What is Katerina's tragedy? The image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is an excellent image of a Russian woman in Russian literature

The play “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky depicts the era of the 60s of the nineteenth century. At this time, revolutionary uprisings of the people are brewing in Russia. They are aimed at. improving the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people, to overthrow tsarism. The works of great Russian writers and poets also participate in this struggle, among them Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm,” which shocked all of Russia. Using the example of the image of Katerina, the struggle of the entire people against the “dark kingdom” and its patriarchal order is depicted.

The main character in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is Katerina. Her protest against the “Kabanovsky” order, the struggle for her happiness is depicted by the author in the drama.

Katerina grew up in the house of a poor merchant, where she matured spiritually and morally. Katerina was an extraordinary person, and there was some kind of extraordinary charm in her facial features. All of her “breathed” Russian, truly folk beauty; This is how Boris says about her: “There’s an angelic smile on her face, but her face seems to glow.”

Before her marriage, Katerina “lived and did not worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she did what she wanted and when she wanted, no one ever forced her or forced her to do what she, Katerina, did not want.

Her spiritual world was very rich and diverse. Katerina was a very poetic person with a rich imagination. In her conversations we hear folk wisdom and popular sayings. Her soul longed for flight; “Why don’t people fly like birds? Sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run up, raise my hands and fly.”

Katerina’s soul was “educated” both by the stories of the praying mantises, who were in the house every day, and by sewing on velvet (sewing educated her and brought her into the world of beauty and goodness, into the world of art).

After marriage, Katerina’s life changed dramatically. In the Kabanovs’ house, Katerina was alone, her world, her soul, no one could understand. This loneliness was the first step towards tragedy. The family's attitude towards the heroine has also changed dramatically. The Kabanovs’ house adhered to the same rules and customs as Katerina’s parental home, but here “everything seems to be from under captivity.” The cruel orders of Kabanikha dulled Katerina’s desire for the sublime, and from then on the heroine’s soul fell into the abyss.

Another pain of Katerina is misunderstanding by her husband. Tikhon was a kind, vulnerable person, very weak compared to Katerina, he never had his own opinion - he obeyed the opinion of another, stronger person. Tikhon could not understand his wife’s aspirations: “I can’t understand you, Katya.” This misunderstanding brought Katerina one step closer to disaster.

Love for Boris was also a tragedy for Katerina. According to Dobrolyubov, Boris was the same as Tikhon, only educated. Because of his education, he came to the attention of Katerina. From the entire crowd of the “dark kingdom” she chose him, who was slightly different from the rest. However, Boris turned out to be even worse than Tikhon, he cares only about himself: he only thinks about what others will say about him. He leaves Katerina to the mercy of fate, to the punishment of the “dark kingdom”: “Well, God bless you! There is only one thing we need to ask God for: that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time! Goodbye!".

Katerina sincerely loves Boris and worries about him: “What is he doing now, poor thing?.. Why did I get him into trouble? I should die alone! Otherwise, she ruined herself, she ruined him, she’s a disgrace to herself - he’s eternally disgraced!”

The morals of the city of Kalinov, its rudeness and “stark poverty” were not acceptable to Katerina: “If I want, I’ll leave wherever my eyes look. Nobody can stop me, that's the way it is

I have character."

Dobrolyubov gave the work a high rating. He called Katerina “a ray of light in the “dark kingdom.” At her tragic end, “a terrible challenge was 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.” In the image of Katerina, Dobrolyubov sees the embodiment of “Russian living nature.” Katerina prefers to die than to live in captivity. Katerina's action is ambiguous.

The image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is an excellent image of a Russian woman in Russian literature.

Written on the eve of the abolition of serfdom, “The Thunderstorm” rightfully ranks among the best plays of Russian drama. A.N. Ostrovsky raises the themes of freedom, happiness, conscience, and love.

