The image of Catherine is a ray of light in a dark kingdom. Essay on the topic: Katerina - a ray of light in the dark kingdom in the play The Thunderstorm, Ostrovsky

Katerina - a ray of light in a dark kingdom - essay.

Plan

1. Drama by A. Ostrovsky “The Thunderstorm”. The relevance of the conflict.

2. Katerina Kabanova - the main character of the play:

A) relationship with Kabanikha;

b) relations with Tikhon;

C) relationship with Boris.

3. “Why don’t people fly…”

A. Ostrovsky, in his play “The Thunderstorm,” presented the social and everyday drama of the 19th century using the example of the Kabanov family. The author offers the reader an acute conflict between two “worlds”. The old world is represented by the harsh foundations of the Kabanov house. Its inhabitants were raised by Domostroy. And the new world - pure and honest Katerina, who could not come to terms with the “Kabanovsky” rules. The drama of A.N. Ostrovsky withstood a lot of criticism and criticism. But she radically changed the attitude of literature to dramatic work.

One of the critics of that time, Nikolai Dobrolyubov, wrote an article based on the play “The Thunderstorm”, “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom.” In it, he describes Katerina’s character and calls her a “ray of light” fighting “dark forces.” Katerina is an honest girl. She is modest, pure and religious. In the “dark kingdom” of the Kabanovs, she feels stuffy. Everything in this house rests on a lie, Kabanikha herself speaks about this.

The mother-in-law pesters Katerina and does not allow her passage. She teaches her how to behave in her husband's house. Kabanova is a very powerful woman. Everyone in the house obeys her - husband, son, daughter, and daughter-in-law. She keeps everything that happens in the family under control. Tyranny is its main feature. Katerina does not contradict her mother-in-law, she lives in obedience, but Kabanikha constantly offends her. Tikhon also lives under oppression. He leaves home with pleasure, just so as not to see or hear his own mother.

Tikhon leaves Katerina alone, not thinking about what it will be like for her in the house of her tyrant mother-in-law. Silent, obedient, indifferent Tikhon does not save his wife from her mother’s rudeness. This leads Katerina to complete lack of faith in family life.

Boris is Katerina's only hope. He is different from other residents of Kalinin. But he is also dependent on the Kabanovs’ relative, Dikiy. Wealth and condition attract him more. Experiencing sincere feelings of love, Katerina spends time with Boris in the absence of her husband. She's almost happy. But hopes were not justified - Boris leaves and does not invite Katerina with him. What should a poor girl do when there is no support or support nearby? Not a single soulmate? Katerina decides to take a very serious step - suicide. Did she have another way out of this situation? After Katerina confesses her sin to her husband and Kabanikha, life becomes unbearable. More and more aware of her grave “misconduct,” Katerina chooses “not life,” life in captivity. It would seem that the heroine’s religiosity does not allow her to do just that. But what is the greatest sin? Life in a stuffy, unfair world or is it death?

The death of Katerina is a challenge to the “dark kingdom”, which is unable to give a person love and hope. A challenge to a world that cannot dream. The heroine’s monologue “Why don’t people fly like birds?..” reveals her soul. Katerina dreams of being free. She happily remembers her years before marriage. And there - in that girlish world - she felt good. In the Kabanovs' house, the girl dies. She does not put up with rudeness and dishonesty, she does not become Kabanova. She finds peace in church. She remains “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” Katerina's death is a victory over the dark forces that could not break a pure soul.

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

A. N. Ostrovsky had a huge influence on the development of Russian dramatic art. Before him, there were no such plays as “The Thunderstorm” in the Russian theater. According to the genre, “The Thunderstorm” is a folk tragedy, which is based on a complex social and everyday conflict. Katerina’s emotional drama, which played out in everyday life, in the family, leaves an imprint on the life of the entire people. After all, the situation in which the heroes of the play live is extremely tragic: poverty, rudeness of morals, ignorance, arbitrariness, that is, what is defined by the word “captivity.”

