Traditional literary plot (love triangle Tikhon - Katerina -Boris) became in Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” the basis of the conflict between old and new, not only during the change of generations, but also during the change of old and new in social life Russia.
Composition of the drama "The Thunderstorm"
Ostrovsky the playwright turns the usual plot about his wife’s betrayal and her suicide into a study of the social conditions of life of the Russian nation.
The first action is the beginning of the conflict
- characteristics of the morals of the city of Kalinin
(« Cruel morals, sir, in our city");
- characteristics of the owners of life:
(“We should look for another scolder like our Savel Prokofievich!”),
Kabanikha
(“Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family”);
- Boris's weak-willed position and his love for Katerina
(“And apparently I’m going to waste my youth in this slum”, “... and then I foolishly decided to fall in love”);
- Tikhon's lack of will
(“I, it seems, mummy, don’t take a step out of your will”);
- confrontation between Katerina and Kabanikha
(“Who enjoys tolerating falsehoods!”);
- Information about childhood and love for Boris
(“I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” “After all, this is not good, because this terrible sin“Varenka, why do I love someone else?”);
- theme of a thunderstorm (the image of a wild lady) and Katerina’s religiosity
(“How, girl, not to be afraid! Everyone should be afraid”, “...death will suddenly find you as you are, with all your sins, with all your evil thoughts”).
Act Two: Character and Plot Development
A) Tikhon’s departure, Katerina’s last attempt to confront the internal conflict
(“Take me with you”, “I don’t know how to get away, but you still force yourself on me”, “How can I love you when you say such words?”),
Katerina's consent to a date with Boris
(“I would even die to see him”)
B) development of Kabanikha’s character, attitude towards young people
(“But they, too, the stupid ones, want to do their own thing…”)
C) information about Katerina’s character
(“That’s how I was born, hot!”, “I don’t know how to deceive...”, “And if I’m tired of being here, no force can hold me back”);
D) information about Varvara’s character
(“And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary”);
Act three - continuation of the traditional plot of cheating on her husband
Here a meeting between Katerina and Boris takes place, as well as the development of a social conflict.
A) development of the characters of Wild and Kabanikha in dialogues
(“You are deliberately bringing yourself into your heart”);
B) a generalization of the morals of the city of Kalinin in Kuligin’s monologue
“To rob orphans, relatives, nephews, to beat up his family so that they don’t dare say a word about anything he does there”;
C) development of Boris’s character: Boris is not Katerina’s defender (Kudryash’s warning:
“Just look - you’ll make trouble for yourself, and you’ll get her into trouble too”);
D) meeting and explanation between Katerina and Boris. Katerina as a stronger character
(“If you hadn’t come, it seems that I would have come to you myself.”)
The fourth act is the climax of the plot
It is accomplished in Katerina’s confession:
A) the development of the plot in Act IV prepares the climax at the end of the action: conversations of the Kalinovites on the boulevard, conversation between Dikiy and Kuligin, dialogue between Varvara and Boris about Katerina’s condition after Tikhon’s return
(“She’s shaking all over, as if she’s got a fever; she’s so pale, she’s rushing around the house, as if she’s looking for something,” “she’ll thump at her husband’s feet and tell everything”),
thunderstorm over the city, appeal of a wild lady
(“Where are you hiding, stupid! You can’t escape God!”);
B) the climax is the recognition of the heroine. Features: on the boulevard, in front of people, which aggravates the conflict.
Act five - denouement
A) Tikhon’s weak-willed behavior
“Mama eats her, and she, like some shadow, walks around unresponsive,” “I’ll take it and drink the last one I have; then let my mother babysit me like I’m a fool”);
B) the flight of Varvara and Kudryash as a way out of the “dark kingdom”:
C) the development of an internal conflict in Katerina’s soul: the impossibility of life in the Kabanov family and the fear of suicide as a sin
(“... I’ve already ruined my soul”);
D) meeting with Boris - analogous to saying goodbye to Tikhon before leaving for Moscow
(“Take me with you from here! - I can’t, Katya. I’m not going of my own free will”),
a decision is brewing in Katerina
(“don’t let a single beggar pass by, give it to everyone and order them to pray for my sinful soul);
D) resolution of external and internal conflict - the decision to die. Death as deliverance
(“They won’t pray? Those who love will pray... But they will catch me and force me back home... Oh, hurry, hurry!”);
E) reaction to Katerina’s suicide as a protest against this world
“Her body is here, take it; but the soul is now not yours: it is now before the Judge, who is more merciful than you!”