Against the backdrop of the difficult fate of the residents of provincial Kalinov, the personal tragedy of the central character, Katerina, unfolds. A young woman, married to the son of a local merchant Kabanova, finds it unbearable to live in an environment of heartlessness and admiration for her evil mother-in-law.

The ignorant Kabanikha is trying to impose laws on her daughter-in-law, which, in her opinion, are the basis of family well-being. Weak-willed Tikhon does not dare to contradict his mother and is unable to protect his wife from attacks.

Katerina dreamed of a different life. Her childhood was spent in love and care; the ideal was a strong family with a reliable head and many children. But fate decreed otherwise; the young woman’s life turned into hard labor. Religious precepts insist that she needs to come to terms with her lot, but she is trying to defend the right to respect and love, and does not want to please her wayward mother-in-law. Involuntarily, Katerina is looking for at least some ray of light in her hopeless life.

And Dikiy’s nephew, Boris, seems like such a light to her. He is not like the other inhabitants of Kalinov, the heroine hopes that the young man will be able to make his dream come true - to take her from the “dark kingdom” to a fairy-tale world. Katerina tries to find an explanation for her feelings, to reject vague desires, but nature takes its toll...

Two weeks later, Boris leaves the town and his beloved. He turned out to be different from what Katerina saw. Like her husband, Boris is completely dependent on the will of his rich uncle. Honesty does not allow the heroine to hide what happened: she publicly admits to treason. Her character does not allow Katerina to stay in Kabanikha’s house after what happened, but she cannot leave either. The woman sees the only way to free herself from torment and humiliation - to throw herself into the Volga from a cliff. Only deep despair could prompt the heroine to commit the worst of sins.

Thus, Katerina’s tragedy lay in her inability to accept the beliefs of the merchant environment in which she found herself. Her character did not allow her to lie and pretend, so she paid with her life for the opportunity to gain spiritual freedom. With her death, Katerina protested against the hypocrisy, hypocrisy and morality of the “dark kingdom.”

