Katerina- the main character, Tikhon’s wife, Kabanikha’s daughter-in-law. The image of K. is Ostrovsky’s most important discovery - the discovery of a strong man born in the patriarchal world folk character with an awakening sense of personality. In the plot of the play, K. is the protagonist, Kabanikha is the antagonist in tragic conflict. Their relationship in the play is not an everyday feud between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, their destinies expressed the clash of two historical eras, which determines the tragic nature of the conflict. It is important for the author to show the origins of the heroine’s character, for which purpose in the exhibition, despite the specifics dramatic kind K. gives a lengthy story about life as a girl. Here is an ideal version of patriarchal relations and the patriarchal world in general. The main motive of her story is the motive of all-pervading mutual love: “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild, I did whatever I wanted.” But it was “will”, which did not at all conflict with the age-old way of closed life, the entire circle of which is limited homework, and since K. is a girl from a rich merchant family, is needlework, gold embroidery on velvet; since she works together with the pilgrims, then most likely we are talking about embroideries for the temple. This is a story about a world in which it does not occur to a person to oppose himself to the general, since he does not yet separate himself from this community. That is why there is no violence or coercion here. Idyllic patriarchal harmony family life(perhaps precisely the result of her childhood impressions, which remained forever in her soul) for K. - unconditional moral ideal. But she lives in an era when the very spirit of this morality - the harmony between the individual and the moral ideas of the environment - has disappeared and the ossified form rests on violence and coercion. Sensitive K. catches this in her family life in the Kabanovs’ house. After listening to the story about her daughter-in-law’s life before marriage, Varvara (Tikhon’s sister) exclaims in surprise: “But it’s the same with us.” “Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity,” K. drops, and this is the main drama for her.
For the entire concept of the play, it is very important that it is here, in the soul of a woman who is quite “Kalinov’s” in upbringing and moral ideas, that a new attitude to the world is born, a new feeling, still unclear to the heroine herself: “...Something bad is happening to me, some kind of miracle!.. There is something so extraordinary about me. I’m sure I’m starting to live again, or I don’t know.” This is a vague feeling, which K. cannot, of course, explain rationally - an awakening sense of personality. In the heroine’s soul, it, naturally in accordance with the whole set of concepts and sphere of life of a merchant’s wife, takes the form of individual, personal love. Passion is born and grows in K., but it is passion in highest degree spiritualized, infinitely far from the thoughtless desire for hidden joys. K. perceives awakened love as a terrible, indelible sin, because love for a stranger for her, a married woman, is a violation moral duty, the moral commandments of the patriarchal world for K. are full of primordial meaning. She wants with all her soul to be pure and impeccable; her moral demands on herself do not allow compromise. Having already realized her love for Boris, she resists it with all her might, but finds no support in this struggle: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me there, but I have nothing to hold on to.” And indeed, everything around her is already a dead form. For K., the form and ritual in themselves do not matter - she needs the very essence of human relations, which were once clothed in this ritual. That is why it is unpleasant for her to bow at the feet of the departing Tikhon and she refuses to howl on the porch, as the guardians of customs expect from her. Not only the external forms of household life, but even prayer becomes inaccessible to her as soon as she feels the power of sinful passion over herself. N.A. Dobrolyubov was wrong when he claimed that K.’s prayers had become boring. On the contrary, K.’s religious sentiments intensify as her spiritual thunderstorm. But it is precisely the discrepancy between her sinful inner state and what the religious commandments require of her that prevents her from praying as before: K. is too far from the sanctimonious gap between the external performance of rituals and everyday practice. Given her high morality, such a compromise is impossible. She feels fear of herself, of the desire for will that has grown in her, inseparably merging in her mind with love: “Of course, God forbid this to happen! 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. I don’t want to live here, I won’t do this, even if you cut me!”
