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Katerina is a ray of light in a dark kingdom (Option: Theme of conscience in Russian literature)

The play is based on A.N. Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm" is based on the conflict of the "dark kingdom" and the bright beginning, presented by the author in the image of Katerina Kabanova. A thunderstorm is both a symbol of the heroine’s mental turmoil, the struggle of feelings, moral elevation in tragic love, and at the same time, the embodiment of the burden of fear under the yoke of which people live.
The work depicts the musty atmosphere of a provincial town with its rudeness, hypocrisy, and the power of the rich and “elders.” The “Dark Kingdom” is an ominous environment of heartlessness and stupid, slavish worship of the power of the old order. Thus, Kabanova tries in vain to instill in Katerina “the basis of domestic well-being”: unquestioning submission to the will of her husband, humility, diligence and respect for elders, and most importantly, never dare to “have your own judgment.” The kingdom of obedience and blind fear is opposed by the forces of reason, common sense, enlightenment preached by Kuligin, as well as by the pure soul of Katerina, which, albeit unconsciously, by one command of a sincere, integral nature, is hostile to this world. "A ray of light in dark kingdom» named Katerina N.A. Dobrolyubov.
Katerina is a lonely young woman who lacks human participation, sympathy, and love. The need for this draws her to Boris. She sees that outwardly he does not look like other residents of the city of Kalinov, and, not being able to recognize him inner essence, considers him a man from another world. In her imagination, Boris seems to be a handsome prince who will take her from the “dark kingdom” to fairy world, existing in her dreams.
Katerina, sad and cheerful, compliant and obstinate, dreamy, depressed and proud. So different states of mind are explained by the naturalness of every mental movement of this simultaneously restrained and impetuous nature, the strength of which lies in the ability to always be itself. Katerina remained true to herself, that is, she could not change the very essence of her character.
I think that the most important character trait of Katerina is honesty with herself, her husband, and the world around her; it is her unwillingness to live a lie. She tells Varvara: “I don’t know how to deceive, I can’t hide anything.” She does not want and cannot be cunning, pretend, lie, hide. This is confirmed by the scene of Katerina’s confession of treason. It was not the thunderstorm, not the frightening prophecy of the crazy old woman, not the fear of hell that prompted the heroine to tell the truth. “My whole heart was exploding! I can’t stand it anymore!” - this is how she began her confession. For her honest and integral nature, the false position in which she found herself is unbearable. Living just to live is not for her. To live means to be yourself. Its most precious value is personal freedom, freedom of the soul.
With such a character, Katerina, after betraying her husband, could not stay in his house, return to a monotonous and dreary life, endure constant reproaches and “moral teachings” from Kabanikha, or lose freedom. But all patience comes to an end. It is difficult for Katerina to be in a place where she is not understood, her human dignity is humiliated and insulted, her feelings and desires are ignored. Before her death, she says: “It’s all the same whether you go home or go to the grave... It’s better in the grave...” It’s not death that she desires, but life that is unbearable.
Katerina is a deeply religious and God-fearing person. Since, according to the Christian religion, suicide is a great sin, by deliberately committing it, she showed not weakness, but strength of character. Her death is a challenge to the “dark power”, the desire to live in the “light kingdom” of love, joy and happiness.
N.A. Dobrolyubov highly praised the heroine: “A decisive, integral Russian character... concentrated and decisive, unswervingly faithful to the instinct of natural truth, filled with faith in new ideals and selfless, in the sense that he would rather die than live with the principles that he disgusting... This is true strength of character!”