“Mama, you ruined her! "
Conclusion
"The Thunderstorm" is Ostrovsky's most decisive work."
According to her, the composition and plot of this work make Katerina one of the most decisive heroines of Russian literature.
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The method is realism. A) “The Thunderstorm” as a work of the 60s. XIX century. B) Typical characters in typical circumstances, social types. C) Original features of Ostrovsky’s realism:
Ostrovsky was one of the first in Russian drama to introduce landscape, which is not just a background, but embodies the natural element that opposes the “dark kingdom” (at the beginning of the work, scenes on the Volga, the death of Katerina).
Ostrovsky uses the traditions of folklore when creating the image of Katerina, Kuligin, Kudryash, and some fairy-tale features can be traced in the images of Dikiy and Kabanikha. The characters' speech is replete with colloquialisms. Use of symbols: thunderstorm is a symbol of discord in Katerina’s soul; the lightning rod proposed by Kuligin is a symbol of enlightenment, etc.
Genre - drama Drama is characterized by the fact that it is based on a conflict between an individual and the surrounding society. Tragedy is characterized by a feeling of tragic guilt that haunts the protagonist, leading him to death; the idea of fate, fate; catharsis (a feeling of spiritual cleansing that arises in the viewer contemplating the death of the main character). “The Thunderstorm,” despite the fact that the main character dies, is considered to be a drama, since the work is based on the conflict between Katerina and the “dark kingdom.” Ostrovsky's comedic traditions: a satirical depiction of the mores of the patriarchal merchant environment.
The playwright's innovation is manifested in the fact that a real heroine from the people's environment appears in the play and the main attention is paid to the description of her character, while the little world of the city of Kalinov and the conflict itself are described in a more general way.
Means for creating the image of Katerina: folk type, natural principle, integrity of character, desire for freedom, for spiritual emancipation.
The play repeatedly repeats an image that helps to understand the main thing in Katerina’s character - the image of a bird. In folk poetry, the bird is a symbol of will. Katerina endures for the time being. Katerina’s speech is imbued with high poetry, she speaks an impeccably correct folk language, her speech is musical and melodious.
Katerina struggles not only with environment, but also with herself. she is poisoned by religious prejudices. Katerina’s religiosity is not hypocrisy, but rather a childish belief in fairy tales. religion forces Katerina to perceive the bright human honor of love as evil, a mortal sin.
The drama ends with Katerina's moral victory over the dark kingdom that fettered her will and reason. Suicide is an expression of protest in this extreme case for Katerina, when other forms of struggle are impossible.
Ostrovsky created the genre of drama (play of life) in Russia. Drama is characterized by an interest in the conflicts of everyday reality, behind which the viewer perceives the deep contradictions of the era. Ostrovsky's artistic thought revealed a bizarre combination of the tragic and the comic in everyday life, and this also became one of the hallmarks of Russian drama. zat. was developed in Chekhov's TV.
24. The main motives of N.A.’s lyrics. Nekrasova, her artistic originality. Research on the poet's work. Periodization of creativity
Nekrasov can distinguish two major creative periods:
First: from 1845 to 1856, in which his poetry can be called “the muse of grief and sadness”; the main mood of the poems of this time is despondency; the main psychological trait of heroes from the people is eternal patience and passivity; the main characters are the peasant and urban poor, common workers, people of tragic social fate, the poor, the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised; the main attitude towards his heroes is compassionate love and pity; Nekrasov himself during this period acts as a “sorrower” of the people’s grief, formulating his poetic and civic task; “I was called to sing of your suffering, amazing the people with patience.”
The social essence of the lyrics of this period was democracy and compassionate humanism.
Among the poems of these 10-11 years, two groups stand out. In the poems of the first group there is grief and defense of the powerless and disadvantaged: “On the Road”, “Gardener”, “Troika”, “Am I Driving Down a Dark Street at Night”, “In the Village”, “Uncompressed Lane”, “Vlas”, “Forgotten” village”, etc. Their leitmotif is love-sorrow. The second group includes satirical poems of open contempt “for the jubilant, idly chattering, staining their hands with blood”: “Lullaby,” “Moral Man,” “Modern Ode,” etc.; all this poetic satire would later be included in the major satirical poem “Contemporaries,” written in the 70s in parallel with the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?”
If in the first group of poems Nekrasov is psychologically close to Dostoevsky, then in the second group he is close to Gogol and Shchedrin.
