A. N. Ostrovsky's play “The Thunderstorm” is one of his best works. The main character of the play, Katerina, is a fighter against the “dark kingdom”. In the image of Katerina, Ostrovsky showed a decisive and integral Russian character.
Katerina's character is unique. Dobrolyubov said about it this way: “There is nothing external, alien in him, but everything somehow comes out from within him, every impression is processed in him and then grows organically with him.” Katerina is never capricious, never flirts, she doesn’t want to stand out or show off. On the contrary, she lives very peacefully and is ready to obey everything, unless it is contrary to her nature. But while recognizing and respecting others, she demands the same respect for herself. The environment in which Katerina lives requires her to lie and deceive.
The play repeatedly repeats an image that helps to understand the main thing in Katerina’s character - the image of a bird. The bird is a symbol of will. From here permanent epithet"free Bird". “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” Katerina recalls about how she lived before the wedding. “Why don’t people fly like birds? - she says to Varvara. “You know, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird.” But the free bird Katerina ended up in an iron cage. The mother-in-law does not like Katerina and always reproaches her for all sorts of little things. But we note that Katerina’s character is not like that, and this is confirmed by the words: “Eh, Varya, you don’t know my character! Of course, don't let this 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, even if you cut me!”
The denouement of the entire play occurs when Katerina confesses to her husband that she has been unfaithful. She does this because she does not want and does not know how to lie. She had no love for her husband, but only pity. And she cheated on him with the man she loved. She is perplexed because she sees the hatred and suspicion of the “dark kingdom.” And she found a way out of this impasse in the decision to die. But in these last minutes she does not blame anyone, does not complain about anyone; on the contrary, she thinks that she herself is to blame for everyone.
Dobrolyubov said this: “Sad, bitter is such liberation; but what to do when there is no other way out. It’s good that the poor woman found the determination to at least take this terrible way out. That’s the strength of her character!”
Indeed, a man who was not afraid to admit treason, was not afraid to challenge the “dark kingdom” and was not even afraid of death, a strong character.
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- The play “The Thunderstorm,” written by A. N. Ostrovsky in 1859, became the object of controversy among many critics, whose opinions were both positive and negative. But the classical interpretation of this work is considered to be the critical article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “A Ray of Light in dark kingdom”, in Read More......
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- Katerina – main character Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm". The main idea of the work is the conflict of this girl with the “dark kingdom”, the kingdom of tyrants, despots and ignoramuses. You can find out why this conflict arose and why the end of the drama is so tragic by looking into Katerina’s soul, understanding her Read More ......
- Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” stands out from the great variety of his plays precisely because of Katerina. In dramaturgy it is very rare for something “live” to happen. positive hero. As a rule, the author has enough colors to negative characters, but the positive ones always come out primitively schematic. Perhaps because in Read More......
- Katerina is the main character of Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”. The main idea of the work is the conflict of the heroine with the “dark kingdom”, the kingdom of tyrants, despots, and ignoramuses. You can find out why this conflict arose and why the end of the drama is so tragic by looking into Katerina’s soul. And this became possible, Read More......