Updated: 2017-01-18

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The basis of A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is the conflict of the “dark kingdom” and the bright beginning, presented by the author in the image of Katerina Kabanova. A thunderstorm is 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 old order. The kingdom of obedience and blind fear is opposed by the forces of reason, common sense, enlightenment, represented by Kuligin, as well as the pure soul of Katerina, which, albeit unconsciously, is hostile to this world with the sincerity and integrity of her nature.
Katerina spent her childhood and youth in a merchant environment, but at home she was surrounded by affection, her mother’s love, and mutual respect in the family. As she herself says, “... she lived, did not worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.”
Given in marriage to Tikhon, she found herself in an ominous environment of heartlessness and stupid, slavish admiration for the power of the old, long-rotten order, which the “tyrants of Russian life” so greedily clutch at. Kabanova tries in vain to instill in Katerina her despotic laws, which, in her opinion, constitute the basis of domestic well-being and the strength of family ties: unquestioning submission to the will of her husband, obedience, diligence and respect for elders. This is how her son was raised.
Kabanova intended to mold Katerina into something similar to what she had turned her child into. But we see that for a young woman who finds herself in her mother-in-law’s house, such a fate is excluded. Dialogues with Kabanikha
show that “Katerina’s nature will not accept base feelings.” 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. Katerina is lonely, she lacks human participation, sympathy, love. The need for this draws her to Boris. She sees that outwardly he is not like other residents of the city of Kalinov, and, not being able to recognize the inner essence, considers him a person from another world. In her imagination, Boris seems to be the only one who will dare to take her from the “dark kingdom” to a fairy-tale world.
Katerina is religious, but her sincerity in faith differs from the religiosity of her mother-in-law, for whom faith is only a tool that allows her to keep others in fear and obedience. Katerina perceived the church, icon painting, and Christian chants as an encounter with something mysterious, beautiful, taking her far from the gloomy world of the Kabanovs. Katerina, as a believer, tries not to pay much attention to Kabanova’s teachings. But this is for the time being. The patience of even the most patient person always comes to an end. Katerina “endures until... until such a demand of her nature is insulted in her, without the satisfaction of which she cannot remain calm.” For the heroine, this “demand of her nature” was the desire for personal freedom. To live without listening to stupid advice from all sorts of wild boars and others, to think as one thinks, to understand everything on one’s own, without any extraneous and useless admonitions - this is what is of the greatest importance to Katerina. That's something she won't let anyone trample on. Her personal freedom is her most precious value. Katerina even values life much less.
At first, the heroine resigned herself, hoping to find at least some sympathy and understanding from those around her. But this turned out to be impossible. Even Katerina began to have some “sinful” dreams; as if she were racing against three frisky horses, intoxicated with happiness, next to her loved one... Katerina protests against seductive visions, but human nature defended its rights. A woman has awakened in the heroine. The desire to love and be loved grows with inexorable force. And this is a completely natural desire. After all, Katerina is only 16 years old - the very flowering of young, sincere feelings. But she doubts, reflects, and all her thoughts are fraught with panic. The heroine is looking for an explanation for her feelings, in her soul she wants to justify herself to her husband, she is trying to tear away vague desires from herself. But reality, the real state of affairs returned Katerina to herself: “Before whom am I pretending...”
Katerina's most important character trait is honesty with herself, her husband and other people; unwillingness to live in a lie. She says to 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 when Katerina confesses to her husband that she is cheating.
Its greatest value is freedom of the soul. Katerina, accustomed to living, as she admitted in a conversation with Varvara, “like a bird in the wild,” is burdened by the fact that in Kabanova’s house everything comes “as if from under captivity!” But before it was different. The day began and ended with prayer, and the rest of the time was spent walking around the garden. Her youth is covered in mysterious, bright dreams: angels, golden temples, paradise gardens - can an ordinary earthly sinner dream of all this? And Katerina had just such mysterious dreams. This testifies to the extraordinary nature of the heroine. The reluctance to accept the morality of the “dark kingdom”, the 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.”
With such a character, Katerina, after betraying Tikhon, could not stay in his house, return to a monotonous and dreary life, endure constant reproaches and moralizing from Kabanikha, or lose freedom. It is difficult for her to be in a place where she is not understood and humiliated. Before her death, she says: “What goes home, what goes to the grave, it’s all the same... It’s better in the grave...” She acts according to the first call of her heart, according to the first spiritual impulse. And this, it turns out, is her problem. Such people are not adapted to the realities of life, and always feel that they are superfluous. Their spiritual and moral strength, which is able to resist and fight, will never dry up. Dobrolyubov rightly noted that “the strongest protest is the one that rises... from the chests of the weakest and most patient.”
And Katerina, without realizing it, challenged the tyrant force: however, it led her to tragic consequences. The heroine dies defending the independence of her world. She doesn't want to become a liar and a pretender. Love for Boris deprives Katerina’s character of integrity. She is cheating not on her husband, but on herself, which is why her judgment of herself is so cruel. But, dying, the heroine saves her soul and gains the desired freedom.
Katerina's death at the end of the play is natural - there is no other way out for her. She cannot join those who profess the principles of the “dark kingdom”, become one of its representatives, since this would mean destroying everything that is bright and pure in herself, in her own soul; cannot come to terms with the position of a dependent, join the “victims” of the “dark kingdom” - live according to the principle “if only everything is sewn and covered.” Katerina decides to part with such a life. “Her body is here, but her soul is no longer yours, she is now before a judge who is more merciful than you!” - Kuligin says to Kabanova after the tragic death of the heroine, emphasizing that Katerina has found the desired, hard-won freedom.
Thus, A. N. Ostrovsky showed his protest against the hypocrisy, lies, vulgarity and hypocrisy of the world around him. The protest turned out to be self-destructive, but it was and is evidence of the free choice of an individual who does not want to put up with the laws imposed on her by society.

