The play “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky depicts the era of the 60s of the nineteenth century. At this time, revolutionary uprisings of the people are brewing in Russia. They are aimed at. improving the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people, to overthrow tsarism. The works of great Russian writers and poets also participate in this struggle, among them Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” which shocked all of Russia. Using the example of the image of Katerina, the struggle of the entire people against the “dark kingdom” and its patriarchal order is depicted.
The main character in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is Katerina. Her protest against the “Kabanovsky” order, the struggle for her happiness is depicted by the author in the drama.
Katerina grew up in the house of a poor merchant, where she matured spiritually and morally. Katerina was an extraordinary person, and there was some kind of extraordinary charm in her facial features. All of her “breathed” Russian, truly folk beauty; This is how Boris says about her: “There’s an angelic smile on her face, but her face seems to glow.”
Before her marriage, Katerina “lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she did what she wanted and when she wanted, no one ever forced her or forced her to do what she, Katerina, didn’t want.
Her spiritual world was very rich and diverse. Katerina was a very poetic person with a rich imagination. In her conversations we hear folk wisdom and popular sayings. Her soul longed for flight; “Why don’t people fly like birds? Sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run, raise my hands and fly.”
Katerina’s soul was “educated” both by the stories of the praying mantises, who were in the house every day, and by sewing on velvet (sewing educated her and brought her into the world of beauty and goodness, into the world of art).
After marriage, Katerina’s life changed dramatically. In the Kabanovs’ house, Katerina was alone, her world, her soul, no one could understand. This loneliness was the first step towards tragedy. The family's attitude towards the heroine has also changed dramatically. The Kabanovs’ house adhered to the same rules and customs as Katerina’s parental home, but here “everything seems to be from under captivity.” The cruel orders of Kabanikha dulled Katerina’s desire for the sublime, and from then on the heroine’s soul fell into the abyss.
Another pain of Katerina is misunderstanding by her husband. Tikhon was a kind, vulnerable person, very weak compared to Katerina, he never had his own opinion - he obeyed the opinion of another, stronger person. Tikhon could not understand his wife’s aspirations: “I can’t understand you, Katya.” This misunderstanding brought Katerina one step closer to disaster.
Love for Boris was also a tragedy for Katerina. According to Dobrolyubov, Boris was the same as Tikhon, only educated. Because of his education, he came to the attention of Katerina. From the entire crowd of the “dark kingdom” she chose him, who was slightly different from the rest. However, Boris turned out to be even worse than Tikhon, he cares only about himself: he only thinks about what others will say about him. He leaves Katerina to the mercy of fate, to the punishment of the “dark kingdom”: “Well, God bless you! There is only one thing we need to ask God for: that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time! Goodbye!".
Katerina sincerely loves Boris and worries about him: “What is he doing now, poor thing?.. Why did I get him into trouble? I should die alone! Otherwise, she ruined herself, she ruined him, she’s a disgrace to herself - he’s eternally disgraced!”
The morals of the city of Kalinov, its rudeness and “stark poverty” were not acceptable to Katerina: “If I want, I’ll leave wherever my eyes look. Nobody can stop me, that's the way it is
I have character."
Dobrolyubov gave the work a high rating. He called Katerina “a ray of light in the “dark kingdom.” At her tragic end, “a terrible challenge was given to tyrant power... In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest brought to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.” In the image of Katerina, Dobrolyubov sees the embodiment of “Russian living nature.” Katerina prefers to die than to live in captivity. Katerina's action is ambiguous.
The image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is an excellent image of a Russian woman in Russian literature.
The play “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky depicts the era of the 60s of the nineteenth century. At this time, revolutionary uprisings of the people are brewing in Russia. They are aimed at. improving the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people, to overthrow tsarism. The works of great Russian writers and poets also participate in this struggle, among them Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” which shocked all of Russia. Using the example of the image of Katerina, the struggle of the entire people against the “dark kingdom” and its patriarchal order is depicted.