At the center of the drama “The Thunderstorm” is the image of Katerina. She is given the author's and audience's sympathy. Ostrovsky associated with the image of the main character the idea that the desire for freedom and happiness is natural and irresistible, no matter what obstacles life poses. High moral ideals have always had special significance.

In the play “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky showed the struggle of the old merchant generation, brought up at Domostroy, and new, young people who were beginning to free themselves from outdated ideas about life.

Katerina, the main character of the play, is the only one who decided to challenge the “dark kingdom,” while other representatives of the younger generation are trying to adapt to it. Tikhon, Katerina's husband, seeks salvation from his mother in wine. Varvara became cunning and learned to hide her antics from Kabanikha. Boris is unable to do anything (and does not want to), since he is financially dependent on Dikiy. Only Kudryash, the most independent of all, can sometimes say a rude word to Dikiy, but he, too, gets used to Kalinov’s morals.

Katerina is completely different. And the reason for her special behavior is primarily related to her upbringing. As a child, she grew up surrounded by the care and affection of her mother, who loved her daughter and did not force her to work much. “I lived,” Katerina tells Varvara, “I didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.” Katerina sincerely believes in God, and visiting church is a holiday for her. The desire for beauty for the main character is expressed in prayers and church singing. Walking to the spring in the summer to get water, caring for flowers, embroidering on velvet - these are Katerina’s favorite activities, which developed great impressionability and dreaminess in her, and formed the bright poetic nature of the main character.

Outwardly, the Kabanovs’ life is no different from the one that Katerina led in her mother’s house, but here everything is “as if from under captivity.” Kabanikha also welcomes wanderers, but they spread rumors and gossip and tell incredible stories, and they cannot be called truly pious people.

Katerina found herself in a stuffy atmosphere of family slavery. She is forced at every step to experience her dependence on her mother-in-law, to endure undeserved reproaches and insults from her, without finding support and protection from her husband. Katerina seeks understanding from Varvara, tells her about her experiences, but she is not able to understand her subtle emotional movements. “You’re kind of tricky!” - she says to Katerina.

In search of a person to whom she can open her soul and trust, Katerina turns her attention to Boris. He differs from the residents of Kalinov in his good education and good manners, and Katerina sees in him hope for a better life. Realizing that betrayal is a great sin, she initially hides love even from herself, but the feeling turns out to be stronger than reason, and Katerina still decides to meet her lover. The dates continue for ten days, and for ten days Katerina is almost happy. However, she is tormented by the thought of God’s punishment for sins, of “fiery hell.” When her husband returns, she feels even worse, since his very appearance reminds her of the sin she committed. The precarious balance in Katerina’s soul is completely destroyed by a half-crazed lady who prophesies her imminent death in hellish torment.

Katerina cannot keep a terrible secret to herself, since her conscience torments her, her entire inner nature rebels against untruth. She tells everything to Tikhon, and most importantly to Kabanikha.

After this, Katerina’s life becomes completely unbearable. The mother-in-law “sharpenes her like rusting iron.” And Katerina decides on a desperate act: she runs away from home to say goodbye to Boris, whom Dikoy sends out of the city. This was a very decisive act, since Katerina understands that after this she will not be able to return home. Yes, she doesn’t want to return: “If I get really tired of being here, they won’t hold me back by any force.”

Katerina still had little hope that Boris would take her with him, but having received a refusal, she understands that there is only one option left for her - suicide. No, Katerina is not tired of life. She wants to live, but to live, and not to exist under the heavy oppression of Kabanikha.

Did Katerina do the right thing by making such a decision? Did she show strength or weakness of character? It's difficult to answer this question. On the one hand, you need to have considerable courage to take your own life, but for the religious Katerina this is many times more difficult, since suicide is a terrible sin. But, on the other hand, you need to have even more courage to stay and live in Kabanikha’s house and carry your cross or fight (is this possible?) with the “dark kingdom.”

And yet, it is no coincidence that Dobrolyubov calls Ostrovsky’s heroine “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” She, a weak and religious woman, still found the strength to protest. She was the only one who rose up against rudeness and despotism, cruelty and injustice, hypocrisy and hypocrisy, and with her act, like a ray of light, she illuminated for a moment the dark sides of life.