Nekrasov's second period: from 1857 to 1877.
This second period begins with a social thaw in the country that occurred after the death of Nicholas I, after the defeat in the Crimean War and with the beginning of the preparation and implementation of peasant reform by Tsar Alexander II.
New heroic notes begin to sound in Nekrasov’s poetry. Revolutionary-democratic optimism develops and strengthens in it, an intensive search begins for a positive hero, a conscious exponent of progressive ideas, an educator-fighter who seeks to throw a “ray of consciousness” into the elements of the people, that is, a hero of civil resistance, awakening the people to civic activity.
If Griboedov raised the problem of “woe from the mind” in Russian literature, then Nekrasov puts forward the problem of happiness from the mind,” that is, happiness from knowing what needs to be done for the common good. The leading ideological and psychological line is the idea of unity between the heroes of civil resistance and the people. Poetry is imbued with the revolutionary music of labor and struggle. In this atmosphere of “great expectations”, which were felt by Turgenev in “Fathers and Sons”, and Ostrovsky in “The Thunderstorm”, and Chernyshevsky in “What to Do?”, Nekrasov’s mood also changed: from grief and compassion, he, along with Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov moves into the vanguard of the revolutionary upsurge, turning into the Petrel of the peasant revolution, or, in the words of Dobrolyubov, becoming “Garibaldi in his business.”
During this period, two groups of poems are also distinguished. The first group includes, firstly, poems about the poet-citizen: “Poet and Citizen”, “Elegy”; secondly, poems about the heroism of the people, their work and fate: “Reflections at the Main Entrance”, “Peddlers”, “Railway”, “Arina - the Soldier’s Mother” and the poem “Frost the Red Nose”.
Thirdly, poems glorifying the civic feat and moral purity of ascetics and fighters for the people who are the poet’s contemporaries: “In Memory of a Friend” (about Belinsky), “On the Death of Shevchenko”, “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, “In Memory of Pisarev” and “Prophet” (about Chernyshevsky); interesting is the ascending triad of the image or idea of the hero in poems about fighters: friend (“In Memory of a Buddy” - Belinsky) - citizen (“Poet a Citizen”, “Blessed is the Gentle Poet”) - prophet (“Prophet” - Chernyshevsky).
The second group of poems includes confessional and love poems, the main theme of which is the theme of one’s own tragic guilt and personal responsibility to the people, to dead and arrested comrades in the struggle, to one’s conscience, and to unrealized poetic possibilities.
This mournful, suffering, tragic theme of his own sin and repentance (partly caused by the poet’s severe physical illness) was embodied by him in a collection of poems from the last two years of his life, called “Last Songs” by Nekrasov himself and representing the “Chronicle of an Unhappy Existence” of the poet himself. In these poems of the dying Nekrasov, suffering is expressed from the insufficient activity of his people, insufficient revolutionary spirit, and the poet perceives the poverty of consciousness of the people and their civic immaturity as the result of personal guilt and his own sinfulness, which evokes the pathos of self-reproach, self-reproach, lynching.
Thus, poetry becomes self-criticism, fearlessly exposing the author's weaknesses, breakdowns, retreats, and hesitations. In these poems, Nekrasov suffered and grieved because he could not be constantly uncompromising, persistent and monolithic, like Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov.
By exposing himself, Nekrasov appeared before the reader as a highly moral person, and at the same time he debunked the artificial myth about the superhumanity of the hero of civil resistance, that is, the hero-citizen who is supposedly alien to human weaknesses (verses: “That’s why I deeply despise myself,” “Literature with crackling phrases”, “A knight for an hour”, “The enemy rejoices, is silent, in bewilderment”, “I will soon die. A pitiful inheritance ...”, “I will soon become a prey to decay”, etc.). The entire collection “Last Songs” is permeated with open sobbing. Note that Nekrasov is the poet who has the most poems about death in Russian poetry.
All these themes and aspects of Nekrasov’s poetry, collected together, make, firstly, his poetry an “encyclopedia of Russian life”, and secondly, they represent him not only as a poet-agitator, but above all as an all-Russian poet, characterized by ethical maximalism, a Russian poet of a wounded soul, publicly admitting himself to be a sinner, and in this fearless recognition turning into a righteous man.
In Nekrasov’s poetry, two difficult-to-combine extreme tendencies coexist and mate: on the one hand, the prosaic mercilessness of introspection, on the other, a song-like sobbing cry. This connection makes Nekrasov the poet unique to this day.
