What new things do we learn about the character of the wild? Characteristics and image of the Wild One from Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”

Savel Prokofievich Dikoy is a representative of wild morals, a mercilessly harsh attitude towards life and people, a tyrant in the fullest sense of the word. Whatever comes into his limited head, he does, and no one, in his opinion, dares or should interfere with his character.
“I told you once, I told you twice: don’t you dare come across me!” he shouts at his nephew Boris, “you’re still itching! Not enough space for you? Wherever you go; here you are! Ugh, damn you!”

Dikoy is greedy for money - and there is nothing worse for him than giving away money; Therefore, he does not assign a salary to any of his employees. “How can you know my soul?” he says. “Or maybe I’ll be in such a mood that I’ll give you five thousand.” It goes without saying that he “never came to such and such a location in his entire life,” as Kudryash says. When it comes to paying, he deliberately tries to make himself angry in order to yell at the person asking for money.
“You are my friend,” he himself explains his character, “and I have to give it to you, but if you come and ask me, I will scold you. I'll give it, I'll give it, but I'll scold you. Therefore, if you even mention money to me, it will ignite my entire inner being.”

He is a “warrior,” according to Kabanikha’s definition, and, in his own words, there is always “a war going on” in his house. Dikiy’s egoism is completely shameless and completely naive, and therefore is expressed quite frankly. According to the absurd will of Boris’s grandmother, he must give the inheritance kept to his nephew and niece only on the condition that they be respectful to him. He takes advantage of this circumstance, forces Boris to serve himself for free, breaks down with him and begins to say innocently: “I have my own children, why would I give other people’s money? Through this I must offend my own people!”

Kuligin tells how one day the men went to complain to the mayor that he would not disrespect any of them.
The mayor began to tell him: “Listen,” he said, “Savel Prokofievich, pay the men well! Every day they come to me with complaints.”
And he patted the mayor on the shoulder and said: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles! I have a lot of people every year; You understand: I won’t pay them a penny extra per person, but I make thousands out of this, so it’s good for me!”

Dikoy will scold anyone and will stop at no one. Only he gives in to one person - this is Kabanikha; she alone can “talk” him, as he puts it. He sometimes tries to shout at her: “Well, so what, I’m a warrior! Well, what of this?” But she knows how to put him down. When he scolded the wanderer Feklusha, Kabanikha calmly and sternly tells him: “Well, you’re not very loose! Find me cheaper! And I’m dear to you!” Dikoy holds back: “Wait, godfather, wait! Don’t be angry!” he asks. Kabanikha, a representative of life principles, is firmly based on the law, which is why Savel Prokofievich humbles himself before her; an unrestrained tyrant, he, however, is generally afraid of the moral law. Very interesting in this sense is his story to Kabanikha, how, while talking about Lent, he scolded a man who came for money, “he scolded him so much that he couldn’t ask for anything better,” and how he later asked this man for forgiveness:
“I tell you the truth,” says Savel Prokofievich, “I bowed at the man’s feet. This is what my heart brings me to; here in the yard in the mud I bowed to him, I bowed to him in front of everyone.”

It goes without saying that Diky’s respect for the law is purely external: he worships the peasant before confession, and then the peasant will feel bad.

Two groups of city residents perform. One of them personifies the oppressive power of the “dark kingdom”. These are Wild and, oppressors and enemies of everything living and new. Another group includes,. Tikhon, Boris, Kudryash and Varvara. These are victims of the “dark kingdom”, oppressed, who equally feel the brute force of the “dark kingdom”, but express their protest against this force in different ways. Dikogo: In someone else’s feast there is a hangover” is how the meaning of the word tyrant is defined: “A tyrant is what it’s called if he doesn’t listen to anyone: you’re at least a stake on his head, but he’s got everything of his own... This is a powerful man, cool at heart.”

Such a tyrant, whose behavior is guided only by unbridled tyranny and stupid stubbornness, is Savel Prokofich Dikoy. Dikoy demands the unquestioning obedience of those around him, who will do anything to avoid angering him. It’s especially hard for his family: at home, Dikoy goes wild without any control, and family members, fleeing his rage, hide in attics and closets all day long. Dikoy completely hounded his nephew! Boris Grigorievich, knowing that he was completely financially dependent on him.

Dika is not at all shy with strangers, over whom she can “show off” with impunity. Thanks to money, he holds in his hands the entire powerless mass of ordinary people and mocks them. The traits of tyranny are especially evident in his conversation with Kuligin.

Kuligin turned to Dikiy with a request to give ten rubles to build a sundial for the city.

Wild. Or maybe you want to steal; who knows you!..