K. was married off young, her fate was decided by her family, and she accepts this as a completely natural, ordinary thing. She enters the Kabanov family, ready to love and honor her mother-in-law (“For me, mamma, it’s all the same, like my own mother, like you...” she says to Kabanikha in Act I, but she doesn’t know how to lie), expecting in advance that her husband will be her master, but also her support and protection. But Tikhon is not suitable for the role of the head of a patriarchal family, and K. speaks of his love for him: “I feel very sorry for him!” And in the fight against her illegal love for Boris K., despite her attempts, she cannot rely on Tikhon.
“The Thunderstorm” is not a “tragedy of love,” but rather a “tragedy of conscience.” When the fall has taken place, K. no longer retreats, does not feel sorry for himself, does not want to hide anything, saying to Boris: “If I was not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment!” The consciousness of sin does not leave her at the moment of intoxication with happiness and with enormous power takes possession of her when happiness is over. K. publicly repents without hope of forgiveness, and it is the complete lack of hope that pushes her to commit suicide, an even more serious sin: “Anyway, I ruined my soul.” It is not Boris’s refusal to take her with him to Kyakhta, but the complete impossibility of reconciling his love for him with the demands of his conscience and physical disgust for the home prison, for captivity, that kills K.
To explain K.’s character, what is important is not motivation (radical criticism condemned K. for his love for Boris), but free expression of will, the fact that she suddenly and inexplicably, contrary to her own ideas about morality and order, fell in love with Boris not for “function” (as this is supposed to happen in a patriarchal world, where she must love not the personality of a specific person, but precisely the “function”: father, husband, mother-in-law, etc.), but another person who is in no way connected with her. And the more inexplicable her attraction to Boris, the clearer it is that the issue is precisely this free, unpredictable self-will of individual feeling. And this is a sign of the awakening of the personal principle in this soul, all the moral foundations of which are determined by patriarchal morality. K.’s death is therefore predetermined and irreversible, no matter how the people on whom she depends behave: neither her self-awareness nor her entire way of life allows the personal feeling that has awakened in her to be embodied in everyday forms. K. is a victim not of anyone personally around her (no matter what she herself or other characters in the play think about it), but of the course of life. The world of patriarchal relations is dying, and the soul of this world leaves life in torment and suffering, crushed by the ossified, meaningless form of everyday connections, and passes a moral verdict on itself, because in it the patriarchal ideal lives in its primordial content.
In addition to its precise socio-historical character, “The Thunderstorm” also has a clearly expressed lyrical beginning and powerful symbolism. Both are primarily (if not exclusively) connected with the image of K. Ostrovsky consistently correlates the fate and speeches of K. with the plot and poetics of lyrical songs about women’s lot. In this tradition, K.’s story about his free life as a girl, a monologue before his last meeting with Boris, is carried out. The author consistently poeticizes the image of the heroine, using for this purpose even such an unconventional means for drama as the landscape, which is first described in the stage directions, then the beauty of the Trans-Volga region is discussed in Kuligin’s conversations, then in K.’s words addressed to Varvara, the motif of birds and flight appears (“Why don’t people fly?.. You know, sometimes it seems to me that I’m a bird. When you’re standing on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how you’d run up, raise your arms and fly.”) In the finale, the motive of flight is tragically transformed into a fall from the Volga cliff, from the very mountain that beckoned to fly. And K. is saved from a painful life in captivity by the Volga, symbolizing distance and freedom (remember K.’s story about her childhood rebellion, when she, offended, got into a boat and sailed along the Volga - an episode from the biography of Ostrovsky’s close friend, actress L.P. Kositskaya , the first performer of the role of K.).
The lyricism of “The Thunderstorm” arises precisely because of the closeness of the world of the heroine and the author. The hopes of overcoming social discord, rampant individualistic passions, and the cultural gap between the educated classes and the people on the basis of the resurrection of ideal patriarchal harmony, which Ostrovsky and his friends in the Moskvityanin magazine nurtured in the 1850s, have not stood the test of modernity. The “Thunderstorm” was their farewell, reflecting the state national consciousness at the turn of the era. The lyrical character of “The Thunderstorm” was deeply understood by A. A. Grigoriev, himself a former Muscovite, who said about the play: “... as if not a poet, but whole people created here."
