In Katerina’s worldview, Slavic pagan antiquity, rooted in prehistoric times, harmoniously merges with democratic trends Christian culture. Katerina’s religiosity includes sunrises and sunsets, dewy grass in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. Along with it is the beauty of a rural church, and the expanse of the Volga, and the Trans-Volga meadow expanse. And as the heroine prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow.”
Ostrovsky’s earthly heroine, emitting spiritual light, is far from the harsh asceticism of Domostroevsky morality. According to the rules of Domostroy, during church prayer one had to listen to divine singing with unflagging attention, and “keep your eyes down.” Katerina directs her eyes upward. And what does she see, what does she hear during church prayer? These angelic choirs in the pillar sunlight, pouring from the dome, this church singing, picked up by the singing of birds, this spirituality of the earthly elements - the elements of heaven... “As if, it happened, I will enter heaven, and I don’t see anyone, and I don’t remember the time, and I don’t hear when the service is over.”
Katerina experiences the joy of life in the temple. She bows to the sun in her garden, among the trees, herbs, flowers, and the morning freshness of awakening nature. “Or early in the morning I’ll go to the garden, the sun is still just rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry...”
In a difficult moment of her life, Katerina will complain: “If only I had died as a little girl, it would have been better. I would look from heaven to earth and rejoice at everything. Otherwise she would fly invisibly wherever she wanted. I would fly out into the field and fly from cornflower to cornflower in the wind, like a butterfly.” “Why don’t people fly!.. I say: why don’t people fly like birds? You know, 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 up, raise my hands and fly.”
Katerina’s freedom-loving impulses, even in her childhood memories, are not spontaneous: “I was born so hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, and it was late in the evening, it was already dark, I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore.” After all, this act of Katerina is completely consistent with her people's soul. In Russian fairy tales, the hero is always hiding from his pursuers.
Since ancient times, the Slavs worshiped rivers and believed that they all flow to the end of the white world, to where the sun rises from the sea - to the land of truth and goodness. Along the Volga, in a dugout boat, the Kostroma residents sailed the sun god Yarila and escorted him to the promised land of warm waters. They threw shavings from the coffin into running water. Disused icons were floated down the river. So little Katerina’s impulse to seek protection from the Volga is a departure from untruth and evil to the land of light and goodness, this is a rejection of “wrong lies” with early childhood and readiness to leave the world if everything in it “gets sick of her.”
Without feeling the pristine freshness inner world Katerina, you won't understand vitality and the power of her character, the figurative mystery vernacular. “How frisky I was! - Katerina turns to Varvara, but then, wilting, she adds: “I’ve completely withered with you.” Katerina’s soul, blossoming at the same time as nature, really fades in the hostile world of wild boars and wild boars.
In the early fifties, significant changes occurred in Ostrovsky’s work. A look at merchant life in the first comedy “Our People - Let's Be Numbered!” seems to the playwright “young and too tough.” “...It is better for a Russian person to rejoice when he sees himself on stage than to be sad. Correctors will be found even without us. In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, you need to show them that you know the good in them; This is what I’m doing now, combining the sublime with the comic.” In the plays of the first half of the fifties, “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” “Poverty is Not a Vice,” and “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” Ostrovsky depicts mainly the bright, poetic sides of Russian life. The same traditions are preserved in the drama “The Thunderstorm”. The poetics of Ostrovsky’s works still captivates the hearts of readers and viewers.
The image of Matryona Timofeevna in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”... Part called "Peasant Woman". In general, this image occupies a special place in all of Nekrasov’s poetry. The Russian woman has always been the main thing for Nekrasov...
Summary of an integrated drawing lesson in the senior group: “Trees”, World of Preschoolers... Summary of an integrated drawing lesson in the senior group: “Trees” Continue to introduce children to non-traditional drawing techniques. Pin...