There has long been a traditional idea of N. A. Nekrasov as a “singer of the peasant lot”, “a woman’s destiny”. At the same time, the poet’s poetic heritage is distinguished by thematic and genre diversity.
Nekrasov’s poetry was not limited to solving social problems. His pen includes heartfelt words of love confessions, wonderful messages to friends, subtle landscape sketches, strikingly psychologized scenes of city and country life. The poet’s lyrics reflected not only all aspects of life at that time, but also the poet’s philosophical thoughts about the fate of the people, his country, the meaning of life and the purpose of man in it, his own innermost feelings and experiences were conveyed. The works of N. A. Nekrasov at the beginning of the 21st century sound no less relevant than at the time when they were created, because the main motives of the poet’s work were such moral concepts as conscience, sympathy, empathy, compassion.
25. Development of the poem genre in the works of N.A. Nekrasova. A wide panorama of the pre-reform and post-reform life of peasants in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” The poet's skill in depicting the Russian national character
Nekrasov's poems: “Sasha”, “Peddlers”, “Frost, Red Nose”, “Grandfather”, “Russian Women”, satirical poem “Contemporaries”
The poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” occupies a central place in Nekrasov’s work. It became a kind of artistic result of more than thirty years of work by the author.
All the motives of Nekrasov’s lyrics are developed in the poem; all the problems that worried him were rethought; his highest artistic achievements were used.
Nekrasov not only created special genre social and philosophical poem. He subordinated it to his ultimate task: to show the developing picture of Russia in its past, present and future. Having begun to write “hot on the heels,” that is, immediately after the reform of 1862, a poem about a liberating, reborn people, Nekrasov endlessly expanded the original plan.
The search for “lucky people” in Rus' took him from modernity to the origins: the poet strives to understand not only the results of the abolition of serfdom, but also the very philosophical nature of the concepts of HAPPINESS, FREEDOM, HONOR, PEACE, because without this philosophical understanding it is impossible to understand the essence of the present moment and see the future people.
The fundamental novelty of the genre explains the fragmentation of the poem, built from internally open chapters. United by the image-symbol of the road, the poem breaks down into stories, the fates of dozens of people. Each episode in itself could become the plot of a song or a story, a legend or a novel. All together, in their unity, they constitute the fate of the Russian people, their historical path from slavery to freedom. That is why only in last chapter the image of the “people's defender” Grisha Dobrosklonov appears - the one who will lead people to freedom.
Only at this moment did the author himself fully see the compositional and artistic solution of his poem and, dying, regretted that he did not have time to implement it: “The only thing I regret,” he said, “is that I do not have time to finish writing “To whom in Rus' ... “Now I see that this is a thing that will only have its entire meaning.” The author’s task determined not only genre innovation, but also the entire originality of the poetics of the work.
Nekrasov repeatedly turned to folklore motifs and images in his lyrics. Poem about folk life he builds entirely on a folklore basis. In “Who Lives Well in Rus',” all the main genres of folklore are “involved” to one degree or another: fairy tale, song, epic, legend.
The place and meaning of folklore in the poem
Folklore has its own special ideas, style, techniques, figurative system, their laws and their artistic means. The most basic difference between folklore and fiction is the lack of authorship in it: the people compose, the people tell, the people listen.
Nekrasov repeatedly turned to folklore motifs and images in his lyrics. He builds a poem about folk life entirely on a folklore basis. In “Who Lives Well in Rus'?,” all the main genres of folklore are “involved” to one degree or another: fairy tale, song, epic, legend.
Author's literature turns to folklore when it is necessary to penetrate deeper into the essence of national morality; when the work itself is addressed not only to the intelligentsia (the bulk of readers of the 19th century), but also to the people. Nekrasov set both of these tasks for himself in the poem “Who can live well in Rus'?”
And one more most important aspect distinguishes original literature from folklore. Oral creativity does not know the concept of “canonical text”: each listener becomes a co-author of the work, retelling it in his own way. This is the kind of active co-creation between author and reader that Nekrasov strived for. That is why his poem was written “in a free language, as close as possible to common speech.