The main character in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is Katerina. Her protest against the “Kabanovsky” order, the struggle for her happiness is depicted by the author in the drama.
Katerina grew up in the house of a poor merchant, where she matured spiritually and morally. Katerina was an extraordinary person, and there was some kind of extraordinary charm in her facial features. All of her “breathed” Russian, truly folk beauty; This is how Boris says about her: “There’s an angelic smile on her face, but her face seems to glow.”
Before her marriage, Katerina “lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she did what she wanted and when she wanted, no one ever forced her or forced her to do what she, Katerina, didn’t want.
Her spiritual world was very rich and diverse. Katerina was a very poetic person with a rich imagination. In her conversations we hear folk wisdom and popular sayings. Her soul longed for flight; “Why don’t people fly like birds? Sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run, raise my hands and fly.”
Katerina’s soul was “educated” both by the stories of the praying mantises, who were in the house every day, and by sewing on velvet (sewing educated her and brought her into the world of beauty and goodness, into the world of art).
After marriage, Katerina’s life changed dramatically. In the Kabanovs’ house, Katerina was alone, her world, her soul, no one could understand. This loneliness was the first step towards tragedy. The family's attitude towards the heroine has also changed dramatically. The Kabanovs’ house adhered to the same rules and customs as Katerina’s parental home, but here “everything seems to be from under captivity.” The cruel orders of Kabanikha dulled Katerina’s desire for the sublime, and from then on the heroine’s soul fell into the abyss.
Another pain of Katerina is misunderstanding by her husband. Tikhon was a kind, vulnerable person, very weak compared to Katerina, he never had his own opinion - he obeyed the opinion of another, stronger person. Tikhon could not understand his wife’s aspirations: “I can’t understand you, Katya.” This misunderstanding brought Katerina one step closer to disaster.
Love for Boris was also a tragedy for Katerina. According to Dobrolyubov, Boris was the same as Tikhon, only educated. Because of his education, he came to the attention of Katerina. From the entire crowd of the “dark kingdom” she chose him, who was slightly different from the rest. However, Boris turned out to be even worse than Tikhon, he cares only about himself: he only thinks about what others will say about him. He leaves Katerina to the mercy of fate, to the punishment of the “dark kingdom”: “Well, God bless you! There is only one thing we need to ask God for: that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time! Goodbye!".
Katerina sincerely loves Boris and worries about him: “What is he doing now, poor thing?.. Why did I get him into trouble? I should die alone! Otherwise, she ruined herself, she ruined him, she’s a disgrace to herself - he’s eternally disgraced!”
The morals of the city of Kalinov, its rudeness and “stark poverty” were not acceptable to Katerina: “If I want, I’ll leave wherever my eyes look. Nobody can stop me, that's the way it is
I have character."
Dobrolyubov gave the work a high rating. He called Katerina “a ray of light in the “dark kingdom.” At her tragic end, “a terrible challenge was given to tyrant power... In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest brought to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.” In the image of Katerina, Dobrolyubov sees the embodiment of “Russian living nature.” Katerina prefers to die than to live in captivity. Katerina's action is ambiguous.
The image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is an excellent image of a Russian woman in Russian literature.
Katerina is the main character of Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”, Tikhon’s wife, Kabanikha’s daughter-in-law. The main idea of the work is the conflict of this girl with the “dark kingdom”, the kingdom of tyrants, despots and ignoramuses.
You can find out why this conflict arose and why the end of the drama is so tragic by understanding Katerina’s ideas about life. The author showed the origins of the heroine's character. From Katerina's words we learn about her childhood and adolescence. Here is an ideal version of patriarchal relations and the patriarchal world in general: “I lived, I didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild, I did what I wanted.” But it was “will”, which did not at all conflict with the age-old way of closed life, the entire circle of which is limited to housework. Katya lived freely: she got up early, washed herself with spring water, went to church with her mother, then sat down to do some work and listened to the pilgrims and praying men, of whom there were many in their house. This is a story about a world in which it does not occur to a person to oppose himself to the general, since he has not yet separated himself from this community. That is why there is no violence or coercion here. For Katerina, the idyllic harmony of patriarchal family life is an unconditional moral ideal. But she lives in an era when the very spirit of this morality has disappeared and the ossified form rests on violence and coercion. Sensitive Katerina catches this in her family life in the Kabanovs' house. After listening to the story about her daughter-in-law’s life before marriage, Varvara (Tikhon’s sister) exclaims in surprise: “But it’s the same with us.” “Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity,” Katerina says, and this is the main drama for her.