Kuligin. Why, sir, Savel Prokofievich, would you like to offend an honest man?

Wild. Am I going to give you a report? I don’t give an account to anyone more important than you. I want to think about you this way, and I think so. For others, you are an honest person, but I think that you are a robber, that’s all. Did you want to hear this from me? So listen! I say that he is a robber, and horses! Why are you going to sue me or something? So, you know that you are a worm. If I want, I will have mercy, if I want, I will crush.

Dikoy feels his strength and power - the power of capital. “Moneybags” were then revered as “eminent people”, before whom the poor were forced to curry favor and grovel. Money is his passion. It is painful to part with them, once they have ended up in his pocket. “In his house, no one dares say a word about his salary: he’ll scold you for what it’s worth.” Dikoy himself speaks about this best: “What are you going to tell me to do with myself when my heart is like this! After all, I already know that I need to give, but I can’t do everything with goodness!.. I will give, give, and curse. Therefore, if you even mention money to me, it will ignite my entire inner being: it will ignite my entire inner being, and that’s all”; Well, even in those days I would never curse a person.” “A shrill man,” is how Kudryash characterizes Diky for his rudeness and curses.

Dikoy gives in only to those who are able to fight back. Once on a transport, on the Volga, he did not dare to contact a passing hussar, and then again took out his resentment at home, dispersing everyone to attics and closets. He restrains his temper even in front of Kabanikha, seeing in her his equal.

The power of money was, however, not the only reason that created the ground for unbridled arbitrariness. Another reason that helped tyranny flourish was ignorance. Dikiy’s ignorance is especially clearly manifested in the scene of his conversation with Kuligin regarding the construction of a lightning rod.

Wild. What do you think a thunderstorm is, huh? Well, speaking!

Kulagin. Electricity.

Wild (stomping his foot). What other kind of elegance is there? Well, how come you’re not a robber! A thunderstorm is sent to us so that we can feel it, but you want to defend yourself with poles and some kind of rods, God forgive me. What are you, a Tatar, or what?

A person's language, manner of speaking and the very intonation of speech usually correspond to the character of the person. This is fully confirmed in the language of the Wild. His speech is always rude and full of abusive, offensive expressions and epithets: robber, worm, parasite, fool, damned, etc. And his distortion of foreign words (Jesuit, elicism) only emphasizes his ignorance.

Despotism, unbridled arbitrariness, ignorance, rudeness - these are the features that characterize the image of the tyrant Wild, a typical representative of the “dark kingdom”.

The action of Ostrovsky's drama takes place in the fictitious city of Kalinov on the banks of the Volga, where a traditional way of life reigns. The city has beautiful nature, but callousness and ignorance, anger, drunkenness and debauchery reign among the inhabitants of this area. And the worst thing is that people are used to it. They had such a way of life, and if a normal person came to them, he could not stay there for a long time. As in every literary work, Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” has positive and negative characters. The negative ones, first of all, include the mother-in-law of the main character Katerina, Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, and the uncle of Boris, Katerina’s beloved man, Savel Prokofievich Dikoy.

In the play, these characters are rarely called by their patronymic names; they are more often called and. What these characters have in common is that they are both cruel and heartless people, but they are united by their love of money. Relationships between people, according to their worldview, are based only on wealth. They abuse their family as they please, forcing them to live in constant fear.

Dikoy has put himself above everyone around him, but they are afraid of him and do not even try to resist this. He shows permissiveness because there is no one in Kalinin who could resist him. Dikoy is convinced of his impunity and considers himself the master of life.

Kabanikha covers up her disrespectful behavior with a mask of virtue. She is a strong and powerful person, she has little interest in emotions and feelings. As a person of the old formation, Kabanova is interested in earthly affairs and interests. Its requirements are unquestioning adherence to order and rank.

Dikiy, like Kabanova, can be considered representatives of a certain part of the merchant class who behaved inappropriately. Such people cannot be called pious. But it cannot be said that the Russian merchants of the 19th century were the prototype of Kabanikha and Dikiy. In the same drama, Ostrovsky shows that Boris's father was Dikiy's brother, but being brought up in the same family, he was different from the merchant Dikiy. Boris's father was married to a girl of noble origin, and he had a completely different life than his despotic brother.

Kabanova is also shown as a typical representative of the merchant class. Being the head of the family, the mother of Tikhon, Varvara and mother-in-law of Katerina, she constantly torments her closest people with her behavior. She may have loved her children in her own way, but can a normal mother behave like that? Probably not. The drama contains a description of Katerina's story about her childhood. Katerina's parents were also from the merchant class, but Katerina's mother was a sensitive, kind and sympathetic woman. She loved and cared for her daughter very much.