“Researchers call the verse of the poem Nekrasov’s “brilliant find.” The free and flexible poetic meter and independence from rhyme opened up the possibility:
Generously convey the originality of the folk language, preserving all its precision, aphorism and special proverbial phrases; organically weave village songs, sayings, lamentations, and elements of folk tales into the fabric of the poem (a magic self-assembled tablecloth treats wanderers);
Skillfully reproduce the perky speeches of drunken men at the fair, and the expressive monologues of peasant speakers, and the absurdly self-righteous reasoning of a tyrant landowner, colorful folk scenes, full of life and movements, a lot characteristic persons and figures... - all this creates a unique polyphony of Nekrasov’s poem, in which the voice of the author himself seems to disappear, and instead the voices and speeches of his countless characters are heard.”
Ideological and artistic originality:
1. The problematic is based on the correlation of folklore images and specific historical realities. The problem of national happiness is the ideological center of the pr-ya. Images of 7 wandering men - a symbolic image of Russia moving from its place
2. The poem reflected the contradictions of Russian reality in the post-reform period:
a) class contradictions (landowner Obolt-Obolduev does not understand why he needs to study and work, because he is “not a peasant lapotnik, but, by the grace of God, a Russian nobleman”)
b) contradictions in the peasant consciousness (on the one hand, the people are great workers, on the other, the drunken, ignorant masses)
c) contradictions between the high spirituality of the people and ignorance, illiteracy and downtroddenness (Nekrasov’s dream of the time when a man “will carry Belinsky and Gogol from the market”)
d) Contradictions between strength, the rebellious spirit of the people and humility, long-suffering, obedience (images of Savely, the hero of the Russian army, and Yakov, the faithful, exemplary slave)
3. The reflection of revolutionary democratic ideas is associated with the image of the people's defender Grisha Dobrosklonov (prototype of Dobrolyubov)
4. The reflection of the evolution of national consciousness is associated with the images of 7 men
5. This is a sign of critical realism, because
a) historicism (depicting the contradictions in the life of peasants in post-reform Russia)
b) depiction of typical characters in typical circumstances (collective image of 7 men, typical images of a priest, landowner, peasants)
c) the original features of Nekrasov’s realism - the use of folklore traditions, in cat. he was a follower of Lermontov and Ostrovsky
The poem is characterized by an abundant use of folklore genres:
A fairy tale - prologue
Bylina - Saveliy - the hero
Ritual song (wedding, harvesting, lamentation songs) and work song
Legend (About two great sinners)
Proverbs, sayings, riddles
Essay plan
1. Introduction. Plot-compositional structure and genre originality of the play.
2. Main part. The plot and compositional originality of “The Thunderstorm”.
— Artistic techniques Ostrovsky the playwright.
- First action. Exposition.
- Second act. The beginning.
- Third act. The culmination of a love affair. Development of internal conflict.
- Fourth act. The climax of the main conflict.
— Fifth act. Denouement.
3. Conclusion. Artistic originality plays.
Thinking about the plot compositional structure plays by A.N. Ostrovsky, we cannot help but think about the problem of genre interpretation of the work. Traditionally, “The Thunderstorm” is considered a social and everyday drama. In the center of the plot is a love triangle (Katerina - Tikhon - Boris), on its basis a family conflict ensues, in which large number characters. Critic N.A. Dobrolyubov emphasizes the social side of the conflict in the play, revealing it social issues: the crisis of the world of patriarchal ties, the confrontation between the world of the “dark kingdom” and strong, integral individuals. Modern researchers (A.I. Zhuravleva) consider the play a tragedy, noting the significance of the internal conflict in it. “The “thunderstorm” is not a tragedy of love, but a tragedy of conscience. When Katerina’s fall took place, caught in a whirlwind of liberated passion, merging for her with the concept of will, she becomes bold to the point of insolence... “I wasn’t afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment!” - she says to Boris. But this “she was not afraid of sin” precisely foreshadows the further development of the tragedy...<….>Katerina’s death is predetermined and inevitable, no matter how the people on whom she depends behave. It is inevitable because neither her self-awareness nor the entire way of life in which she exists allows the personal feeling that has awakened in her to be embodied in everyday forms,” notes the researcher. Let's try to consider the plot and compositional structure of the play.
Each action in the play is divided into separate scenes. They give the development of the conflict from any one perspective, showing the perception of any one character. In general, the conflict in “The Thunderstorm” develops quickly and dynamically, which is achieved by a special arrangement of scenes: with each new scene, starting from the beginning, the tension of the plot action increases.