Katerina was given away to marry young, her fate was decided by her family, and she accepts this as a completely natural, ordinary thing. She enters the Kabanov family, ready to love and honor her mother-in-law (“For me, mummy, it’s all the same, like my own mother, like you...” she says to Kabanikha), expecting in advance that her husband will be her master, but also her support, and protection. But Tikhon is not suitable for the role of the head of a patriarchal family, and Katerina speaks of her love for him: “I feel sorry for him very much!” And in the fight against her illegal love for Boris, Katerina, despite her attempts, cannot rely on Tikhon.
Katya's life has changed a lot. From a free, joyful world, she found herself in a world full of deception and cruelty. She wants with all her soul to be pure and impeccable.
Katerina no longer feels such delight from visiting church. Katerina’s religious sentiments intensify as her mental storm grows. But it is precisely the discrepancy between her sinful inner state and what the religious commandments require that does not allow her to pray as before: Katerina is too far from the sanctimonious gap between the external performance of rituals and everyday practice. She feels fear of herself, of the desire for will. Katerina cannot do her usual activities. Sad, anxious thoughts do not allow her to calmly admire nature. Katya can only endure as long as she can and dream, but she can no longer live with her thoughts, because cruel reality returns her to earth, to where there is humiliation and suffering.
The environment in which Katerina lives requires her to lie and deceive. But Katerina is not like that. She is attracted to Boris not only by the fact that she likes him, that he is not like the others around her, but by her need for love, which has not found a response in her husband, by the offended feeling of her wife, by the mortal melancholy of her monotonous life. It was necessary to hide, to be cunning; she didn’t want it, and she couldn’t do it; she had to return to her dreary life, and this seemed to her more bitter than before. Sin lies like a heavy stone on her heart. Katerina is terribly afraid of the approaching thunderstorm, considering it a punishment for what she did. Katya cannot continue to live with her sin, and she considers repentance the only way to at least partially get rid of it. She confesses everything to her husband and Kabanikha.
What can she do? All that remains for her is to submit, renounce independent life and become an unquestioning servant of her mother-in-law, a meek slave of her husband. But this is not Katerina’s character - she will never return to her former life: if she cannot enjoy her feelings, her will, then she doesn’t want anything in life, she doesn’t even want life. She decided to die, but she is afraid of the thought that this is a sin. She doesn’t complain about anyone, she doesn’t blame anyone, she just can’t live anymore. At the last moment, all the domestic horrors flash especially vividly in her imagination. No, she will no longer be a victim of a soulless mother-in-law and will not languish locked up with a spineless and disgusting husband. Death is her release.