In the drama "The Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky created a very complex psychologically 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” merchant morals. Ostrovsky managed to create a bright and poetic image of a Russian woman from the people. Main storyline plays are tragic conflict the living, feeling soul of Katerina and the dead way of life of the “dark kingdom”. Honest and touching Katerina turned out to be a powerless victim of cruel orders merchant environment. No wonder Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” Katerina did not accept despotism and tyranny; Driven to despair, she challenges the “dark kingdom” and dies. This is the only way she can save her inner world from harsh pressure. According to critics, for Katerina “it is not death that is desirable, but life that is unbearable. Living for her means being yourself. Not being herself means not living for her.”
The image of Katerina is built on a folk-poetic basis. Her pure soul is fused with nature. She presents herself as a bird, the image of which in folklore is closely connected with the concept of will. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.” Katerina, who ended up in Kabanova’s house as if in a terrible prison, often remembers her parents’ home, where she was treated with love and understanding. Talking to Varvara, the heroine asks: “...Why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird.” Katerina breaks free from the cage, where she is forced to remain until the end of her days.
Religion evoked high feelings, a surge of joy and reverence in her. The beauty and fullness of the heroine’s soul were expressed in prayers to God. “On a sunny day, such a light column goes down from the dome, and smoke moves in this column, like clouds, and I see it as if angels are flying and singing in this column. And then, it happened... at night I would get up... and somewhere in the corner and pray until the morning. Or I’ll go to the garden early in the morning, the sun is still rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry.”
Katerina expresses her thoughts and feelings in poetic folk language. The heroine's melodious speech is colored by love for the world, the use of many diminutive forms characterizes her soul. She says “sunshine”, “voditsa”, “grave”, often resorts to repetitions, as in songs: “on a good three”, “and people are disgusting to me, and the house is disgusting to me, and the walls are disgusting.” Trying to throw out the feelings boiling in her, Katerina exclaims: “Violent winds, bear with him my sadness and melancholy!”
Katerina's tragedy is that she does not know how and does not want to lie. And in the “dark kingdom” lies are the basis of life and relationships. Boris tells her: “No one will know about our love...”, to which Katerina replies: “Let everyone know, let everyone see what I do!” These words reveal the courageous, integral nature of this woman, who risks challenging ordinary morality and confronting society alone.
But, having fallen in love with Boris, Katerina enters into a struggle with herself, with her beliefs. She, married woman, feels like a great sinner. Her faith in God is not the hypocrisy of Kabanikha, who covers up her anger and misanthropy with God. Awareness of her own sinfulness and pangs of conscience haunt Katerina. She complains to Varya: “Oh, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I didn’t do to myself! I can't escape this sin. Can't go anywhere. After all, this is not good, this is a terrible sin, Varenka, why do I love someone else?” Katerina does not think about the fact that she was violated by marrying someone she didn’t love. Her husband, Tikhon, is glad to leave home and does not want to protect his wife from her mother-in-law. Her heart tells her that her love is the greatest happiness, in which there is nothing bad, but the morality of society and the church does not forgive the free expression of feelings. Katerina struggles among unsolvable questions. Material from the site
The tension in the play increases, Katerina is afraid of a thunderstorm, hears terrible prophecies of a crazy lady, sees a picture on the wall depicting doomsday. In a darkened state of mind, she repents of her sin. Repentance from the heart according to religious laws necessarily requires forgiveness. But people have forgotten the kind, forgiving and loving God, they still have a God who punishes and punishes. Katerina does not receive forgiveness. She doesn’t want to live and suffer, she has nowhere to go, her loved one turned out to be as weak and dependent as her husband. Everyone betrayed her. The church considers suicide a terrible sin, but for Katerina it is an act of despair. It is better to end up in hell than to live in the “dark kingdom.” The heroine cannot harm anyone, so she decides to die herself. Throwing herself off a cliff into the Volga, at the last moment Katerina thinks not about her sin, but about love, which illuminated her life with great happiness. Last words Katerina addresses Boris: “My friend! My joy! Goodbye!" One can only hope that God will be more merciful to Katerina than people.