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THE STRENGTH OF KATERINA'S CHARACTER AND THE TRAGIC ACUTEITY OF HER CONFLICT WITH THE "DARK KINGDOM" IN A. N. OSTROVSKY'S DRAMA "THE STORM". THE IMAGE OF KATERINA IN THE ASSESSMENT OF N. A. DOBROLUBOV
The drama "The Thunderstorm" was conceived under the impression of Ostrovsky's trip along the Volga (1856-1857), but was written in 1859. "The Thunderstorm," as Dobrolyubov wrote, is without a doubt the most decisive work Ostrovsky." This assessment has not lost its force to this day. Among everything written by Ostrovsky, "The Thunderstorm" is undoubtedly best work, the pinnacle of his creativity. This is a real pearl of Russian drama, standing on a par with such works as “Minor”, “Woe from Wit”, “The Inspector General”, “Boris Godunov”, etc. With amazing power it depicts the Ostrovsky corner of the “dark kingdom”, where people's human dignity is brazenly violated. The masters of life here are tyrants. They crowd people, tyrannize their families and suppress every manifestation of living and healthy human thought. Among the heroes of the drama, the main place is occupied by Katerina, who is suffocating in this musty swamp. In terms of character and interests, Katerina stands out sharply from her environment. Katerina's fate, unfortunately, is bright and typical example the fates of thousands of Russian women of that time. Katerina is a young woman, the wife of the merchant son Tikhon Kabanov. She recently left her native home and moved into her husband’s house, where she lives with her mother-in-law Kabanova, who is the sovereign mistress. Katerina has no rights in the family; she is not even free to control herself. With warmth and love, she remembers her parents' home and her girlhood life. There she lived at ease, surrounded by the affection and care of her mother. IN free time I went to the spring to get water, looked after flowers, embroidered on velvet, went to church, listened to the stories and singing of wanderers. The religious upbringing she received in her family developed in her impressionability, dreaminess, belief in the afterlife and retribution for man’s sins. Katerina found herself in completely different conditions in her husband’s house. From the outside, everything seemed to be the same, but the freedom of the parental home was replaced by stuffy slavery. At every step she felt dependent on her mother-in-law and suffered humiliation and insults. From Tikhon she does not meet any support, much less understanding, since he himself is under the power of Kaba-nikha. Out of her kindness, Katerina is ready to treat Kabanikha as her own mother. She says to Kabanikha: “For me, mamma, everything is the same as my own mother and you.” But sincere feelings Katerina does not find support from either Kabanikha or Tikhon. Life in such an environment changed Katerina’s character: “How playful I was, but you withered completely... Was I like that? 1” Katerina’s sincerity and truthfulness collide in Kabanikha’s house with lies, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and rudeness. When love for Boris is born in Katerina, it seems to her a crime, and she struggles with the feeling that rushes over her. Katerina's truthfulness and sincerity make her suffer so much that she finally has to repent to her husband. Katerina's sincerity and truthfulness are incompatible with the life of the “dark kingdom”. All this was the cause of Katerina’s tragedy. The intensity of Katerina’s feelings is especially clearly visible after Tikhon’s return: “She’s trembling all over, as if she’s suffering from a fever: she’s so pale, rushing around the house, as if she’s looking for something. Her eyes are like those of a madwoman, she started crying this morning, and she’s still sobbing.” Katerina’s public repentance shows the whole depth of her suffering, moral greatness, determination. But after repentance, her situation became unbearable. Her husband does not understand her, Boris is weak-willed and does not come to her aid. The situation has become hopeless - Katerina is dying. More than one specific person is to blame for Katerina’s death. Her death is the result of the incompatibility of morality and the way of life in which she was forced to exist. The image of Katerina had a huge impact on Ostrovsky’s contemporaries and subsequent generations. educational value. He called for a fight against all forms of despotism and oppression human personality. This is an expression of the growing protest of the masses against all types of slavery. With her death, Katerina protests against despotism and tyranny; her death indicates the approaching end of the “dark kingdom.” The image of Katerina belongs to best images Russian fiction. Katerina is a new type of people in Russian reality in the 60s of the 19th century. Dobrolyubov wrote that Katerina’s character “is full of faith in new ideals and selfless in the sense that it is better for him to die than to live under those principles that are disgusting to him. A decisive, integral character, acting among the Dikikhs and Kabanovs, appears in Ostrovsky in female type, and this is not without its serious significance." Further, Dobrolyubov calls Katerina “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” He says that her suicide seemed to illuminate for a moment the unbroken darkness of the “dark kingdom.” At her tragic end, according to the critic, “ a terrible challenge has been given to tyrant power." In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest brought to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.