Ostrovsky took the plot for his play from real life, but the city was given the fictitious name Kalinov. Many Volga cities believed that the play “The Thunderstorm” was written based on events that happened in their city. Now for some reason they believe that this is the city of Kostroma.

According to I. A. Goncharov, A. N. Ostrovsky “brought a whole library of artistic works as a gift to literature, and created his own special world for the stage.” The world of Ostrovsky’s works is amazing. He created large and integral characters, knew how to emphasize comic or dramatic properties in them, and draw the reader’s attention to the virtues or vices of his heroes.

The heroes of the play “The Thunderstorm” deserve special attention - Savel Prokofievich Dikoy and Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova.

Savel Prokofievich Dikoy is a merchant, a significant person in the city of Kalinov. The heroes of the play give him eloquent characteristics. “He belongs everywhere. He’s afraid of someone!” - Kudryash says about him. Dikoy, in fact, does not recognize anything other than his own will. He doesn't care about the thoughts and feelings of other people. It costs Savel Prokofievich nothing to scold, humiliate, or insult. With those around him, he behaves as if he had “lost his chain,” and without this he “cannot breathe.” “...You are a worm,” he says to Kulig. “If I want, I’ll have mercy, if I want, I’ll crush.”

The power of the Wild One is stronger, the weaker, more weak-willed the person. So Kudryash, for example, knows how to resist the Wild One. “...He is the word, and I am ten; he will spit and go. No, I won’t slave to him,” says Kudryash about his relationship with the merchant. Another man is Dikiy’s nephew, Boris. “He got Boris Grigoryich as a sacrifice, so he rides on it,” people around him notice. The wild one is not embarrassed by the fact that Boris is an orphan and that he has no one closer to his uncle. The merchant realizes that the fate of his nephew is in his hands, and takes advantage of this. “Driven, beaten...” Boris says sadly. The merchant is no less cruel to his employees: “With us, no one dares even say a word about a salary, he’ll scold you for all he’s worth.” The unscrupulous Dikoy makes his fortune from other people's slave labor and deception: "... I will underpay them by a penny... but I make thousands from this...". However, sometimes the Dikiy has an epiphany, and he realizes that he is going too far: “After all, I already know that I have to give, but I can’t do everything with good.”

Dikoy is a despot and tyrant in his family, “his own people cannot please him,” “when he is offended by a person whom he does not dare to scold; here, stay home!”

Kabanikha, the rich Kalinovsky merchant’s wife, is not inferior to Dikiy. Kabanikha is a hypocrite, she does everything “under the guise of piety.” Outwardly she is very pious. However, as Kuligin notes, Kabanikha “gives money to the poor, but completely eats up her family.” The main object of her tyranny is her own son Tikhon. Being an adult, married man, he is completely at the mercy of his mother, has no opinion of his own, and is afraid to contradict her. Kabanikha “builds” his relationship with his wife, she guides his every action, every word. Complete obedience is all she wants to see in her son. The power-hungry Kabanikha does not notice that under her yoke a cowardly, pathetic, weak-willed, irresponsible man has grown up. Having escaped from the supervision of his mother for a while, he chokes on freedom and drinks, because he does not know how to use freedom in any other way. “...Not one step out of your will,” he repeats to his mother, and “he himself is thinking about how he can escape as quickly as possible.”

Kabanikha is jealous of her son’s daughter-in-law, constantly reproaches him with Katerina, “she eats him.” “I already see that I’m a hindrance to you,” she nags Tikhon. Kabanikha believes that the wife of her husband should be afraid, precisely afraid, and not love or respect. In her opinion, correct relationships are built precisely on the suppression of one person by another, on humiliation, on lack of freedom. Indicative in this regard is the scene of Katerina’s farewell to her husband, when all Tikhon’s words addressed to his wife are just a repetition of Kabanikha’s instigations.

If Tikhon, who has been crushed by her since childhood, suffers from Kabanikha, then the life of such a dreamy, poetic and integral nature as Katerina in the merchant’s house becomes unbearable. “Here, whether she got married or whether she buried her, it’s all the same,” Boris argues about this.

Constant pressure forces Kabanikha’s daughter, Varvara, to adapt. “Do what you want, as long as it’s sewn and covered,” she reasons.

Assessing the images of the “masters of life,” N. Dobro-lyubov shows Diky and Kabanikha as tyrants, with their “constant suspicion, scrupulousness and pickiness.” According to the critic, “The Thunderstorm” is Ostrovsky’s most decisive work” in this play “the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought... to the most tragic consequences...”.

