Katerina's emotional tragedy in the play The Thunderstorm briefly. The emotional tragedy of Katerina (based on the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky “The Thunderstorm”)

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.

The play by A.N. is rightfully considered one of the masterpieces of Russian drama. Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm", which the author himself assessed as a creative success.
The main conflict of “The Thunderstorm” is the clash of an awakening personality in the conditions of the “dark kingdom” with its dogmas, despotism and falsehood. This person was Katerina.
Her life is unthinkable without sunrises and sunsets, dewy grasses in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. Along with it is the beauty of a rural church, and the expanse of the Volga, and the Trans-Volga meadow expanse. The bright image of a bird rising to the blue expanses of heaven runs through the entire play. This is the image of a spiritualized soul that has risen to the heights of spiritual perfection. And Katerina herself dreams of becoming a bird: “Why don’t people fly like birds? You know, 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.” You need to pay special attention to how Katerina prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow,” there is something iconographic in this face, from which a bright radiance emanates, her prayer is a bright holiday of the soul , these are angelic choirs in a pillar of sunlight pouring from the dome, echoing the singing of wanderers and the chirping of birds. “Sure, it happened that I would enter heaven and not see anyone, and I don’t remember the time, and I don’t hear when the service is over.”
Katerina experiences all the joy of life in the temple, in the garden, among herbs, flowers, and the morning freshness of awakening nature. In the dreams of young Katerina there is an echo of the Christian legend about paradise, the divine garden, which the firstborn people were bequeathed to cultivate. They lived like birds of the air, and their work was the work of free and free people. They were immortal, and time had no destructive power over them: “I lived and did not worry about anything, like a bird in the wild. Mama doted on me, dressed me up like a doll, and didn’t force me to work; I used to do whatever I want... I used to get up early; If it’s summer, I’ll go to the spring, wash myself, bring some water with me and that’s it, I’ll water all the flowers in the house. I had many, many flowers.” Later, in a difficult moment of her life, Katerina laments: “If I had died as a little girl, it would have been better. I would look from heaven to earth and rejoice at everything. Otherwise I would fly... from cornflower to cornflower, in the wind, like a butterfly.”
In the Kabanovsky kingdom, where all living things wither and dry up, Katerina is overcome by longing for lost harmony. Her love is akin to the desire to raise her hands and fly; the heroine expects too much from her. A proud, strong-willed woman, she was given in marriage to a weak, weak-willed man who is in complete submission to Tikhon’s mother. A spiritual, bright, dreamy nature, she found herself in an atmosphere of lies, cruel laws, fell in love with the “wingless”, dependent Boris, whose love did not satisfy her melancholy. Katerina feels guilty before Tikhon and Kabanikha, and not so much before them, but before the whole world, before the kingdom of good. It seems to her that the whole universe is offended by her fall. Only a full-blooded and spiritual person can feel his unity with the universe in this way and have such a high sense of responsibility before the highest truth and harmony that lies within him. The decision to commit suicide comes to Katerina along with internal justification, a feeling of freedom and sinlessness after the moral storms she has experienced. By the end of the drama, the fear of fiery hell disappears, and the heroine considers herself entitled to appear before the highest moral court. “Death due to sins is terrible,” people say.
But along with spirituality, weaknesses also live in Katerina. From childhood, she was accustomed to daydreaming and enjoying the beauties of nature and was not accustomed to the insults that she later encountered in the “dark kingdom.” Before her fall, she had no doubt that after death she would go to heaven, and she did not think about the terrible torment in hell. Katerina did not notice her pride, and this destroyed her after she faced the difficulties of life. At first glance, it seems that she accomplished a feat, but in fact she evaded it. It seems to us that voluntarily leaving life is scary, but in fact it is many times easier than enduring the suffering and insults of people and struggling with all the difficulties of life, which is a real feat; for the Bible says: “He who endures to the end will be saved.” All sins are forgiven to those who sincerely repent of them: “Repent, and you will have mercy.” There is only one sin that is not forgiven to a person - suicide.
The play is very close to our time, although it was written more than a century ago, since in our age, with addiction to alcohol and drugs, suicides have become more frequent, and many have forgotten about the soul and love. The Lord said: “Many will pass away in the name of iniquity, and the love of many will grow cold.” And we see this in the spread of numerous religions and the popularity of extrasensory perception, “which come to us in sheep’s clothing, but inside are ravenous wolves.” Few people now care about their soul, but more about their body, how to eat and drink more and watch something interesting on TV. This is how our boring, monotonous life passes, and only some of us really think about it, only closer to old age do we begin to understand that we have not done anything useful to anyone and have lived our lives in vain. The Apostle Paul said about the human body: “There is earth and you will return to earth,” but the soul is immortal, and you need to think about where it will go - to heaven or hell.