“A public garden on the high bank of the Volga; beyond the Volga there is a rural view,” - with such a remark Ostrovsky opens “The Thunderstorm.” The action of the Russian tragedy rises above the Volga expanse, opens up to the all-Russian expanse, it is immediately given poetic inspiration: “The city cannot hide, standing at the top of the mountain."
In Kuligin’s mouth sounds the song “Among the Flat Valley” - the epigraph and poetic grain of “Thunderstorms”. This is a song about the tragedy of goodness and beauty: the richer spiritually and more moral person, the fewer supports he has, the more dramatic his existence. This song already anticipates the fate of the heroine with her human restlessness, her inability to find support and support, her inability to adapt to circumstances.
And here before us is Katerina, who alone is given in “The Thunderstorm” to retain the fullness of viable principles folk culture. Where do Katerina’s vital sources of this integrity come from? In order to understand this, we must turn to the cultural soil that nourishes it. Without her, Katerina's character fades like mown grass.
Katerina’s worldview harmoniously combines Slavic pagan antiquity with Christian culture, spiritualizing and morally enlightening old pagan beliefs. Katerina’s religiosity is unthinkable without sunrises and sunsets, dewy grasses in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. In the heroine’s monologues, familiar Russian motifs come to life folk songs. In Katerina’s worldview, the spring of primordially Russian song culture beats and acquires new life Christian beliefs.
Let's see how Katerina prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow.” There is something iconographic in this face, from which a bright radiance emanates. But the earthly heroine of A. N. Ostrovsky, emitting spiritual light, is far from the asceticism of official Christian morality. Her prayer is bright holiday spirit, a feast of the imagination: “Exactly, it happened that I would enter heaven, and I didn’t see anyone, and I didn’t remember the time, and I didn’t hear when the service was over.” Katerina’s life-loving religiosity has gone far from the norms of the old patriarchal morality.
She experiences the joy of life in the temple, bows to the sun in the garden, among the trees, herbs, flowers, morning freshness, awakening nature: “Or early in the morning I’ll go to the garden, the sun is just rising, I’ll fall on my knees, I pray and cry, and I don’t know what I’m praying for and why I’m crying; that’s how they’ll find me.”
In the dreams of young Katerina there are echoes of Christian legends about paradise, the divine garden of Eden. It is obvious that the legend of paradise includes all the beauty of earthly life: prayers to the rising sun, morning visits to key students, bright images of angels and birds. In the vein of these dreams is another serious desire - to fly: “Why don’t people fly!.. That’s how I would run, raise my hands and fly.”
Where do these fantastic dreams come from for Katerina? Are they not the fruit of a morbid imagination, or a whim of a refined nature? No. In the consciousness of Katerina, those who entered the flesh and blood of the Russian awaken folk character ancient pagan myths, deep layers of Slavic culture are revealed.
Freedom-loving impulses in childhood memories are also not spontaneous. They also bear the influence of folk culture. “I was born so hot! I was only six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, and it was towards evening, it was already dark, I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat, and pushed her away from shore. The next morning they found it, about ten miles away! After all, this act is consistent with the folk tale about truth. IN folk tales the girl turns to the river with a request to save her, and the river hides the girl in its banks. So little Katerina’s impulse to seek protection from the Volga is quite fabulous and completely social: here is a departure from untruth and evil to the land of truth and goodness, here is the rejection of wrongdoing from childhood and a decisive readiness to leave this world if everything in it becomes boring to her.
And in the Kabanovs' house, Katerina finds herself in " dark kingdom“spiritual lack of freedom. “Everything here seems to be from under captivity,” a stern religious spirit has settled here, democracy has evaporated here, the cheerful generosity of the people’s worldview has disappeared.