The drama has five acts. The first act is exposition. The first scene shows us the scene of action - the small town of Kalinov. It is located on the banks of the Volga, surrounded by greenery. There is beauty and serenity in nature. It is a completely different matter in human relations and morals. From the very first scenes we get an idea of local life and the characters of the characters. “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!” – notes Kuligin. In the first act, both non-plot characters and all the persons involved in the main conflict appear. We see Kudryash, Shapkin, Kuligin, Feklusha, Dikiy and Boris, the Kabanov family. Moreover, even before Diky and Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova appear on stage, Kudryash and Shapkin talk about them, briefly outlining their characters. Here is the background story of Boris, Dikiy’s nephew. Then Dikoy and Kabanova himself appear on the stage. Dikoy scolds his nephew, while Marfa Ignatievna reads instructions to her son and daughter-in-law. Thus, the basis of the first act is the principle of antithesis: the beauty of nature is opposed to urban mores. The main conflict is outlined here as a dotted line: Boris confesses to Kuligin that he loves Katerina. And here we see Katerina’s forced position in her mother-in-law’s family, the timidity and passivity of her husband. And at the same time, we note the complete psychological incompatibility of the heroine with her family, the strength and energy inherent in her very nature. So, to her mother-in-law’s remarks, Katerina replies: “You are in vain saying this about me, Mama. Whether in front of people or without people, I’m still alone...”, “Who enjoys tolerating falsehoods!” Tikhon in this scene is portrayed as a timid, passive, weak-willed person. We understand that the heroine’s relationship with Boris is possible.
The second act contains very important points. Katerina confesses to Varvara her love for Boris. However, for now she is still driving away the thought of her love. Tikhon's departure is planned. Katerina says goodbye to him and asks to take him with her. However, he strives to break free from his mother's oppression and walk in freedom. Tikhon notes that there he will “have no time for his wife.” The farewell scene and the scene with the key represent the beginning of the conflict. The tension of the heroine’s mental strength here reaches its limit: “Come what may, I will see Boris! Oh, if only the night could come sooner!..”
Further, the confrontation between the two camps in the play deepens. Dikoy talks to Marfa Ignatievna, and in this dialogue his tyranny, rudeness, arbitrariness, and stinginess are exposed (he cannot part with money). Kuligin also gives an accurate assessment of the city’s morals in a conversation with Boris: “Everyone’s gates, sir, have been locked for a long time and the dogs have been let down. Do you think they are doing something or praying to God? No, sir! And they don’t lock themselves away from thieves, but so that people don’t see them eating their own family and tyrannizing their family. And what tears flow behind these constipations, invisible and inaudible!<…>And what, sir, behind these castles is dark debauchery and drunkenness! And everything is sewn and covered - no one sees or knows anything...” And at the same time, internal tension in “The Thunderstorm” is growing. The culmination of the love affair is Katerina's date with Boris. But only after this does the play begin to develop internal conflict– the heroine’s struggle with her own conscience, with the integrity of nature, with her ideas about morality and honor. Researchers have noted Ostrovsky’s compositional innovation, dividing the third act into two “scenes.” Thus, the playwright departs from the traditional principle of “three unities” adopted in classicism.
In the fourth act, the tension in the plot increases. Tikhon unexpectedly returns. Katerina is going through a moral crisis. She considers her actions criminal and experiences real confusion. depicts a folk festival on the boulevard. A thunderstorm is gathering in the air. Dikoy notices that the thunderstorm is sent to people as punishment. The same motives are heard in the remarks of passers-by (“Either he will kill someone, or the house will burn down...”) Finally, right there we hear the prophecies of a crazy lady: “You will have to answer for everything. It’s better to be in the pool with beauty!” During a thunderstorm, Katerina publicly admits her relationship with Boris. This scene becomes the climax in the development of the main conflict of the play.
In the fifth act the denouement occurs. After confessing, the heroine does not feel any better; she cries and feels sad. Not finding support in her family, she commits suicide and throws herself into the Volga. Tikhon falls on his wife’s body in despair: “Good for you, Katya! Why did I stay in the world and suffer!” The conflict thus ends in disaster. Here is what Dobrolyubov wrote about the ending of the play: “The play ends with this exclamation, and it seems to us that it was impossible to come up with anything stronger and more truthful than such an ending. Tikhon's words provide the key to understanding the play for those who would not even understand its essence before; they make the viewer think not about a love affair, but about this whole life, where the living envy the dead...”