In his heroine, Ostrovsky painted a new type of selfless Russian woman, whose decisiveness in her protest foreshadowed the inevitable death of the “dark kingdom.” And this, according to Dobrolyubov, introduced a “refreshing and encouraging” element into the play. Ostrovsky reflected all the brightest things in the character of the main character: kindness and sincerity, poetry and dreaminess, honesty and truthfulness, directness and determination. This is how touching and pure Katerina remains in our memory in her quest to find love, family, self-respect and mutual understanding.

In the play, among the 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, he 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.

The weak woman Katerina harbors enormous strength of character, a craving for freedom; in order to free herself from the oppression of 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 way 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” prevail. 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 a 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 main character Katerinna, 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. Katerina’s true faith is compared with 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 true path for the heroine. “You can’t live,” says Katerina, before committing suicide.

In conclusion, we can say that Katerina is the only positive character in the play, so she 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 the themes of the human soul, its unique adaptability, and also themes of human vices and misdeeds in his works. In his works, he liked to show his reader characters who, in one way or another, had bad character traits, in order to create some kind of negative image that would contrast with 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 of such an image is Katerina from the work “The Thunderstorm”.

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 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 of Ostrovsky’s literary works. 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 into a very hard and dark world, which immediately rejects 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.

Sample 4

A.N. Ostrovsky wrote many interesting and instructive plays about the merchants. One of the best was the play “The Thunderstorm,” written in 1860. The author often said that he writes his works solely on the basis of real events and facts, and that any of them can teach a person something and show the bad sides of society for its further correction. That is why he wrote this play and presented it to the public. Immediately after the premiere, dirt poured on the author from the lips of uninformed citizens, as many saw themselves in the images of the characters in the play. But we should not forget that such a play can offend not just bad people, but also not entirely smart ones.

This work describes the “Dark Kingdom”, where all the inhabitants are not at all endowed with the gift of thought. They don't understand that they are living completely wrong. And no one understands this: “neither the tyrants nor their victims.” The focus of the work was a certain Katerina. She found herself in a difficult life situation after marriage. Before she got married, she lived in the family of a merchant who provided for her very well, and she did not need anything. But after marriage, she fell under the influence of her mother-in-law and became a victim of her tyranny. Being closed as if in a cage, she could not contact anyone other than members of her family. Her mother-in-law made her a deeply religious person, which is why she could not allow her love for Boris to be recognized, which is why she suffered greatly. The general situation in the house, where there were many praying mantises and wanderers telling all sorts of stories, Katerina’s secluded lifestyle took its toll and she became a very withdrawn person and did not communicate with almost anyone. In addition, she became very sensitive to everything. That is why, when a terrible thunderstorm came, she began to sincerely pray, and when she saw a terrible picture on the wall, her nerves could not stand it at all, and she confessed her love for Boris to her husband. The key to this story is the fact that in the “Dark Kingdom” none of the inhabitants know freedom, and, therefore, know happiness. Katerina’s revelation in this case showed that a resident of the dark kingdom can open up and make himself a person free from unnecessary thoughts and fears.

By her action, Katerina went against the system of the “Dark Kingdom” and gave rise to a bad attitude towards herself. Why, in the “dark kingdom” any manifestation of independence and freedom of choice was considered a mortal sin. That is why the story ends with the death of the main character, since she becomes not only lonely, but also suffers from pangs of conscience, since all those teachings and bad stories did not pass her ears. She constantly torments herself and cannot find peace anywhere and never, since she cannot escape from her thoughts.

You can endlessly condemn Katerina for her actions, but at the same time you should pay tribute to her courage. After all, not everyone can do this in the “Dark Kingdom.” Her death shocked everyone so much that even her husband Tikhon began to blame his mother for his wife’s death. By her act, Katerina proved that even in the “dark kingdom” bright natures can be born, making it a little brighter.