Perhaps few works of that time, and even among the works of the author Ostrovsky himself, could cause so much heated controversy than the play “The Thunderstorm”.
The desperate act of Katerina Kabanova, who crossed the line of life and death, evokes both sympathetic understanding and sharp rejection. There is no one opinion, and there cannot be.
Characteristics of the heroine
The beloved and spoiled daughter of a merchant family, Katerina marries Tikhon, turning her world upside down. Using the example of her parents and new family, we see how different the patriarchal way of life can be: ostentatious and demonstrative (what will the neighbors say? What will the acquaintances think?), or deep and sincere, hidden from prying eyes.
The lack of a full-fledged education contributes to the fate of this woman. According to Katerina’s stories, she gained her knowledge from the stories of her mother and father, as well as praying mantises and wanderers. Faith in people and admiration for the world created by God are its main features. Katerina did not know hard work; she loved to go to church, which seemed to her like a fairy-tale temple where angels were waiting for her.
(Kiryushina Galina Aleksandrovna as Katerina, stage of the Maly Theater)
A cloudless and happy childhood quickly gives way to a joyless marriage. A kind, naive and very religious girl for the first time encountered undisguised hatred for the people around her. IN new family there is no longer room for angels and joy. And marriage itself is not at all for love. And if Katerina hopes to fall in love with Tikhon, then Kabanikha - as everyone around her calls her mother-in-law - leaves no chance for either her son or her daughter-in-law. Perhaps Tikhon would be the one who would make Katya happy, but only under the wing of his mother he does not know such feelings as love.
A meeting with Boris gives the unhappy woman hope that life can still change and become better. The dark atmosphere at home pushes her to rebel and try to fight for her happiness. Going on a date, she realizes that she is committing a sin. This feeling does not leave her either before or after. Firm faith in God and awareness of the depravity of the committed act push Katerina to confess everything to her husband and mother-in-law.
The image of the heroine in the work
(Scene from drama)
Amazed, but deep down understanding his wife, Tikhon does not condemn her. But this doesn’t make it any easier for Katerina herself. Forgiving yourself is much more difficult. Perhaps she wanted to ease her mental turmoil with a confession, but it didn’t work out. She doesn't need forgiveness. The very thought of returning to the house for her becomes identical to death, only not instantaneous, but long, painful, inevitable. According to the religious canon, suicide is a mortal sin that cannot be forgiven. But this does not stop the desperate woman.
In her thoughts, Katya often imagines herself as a bird, her soul yearns for heaven. Living in Kalinov is unbearable for her. Having fallen in love with Boris, who has recently arrived in the city, she imagines how they will leave the hated city together. Love is seen as real and such a close salvation. But to make a dream come true, you need a mutual desire...
(Fragment from a dramatic production)
Having met Boris on the banks of the Volga, Katerina experiences severe disappointment. Once such a wonderful young man resolutely refuses to take with him married woman, dealing her the final blow to her heart with his refusal. Katya no longer wants to be a stumbling block in her family, to continue to drag out a joyless existence, to break her soul day after day to please her mother-in-law.
And the exit is here - very close, you just need to take a step off the cliff into the waters of the Volga. And the thunderstorm seems to her like nothing more than an indication from above. What Katya had once only vaguely thought about, afraid to admit to herself sinful thoughts, turned out to be the simplest way out. Not finding her place, support, love, she decides to take this very last step.
Katerina - Russian a strong character, for whom truth and a deep sense of duty are above all. She has an extremely developed desire for harmony with the world and freedom. The origins of this are in childhood. As we see, in this carefree time, Katerina was primarily surrounded by beauty and harmony, she “lived like a bird in the wild,” among mother's love and fragrant nature. Her mother doted on her and did not force her to do housework. Katya lived freely: she got up early, washed herself with spring water, watered flowers, went to church with her mother, then sat down to do some work and listened to wanderers and praying mantises, of which there were many in their house. Katerina had magical dreams where she was flying under the clouds. And how strongly it contrasts with such a quiet one, happy life the act of a six-year-old girl when Katya, offended by something, ran away from home on the Volga in the evening, got into a boat and pushed off from the shore. This is the act of a person with a strong character who does not tolerate restrictions.