Katerina is a ray of light in a dark kingdom. “There is something refreshing and encouraging in The Thunderstorm. This “something” is, in our opinion, the background of the play, indicated by us and revealing the instability and the near end of tyranny. Then the very character of Katerina, drawn against this background, also blows on us with a new life, which is revealed to us in its very death." N.A. Dobrolyubov In 1859, Dobrolyubov’s article “The Dark Kingdom” appeared on the pages of Sovremennik. This article deeply worried the playwright Ostrovsky. “Who will be able to throw a ray of light into the ugly darkness of the “dark kingdom”?” asked Dobrolyubov. Ostrovsky answered this question new play, which he wrote during the summer and autumn of the same year. The drama "The Thunderstorm" was published during a period of social upsurge, when the foundations of serfdom were cracking and a thunderstorm was actually brewing in a stuffy, anxious atmosphere. In his play, Ostrovsky staged one of critical issues of its time - the liberation of women from family slavery. Unbridled tyranny and violence reign in the city of Kalinov, depicted by the playwright, personifying the whole of Russia. Traits that characterize the life of the city - ignorance, isolation, rudeness, arbitrariness that rules in public relations and in the family, mental stagnation. To reveal the picture of oppression in merchant family and to show all the rottenness of life in the city of Kalinov, Ostrovsky gives a number of contrasting images of his heroes. The image of Katerina is centrally in drama. In her views and interests, she differs sharply from representatives of the “dark kingdom”. In her parents' house she lived freely and carefree. Her mother loved her very much, “she dressed her up like a doll, and didn’t force her to work.” Katerina loved to go to church and embroider. The girls of her society in those days were not given an education, so Katerina listens with pleasure to the superstitious stories of the praying mantises and the meaningless ravings of the wanderers. These stories turn into "golden" poetic images", because the materials presented by reality are monotonous. She is religious, dreams amuse her, she likes everything. Katerina’s imagination works tirelessly. It takes her to the sky, the transcendental world of heavenly life. Katerina gets married. And such a poetic - dreamy nature ends up into the family of the evil and cruel Kabanikha. Katerina is crushed by the situation around her. Her former feelings were suppressed by the power-hungry Kabanikha. Here the inevitable conflict occurs between Katerina’s spiritual world and the “dark kingdom” of Kabanikha, who powerfully, mercilessly, annoyingly sharpens Katerina. Hiding her anger and arrogance under the guise of external piety, the stuffy and tense atmosphere of the city begins to poison Katerina’s life, hating the surrounding life with all her being, suffocating in it, Katerina strives for will, for light, for love. Considering Katerina’s attitude towards Tikhon, we. we notice that she doesn’t love him because she was married off by her parents’ agreement. Katerina tries to find a response in her husband’s heart, but in response to this he just feels sorry for her. Blindly obeying his mother, Tikhon gradually fades in Katerina’s eyes. But here on her life path becomes new person, who is different from everyone around her and converges with sentiments close to herself. This is Boris. Superior to Katerina in education, he is inferior to her in willpower and hatred of oppressive circumstances. This is a weak-willed, weak-willed person, psychologically a slave. Boris, unlike Katerina, cannot break with the world around him, so he wants to hide his relationship with Katerina. But she decisively replies: “Let everyone know, let everyone see what I am doing. If I am not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment?” Captured by the feeling that flared up for the first time, Katerina went towards love, but open, truthful, she did not could hide her secret meetings with Boris. She is religious, so she considers it a great sin to love another person. She is depressed by stolen happiness. During a thunderstorm, half-delirious, in a state of darkness, she confesses her infidelity to her husband. Defending her rights human personality to freedom, looking for a way out of the current impasse in life, Katerina tries to rely on Boris. When asked to take her with him, he refuses. And Boris leaves Katerina at a very difficult moment for her, obeying the will of his uncle. Katerina feels lonely again. No one can come to her aid, and so she has to decide her own fate. Here Katerina is faced with a dilemma: go home or throw herself into the pool. And she chooses the second. In Katerina’s situation, death in the pool was not an expression of cowardice, not weakness, not humility, but hatred of the oppressive order, a manifestation of the striving for will, an internal awareness of one’s human rights, spiritual strength, and courage. Her courage was reflected in particular in the fact that when she committed suicide, she neglected the laws of religion, thinking at that moment not about the salvation of her soul, but about the love that had been revealed to her. Katerina is one of the most remarkable images of Russian women. She reflects with her behavior the spontaneous protest of the masses. The death of Katerina, which strengthened and intensified Kuligin’s indignation, causing the timid and downtrodden Tikhon to “revolt” against his mother, undoubtedly contributed to the destruction of the old order. In response to Ostrovsky's work "The Thunderstorm" in 1860, Dobrolyubov wrote an article called "A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom", where he revealed artistic sense and the social significance of the play. The play and the article seemed to merge in the minds of the readers and acquired enormous power of influence. In the image of Katerina, according to Dobrolyubov, the “great national idea” - the idea of ​​liberation - was embodied.