During the course of the action, Katerina does not hear Feklushi, but it is generally accepted that she has seen and heard many of these wanderers in her short life. The heroine's monologue, which plays a key role in the tragedy, refutes such a view. Even the wanderers in Kabanikha’s house are different, from among those hypocrites who “due to their weakness did not walk far, but heard a lot.” And they talk about " the last times", about the impending end of the world. These wanderers are alien to the pure world of Katerina, they are in the service of Kabanikha, and that means they can have nothing in common with Katerina.
The monologues of the heroine of the play embody the people's cherished aspirations and hopes. Tenderness and daring, dreaminess and earthly passion are combined in Katerina’s character; The main thing in it is not the mystical impulse away from the earth, but the moral force that spiritualizes earthly existence.
In Katerina, the love of life of the Russian people triumphs, who sought in religion not the negation of life, but its affirmation. The soul of Ostrovsky's heroine is one of those chosen Russian souls who are alien to compromise, who thirst for universal truth and will not agree to anything less.
The fate of Katerina in the drama “The Thunderstorm” evokes pity and at the same time respect. This simple Russian woman differs from the people around her not only in her unfortunate fate and terrible death, but also in her rare spiritual qualities. Russian critics dubbed her “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” Why if she couldn’t change anything and left this life as a loser?
Initially, Katerina is a spiritually strong person, with a rich original imagination. Thanks to her upbringing, her dreams were directed towards religiosity. But Katerina knew how to poetically rethink church truths. So, she often dreamed of paradise gardens and birds, and when she entered the church, she saw angels.
Katerina’s religiosity makes her more vulnerable (she cannot lie, since it is a sin), and at the same time gives her the power of truth in the implicit struggle with the bigot Kabanikha. Love for Boris brings Katerina face to face with the “dark kingdom,” although she does not perceive her protest as indignation against the existing system. And yet, for every resident of Kalinov, Katerina’s loneliness in their “dark kingdom” is obvious.
It is emphasized by the composition of the work. Katerina is the only hero who does not have a pair (unlike the pairs Kabanov - Dikaya (rich tyrants), Tikhon - Boris (their weak-willed slaves), Varvara - Kudryash (successfully adapted). Katerina, by her origin, is a stranger in Kalinov.
Katerina is the highest, most poetic embodiment of the ideas and principles of the patriarchal world. It is no coincidence that her image was clearly inspired by the author’s images of Russian poetry. The motive of Katerina’s desire for Boris, her “destroyer,” seems to be borrowed from folk song(“You kill, ruin me from midnight...”): “Why did you come? Why have you come, my destroyer? “Why do you want my death?”; “You ruined me!” How strong her feeling must be if she goes to certain death in his name! “Don’t be sorry, destroy me!” - she exclaims, deciding to reciprocate Boris. And gradually Katerina comes to the conclusion: “If I’m tired of being here, they won’t hold me back by any force. I’ll throw myself out the window, throw myself into the Volga.”
But the patriarchal world around is no longer the same as it is in Katerina’s soul. A lump of contradictions grows, and, finally, there is nothing left in Katerina that is similar to what surrounds her.
In the first scene, listening to the dialogue between Kuligin and Tikhon, we imagine Katerina as a submissive victim, a person with a broken will and a trampled soul. “Mama eats her, but she walks around like a shadow, unresponsive. She just cries and melts like wax,” Tikhon says about his wife.
We are ready to see a powerless victim, but a person appears on stage who is capable of dreaming and loving; still able to live. She is a person with a strong, decisive character, with a lively, freedom-loving heart. She ran away from home to say goodbye to Boris, without fear of punishment for this act. She not only does not hide, does not hide, but “loudly, at the top of her voice” calls her beloved: “My joy, my life, my soul, I love you! Respond!”