“The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky is a complex and multifaceted work, allowing for various interpretations and interpretations. Even the genre of this play is defined differently: it is sometimes called a drama, sometimes a folk tragedy, depending on how the conflict underlying it is understood. If we consider it as an intra-family, everyday affair, then the reason for Katerina’s drama is obvious: the wife cheated on her husband, which she admitted to everyone, and then, unable to bear the pangs of conscience and the reproaches of her mother-in-law, who had previously tyrannized her daughter-in-law, committed suicide. But such a simplified interpretation was abandoned by Ostrovsky’s contemporary critics: too much in this play remains “behind the scenes” with this approach.

The critic Dobrolyubov, in his article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom,” substantiated Katerina’s drama from the point of view of social contradictions, which determined not only the feeling of a pre-storm atmosphere in society on the eve of reforms, but also affected intra-family foundations. From his point of view, the reason for Katerina’s drama is that she turned out to be more sensitive and receptive to these new processes and perceived the need to overcome the inert forms and traditions of life as her personal task. She cannot bear family bondage, which she can still come to terms with for the time being. But the free soul of Katerina, who fell in love despite all the norms and laws of the patriarchal family, is eager for freedom. The drama is aggravated by the fact that she has nowhere to wait for help: her beloved Boris is a weak and indecisive man, like her husband Tikhon, and only she is capable of an effective protest against the “dark kingdom”. According to the critic, Katerina’s outdated religious ideas, which force her to regard her feelings as a terrible sin, force her to choose a form of protest such as suicide. In fact, the critic reproaches Katerina only for the fact that instead of actively fighting against outdated conservative orders, she sacrifices herself. But he agrees that this follows from the nature of Katerina’s character, her nature, and does not require more. It is enough that it becomes clear to everyone that even in the most downtrodden part of the people a protest is brewing. This is the conclusion of this critic about the reasons for Katerina’s drama.

But to what extent does this conclusion correspond to the author’s position? It’s not for nothing that the writer introduces a whole group of symbols into the play that allow us to understand Katerina’s inner world, filled with the poetry of a church service, angelic singing, the smell of cypress and unearthly light. Katerina is a pure soul who, for the time being, lives in the reserved world of that deep patriarchal past, when the norms and postulates of the world of wild boars and wild animals were not the external form, but the internal content of every person. That is why it is not so important for her whether she says goodbye to her husband according to the rules or not - the main thing is that she does it sincerely. When Katerina feels the birth of a new feeling in her soul - love for Boris - she loses her inner harmony: continuing to sincerely believe that family relationships are sacred and betrayal is a terrible sin, she simultaneously believes her feeling just as strongly and sincerely. Love for Boris is what constitutes the essence of Katerina’s personality, which is born before our eyes. She is forced to make her way not only through external obstacles, but also, which is much more difficult, overcoming internal resistance. Such a conflict cannot be resolved, even if the mother-in-law is kinder, and those around her treat the poor woman with greater understanding. Running away with Boris wouldn’t have helped her either - after all, you can’t run away from yourself! It is necessary for the entire system of life to change, so that individual rights to free choice, happiness and dignity become the norm - but this does not exist in the reality surrounding Katerina and will not happen for a long time. So her death is natural, like the death of any tragic heroine. But the feeling of internal cleansing, similar to what is called catharsis, and joy that the miracle of the birth of a person has happened before us, makes us see in “The Thunderstorm” not only a drama unfolding in the depths of the “dark kingdom”, but also a “ray of light” illuminating us with hope.

What is the tragedy of Katerina based on the drama by Ostrovsky Groz

The morals of the city of Kalinov, its rudeness and “stark poverty” were not acceptable to Katerina: “If I want, I’ll leave wherever my eyes look. Nobody can stop me, that's the way it is

I have character."

The image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is an excellent image of a Russian woman in Russian literature.