A.N. Ostrovsky is a great Russian playwright. He was the first in Russian literature to lift the curtain on the life of the merchants, to show the lack of rights of a woman in this environment, who, according to the prevailing concepts of that time, had to obey her husband in everything, forget that she was the same person, with the same rights as a man. N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote that “the strongest protest rises from the chests of the weakest and most patient.”
Ostrovsky showed the lack of rights and heroic protest of a woman at the cost of her own death in many of his plays. This is how the theme of the “warm heart” arises - that positive hero, who was not spoiled by the environment of tyrants, who had the strength to resist it. This theme sounds especially vivid in the plays “Dowry” and “Thunderstorm”.
Dobrolyubov considers Katerina “a decisive, integral Russian character.” This is a heroic nature, protesting against the tyranny and foundations of the “dark kingdom”. Katerina's childhood and youth were spent in merchant environment, but at home she was surrounded by affection, her mother’s love, and mutual respect in the family. As she herself says: “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.” In her husband’s house, she is surrounded by an atmosphere of cruelty, humiliation, and suspicion. She tries to defend her right to respect, does not want to please anyone, wants to love and be loved. But Tikhon pushes her away. When Katerina asks him to take her on a trip, Tikhon says: “It’s so much fun to go with you! You've really driven me too far here! I don’t know how to get out, and you’re still forcing yourself on me.” He is so weak that he cannot resist his mother, so he leaves with the desire to find freedom for at least two weeks. Kabanova reproaches Katerina for throwing herself on her husband’s neck in a fit of tenderness.
For the heroine, the awakened feeling of love for Boris merges with the dream of freedom, of real human life. The image of a bird, which appears repeatedly on the pages of the play, helps to understand the main thing in Katerina’s character. IN folk poetry the bird is a symbol of freedom. Growing up on the banks of the Volga, the girl seemed to have absorbed the entire mighty expanse of this river, and in the Kabanovs’ house it seemed cramped, gloomy to her, she yearned for freedom. “...Why don’t people fly like birds?” - she said.
Katerina is religious, but the heroine’s religiosity differed from the piety of her mother-in-law, for whom religion was a means of keeping others in obedience. Katerina perceived the church, icon painting, and chants as a meeting with beauty, taking her far from the gloomy world of the Kabanovs. Her soul was cleansed, she forgot real life with all its troubles.
Katerina’s character and her moral purity are contrasted with the morality of the “dark kingdom.” She cannot, like Varvara, fight the “dark kingdom” with its own methods: lies, hypocrisy, flattery. And that is why Katerina’s struggle with herself is so painful. The question inevitably arises: is Katerina’s strength or weakness visible in the scene of repentance before the people? Who is in front of us - the victim or strong character? Her reluctance to accept the morality of the “dark kingdom” and her ability to preserve the purity of her soul is evidence of the strength and integrity of the heroine’s character. She says about herself: “And if I get really tired of it here, they won’t hold me back by any force. I’ll throw myself out the window, throw myself into the Volga.”
A manifestation of the strength of her character is her protest against the “dark kingdom”, liberation from earthly torment and humiliation. “It’s sad, sad such liberation, but what to do when there is no other way out.” The death of the heroine is the beginning of the collapse of the “dark kingdom”. Even Kuligin and Tikhon, inspired by her example, begin to grumble.
“Thunderstorm,” as Dobrolyubov said, “is the most decisive work Ostrovsky, because it marks the coming end of “tyrant power.” Main conflict plays - the collision of the heroine, who felt her human rights, with the world of the “dark kingdom” - expressed the essential aspects folk life during a revolutionary situation. The critic considers the image of Katerina close to the position and heart of every decent person in such a society. That is why the drama “The Thunderstorm” is considered a truly folk work.

In the play among dark personalities: liars, opportunists and oppressors, the appearance of pure Katerina appears.

The girl’s youth passed in a carefree, free time space. Her mother loved her very much. She liked going to church. And she didn’t know what awaited her ahead. Our young woman compares her young actions with the behavior of a free bird in the wild.

My childhood years flew by. They gave Katerina away in marriage to someone she didn’t love. She found herself in a strange environment. It was as if she had been put in a cage. Her husband does not have the right to vote and cannot stand up for his wife. When communicating with Varya, the heroine will explain herself in a language that is incomprehensible to her husband’s sister. Like a ray of sunshine penetrates the darkness of vices and “dark” people. She wants to rise high and fly. She experiences a struggle between her desire to escape and her duty to her husband.

There is a confrontation against the “darkness”, rejection and unwillingness to adapt to the order of Kabanikha’s house. There is a sense of protest against oppressive life. She says that it is better for her to drown in the Volga than to endure all the torment and humiliation of her mother-in-law.