- Whole, honest, sincere, she is incapable of lies and falsehood, which is why in a cruel world where wild and wild boars reign, her life turns out so tragically. Katerina’s protest against Kabanikha’s despotism is a struggle of the bright, pure, human against the darkness, lies and cruelty of the “dark kingdom”. It is not for nothing that Ostrovsky, who paid great attention to the selection of names and surnames of the characters, gave this name to the heroine of “The Thunderstorm”: translated from Greek “Ekaterina” means “eternally pure”. Katerina is a poetic person. IN […]
- Katerina Varvara Character Sincere, sociable, kind, honest, pious, but superstitious. Tender, soft, and at the same time, decisive. Rough, cheerful, but taciturn: “... I don’t like to talk a lot.” Decisive, can fight back. Temperament Passionate, freedom-loving, courageous, impetuous and unpredictable. She says about herself, “I was born so hot!” Freedom-loving, intelligent, prudent, courageous and rebellious, she is not afraid of either parental or heavenly punishment. Upbringing, […]
- A conflict is a clash between two or more parties that do not coincide in their views and worldviews. There are several conflicts in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” but how can you decide which one is the main one? In the era of sociology in literary criticism, it was believed that social conflict was the most important in the play. Of course, if we see in the image of Katerina a reflection of the spontaneous protest of the masses against the constraining conditions of the “dark kingdom” and perceive Katerina’s death as the result of her collision with her tyrant mother-in-law, one should […]
- Dramatic events of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm" takes place in the city of Kalinov. This town is located on the picturesque bank of the Volga, from the high cliff of which the vast Russian expanses and boundless distances open up to the eye. “The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices,” enthuses local self-taught mechanic Kuligin. Pictures of endless distances, echoed in a lyrical song. Among the flat valleys,” which he sings, are of great importance for conveying the feeling of the immense possibilities of the Russian […]
- In general, the history of the creation and concept of the play “The Thunderstorm” is very interesting. For some time there was an assumption that this work was based on real events that occurred in the Russian city of Kostroma in 1859. “In the early morning of November 10, 1859, Kostroma bourgeois Alexandra Pavlovna Klykova disappeared from her home and either rushed into the Volga herself, or was strangled and thrown there. The investigation revealed the silent drama that played out in an unsociable family living narrowly with commercial interests: […]
- In the drama “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky created a very psychologically complex image - the image of Katerina Kabanova. This young woman charms the viewer with her huge, pure soul, childish sincerity and kindness. But she lives in the musty atmosphere of the “dark kingdom” of merchant morals. Ostrovsky managed to create a bright and poetic image of a Russian woman from the people. The main storyline of the play is a tragic conflict between the living, feeling soul of Katerina and the dead way of life of the “dark kingdom”. Honest and […]
- Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was endowed with great talent as a playwright. He is deservedly considered the founder of the Russian national theater. His plays, varied in theme, glorified Russian literature. Ostrovsky's creativity had a democratic character. He created plays that showed hatred of the autocratic serfdom regime. The writer called for the protection of the oppressed and humiliated citizens of Russia and longed for social change. Ostrovsky’s enormous merit is that he opened the enlightened [...]
- In “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky shows the life of a Russian merchant family and the position of women in it. Katerina’s character was formed in a simple merchant family, where love reigned and the daughter was given complete freedom. She acquired and retained all the wonderful traits of the Russian character. This is a pure, open soul that does not know how to lie. “I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything,” she tells Varvara. In religion, Katerina found the highest truth and beauty. Her desire for the beautiful and the good was expressed in prayers. Coming out […]
- In The Thunderstorm, Ostrovsky, using a small number of characters, managed to reveal several problems at once. Firstly, this is, of course, a social conflict, a clash between “fathers” and “children”, their points of view (and if we resort to generalization, then two historical eras). Kabanova and Dikoy belong to the older generation, who actively express their opinions, and Katerina, Tikhon, Varvara, Kudryash and Boris to the younger generation. Kabanova is sure that order in the house, control over everything that happens in it, is the key to a healthy life. Correct […]
- “The Thunderstorm” was published in 1859 (on the eve of the revolutionary situation in Russia, in the “pre-storm” era). Its historicism lies in the conflict itself, the irreconcilable contradictions reflected in the play. It responds to the spirit of the times. "The Thunderstorm" represents the idyll of the "dark kingdom". Tyranny and silence are brought to the extreme in her. A real heroine from the people's environment appears in the play, and it is the description of her character that receives the main attention, while the little world of the city of Kalinov and the conflict itself are described in a more general way. "Their life […]