We see that Katerina grew up as a happy and romantic girl. She was very devout and passionately loving. She loved everything and everyone around her: nature, the sun, the church, her home with wanderers, the beggars whom she helped. But the most important thing about Katya is that she lived in her dreams, apart from the rest of the world. From everything that existed, she chose only that which did not contradict her nature; the rest she did not want to notice and did not notice. That’s why the girl saw angels in the sky, and for her the church was not an oppressive and oppressive force, but a place where everything is light, where you can dream. Katerina was naive and kind, brought up in a completely religious spirit. But if she encountered something on her way that contradicted her ideals, then she turned into a rebellious and stubborn nature and defended herself from that extraneous person who dared to disturb her soul. This was the case with the boat.
After marriage, Katerina’s life changed a lot. From a free, joyful, sublime world, in which she felt merging with nature, the girl found herself in a life full of deception and violence. The point is not even that Katerina did not marry Tikhon of her own free will: she did not love anyone at all and she did not care who she married. The fact is that the girl was robbed of her former life, which she created for herself. Katerina no longer feels such delight from visiting church and cannot do her usual activities. Sad, anxious thoughts do not allow her to calmly admire nature. Katya can only endure as long as she can and dream, but she can no longer live with her thoughts, because cruel reality returns her to earth, to where there is humiliation and suffering. Katerina is trying to find her happiness in her love for Tikhon: “I will love my husband. Silence, my darling, I won’t exchange you for anyone.” But sincere manifestations of this love are stopped by Kabanikha: “Why are you hanging around your neck, shameless woman? It’s not your lover you’re saying goodbye to.” Katerina has a strong sense of external humility and duty, which is why she forces herself to love her unloved husband. Tikhon himself, because of his mother’s tyranny, cannot truly love his wife, although he probably wants to. And when he, leaving for a while, leaves Katya to walk around to his heart's content, the woman becomes completely lonely.
Love for Boris is a feeling that arose, in my opinion, due to deep human dissatisfaction. Katerina lacked something pure in the stuffy atmosphere of Kabanikha’s house. And love for Boris was pure, did not allow Katerina to completely wither away, somehow supported her. She went on a date with Boris because she felt like a person with pride and basic rights. It was a rebellion against submission to fate, against lawlessness. Katerina knew that she was committing a sin, but she also knew that it was still impossible to live any longer. She sacrificed the purity of her conscience to freedom and Boris. In my opinion, when taking this step, Katya already felt the approaching end and probably thought: “It’s now or never.” She wanted to be satisfied with love, knowing that there would be no other opportunity. On their first date, Katerina told Boris: “You ruined me.” Sin lies like a heavy stone on her heart. A thunderstorm becomes a symbol of inevitable heavenly punishment for the heroine. Katerina cannot continue to live with her sin, and a completely natural way out for her religious consciousness is repentance. She confesses everything to her husband and mother-in-law. But repentance must be accompanied by humility, and this is not present in the freedom-loving heroine. Suicide is a terrible sin, but it is precisely this that Katerina decides to commit, being unable to exist in a world where people do not fly like birds.
The publication of “The Thunderstorm” occurred in 1860. Difficult times. The country smelled of revolution. Traveling along the Volga in 1856, the author made sketches of the future work, where he tried to depict as accurately as possible the merchant world of the second half of the 19th century. There is an insoluble conflict in the play. It was he who led to death main character who could not cope with her emotional state. The image and characterization of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” is a portrait of a strong, extraordinary personality, forced to exist in the conditions of a small patriarchal city. The girl could not forgive herself for betraying herself, giving herself up to human lynching, without even hoping to earn forgiveness. For which she paid with her life.
Katerina Kabanova is the wife of Tikhon Kabanov. Kabanikha's daughter-in-law.
Image and characteristics
After marriage, Katerina’s world collapsed. Her parents spoiled her and cherished her like a flower. The girl grew up in love and with a feeling of boundless freedom.“Mama doted on me, dressed me up like a doll, and didn’t force me to work; I do what I want".