Thus, Ostrovsky’s play is both social drama, and tragedy. Exactly genre features determine the development of the conflict and the course of the plot in “The Thunderstorm”. “Katerina’s tragedy is that the life around her has lost its integrity and completeness and has entered a period of deep moral crisis. Soul thunderstorm, experienced by the heroine, is a direct consequence of this disharmony. Katerina feels guilty not only before Tikhon and Kabanikha... It seems to her that the whole universe is offended by her behavior.<…>Speaking with her whole life against despotism, against authoritarian morality, Katerina trusts in everything the inner voice of conscience. Having gone through spiritual trials, she is morally cleansed and leaves the sinful Kalinovsky world as a person who has overcome its illnesses and overcome them with her torment.”
1. Zhuravleva A.I. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. – History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Second half. Ed. prof. N.N. Skatova. M... 1987, p. 257.
2. Dobrolyubov N.A. A ray of light in a dark kingdom. – N.A. Dobrolyubov. Russian classics. Selected literary critical articles. M., 1970. Electronic version. www.az.lib.ru
3. Lebedev Yu.V. Russian literature XIX V. Second half. Book for teachers. M., 1990, p. 176.
A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” written in 1859, is considered in Russian literature as a social drama and as a tragedy. Some critics even introduced a concept that unites these two genres - domestic tragedy.
But in order to more accurately define the genre of “Thunderstorms,” we need to understand the essence of the dramatic and tragic.
Drama in literature, in work of art generated by contradictions real life people. It is usually created under the influence of external forces or circumstances. People's lives in dramatic situations are often under threat of death, for which people are to blame external forces, independent of people. The definition of genre also depends on an assessment of the main conflict in the work. The article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” shows that the main conflict of “The Thunderstorm” is the conflict between Kabanikha and Katerina. In the image of Katerina we see a reflection of spontaneous protest younger generation against the constraining conditions of the “dark kingdom”. Death main character is the result of a collision with a tyrant mother-in-law. From this point of view, this work can be called a social and everyday drama. It is noteworthy that the author himself called his work a drama.
But Ostrovsky’s play can also be perceived as a tragedy. What is tragedy? The tragic genre is characterized by an insoluble conflict between the personal aspirations of the hero and the laws of life. This conflict occurs in the mind of the main character, in his soul. The hero of a tragedy often struggles with himself, experiencing deep suffering. Seeing the main conflict in the soul of the heroine herself, her death as a result of the collision of two historical eras(note that this is exactly how this image was perceived by Ostrovsky’s contemporaries), the “Thunderstorm” genre can be defined as a tragedy. Ostrovsky's play is distinguished from classical tragedies by the fact that its hero is not a mythological or historical character, not legendary personality, but a simple merchant's wife. Ostrovsky places a merchant family and family problems at the center of the narrative. Unlike classical tragedies, in “The Thunderstorm” private life ordinary people is the subject of a tragedy.
The events in the play take place in the small Volga town of Kalinov, where life is still largely patriarchal. The drama takes place before the reform of 1861, which had a largely revolutionary impact on the life of the Russian province. Residents of the village of Kalinova, which is not far from the village, still live according to “Domostroi”. But Ostrovsky shows that the patriarchal structure is beginning to collapse before the eyes of the residents. The youth of the city do not want to live according to “Domostroy” and have not adhered to patriarchal orders for a long time. Kabanikha, the last guardian of this dying way of life, herself senses its near end: “It’s good that those who have elders in the house, they hold the house together as long as they are alive. What will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will remain, I don’t know.”
Looking at the relationship between her son and daughter-in-law, Kabanikha understands that everything is changing: “They don’t really respect elders these days... I’ve seen for a long time: you want freedom. Well, you wait, you can live in freedom when I’m gone...”
Kabanikha has no doubts about the correctness of patriarchal orders, but she also has no confidence in their inviolability. Therefore, the more acutely she feels that people do not live according to Domostroev, the more fiercely she tries to preserve the form of patriarchal relations. Kabanikha stands only for the ritual; she tries to preserve only the form, and not the content of the patriarchal world. If Kabanikha is the guardian of the patriarchal form of life, then Katerina is the spirit of this world, its bright side.