That is why Kabanova is so sad, and that is why Dikoy is so furious: until the last moment they did not want to curtail their broad ambitions and are now in the position of a rich merchant on the eve of bankruptcy. Everything is the same with him, and he sets a holiday today, and he decided on a million-dollar turnover in the morning, and the credit has not yet been undermined; but there are already some dark rumors circulating that he has no cash capital, that his scams are unreliable, and tomorrow several creditors intend to present their demands; there is no money, there will be no reprieve, and the entire edifice of the charlatan phantom of wealth will be overturned tomorrow. The situation is bad... Of course, in such cases, the merchant directs all his concern to deceive his creditors and make them believe in his wealth: just like the Kabanovs and Dikiye are now trying to ensure that the belief in their strength continues. They don’t even expect to improve their affairs; but they know that their willfulness will still have plenty of scope as long as everyone is timid in front of them; and that is why they are so stubborn, so arrogant, so menacing even in the last minutes, of which there are already few left for them, as they themselves feel. The less they feel real strength, the more they are struck by the influence of free, common sense, which proves to them that they are deprived of any rational support, the more impudently and crazily they deny all demands of reason, putting themselves and their arbitrariness in their place. The naivety with which Dikoy says to Kuligin: “I want to consider you a swindler, and I think so; and I don’t care that you are an honest person, and I don’t give an account to anyone why I think so,” this naivety could not have expressed itself in all its tyranny absurdity if Kuligin had not called it out with a modest request: “why?” Are you offending an honest man?..”

Dikoy, you see, wants to cut off any attempt to demand an account from him the very first time, he wants to show that he is above not only accountability, but also ordinary human logic. It seems to him that if he recognizes over himself the laws of common sense, common to all people, then his importance will greatly suffer from this. And in most cases, this is indeed what happens, because his claims are contrary to common sense. This is where eternal dissatisfaction and irritability develops in him. He himself explains his situation when he talks about how difficult it is for him to give out money. “What do you tell me to do when my heart is like this! After all, I already know what I have to give, but I can’t do everything with goodness. You are my friend, and I have to give it to you, but if you come and ask me, I will scold you. I’ll give it, I’ll give it, but I’ll scold you. Therefore, as soon as you mention money to me, it will start to ignite everything inside me; It kindles everything inside, and that’s all... Well, even in those times I would never scold a person for anything.” The giving of money, as a material and visual fact, even in the consciousness of the Wild One awakens some reflection: he realizes how absurd he is, and blames it on “what his heart is like”! In other cases, he is not even fully aware of his absurdity; but by the essence of his character, he must certainly feel the same irritation at any triumph of common sense as when he has to give out money. It’s hard for him to pay for this reason: out of natural egoism, he wants to feel good; everything around him convinces him that this good thing comes from money; hence the direct attachment to money. But here his development stops, his egoism remains within the boundaries of the individual and does not want to know its relationship to society, to its neighbors. He needs more money - he knows this, and therefore he would only like to receive it, and not give it away. When, in the natural course of things, it comes to giving back, he gets angry and curses: he takes it as a misfortune, a punishment, like a fire, a flood, a fine, and not as a proper, legal payment for what others do for him. It’s the same in everything: if he desires good for himself, he wants space, independence; but he does not want to know the law that determines the acquisition and use of all rights in society. He only wants more, as many rights as possible for himself; when it is necessary to recognize them for others, he considers this an attack on his personal dignity, and gets angry, and tries in every possible way to delay the matter and prevent it. Even when he knows that he absolutely must give in, and will give in later, he will still try to cause mischief first. “I’ll give it, I’ll give it, but I’ll scold you!” And one must assume that the more significant the issuance of money and the more urgent the need for it, the more strongly Dikoy swears... From this it follows that, firstly, the swearing and all his rage, although unpleasant, are not particularly terrible, and who, being afraid if he gave up the money and thought that it was impossible to get it, he would have acted very stupidly; secondly, that it would be in vain to hope for the correction of the Wild through some kind of admonition: the habit of fooling around is so strong in him that he obeys it even despite the voice of his own common sense. It is clear that no reasonable convictions will stop him until an external force that is tangible to him is connected to them: he scolds Kuligin, not heeding any reason; and when he was once scolded by a hussar on a ferry, on the Volga, he did not dare contact the hussar, but again took out his insult at home: for two weeks after that, everyone hid from him in attics and closets...

Dobrolyubov N.A. "A ray of light in a dark kingdom"

Read also other topics of analysis of the drama "The Thunderstorm":

Dobrolyubov N.A. "A ray of light in a dark kingdom"

• Wild. Characteristic