As soon as she found herself in her mother-in-law's house, everything changed. The rules and laws are the same, but now from a beloved daughter, Katerina became a subordinate daughter-in-law, whom her mother-in-law hated with every fiber of her soul and did not even try to hide her attitude towards her.
When she was very young, she was given to someone else's family.
“They married you off when you were young, you didn’t have to go out with the girls; “Your heart hasn’t left yet.”
That’s how it should be, for Katerina it was normal. In those days, no one built a family out of love. If you endure it, you will fall in love. She is ready to submit, but with respect and love. In my husband's house they did not know about such concepts.
“Was I like that! I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild...”
Katerina is a freedom-loving person. Decisive.
“This is how I was born, 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. The next morning they found it, about ten miles away!
She is not one of those who obey tyrants. She is not afraid of dirty intrigues on the part of Kabanova. For her, freedom is the most important thing. Do not follow idiotic orders, do not bend under the influence of others, but do what your heart desires.
Her soul languished in anticipation of happiness and mutual love. Tikhon, Katerina’s husband, loved her in his own way, as best he could, but his mother’s influence on him was too strong, turning him against his young wife. He preferred to drown out problems with alcohol, and escaped from conflicts in the family on long business trips.
Katerina was often left alone. They did not have children with Tikhon.
“Eco woe! I don’t have children: I would still sit with them and amuse them. I really like talking to children – they are angels.”
The girl was increasingly sad about her worthless life, praying in front of the altar.
Katerina is religious. Going to church is like a holiday. There she rested her soul. As a child, she heard angels singing. She believed that God would hear prayers everywhere. When it was not possible to go to the temple, the girl prayed in the garden.
A new round of life is associated with the arrival of Boris. She understands that passion for another man is a terrible sin, but she is unable to cope with it.
“It’s not good, it’s a terrible sin, Varenka, why do I love someone else?”
She tried to resist, but she did not have enough strength and support:
“It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss, but I have nothing to hold on to.”
The feeling turned out to be too strong.
Sinful love raised a wave of internal fear for its action. The more her love for Boris grew, the more she felt sinfulness. She grabbed at the last straw, crying out to her husband with a request to take her with him, but Tikhon is a narrow-minded person and could not understand his wife’s mental suffering.
Bad dreams and an irreversible premonition of impending disaster drove Katerina crazy. She felt the reckoning approaching. With each thunderclap, it seemed to her that God was throwing arrows at her.
Charter of internal struggle, Katerina publicly confesses to her husband that she has cheated on her. Even in this situation, the spineless Tikhon was ready to forgive her. Boris, having learned about her repentance, under pressure from his uncle, leaves the city, leaving his beloved to the mercy of fate. Katerina did not receive support from him. Unable to withstand the mental anguish, the girl rushes into the Volga.
Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm" stands out from the great variety of his plays precisely thanks to Katerina. In dramaturgy it is very rare for something “live” to happen. positive hero. As a rule, the author has enough colors for negative characters, but the positive ones always come out primitively sketchy. Perhaps because there is so little truly good in this world. Katerina - main character Ostrovsky’s dramas are the only good thing in that world, “ dark kingdom"The philistinism that surrounds her. The desire to fly is the main difference between Katerina and those people into whose trap she fell thanks to her marriage. But, unfortunately, there was only one way out of it.
From Katerina's words we learn about her childhood and adolescence. The girl didn't receive it good education. She lived with her mother in the village. Childhood was joyful and cloudless. Her mother “doted on her” and did not force her to do housework. Katya lived freely: she got up early, washed herself with spring water, watered the flowers, went to church with her mother, then sat down to do some work and listened to the wanderers and praying mantises, of which there were many in their house. Katerina had magical dreams in which she flew under the clouds. And how strongly contrasted with such a quiet, happy life is the action of a six-year-old girl, when Katya, offended by something, ran away from home to the Volga in the evening, got into a boat and pushed off from the shore!..