Katerina is the main character of Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”, Tikhon’s wife, Kabanikha’s daughter-in-law. 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 understanding Katerina’s ideas about life. The author showed the origins of the heroine's character. From Katerina's words we learn about her childhood and adolescence. Here is an ideal version of patriarchal relations and the patriarchal world in general: “I lived, I didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild, I did what I wanted.” But it was “will”, which did not at all conflict with the age-old way of closed life, the entire circle of which is limited to housework. Katya lived freely: she got up early, washed herself with spring water, went to church with her mother, then sat down to do some work and listened to the pilgrims and praying men, of whom there were many in their house.

This is a story about a world in which it does not occur to a person to oppose himself to the general, since he has not yet separated himself from this community. That is why there is no violence or coercion here. For Katerina, the idyllic harmony of patriarchal family life is an unconditional moral ideal. But she lives in an era when the very spirit of this morality has disappeared and the ossified form rests on violence and coercion. Sensitive Katerina catches this in her family life in the Kabanovs' house. After listening to the story about her daughter-in-law’s life before marriage, Varvara (Tikhon’s sister) exclaims in surprise: “But it’s the same with us.” “Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity,” Katerina says, and this is the main drama for her.

Katerina was given away to marry young, her fate was decided by her family, and she accepts this as a completely natural, ordinary thing. She enters the Kabanov family, ready to love and honor her mother-in-law (“For me, mamma, it’s all the same, like my own mother, like you...” she says to Kabanikha), expecting in advance that her husband will be her master, but also her support, and protection. But Tikhon is not suitable for the role of the head of a patriarchal family, and Katerina speaks of her love for him: “I feel very sorry for him!” And in the fight against her illegal love for Boris, Katerina, despite her attempts, cannot rely on Tikhon.

Katya's life has changed a lot. From a free, joyful world, she found herself in a world full of deception and cruelty. She wants with all her soul to be pure and impeccable.
Katerina no longer feels such delight from visiting church. Katerina’s religious sentiments intensify as her mental storm grows. But it is precisely the discrepancy between her sinful inner state and what the religious commandments require that does not allow her to pray as before: Katerina is too far from the sanctimonious gap between the external performance of rituals and everyday practice. She feels fear of herself, of the desire for will. Katerina cannot do her usual activities. Sad, anxious thoughts do not allow her to calmly admire nature. Katya can only endure as long as she can and dream, but she can no longer live with her thoughts, because cruel reality returns her to earth, to where there is humiliation and suffering.

Oh, cruel reality brings her back to earth, to where there is humiliation and suffering.

The environment in which Katerina lives requires her to lie and deceive. But Katerina is not like that. She is attracted to Boris not only by the fact that she likes him, that he is not like the others around her, but by her need for love, which has not found a response in her husband, by the offended feeling of her wife, by the mortal melancholy of her monotonous life. It was necessary to hide, to be cunning; she didn’t want it, and she couldn’t do it; she had to return to her dreary life, and this seemed to her more bitter than before. Sin lies like a heavy stone on her heart. Katerina is terribly afraid of the approaching thunderstorm, considering it a punishment for what she did. Katya cannot continue to live with her sin, and she considers repentance the only way to at least partially get rid of it. She confesses everything to her husband and Kabanikha.

What can she do? All that remains for her is to submit, renounce independent life and become an unquestioning servant of her mother-in-law, a meek slave of her husband. But this is not Katerina’s character - she will never return to her former life: if she cannot enjoy her feelings, her will, then she doesn’t want anything in life, she doesn’t even want life. She decided to die, but she is afraid of the thought that this is a sin. She doesn’t complain about anyone, she doesn’t blame anyone, she just can’t live anymore. At the last moment, all the domestic horrors flash especially vividly in her imagination. No, she will no longer be a victim of a soulless mother-in-law and will not languish locked up with a spineless and disgusting husband. Death is her release.