- The play “The Thunderstorm” by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is historical for us, as it shows the life of the philistinism. "The Thunderstorm" was written in 1859. It is the only work of the “Nights on the Volga” series conceived but not realized by the writer. The main theme of the work is a description of the conflict that arose between two generations. The Kabanikha family is typical. The merchants cling to their old morals, not wanting to understand the younger generation. And since young people do not want to follow traditions, they are suppressed. I'm sure, […]
- Let's start with Katerina. In the play "The Thunderstorm" this lady is the main character. What is the problem with this work? The problematic is the main question that the author asks in his work. So the question here is who will win? The dark kingdom, which is represented by the bureaucrats of a provincial town, or the bright beginning, which is represented by our heroine. Katerina is pure in soul, she has a tender, sensitive, loving heart. The heroine herself is deeply hostile to this dark swamp, but is not fully aware of it. Katerina was born […]
- “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky made a strong and deep impression on his contemporaries. Many critics were inspired by this work. However, even in our time it has not ceased to be interesting and topical. Elevated to the category of classical drama, it still arouses interest. The tyranny of the “older” generation lasts for many years, but some event must occur that could break the patriarchal tyranny. Such an event turns out to be the protest and death of Katerina, which awakened others […]
- The critical history of "The Thunderstorm" begins even before its appearance. To argue about “a ray of light in a dark kingdom,” it was necessary to open the “Dark Kingdom.” An article under this title appeared in the July and September issues of Sovremennik for 1859. It was signed with the usual pseudonym of N. A. Dobrolyubova - N. - bov. The reason for this work was extremely significant. In 1859, Ostrovsky summed up the interim result of his literary activity: his two-volume collected works appeared. "We consider it the most [...]
- A special hero in Ostrovsky’s world, who belongs to the type of poor official with self-esteem, is Yuliy Kapitonovich Karandyshev. At the same time, his pride is hypertrophied to such an extent that it becomes a substitute for other feelings. Larisa for him is not just his beloved girl, she is also a “prize” that gives him the opportunity to triumph over Paratov, a chic and rich rival. At the same time, Karandyshev feels like a benefactor, taking as his wife a dowry-free woman, partly compromised by the relationship […]
- Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was called the “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye,” a region of Moscow where people from the merchant class lived. He showed what intense, dramatic life goes on behind high fences, what Shakespearean passions sometimes boil in the souls of representatives of the so-called “simple class” - merchants, shopkeepers, small employees. The patriarchal laws of a world that is becoming a thing of the past seem unshakable, but a warm heart lives according to its own laws - the laws of love and goodness. The characters of the play “Poverty is not a vice” […]
- The love story of clerk Mitya and Lyuba Tortsova unfolds against the backdrop of life in a merchant's house. Ostrovsky once again delighted his fans with his remarkable knowledge of the world and amazingly vivid language. Unlike the earlier plays, this comedy contains not only the soulless manufacturer Korshunov and Gordey Tortsov, who boasts of his wealth and power. They are contrasted with simple and sincere people dear to the hearts of the Pochvenniks - the kind and loving Mitya and the squandered drunkard Lyubim Tortsov, who remained, despite his fall, […]
- The focus of the writers of the 19th century is on a person with a rich spiritual life and a changeable inner world. The new hero reflects the state of the individual in an era of social transformation. The authors do not ignore the complex conditioning of the development of the human psyche by the external material environment. The main feature of the depiction of the world of heroes of Russian literature is psychologism , that is, the ability to show a change in the hero’s soul. In the center of different works we see “extra […]
- The drama takes place in the Volga city of Bryakhimov. And in it, as everywhere else, cruel orders reign. The society here is the same as in other cities. The main character of the play, Larisa Ogudalova, is a homeless woman. The Ogudalov family is not rich, but, thanks to the persistence of Kharita Ignatievna, they make acquaintance with the powers that be. The mother inspires Larisa that, although she does not have a dowry, she should marry a rich groom. And Larisa for the time being accepts these rules of the game, naively hoping that love and wealth […]
- Autumn beauty in a bright outfit. In summer, rowan is invisible. She blends in with other trees. But in the fall, when the trees dress in yellow, it can be seen from afar. The bright red berries attract the attention of people and birds. People admire the tree. Birds feast on his gifts. Even in winter, when the snow is white everywhere, rowan berries delight with their juicy tassels. Her images can be found on many New Year's cards. Artists love rowan because it makes winter more fun and colorful. Poets also love wood. Her […]
Katerina is the main character of Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”, Tikhon’s wife, Kabanikha’s daughter-in-law. The main idea of the work is the conflict of this girl with the “dark kingdom”, the kingdom of tyrants, despots and ignoramuses.