Katerina’s last monologue depicts her inner victory over the forces of the “dark kingdom.” “Live again? No, no, don’t... it’s not good!” The word “bad” is characteristic here: living under the yoke of Kabanikha, from Katerina’s point of view, is unnatural and immoral: “But they’ll catch me and force me back home...” “Oh, hurry, hurry!” The thirst for liberation also triumphs over dark religious ideas. Katerina becomes convinced of her right to freedom of feeling, to the freedom to choose between life and death. “It’s all the same that death will come, that it will... but you can’t live!” - she reflects on suicide, which from the point of view of the church is one of the most terrible sins. But she found the strength to question this idea: “Sin! Won't they pray? He who loves will pray..."
Just as a thunderstorm on a hot summer day brings coolness, so after Katerina’s death, the victims of the “dark kingdom” awaken a sense of self-esteem and a desire to escape from a humiliating situation. Varvara and Kudryash flee Kalinov. Kuligin addresses those gathered on the shore with reproach. Even Tikhon finds the strength to blame his mother: “You ruined her! You! You!"
Katerina's death, like the sun, illuminated the “dark kingdom” with all its ugly inhabitants.
In Ostrovsky's forty original plays from contemporary life, there are practically no male heroes. Heroes in the sense positive characters, occupying a central place in the play. Instead of them, Ostrovsky's heroines are loving, suffering souls. Katerina Kabanova is one of their many.
Character is the destiny of a person.
Ancient Indian saying
In the 19th century, Russian literature acquired worldwide significance. There were turbulent social processes going on in Russia. The old patriarchal order was “overturned,” and a new system, still unknown to the Russian people, was being “established”—capitalism. Literature was faced with the task of showing the Russian man of the transitional era.
Against this background, Ostrovsky occupies a special place. He was the only Russian writer of the first rank who devoted himself entirely to drama and wrote about fifty plays. The world that Ostrovsky brought to literature is also unique: absurd merchants, old-fashioned solicitors, lively matchmakers, meek clerks and obstinate merchant daughters, actors in provincial theaters.
The play “The Thunderstorm,” published in 1860, was a unique source of Ostrovsky’s creative achievements. In this play, the playwright depicted not only the deadening conditions of the “dark kingdom”, but also manifestations of deep hatred towards them. The satirical denunciation naturally merged in this work with the affirmation in life of new forces, positive, bright, rising to fight for their human rights. In the heroine of the play Katerina Kabanova, the writer drew new type an original, integral, selfless Russian woman, whose decisiveness of protest foreshadowed the onset of the end of the “dark kingdom.”
Indeed, the integrity of Katerina’s character primarily distinguishes this irony. Let us pay attention to the vital sources of this integrity, to the cultural soil that nourishes it. Without them, Katerina's character fades like cut grass.
Katerina’s worldview harmoniously combines Slavic pagan antiquity with the trends of Christian culture, spiritualizing and morally enlightening old pagan beliefs. Katerina’s religiosity is unthinkable without sunrises and sunsets, dewy grasses in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower.
Let us remember how the heroine prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow.” There is something iconographic in this face, from which a bright radiance emanates. But Ostrovsky’s earthly heroine, radiating spiritual light, is far from the asceticism of official Christian morality. Ec prayer is a bright holiday of the spirit, a feast of the imagination: these angelic choirs in the pillar of sunlight pouring from the dome, echoing the singing of wanderers, the chirping of birds. “Sure, it happened that I would enter heaven, and I didn’t see anyone, and I didn’t remember the time, and I didn’t hear when the service was over.” But Domostroy taught to pray with fear and trembling, with tears. Katerina’s life-loving religiosity has gone far from the obsolete norms of the old patriarchal morality.
In the dreams of young Katerina there is an echo of the Christian legend about paradise, the divine Garden of Eden, which the first-created people were bequeathed to cultivate. They lived like birds of the air, and their work was the free labor of free people. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild. Mama doted on me, dressed me up like a doll, forced me to work; I used to do whatever I want... I used to get up early; If it’s summer, I’ll go to the spring, wash myself, bring some water with me, and that’s it, I’ll water all the flowers in the house.” It is obvious that Katerina’s legend of paradise embraces all the beauty of earthly life: prayers to the rising sun, morning visits to the springs - students, bright images of angels and birds.