Tasks and tests on the topic "STRENGTH OF KATERINA'S CHARACTER AND THE TRAGIC ACUTEITY OF HER CONFLICT WITH THE DARK KINGDOM IN THE DRAMA OF A. N. OSTROVSKY THE THUNDER. THE IMAGE OF KATERINA IN THE ASSESSMENT OF N. A. DOBROLUBOV"
- Spelling - Important topics for repeating the Unified State Exam in Russian
Lessons: 5 Tasks: 7
Katerina's character is unique. Dobrolyubov said about it this way: “There is nothing external, alien in him, but everything somehow comes out from within him, every impression is processed in him and then grows organically with him.” Katerina is never capricious, never flirts, she doesn’t want to stand out or show off. On the contrary, she lives very peacefully and is ready to obey everything, unless it is contrary to her nature. But while recognizing and respecting others, she demands the same respect for herself. The environment in which Katerina lives requires her to lie and deceive.
The play repeatedly repeats an image that helps to understand the main thing in Katerina’s character - the image of a bird. The bird is a symbol of will. Hence the constant epithet “free bird”. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” Katerina recalls about how she lived before the wedding. “Why don’t people fly like birds? - she says to Varvara. “You know, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird.” But the free bird Katerina ended up in an iron cage. The mother-in-law does not like Katerina and always reproaches her for all sorts of little things. But we note that Katerina’s character is not like that, and this is confirmed by the words: “Eh, Varya, you don’t know my character! Of course, don't let this 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, even if you cut me!”
The denouement of the entire play occurs when Katerina confesses to her husband that she has been unfaithful. She does this because she does not want and does not know how to lie. She had no love for her husband, but only pity. And she cheated on him with the man she loved. She is perplexed because she sees the hatred and suspicion of the “dark kingdom.” And she found a way out of this impasse in the decision to die. But in these last minutes she does not blame anyone, does not complain about anyone; on the contrary, she thinks that she herself is to blame for everyone.
Dobrolyubov said this: “Sad, bitter is such liberation; but what to do when there is no other way out. It’s good that the poor woman found the determination to at least take this terrible way out. That’s the strength of her character!”
Indeed, a person who was not afraid to admit to treason, who was not afraid to challenge the “dark kingdom” and was not even afraid of death, has a strong character.
Ostrovsky's drama shows the complex, tragic process of emancipation of the reviving soul. Here darkness fights with light, ups give way to downs, and the vitality of morality is reflected here." dark kingdom", and the instability of this morality. Katerina’s first meeting with her beloved is deeply tragic. The motive sounds here folk song-motive of imminent death (“You kill, ruin me from midnight...”): “Why did you come? Why did you come, my destroyer?”; “Why do you want my death?”; “You ruined me!” How strong her feeling must be if she goes to certain death in his name! “Don’t be sorry, destroy me!” she exclaims, surrendering to this feeling. Not everyone can love like that, and we are convinced of the heroine’s extraordinary strength. What are Katerina's first words? Let’s listen to them carefully: “For me, Mama, it’s all the same, like my own mother, like you, and Tikhon loves you too.” Unlike his wife, Tikhon pronounces his excuses pitifully, even, perhaps, in a whiny tone and at the same time very respectfully, addressing his mother as “you.” Katerina says the same thing as Tikhon, objecting to the reproaches. But with what dignity, how simply and sincerely she speaks! Characteristic is this address to “you” (as an equal), and the desire for clear, friendly human relationships. In the first scene, listening to the dialogue between Kuligin and Tikhon, we imagine Katerina as a submissive victim, a person with a broken will and a trampled soul. “Mama eats her, but she walks like a shadow, unrequited. She just cries and melts like wax,” Tikhon says about his wife. And here she is in front of us. No, she's not a victim. She is a person with a strong, decisive character, with a lively, freedom-loving heart. She ran away from home to say goodbye to Boris, without fear of punishment for this act. She not only does not hide, does not hide, but + “loudly, at the top of her voice” calls her beloved: “My joy, my life, my soul, I love you! Answer!” No, she does not feel like a slave, on the contrary, she is free, if only because she has lost everything, that she has nothing else to value, not even her life: “Why should I live now, well, for what?” Boris says about himself: “What can you talk about me! I’m a free bird.” In the dating scene, Katerina envies him: “You are a free Cossack.” But, in fact, which of the two is freer?