You can find out why this conflict arose and why the end of the drama is so tragic by understanding Katerina’s ideas about life. The author showed the origins of the heroine's character. From Katerina's words we learn about her childhood and adolescence. Here is an ideal version of patriarchal relations and the patriarchal world in general: “I lived, I didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild, I did what I wanted.” But it was “will”, which did not at all conflict with the age-old way of closed life, the entire circle of which is limited to housework.
Katya lived freely: she got up early, washed herself with spring water, went to church with her mother, then sat down to do some work and listened to the pilgrims and praying men, of whom there were many in their house. This is a story about a world in which it does not occur to a person to oppose himself to the general, since he has not yet separated himself from this community. That is why there is no violence or coercion here. For Katerina, the idyllic harmony of patriarchal family life is an unconditional moral ideal. But she lives in an era when the very spirit of this morality has disappeared and the ossified form rests on violence and coercion. Sensitive Katerina catches this in her family life in the Kabanovs' house. After listening to the story about her daughter-in-law’s life before marriage, Varvara (Tikhon’s sister) exclaims in surprise: “But it’s the same with us.” “Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity,” Katerina says, and this is the main drama for her.
Katerina was given away to marry young, her fate was decided by her family, and she accepts this as a completely natural, ordinary thing. She enters the Kabanov family, ready to love and honor her mother-in-law (“For me, mummy, it’s all the same, like my own mother, like you...” she says to Kabanikha), expecting in advance that her husband will be her master, but also her support, and protection. But Tikhon is not suitable for the role of the head of a patriarchal family, and Katerina speaks of her love for him: “I feel sorry for him very much!” And in the fight against her illegal love for Boris, Katerina, despite her attempts, cannot rely on Tikhon.
Katya's life has changed a lot. From a free, joyful world, she found herself in a world full of deception and cruelty. She wants with all her soul to be pure and impeccable.
Katerina no longer feels such delight from visiting church. Katerina’s religious sentiments intensify as her mental storm grows. But it is precisely the discrepancy between her sinful inner state and what the religious commandments require that does not allow her to pray as before: Katerina is too far from the sanctimonious gap between the external performance of rituals and everyday practice. She feels fear of herself, of the desire for will. Katerina cannot do her usual activities. Sad, anxious thoughts do not allow her to calmly admire nature. Katya can only endure as long as she can and dream, but she can no longer live with her thoughts, because cruel reality returns her to earth, to where there is humiliation and suffering.
The environment in which Katerina lives requires her to lie and deceive. But Katerina is not like that. She is attracted to Boris not only by the fact that she likes him, that he is not like the others around her, but by her need for love, which has not found a response in her husband, by the offended feeling of her wife, by the mortal melancholy of her monotonous life. It was necessary to hide, to be cunning; she didn’t want it, and she couldn’t do it; she had to return to her dreary life, and this seemed to her more bitter than before. Sin lies like a heavy stone on her heart. Katerina is terribly afraid of the approaching thunderstorm, considering it a punishment for what she did. Katya cannot continue to live with her sin, and she considers repentance the only way to at least partially get rid of it. She confesses everything to her husband and Kabanikha.