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On the eve of the reform of 1861, the play “The Thunderstorm” became a major public event. The most important discovery of Ostrovsky in the work is the heroic character of the people. He put two main ideas into the basis of the play: a powerful denial of stagnation and oppression of the motionless “dark kingdom” and the emergence of a positive, bright beginning, a real heroine from among the people. All this was new compared to the “natural school”. In every talented written drama there is a main conflict - that main contradiction that drives the action, manifests itself in one way or another in all events, in clashes of views and feelings, passions and characters.

It is in conflicts between people, in the clash of different views, beliefs, moral ideas and in “internal” conflicts, when contradictory thoughts and feelings fight in a person’s mind, that a person and the society in which he lives are most fully revealed. What is the main conflict in "The Thunderstorm"? Maybe this is a contradiction between tyranny and humiliation? No. The play perfectly shows that violence is supported by humility: Tikhon’s timidity, Boris’s irresponsibility, Kuligin’s patient delicacy seem to give spirit to Kabanikha and Dikiy, allowing them to run wild as they please.

An acute, irreconcilable contradiction arises in “The Thunderstorm” when, among those oppressed by tyranny, among the yearning, servile, cunning, there is a man endowed with pride, a sense of self-esteem, unable to come to terms with life in slavery even in the face of death. The bright human element in Katerina is as natural as breathing. This is her nature, which is expressed not so much in reasoning as in spiritual subtlety, in the strength of her experiences, in her attitude towards people, in all her behavior.

The “Thunderstorm” conflict is unique. It can be viewed in two ways. Ostrovsky himself defined his work as a drama, but this is a tribute to tradition. Indeed, on the one hand, “The Thunderstorm” is a social drama, but on the other hand, it is a tragedy. As for drama, this work is characterized by special attention to everyday life, the desire to convey its “density”. The writer describes in detail the city of Kalinov. This is a collective image of the Volga region cities of Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Volga, which has always symbolized Russia. That is why the landscape plays an important role in the work, described not only in the stage directions, but also in the dialogues of the characters. Some heroes see the beauty around them. For example, Kuligin exclaims: “The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices!”

The other heroes took a closer look at her and were completely indifferent. Beautiful nature, a picture of young people walking at night, songs, Katerina’s stories about childhood - all this is the poetry of Kalinov’s world. But Ostrovsky confronts her with gloomy pictures of everyday life and everyday life, with the cruel attitude of people towards each other. In this city, rudeness and poverty reign, here “you can never earn your daily bread by honest work,” here merchants “undermine each other’s trade, and not so much out of self-interest as out of envy,” here clerks have lost their human appearance, having learned for money make slander. Residents don’t see the new, don’t know about it, and don’t want to know. All information here is received from ignorant wanderers who convince people that Kalinov is the promised land.

The people of “Thunderstorm” live in a special state of the world - crisis, catastrophic. The supports holding back the old order were shaken, and the disturbed life began to shake. The first action introduces us to the pre-storm atmosphere of life. Outwardly, everything is going well, but the restraining forces are too fragile: their temporary triumph only increases tension. It thickens towards the end of the first act: even nature, as in the folk tale, responds to this with a thunderstorm approaching Kalinov.

In merchant Kalinov, Ostrovsky sees a world breaking with the moral traditions of folk life. Only Katerina is given the opportunity in “The Thunderstorm” to retain the fullness of viable principles in folk culture and maintain a sense of moral responsibility in the face of the trials to which this culture is subjected in Kalinov.

In the center of this closed “dark kingdom” stands a rude and ignorant merchant woman - Kabanikha. She is a defender of the old foundations of life, rituals and customs of the city of Kalinov. She dictates moral laws to the entire city, imposes her will on everyone around her and demands unquestioning obedience. She hates everything new, so she can’t come to terms with the fact that “for the sake of speed” people invented a “fiery serpent” - a steam locomotive. Kabanikha stands up for a strong, lasting family, for order in the house, which, in her opinion, is only possible if the basis of family relationships is fear, and not mutual love and respect. Freedom, according to the heroine, leads a person to moral decline.

