerina live according to a book about home economics. It's like dragging a ray of light into a dark realm. No wonder the Russian proverb says that a house for a woman is hard labor.
To everything else is added the bonfire of love for Boris, into which someone constantly adds oil. Katerina's idea of ​​love is rooted in the patriarchal idea of ​​love as a criminal, demonic obsession, since Katerina is a woman of the patriarchal way of life and she was devoted with all her heart husband Baranov. And Tikhon himself is a small person by type. The cruel Kabanikha suppressed in her son everything that is inherent in a man. He is looking for a small hole to break free and live a normal life. In fact, Kabanov traded his wife for the opportunity to get drunk. He refuses to understand her, and under the influence of Barbara she commits a sin. And then, having betrayed Tikhon, an internal conflict arises in Katerina's soul, everything begins to collapse like a house of cards .. I would compare Katerina with a teapot that stands on fire, where the fire is the jealousy of her husband and Kabanikh. The kettle boils, boils, and then the water spills and ...
Katerina is cheating on her husband during his departure with Boris. Only a fleeting romance with Boris roused her, but even then, tormented by emotions, she told her husband about her adventure ... And she could not hide her feelings from her worst enemies, especially from Martha Ignatievna. She, as a person who differs from her peers, the young residents of Kalinov, by her inner disposition, does not accept lies and opportunism, which the people around her have accepted as an integral part of their life. Cheating on her husband was also a great sin. Some, probably, of course, cheated in marriage, but it did not frighten them.
Catherine thinks about the Thunderstorm, that this punishment of God, and all the time hides from it and when there is a thunderstorm over the city, the most terrible things happen to her. It is during a thunderstorm that she faints and after this natural phenomenon, she decides to commit the most terrible sin for a person, to commit suicide. According to the Christian faith, a person who committed suicide will be roasted in hell for the rest of his life. No wonder Katerina cried out: "O fiery hyena!" ...
Kabanikha makes his son hostile to her, and Dikoy sends Boris to Siberia. Left alone, Katerina thought for a long time what to do. Katerina is exhausted, wants to die. She runs away from home and runs to the Volga, remembering Boris's caresses. Katerina is at a fork in two roads: love, which means death and shame, or a painful life under the yoke of Kabanikha, which forced her to do what she herself did with pleasure. And in the middle is the high bank of the river, from which Katerina rushed, pushed by the "thunderstorm", that is, the ever-growing conflict between these two worlds. She did not have a friend who would understand and support her, perhaps Katerina would not have jumped. She then presents the grave from an aesthetic point of view. And despite the fact that suicide is a huge sin in Christian beliefs, Katerina remembered the proverb “He came out of the earth, entered the earth”, looking at the chirping birds, Katya made her last choice. Katerina begins to go crazy and commits suicide. After that, the whole Kabanov family suddenly got hurt.
If the hero commits suicide, then everyone pity him, but in the drama of N.A. Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm" one can only rejoice for the death of Katerina. Indeed, the death of Katerina is an open protest of a person brought to the chapel against all forms. Having committed suicide, Katerina believes that this is the only solution in her situation. It is not clear what caused this murder: a mental state or not wanting to submit to the dark kingdom. Making mistakes, for which you pay later, our conscience torments us, and we often do not find a better option than to shoot ourselves, hang ourselves or drown ourselves. Death by suicide is better than moral death from the kingdom. Nobody understood Katerina, and she died of her despair.