Let’s dwell on Boris’s remarks in the farewell scene: “I can’t, Katya. I’m not going of my own free will: my uncle sends... They wouldn’t find me here!” Boris is shackled with fear. Katerina's last monologue depicts her inner victory over the forces of the "dark kingdom". “To live again? No, no, don’t... it’s not good!” The word “not good” is typical here: living under the yoke of Kabanikha, from Katerina’s point of view, is immoral. “And they’ll catch me and force me back home... “How scary this word sounds here - they’ll catch me, as if we’re not talking about a person! At the thought of the violence that will be committed against her, Katerina exclaims: “Oh, quickly, quickly!” The thirst for liberation triumphs over dark religious ideas. Katerina becomes convinced of her right to freedom of feeling, to the freedom to choose between life and death. “It’s all the same that death will come, that it will come on its own... but you can’t live!” she reflects on suicide, which, from the point of view of the church, is a mortal sin. And then she questions this idea: “It’s a sin! They won’t pray? Whoever loves will pray... “The thought of love is stronger than the fear of religious prohibitions, and Katerina’s dying words are not addressed to God and do not express repentance for what she has done sins, they are addressed to their beloved: “My friend! My joy! Farewell!” So, free from prejudice, a living and strong feeling won in Katerina’s soul, and she broke free from the shackles of the “dark kingdom”.
29.03.2013 18484 0Lesson
68
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF KATERINA'S CHARACTER. ARTICLE
N. DOBROLUBOVA “RAY OF LIGHT IN THE DARK KINGDOM”
Goals : deepen students’ understanding of the main character of Ostrovsky’s play; reveal the strength and weakness of Katerina’s character; develop the ability to analyze character images; improve skills of independent work on text dramatic work; determine the meaning of the title of the play.
During the classes
I. Conversation with students on the issue m:
1. How does Katerina differ from other heroes of the drama “The Thunderstorm”?
2. Tell us about her interests and hobbies as a girl.
3. What is the difference between Katerina’s life in her parents’ house and in Kabanikha’s house?
4. Could Katerina find her happiness in the family? Under what conditions?
5. What is the heroine struggling with: a sense of duty or the “dark kingdom”?
6. What is the tragedy of her situation?
7. The finale of the drama. Prove that the development of the action inevitably leads to it.
8. Could Katerina find another way out other than suicide?
9. The death of the heroine - defeat or victory?
N. Dobrolyubov writes about Katerina: “This is the true strength of character.” Ostrovsky's heroine, unlike the people around her, is a sincere, poetic nature. Katerina looks for beauty everywhere: in work, in communication with people, with God. Everything that happens in the soul is for her more important than events outside world.
But one cannot help but notice the determination and love of freedom in Katerina’s character. It is useless to “remake” such a heroine or subordinate her to anyone. And such a woman finds herself in an environment of arbitrariness and hypocrisy. Katerina tries to contrast Kabanikha’s despotism and hypocrisy with self-esteem. This is the beginning of her death.
Katerina's tragedy is due to the fact that she does not love her husband. She understands that Tikhon is unworthy not only of her love, but also of respect. During the farewell, Tikhon repeats his mother’s insulting instructions to Katerina.
But in Katerina’s soul a feeling for Boris had already arisen. Awakened love is perceived by her as a terrible sin, a shame, because feeling for a stranger for her, a married woman, is a violation moral duty. Heartwarming drama flares up.