Even the wanderers in the Kabanovs’ house are different, from among those bigots who “due to their weakness did not walk far, but heard a lot.” And they talk about the “end times,” about the imminent end of the world. Fanatic religiosity reigns here, which plays into the hands of the pillars of society, who greet living life with an angry grumbling. Dobrolyubov soulfully saw an epochal meaning in the “Thunderstorm” conflict, and in the character of Katerina - “a new phase of our people’s life.” But, idealizing free love in the spirit of the then popular ideas of female emancipation, he impoverished the moral depth of Katerina’s character. Dobrolyubov considered the hesitation of the heroine, who fell in love with Boris, the torment of her conscience, “the ignorance of a poor woman who has not received a theoretical education.” Duty, loyalty, conscientiousness, with the maximalism characteristic of revolutionary democracy, were declared “prejudices”, “artificial combinations”, “conventional instructions of the old morality”, “old rags”. It turned out that Dobrolyubov looked at Katerina’s love with the same un-Russian ease as Boris.

The question arises, how then does Katerina differ from other heroines of Ostrovsky, such as, for example, Lipochka from “My People...”: “I need a husband!... Find, find me a groom, definitely find!.. I tell you ahead, definitely find, otherwise it will be worse for you: on purpose, to spite you, I’ll secretly get an admirer, run away with the hussar, and we’ll get married on the sly.” That’s for whom “conditional moral advances” really do not have any moral authority. This girl will not be afraid of the thunderstorm; such “Protestants” don’t care about the fiery Gehenna itself!

Speaking about how “the strong Russian character is understood and expressed in The Thunderstorm,” Dobrolyubov, in the article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom,” rightly noted Katerina’s “focused determination.” However, in determining its origins, he completely abandoned the spirit and letter of Ostrovsky’s tragedy. Is it possible to agree that “upbringing and young life gave her nothing”?

It is not difficult to notice in “The Thunderstorm” the tragic confrontation between the religious culture of Katerina and the Domostroev culture of Kabanikha. The contrast between them is drawn by the sensitive Ostrovsky with amazing consistency and depth. The “Thunderstorm” conflict absorbs the thousand-year history of Russia, and its tragic resolution reflects the almost prophetic premonitions of the national playwright.

When Katerina's fall took place, she becomes bold to the point of insolence. “I wasn’t afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment?” - she says. This phrase predetermines the further development of the tragedy, the death of Katerina. The lack of hope for forgiveness pushes her to suicide, an even greater sin from the point of view of Christian morality. But for Katerina there is no difference anymore; anyway, she has already ruined her soul. Without feeling the pristine freshness of Katerina’s inner world, it is impossible to understand the vitality and power of her character. Haunted by her sin, Katerina leaves this life to save her soul.

Ostrovsky's heroine is truly a ray of light in the “dark kingdom.” What is striking about her is her fidelity to ideals, spiritual purity, and moral superiority over others. In the image of Katerina, the writer embodied the best traits - love of freedom, independence, talent, poetry, high moral and ethical qualities.

In the image of Katerina, Dobrolyubov saw the embodiment of “Russian living nature.” Katerina prefers to die than to live in captivity. “...This end seems joyful to us,” the critic writes, “it’s easy to understand why: it gives a terrible challenge to tyrant power, it tells it that it is no longer possible to go further, it is impossible to live any longer with its violent, deadening principles.” 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. She doesn’t want to put up with it, doesn’t want to take advantage of the miserable vegetation that is given to her in exchange for her living soul...” In the image of Katerina, according to Dobrolyubov, the “great national idea” was embodied - the idea of liberation. The critic considered the image of Katerina close “to the position and to the heart of every decent person in our society.”

During his long creative life, Ostrovsky wrote more than fifty original plays and created the Russian national theater. According to Goncharov, Ostrovsky painted a huge picture all his life. “This picture is the Thousand-Year Monument to Russia.” At one end it ends in prehistoric time (“The Snow Maiden”), at the other it stops at the first railway station...”

Katerina is a ray of light in a dark kingdom.

Plan.