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 exaltation 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 personality of Katerina, who, 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 grasp. 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 on the outside he is not like the other inhabitants 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 close to 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 the most patient person constantly comes to an end. Katerina, however, “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 believe as one thinks, to understand everything on one’s own, without any extraneous and worthless 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 lady 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 things, returned Katerina to herself: “To whom am I pretending to…”

Katerina's most important character trait is honesty with herself, her husband and other people; unwillingness to exist in a lie. She tells Varvara: “I don’t know how to deceive, I can’t hide anything.” She does not want and cannot be cunning, pretend, deceive, or 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 existing, 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 hour 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 exactly such mysterious dreams. This testifies to the extraordinary nature of the heroine. The reluctance to accept the morality of the “dark kingdom” and the ability to preserve the purity of one’s soul is evidence of the strength and integrity of the heroine’s character. She says about herself: “And if I get really tired of this place, they won’t hold me back with 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 they 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, to join the “victims” of the “dark kingdom” - to exist according to the principle “if only everything is sewn and covered.” Katerina decides to part with such a life. “Her body is in this place, but her personality 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 main conflict of Ostrovsky's play "" is the struggle between the old, the archaic and the new. But we must also not overlook the personal conflict between human feelings and human principles.

One day, in the “dark kingdom” - a place ruled by tyranny and fear, a completely different person appears, who differs from everyone else in his honesty, openness and devotion. This person was the main character of the work, Katerina. It was this difference from others that became the cause of the girl’s life tragedy.

Ostrovsky showed us the pure and immaculate character of the Russian woman. A woman who is distinguished by a warm heart and a strong character.

The play begins with a description of the beauty of the Volga. The beauty and pristine nature became the backdrop against which the tragedy of the main character developed. It seems that everything in Kalinov is calm, life goes on as usual, if only for the force of public opinion that pushed Katerina to the precipice.

Being a strong personality, the main character at first does not pay attention to public rumors, she does not care what they say and think about her. She is not afraid of human judgment. But, unfortunately, human judgment became unbearable for Katerina. She says: “Everyone follows me all day long and laughs right in my eyes...”.

The tragedy of the main character happens before the eyes of the residents of Kalinov. She publicly admits to cheating on her husband, she takes her own life in front of everyone.

Ostrovsky shows us Katerina as a very sensitive person with a rich inner world. On the pages of the work we see the main character in various emotional states. She is sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes in confusion, sometimes in a fit of passion. Katerina seems to be reborn, falling in love with Boris. Of course, she tries to drive away thoughts of love, she is not ready to betray her husband, but then she admits to herself that the image of Boris is constantly before her eyes. Ultimately, the main character remains true to her principles. She continues to endure Kabanikha’s bullying.

In the scene of farewell to Tikhon, Katerina again had to test the strength of her patience. The girl was offended by her husband’s attitude, because his mother’s words were heard in his speeches. At that moment, Katerina felt that something irreparable would happen after Tikhon’s departure.

In the episode with the key, the girl tries to sort out her feelings. But he understands that he cannot fool himself. In this we see all the strength of Katerina’s character. She does not want and cannot pretend, to not be honest with herself. The girl complains about the bitterness of her situation. It was this that pushed Katerina to take decisive action. The main character makes the final decision to be with Boris, and she no longer cares about the consequences.

Standing at the gate to the garden, Katerina still doubts the correctness of her action, but then follows the call of her heart.

The main character was not afraid of public rumors. She publicly announced her infidelity to her husband. Katerina understood the sinfulness of her act, but was ready to step over her principles and be with her loved one.

At the end of the play, Katerina dies. Her actions can be assessed in different ways. She was unable to realize her dream of being with her loved one, but she was able to show the whole tragedy of the “dark kingdom” that destroyed her.

Katerina was able to betray her principles for the sake of love. For us, she will never be a fallen woman. We will remember her as a person who fought for her dream, even if it was in this way.