Katerina cannot live by deception. During this period, she is lonely, even her loved one is not able to support her... Earthly torments seem to her worse than hell, and she perceives death as deliverance from them. On Katerina’s part, suicide is strength, even protest, obviously in cases where other forms of struggle are impossible.
Who are the culprits of her death? There are plenty of them. This is the imperious Kabanikha, the weak-willed Tikhon, and the indecisive Boris. Katerina won a moral victory over all these people and circumstances.
“Katerina’s death had significant consequences in Kalinovsky’s consciousness and actions of ordinary people,” writes A. Anastasyev.
II. Discussion of the article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.”
An article devoted to the analysis of the play “The Thunderstorm” was published following the production of the drama at the Moscow Maly Theater in 1860 (The critic gave a brilliant analysis of the ideological content, as well as artistic features plays "The Thunderstorm". Described everyone characters, but paid most attention to the main heroine - Katerina.)
Questions:
1. “A ray of light in a dark kingdom” - what did Dobrolyubov mean by giving this title to his article?
2. Read the most striking, in your opinion, provisions of the article.
3. “This end seems joyful to us,” says Dobrolyubov about Katerina’s fate. Is this idea fair?
4. What is the essence of the dispute between D. I. Pisarev and N. A. Dobrolyubov regarding “The Thunderstorm” and main character? Whose point of view seems more profound to you?
(D.I. Pisarev. Articles “Motives of Russian Drama” and “Let’s see!”.
“Education and life could not give Katerina either a strong character or a developed mind... Katerina, like all dreamers offended by God and upbringing, sees things in a rosy light... She cuts through the lingering knots in the most stupid way, with suicide, which is completely unexpected for herself.” .)
N.A. Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in the dark kingdom.” According to the critic, at the tragic end “a terrible challenge was given to tyrant power.” The heroine’s suicide seemed to momentarily illuminate the “absolute darkness of the “dark kingdom.”
“In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest carried to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.”
III. Discussion of the meaning of the name of the drama “The Thunderstorm”.
Conversation with students on the following questions:
1. What does the word “thunderstorm” mean in Ostrovsky’s work?
2. What meaning does each of the heroes put into it?
Storm... The peculiarity of this image is that, symbolically expressing main idea plays, he at the same time directly participates in the actions of the drama as a very real natural phenomenon, determines (in many ways) the actions of the heroine.
A thunderstorm broke out over Kalinov in Act I. She caused confusion in Katerina's soul.
In Act IV, the thunderstorm motif no longer ceases. (“The rain begins to fall, as if a thunderstorm is not going to gather?..”; “A thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment, so that we feel...”; “A thunderstorm will kill! This is not a thunderstorm, but grace...”; “Remember my words, that this storm will not pass in vain...")
A thunderstorm is an elemental force of nature, terrible and not fully understood.
A thunderstorm is a “thunderstorm state of society”, a thunderstorm in the souls of the inhabitants of the city of Kalinov.
A thunderstorm is a threat to the fading but still strong world of wild boars and wild animals.
The thunderstorm is good news about new forces designed to free society from despotism.
3. How do the heroes of the play relate to the thunderstorm?
For Kuligin, a thunderstorm is God's grace. For Dikiy and Kabanikha - heavenly punishment, for Feklushi - Ilya the Prophet is rolling across the sky, for Katerina - retribution for sins. But the heroine herself, her last step, which shook Kalinov’s world, is also a thunderstorm.
The thunderstorm in Ostrovsky's play, as in nature, combines destructive and creative forces. That's why poetic image thunderstorms also express that “refreshing and encouraging feeling” that critic N.A. Dobrolyubov spoke about.
Homework.
1. Reading the drama “Dowry”.
2. Answer the questions:
1) What is the essence of the main conflict of the drama?
2) What are the main character traits of Larisa Ogudalova? Katerina Kabanova and Larisa Ogudalova.