The liberation of women from family slavery is one of the pressing issues of the late 50s of the 19th century.
Katerina is “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.”
1. The place of the image of Katerina among the images of drama.
2. Katerina's life in her parents' house, her daydreaming.
3. Katerina's living conditions after marriage. Katerina in the Kabanovs' house.
4. Desire for love and devotion.
5. The power of Katerina's love.
6. Honesty and determination
7. Dobrolyubov about the character of Katerina.
8. Suicide is a protest against the dark kingdom
Dobrolyubov about the ideological meaning of the image of Katerina

The strongest protest is the one that finally rises from the chests of the weakest and most patient - this already means that the end of the “Dark Kingdom” is near.

Epigraph: “The character of Katerina, as it is performed in The Thunderstorm, is a step forward not only in the dramatic activity of Ostrovsky, but also in all of our literature.” N.A. Dobrolyubov.

In his works, Ostrovsky reveals the themes of women's liberation from family slavery - this is one of the pressing issues of the 50s of the 19th century. The woman of the 50s, as a result of centuries of oppression, is powerless against tyranny and is a victim of the “dark kingdom.”

The image of Katerina is the image of a free bird - a symbol of freedom. But the free bird ended up in an iron cage. And she struggles and yearns in captivity: “I lived, I didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she recalls her life with her mother: “Why don’t people fly like birds? - she says to Varvara. “You know, sometimes I think I’m a bird.” In the drama Katerina is the embodiment of “Russian living nature.” She would rather die than live in captivity. “It shows a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest that was carried to the end, proclaimed under the torture of the family and over the abyss into which Katerina threw herself. Her strong nature endures only for the time being. “And if I get really tired of it here,” she says, “no force can hold me back. 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 image of Katerina embodied the “great national idea” - the idea of liberation.

What makes Katerina stand out among the images of the “dark kingdom” is her open character, courage, and directness. “I don’t know how to deceive, I can’t hide anything,” she says to Varvara, who is trying to convince her that they can’t live in their house without deception. Katerina's character is manifested in her simple-minded story about her childhood and life in her parents' home.

Katerina tells Varvara how they went to church, sewed with gold on velvet, listened to the stories of wanderers, walked in the garden, how they again talked with the praying mantises and prayed themselves. “And to death I love going to church! It’s as if I’ve entered heaven, and I don’t see anyone and I don’t remember the time, and I don’t hear when the service ends.” Living as a free bird with her mother, Katerina loved to dream. “And what dreams I had, Varenka, what dreams! Or golden temples, or some extraordinary gardens, and everyone is singing invisible voices, and there is a smell of cypress, and the mountains and trees, as if not the same as usual, but as if they were painted in images. And it’s like I’m flying, and I’m flying through the air.”

In the Kabanovs’ house, Katerina’s life was the same as her mother’s; the difference was that with the Kabanovs, all this was done as if under captivity.

Katerina’s feeling of love merges with longing for free will, with the dream of a real human life. Katerina loves not like the pitiful victims of the “dark kingdom.” To the words of her lover: “No one will know about our love,” she replies: “Let everyone know, everyone can see what I do.” And in the name of her love, she enters into an unequal battle with the “dark kingdom.”

Katerina’s religiosity is not Kabanikha’s oppression, but most likely a child’s belief in fairy tales. Katerina is characterized by religious prejudices, forcing the young woman to perceive love as a mortal sin. “Oh, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much am I, poor thing? I cried, which is something I didn’t do to myself! I can't escape this sin. Can't go anywhere. It’s not good, it’s a terrible sin, Varenka, that I love someone else!”

Katerina’s character is “focused and decisive, unswervingly faithful to natural truth, filled with 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.” It is this integrity and inner harmony, the ability to always be yourself, without ever changing yourself in anything, that constitutes the irresistible strength of Katerina’s character.

Killing herself, committing a great sin from the point of view of the church, Katerina thinks not about the salvation of her soul, but about the love that was revealed to her. "My friend! My joy! Goodbye!" - these are Katerina’s last words. Suicide can occur in the most exceptional cases, when no form of struggle is possible. Her determination to die, just not to be a slave, expresses, according to Dobrolyubov, “The need of the emerging movement of Russian life.”

Dobrolyubov said about the ideological meaning of the image of Katerina: “The strongest protest is the one that finally rises from the chests of the weakest and most patient - this already means that the end of the “Dark Kingdom” is near.”