On her life's path she met Boris. She is not afraid of people's rumors. Our heroine gives herself over to love without a trace and is ready to follow her lover to the ends of the earth. But Boris is afraid of responsibility and does not take it with him. She cannot return to her old life. Having felt true love, rushes into the waters of the Volga. In her opinion, it’s better in the grave! And she leaves the cruel, deceitful world. And while dying he thinks about love and tries, with the help of death, to get rid of the hated life in someone else’s house. Katerina's death makes him think about what is happening, and for the first time he fights back against his mother. Which surprises her. Like a bright ray, our heroine penetrated and opened her eyes. But she paid a huge price for it – equal to her life.

IN weak woman Katerina is hiding enormous strength character, craving for freedom, to free oneself from oppression dark forces she is ready to give her life. He flies like a free bird and feels no remorse. He only remembers that he loves! Katerina's death means gaining freedom of soul and body. Weak men come across her path and, not wanting to put up with what is happening, she is freed from physical and mental torment. The soul left the body, but the desire to be free turned out to be higher than the fear of death.

Essay on the topic Katerina - A ray of light in the dark kingdom

Ostrovsky in the play depicts the city of Kalinov, where " cruel morals" Residents of the city live by their own laws. The reader learns these details from the dialogue between Boris and Kuligin in the first act. In the first scene of the same action, Ostrovsky characterizes Kabanikha and Wild. The author shows that in the city of Kalinov it is impossible to live by honest labor, “and whoever has money tries to enslave the poor.” The wild “shrill guy” swears at everyone. The author gives him telling surname from the word "wild". And Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova does everything “under the guise of piety,” that is, she does it according to the law, for show. These people have money and feel permissive. Kabanikha and Dikoy are shown as guardians of the traditions and foundations of the city.

Therefore Ostrovsky creates his own main character Katerina, who cannot come to terms with Kalinov’s laws. She is the only one who lives correctly, so everything that happens around her depresses her. From the dialogue between Katerina and Varvara, the reader can learn that the heroine before her marriage was free “like a bird in the wild.” She grew up in a family where, where no one forced anyone to do anything, everything was natural. The author compares Katerina’s life in her parents’ house with the foundations of Kabanikha. The heroine cannot come to terms with this. True Faith Katerina is compared to the faith of Kabanikha, who does everything according to the law, so that nothing bad is said about her.

The culmination of the work is Katerina’s recognition. Ostrovsky describes how a woman makes a “confession” and repents of her fall from grace. But the place of forgiveness receives reproach and bullying from the mother-in-law. Unable to exist in this world, abandoned by her beloved Boris, the author finds one for the heroine the right way. “You can’t live,” says Katerina, before committing suicide.

In conclusion, we can say that Katerina is the only positive character play, so it can be called “a ray of light in a dark kingdom”

The Thunderstorm essay based on the play by Ostrovsky The Thunderstorm - Katerina Kabanova a ray of light in a dark kingdom

Option 3

Ostrovsky, as an author, always touched upon themes in his works human soul, her unique adaptability, and also themes of human vices and misdeeds. In his works, he loved to show his reader characters who in one way or another possessed bad traits character in order to create a certain negative image, which would contrast with the other images, and would show the reader all the unpleasantness, or the attractiveness of these very images. He showed the emotional and personal component of the soul so clearly and clearly that there was no doubt about their authenticity and reality. A good example Katerina from the work “The Thunderstorm” will serve as a similar image.

The work “The Thunderstorm” got its name, of course, for a reason. The work is filled with strong emotional experiences of the characters, which are emphasized by the strong and difficult to perceive themes that the author placed in his work. IN this work The author focuses attention on topics that are interesting for discussion with the reader, which, one way or another, are close to every person, unless he is a hermit. It raises themes of human relationships, human character, the character of the entire society and humanity as a whole. He also puts a lot of emphasis on human misdeeds, saying that even if a person has committed an incredible stupidity, he can still improve. However, his works also contain images that the author specifically idealized. An example of such an image is the image of Katerina.

Katerina is without a doubt the brightest image of all the characters in the work. It is not surprising, the work itself is filled with a rather gloomy atmosphere that depresses the reader, forcing him to plunge into the harsh reality literary works Ostrovsky. However, Katerina, even despite the unfriendly environment around her, still remains true to her principles, true to human honor, and remains true to all human ideals. In contrast to the rest of the characters in the work, Katerina is simply a real angel, sent to a very tough and dark world, which immediately alienates a person with its malice and dark, even mystical atmosphere. The author probably created the image of Katerina as a kind of bright island of goodness and positivity in this dark, unattractive world, in order to tell his reader that even in such dark places there is goodness, albeit a small amount, but there is.

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