What can she do? All that remains for her is to submit, renounce independent life and become an unquestioning servant of her mother-in-law, a meek slave of her husband. But this is not Katerina’s character - she will never return to her former life: if she cannot enjoy her feelings, her will, then she doesn’t want anything in life, she doesn’t even want life. She decided to die, but she is afraid of the thought that this is a sin. She doesn’t complain about anyone, she doesn’t blame anyone, she just can’t live anymore. At the last moment, all the domestic horrors flash especially vividly in her imagination. No, she will no longer be a victim of a soulless mother-in-law and will not languish locked up with a spineless and disgusting husband. Death is her release.
The play “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky depicts the era of the 60s of the nineteenth century. At this time, revolutionary uprisings of the people are brewing in Russia. They are aimed at. improving the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people, to overthrow tsarism. The works of great Russian writers and poets also participate in this struggle, among them Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” which shocked all of Russia. Using the example of the image of Katerina, the struggle of the entire people against the “dark kingdom” and its patriarchal order is depicted.
The main character in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is Katerina. Her protest against the “Kabanovsky” order, the struggle for her happiness is depicted by the author in the drama.
Katerina grew up in the house of a poor merchant, where she matured spiritually and morally. Katerina was an extraordinary person, and there was some kind of extraordinary charm in her facial features. All of her “breathed” Russian, truly folk beauty; This is how Boris says about her: “There’s an angelic smile on her face, but her face seems to glow.”
Before her marriage, Katerina “lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she did what she wanted and when she wanted, no one ever forced her or forced her to do what she, Katerina, didn’t want.
Her spiritual world was very rich and diverse. Katerina was a very poetic person with a rich imagination. In her conversations we hear folk wisdom and popular sayings. Her soul longed for flight; “Why don’t people fly like birds? Sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run, raise my hands and fly.”
Katerina’s soul was “educated” both by the stories of the praying mantises, who were in the house every day, and by sewing on velvet (sewing educated her and brought her into the world of beauty and goodness, into the world of art).
After marriage, Katerina’s life changed dramatically. In the Kabanovs’ house, Katerina was alone, her world, her soul, no one could understand. This loneliness was the first step towards tragedy. The family's attitude towards the heroine has also changed dramatically. The Kabanovs’ house adhered to the same rules and customs as Katerina’s parental home, but here “everything seems to be from under captivity.” The cruel orders of Kabanikha dulled Katerina’s desire for the sublime, and from then on the heroine’s soul fell into the abyss.
Another pain of Katerina is misunderstanding by her husband. Tikhon was a kind, vulnerable person, very weak compared to Katerina, he never had his own opinion - he obeyed the opinion of another, stronger person. Tikhon could not understand his wife’s aspirations: “I can’t understand you, Katya.” This misunderstanding brought Katerina one step closer to disaster.
Love for Boris was also a tragedy for Katerina. According to Dobrolyubov, Boris was the same as Tikhon, only educated. Because of his education, he came to the attention of Katerina. From the entire crowd of the “dark kingdom” she chose him, who was slightly different from the rest. However, Boris turned out to be even worse than Tikhon, he cares only about himself: he only thinks about what others will say about him. He leaves Katerina to the mercy of fate, to the punishment of the “dark kingdom”: “Well, God bless you! There is only one thing we need to ask God for: that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time! Goodbye!".
Katerina sincerely loves Boris and worries about him: “What is he doing now, poor thing?.. Why did I get him into trouble? I should die alone! Otherwise, she ruined herself, she ruined him, she’s a disgrace to herself - he’s eternally disgraced!”
The morals of the city of Kalinov, its rudeness and “stark poverty” were not acceptable to Katerina: “If I want, I’ll leave wherever my eyes look. Nobody can stop me, that's the way it is
I have character."
Dobrolyubov gave the work a high rating. He called Katerina “a ray of light in the “dark kingdom.” At her tragic end, “a terrible challenge was given to tyrant power... In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest brought to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.” In the image of Katerina, Dobrolyubov sees the embodiment of “Russian living nature.” Katerina prefers to die than to live in captivity. Katerina's action is ambiguous.
The image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is an excellent image of a Russian woman in Russian literature.