From Katerina's stories about her former life, we see that she comes from the ideal patriarchal domostroevsky world. Main meaning her former world - the love of everyone for everyone, joy, admiration for life. And before Katerina was part of just such a world, she did not need to oppose herself to it: She is truly religious, connected with nature, with folk beliefs. She draws knowledge about her surroundings from conversations with wanderers. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she recalls. But in the end, Katerina still turns out to be a slave of this patriarchal world, its customs, traditions, and ideas. The choice has already been made for Katerina - they married off the weak-willed, unloved Tikhon. Kalinovsky’s world, its dying patriarchal way of life, disrupted the harmony in the heroine’s soul. “Everything seems to be from under captivity,” she conveys her perception of the world. Katerina enters the Kabanov family, ready to love and honor her mother-in-law, expecting her husband to be her support. But Kabanikha doesn’t need her daughter-in-law’s love at all, she only needs an outward ^ expression of humility: “She won’t be afraid of you, and even less so of me. What kind of order will there be in the house? ”
Katerina understands that Tikhon does not meet her ideal husband. The relationship between her and her husband is no longer Domostroevsky, because Tikhon is characterized by the idea of \u200b\u200bmercy and forgiveness. And for Katerina, this trait, according to Domostroevsky laws, is a disadvantage (Tikhon is not a husband, not the head of the family, not the owner of the house). This destroys her respect for her husband and her hope of finding support and protection in him.
Gradually, a new feeling arises in Katerina’s soul, which is expressed in the desire for love. But at the same time this feeling is perceived by Katerina as an indelible sin: “How, girl, not to be afraid!.. I’m not afraid to die, but how can I think that suddenly I will appear before God as I am here with you... What a sin- That! It’s scary to say!” Katerina perceives her love for Boris as a violation of the rules of “Domostroy”, a violation of the moral laws in which she was brought up. Katerina perceives cheating on her husband as a sin that must be repented of “before coffin board" Without forgiving herself, Katerina is not able to forgive another for condescension towards her. “His caress is worse to me than beatings,” she says about Tikhon, who has forgiven her and is ready to forget everything. Tragic conflict Katerina’s relationship with herself is insoluble. For her religious consciousness, the thought of committing a sin is intolerable. Feeling the split inner world, the heroine already in the first act says: “Out of melancholy, I will do something to myself!” Feklusha with tales that “people with dog heads” received their appearance as punishment for infidelity, and the old lady predicting a “pool” for youth and beauty, thunder from the sky and a picture of fiery hell for Katerina mean almost terrible “ last times”, “end of the world”, “judgment seat of God”. The woman’s soul is torn to pieces: “The whole heart was torn to pieces! I can’t stand it anymore!” The culmination of both the play and the heroine’s mental torment comes. Along with the external, internal action also develops - the struggle in Katerina’s soul flares up more and more. By publicly repenting, Katerina takes care of the cleansing of her soul. But the fear of Gehenna continues to possess her.
Having repented and relieved her soul, Katerina still voluntarily dies. She cannot live by violating the moral laws that were instilled in her from childhood. Her strong and proud nature cannot live with the consciousness of sin, having lost its inner purity. She doesn't want to justify herself in anything. She judges herself. She doesn’t even need Boris that much; his refusal to take her with him will not change anything for Katerina: she has already ruined her soul. And the Kalinovites are unmerciful to Katerina: “If you execute you, then your sin will be removed, but you live and suffer from your sin.” Ostrovsky's heroine, seeing that no one is executing her, ultimately executes herself - she throws herself off a cliff into the Volga. It seems to her that she is repaying herself for her sins, but only God can repay her sins, but she herself refuses God: “The Light of God is not dear to me!”
Thus, if we consider the central conflict of the play as a conflict in the soul of the heroine, then “The Thunderstorm” is a tragedy of conscience. With death, Katerina gets rid of the pangs of conscience and the oppression of an unbearable life. The patriarchal world is dying, and with it its soul is dying (in this regard, the image of Katerina is symbolic). Even Kabanikha understands that nothing can save the patriarchal world, that it is doomed. Added to the daughter-in-law’s public repentance is the son’s open rebellion: “You ruined her! You! You!"
The moral conflict occurring in Katerina’s soul exceeds in depth the social, everyday and socio-political conflicts (Katerina is the mother-in-law, Katerina is the “dark kingdom”). As a result, Katerina is not fighting with Kabanikha, she is fighting with herself. And it is not her tyrant mother-in-law who destroys Katerina, but a turning point that gives rise to a protest against old traditions and habits and a desire to live in a new way. Being the soul of the patriarchal world, Katerina must die along with it. The heroine's struggle with herself, the impossibility of resolving her conflict, are signs of tragedy. Genre originality Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is that the social and everyday drama, written by the author and characterized by Dobrolyubov, is also a tragedy in the nature of the main conflict.