In the vein of these dreams, Katerina also has another serious desire to fly: “Why don’t people fly!.. I say: why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly.”
Where do these fantastic dreams come from for Katerina? Are they the fruit of a morbid imagination? No. In Katerina’s consciousness, the pagan myths that have become part of the flesh and blood of the Russian folk character are resurrected. And for national consciousness All kinds of poetic personifications are characteristic. And Ostrovsky’s Katerina refers to the wild winds, herbs, and flowers in the folk way as spiritual beings.
Without realizing this pristine freshness of her inner world, you will not understand the vitality and power of her character, the figurative beauty of her folk language. “How frisky I was! I’ve completely withered away from you.” And it’s true that the soul of irony, which blossoms along with nature, really “fades” in the world of the Wild and Kabanovs.
Tenderness and daring, dreaminess and earthly passion merge with each other in Katerina’s character, and the main thing in it is not the mystical impulse away from the earth, but the moral strength that spiritualizes earthly life.
The soul of Ostrovsky’s heroine is one of those selected Russian souls who are alien to compromise, who thirst for universal truth and will not settle for anything less.
In the Kabanovsky kingdom, where all living things wither and dry up, Katerina is overcome by longing for lost harmony. The heroine’s longing for earthly love is spiritually sublime, pure: I would now ride along the Volga, on a boat, singing, or in a good three-wheeler, hugging each other.” Her love is akin to the desire to raise her hands and fly; the heroine expects a lot from her. Love for Boris, of course, will not satisfy her longing. This is not why Ostrovsky enhances the contrast between Katerina’s high flight of love and Boris’s wingless passion.
Boris's spiritual culture is completely devoid of a national moral dowry. He is the only character in The Thunderstorm who is not dressed in Russian fashion. Kalinov is a slum for him, here he is a stranger. Fate brings together people who are incommensurable in depth and moral sensitivity. Boris lives in the present day and is hardly able to seriously think about the moral consequences of his actions. He’s having fun now and that’s enough: “How long has your husband been gone? Oh, so we'll take a walk! Time is enough... No one will know about our love... Let's compare his remarks with the words of Katerina: “Let everyone know, let everyone see what I do!.. If I was not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human court?"
What a contrast! What a fullness of free and open love to the whole world, in contrast to the timid, voluptuous Boris!
When explaining the reasons for Katerina’s nationwide repentance, one should not focus on superstition and ignorance, on religious prejudices and fear. The true source of the heroine’s repentance lies elsewhere: in her sensitive conscience. Katerina's fear is the inner voice of her conscience. Katerina is equally heroic both in her passionate and reckless love affair and in her deeply conscientious public repentance. What a conscience! What a powerful Russian conscience! What a powerful moral force!
Katerina’s tragedy, in my opinion, is that the life around her has lost its integrity and completeness and has entered a period of deep moral crisis. Soul thunderstorm, experienced, is a direct consequence of this disharmony. Katerina feels guilty not only before Tikhon Kabanikha and not so much before them, but before the whole world. It seems to her that the entire universe is offended by her behavior. Only a full-blooded and spiritually rich person can feel so deeply his unity with the universe and have such high feeling responsibility to the highest truth and the harmony that is enshrined in it.
For general meaning In the play, it is very important that Katerina, a decisive, integral Russian character, did not appear from somewhere outside, but was formed in Kalinov’s conditions. It is in the soul of a woman from the city of Kalinov that a new attitude to the world is born, a new feeling that is not yet clear to the heroine herself. This is an awakening sense of personality. And this inspires hope that new, fresh forces are maturing among the people. This means that renewal of life and the joy of freedom are just around the corner.