We see that Katerina grew up as a happy, romantic, but limited girl. She was very devout and passionately loving. She loved everything and everyone around her: nature, the sun, the church, her home with wanderers, the beggars whom she helped. But the most important thing about Ka-te is that she lived in her dreams, apart from the rest of the world. From everything that existed, she chose only that which did not contradict her nature; the rest she did not want to notice and did not notice. That’s why the girl saw angels in the sky, and for her the church was a place where everything was light, where she could dream.
But if she encountered something on her way that contradicted her ideals, then she turned into a rebellious and stubborn nature and defended herself from that extraneous person who dared to disturb her soul. This was the case with the boat.
After marriage, Katya’s life changed a lot. From a free, joyful, sublime world, in which she felt united with nature, the girl found herself in a life full of deception and cruelty. The point is not even that Katerina married Tikhon not of her own free will: she didn’t love anyone at all and she didn’t care who she married. The fact is that the girl was robbed of her former life, which she created for herself. Katerina no longer feels such delight from visiting church; she cannot do her usual activities. Sad, anxious thoughts do not allow her to calmly admire nature. Katya can only endure as long as she can and dream, but she can no longer live with her thoughts, because cruel reality returns her to earth, to where there is humiliation and suffering.
Katerina is trying to find her happiness in love for Tikhon: “I will love my husband. Silence, my darling, I won’t exchange you for anyone.” But sincere manifestations of this love are stopped by Kabanikha: “Why are you hanging around your neck, shameless woman? It’s not your lover you’re saying goodbye to.” Katerina has a strong sense of external humility and duty, which is why she forces herself to love her unloved husband. Tikhon himself, because of his mother’s tyranny, cannot truly love his wife, although he probably wants to. And when he, leaving for a while, leaves Katya to walk around to his heart's content, the woman becomes completely lonely.
Why did Katerina fall in love with Boris? After all, he did not demonstrate his masculine qualities, like Paratov in “Dowry”, and did not even talk to her. Probably the reason is that she lacked something pure in the stuffy atmosphere of Kabanikha’s house. And love for Boris was this pure, did not allow Katerina to completely wither away, somehow supported her. She went on a date with Boris because she felt like a person with pride and basic rights. It was a rebellion against submission to fate, against lawlessness. Katerina knew that she was committing a sin, but she also knew that it was still impossible to live any longer. She sacrificed the purity of her conscience for freedom.
In my opinion, when taking this step, Katya already felt the approaching end and probably thought: “It’s now or never.” She wanted to be satisfied with love, knowing that there would be no other opportunity. On the first date, Katerina told Boris: “You ruined me.” He is the reason for the disgrace of her soul, and for Katya this is tantamount to death. Sin hangs like a heavy stone on her heart. Katerina is terribly afraid of the approaching thunderstorm, considering it a punishment for what she did. Katerina has been scared of the elements ever since she started thinking about Boris. For her pure soul, even the thought of loving a stranger is a sin.
Katya cannot continue to live with her sin, and she considers repentance the only way to at least partially get rid of it. She confesses everything to her husband and Kabanikha. Such an act seems very strange and naive in our time. “I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything,” that’s Katerina. Tikhon forgave his wife, but did she forgive herself? I will be very religious, Katya fears God, and her God lives in her, God is her conscience. The girl is tormented by two questions: how will she return home and look into the eyes of the husband she cheated on, and how will she live with a stain on her conscience. Katerina sees death as the only way out of this situation: “No, I don’t care whether I go home or go to the grave... It’s better in the grave... To live again? No, no, don’t... it’s not good...”
Haunted by her sin, Katerina leaves this life to save her soul. Dobrolyubov defined Katerina’s character as “decisive, integral, Russian.” Decisive, because she decided to take the last step, to die in order to save herself from shame and remorse. Whole, because in Katya’s character everything is harmonious, one, nothing contradicts each other, because Katya is one with nature, with God. Russian, because who, if not a Russian person, is capable of loving so much, capable of sacrificing so much, so seemingly obediently enduring all hardships, while remaining himself, free, not a slave.