Throughout his career, A. N. Ostrovsky created a number of realistic works in which he depicted the contemporary reality and life of the Russian province. One of them is the play “The Thunderstorm”. In this drama, the author showed the wild, deaf society of the district town of Kalinov, living according to the laws of Domostroy, and contrasted it with the image of a freedom-loving girl who did not want to come to terms with Kalinov’s norms of life and behavior. One of the most important problems raised in the work is the problem of human dignity, especially relevant in the middle of the 19th century, during the crisis of the outdated, outdated orders that then reigned in the provinces.
The merchant society shown in the play lives in an atmosphere of lies, deceit, hypocrisy, and duplicity; within the walls of their estates, representatives of the older generation scold and lecture their household members, and behind the fence they pretend to be courteous and benevolent, putting on cute, smiling masks. N.A. Dobrolyubov, in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom,” applies the division of the heroes of this world into tyrants and “downtrodden individuals.” The tyrants - merchant Kabanova, Dikoy - are powerful, cruel, considering themselves the right to insult and humiliate those who depend on them, constantly tormenting their family with reprimands and quarrels. For them, the concept of human dignity does not exist: in general, they do not consider their subordinates to be people.
Constantly humiliated, some members of the younger generation lost their self-esteem and became slavishly submissive, never arguing, never objecting, and having no opinion of their own. For example, Tikhon is a typical “downtrodden personality,” a person whose mother, Kabanikha, crushed his already not very spirited attempts to demonstrate character since childhood. Tikhon is pitiful and insignificant: he can hardly be called a person; drunkenness replaces all the joys of life for him, he is incapable of strong, deep feelings, the concept of human dignity is unknown and inaccessible to him.
Less “downtrodden” individuals are Varvara and Boris; they have a greater degree of freedom. Kabanikha does not forbid Varvara to go for a walk (“Walk before your time comes, you’ll still have enough”), but even if reproaches begin, Varvara has enough self-control and cunning not to react; she does not let herself be offended. But again, in my opinion, she is driven more by pride than by self-esteem. Dikoy publicly scolds Boris, insulting him, but thereby, in my opinion, he humiliates himself in the eyes of others: a person who brings family squabbles and quarrels into public view is unworthy of respect.
But Dikoy himself and the population of the city of Kalinov adhere to a different point of view: Dikoy scolds his nephew - that means the nephew depends on him, which means Dikoy has a certain power - which means he is worthy of respect.
Kabanikha and Dikoy are unworthy people, tyrants, corrupted by the unlimited power of their home, mentally callous, blind, insensitive, and their life is dull, gray, filled with endless teachings and reprimands to their family. They do not have human dignity, because the person who has it knows the value of himself and others and always strives for peace and peace of mind; tyrants are constantly trying to assert their power over people, often mentally richer than themselves, provoking them into quarrels and exhausting them with useless discussions. Such people are not loved or respected, they are only feared and hated.
This world is contrasted with the image of Katerina, a girl from a merchant family who grew up in an atmosphere of religiosity, spiritual harmony and freedom. Having married Tikhon, she finds herself in the Kabanovs’ house, in an unfamiliar environment, where lying is the main means of achieving something, and duplicity is the order of the day. Kabanova begins to humiliate and insult Katerina, making her life impossible. Katerina is a mentally vulnerable, fragile person; Kabanikha’s cruelty and heartlessness hurt her painfully, but she endures without responding to insults, and Kabanova keeps provoking her into a quarrel, jabbing and humiliating her dignity with every remark. This constant bullying is unbearable. Even the husband is unable to stand up for the girl. Katerina's freedom is sharply limited. “Everything here is somehow out of bondage,” she says to Varvara, and her protest against the insult to human dignity results in her love for Boris - a man who, in principle, simply took advantage of her love and then ran away, and Katerina, who could not stand it further humiliation, she committed suicide.
None of the representatives of Kalinovsky society knows a sense of human dignity, and no one can understand and appreciate it in another person, especially if this is a woman, by Domostroevsky standards - a housewife, who obeys her husband in everything, who can, in extreme cases, beat her. Not noticing this moral value in Katerina, the World of the city of Kalinov tried to humiliate her to its level, to make her a part of itself, to drag her into a web of lies and hypocrisy, but human dignity is one of the innate and ineradicable qualities, it cannot be taken away, which is why Katerina does not can become like these people and, seeing no other way out, throws herself into the river, finally finding the long-awaited peace and quiet in heaven, where she has been striving all her life.
The tragedy of the play “The Thunderstorm” lies in the intractability of the conflict between a person with a sense of self-worth and a society in which no one has any idea about human dignity. “The Thunderstorm” is one of Ostrovsky’s greatest realistic works, in which the playwright showed the immorality, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness that reigned in provincial society in the mid-19th century.

The problem of human dignity in A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”

A. N. Ostrovsky defined the genre of his work as drama, thereby emphasizing the wide prevalence of the conflict of the play, the everyday life of the events depicted in it. The main theme of "The Thunderstorm" - the clash between the oppressors (Kabanikha, Di-koy) and the oppressed (Katerina, Tikhon, Boris, Kuligin and others) is organically connected with its conflicts: between old social and everyday principles and progressive manifestations of human freedom individual, family, social.

In the city of Kalinov, power belongs to tyrants, and this power is based on the moral and material dependence of people. The reader learns about the order prevailing in the Dikiy family from the dialogue between Boris and Kudryash:

Kudryash: Who will please him, if his whole life is based on swearing? And most of all because of the money; Not a single calculation is complete without swearing. Another is happy to give up his own, if only he would calm down. And the trouble is, someone will make him angry in the morning! He picks on everyone all day long.

Boris: Every morning my aunt begs everyone with tears: “Fathers, don’t make me angry! Darlings, don’t make me angry!”... But the trouble is when he is offended by a person whom he does not dare to scold; stay home here!

Curly: Father! What a laugh it was! Once on the Volga, on a ferry, a hussar cursed him. He worked miracles!

Boris: What a homey experience it was! After that, everyone hid in attics and closets for two weeks.

The situation is similar in the Kabanova family, only there “everything is under the guise of piety.” Kuligin speaks of Kabanikha like this: “Prudence, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” Kabanikha’s household does not dare to contradict her. Tikhon agrees with his mother in everything and only the author’s remarks (“sighing, to the side: Oh, my God!”) help to understand the true attitude towards constant moral teaching. Varvara, his sister, has developed her own line of behavior: she, too, will not contradict her mother out loud, but comments to herself: “I won’t respect you, of course!” She has her own view of life: “In my opinion: do whatever you want, as long as it’s safe and covered.”

Each hero adapts to life in Kalinov in his own way. Varvara teaches Katerina: “...Remember where you live! Our whole house is based on that (a lie). And I wasn’t a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.”

Tikhon drinks quietly out of despair, Boris just sighs: “Oh, if only there was strength!” Kuligin advises Boris to “please somehow” Dikiy, and consoles himself with the thought that he will soon get rich by inventing the perpeta-um-mobile: “There’s nothing to do, you have to submit! But when will I have a million! Then I’ll talk!” Kudryash, who is considered a rude person in the city, has a slightly different position. He regrets that in the city there are few “guys like me, otherwise” Dikiy would be “discouraged from being naughty”: “Four of us, five of us in an alley somewhere would talk to him face to face, so it would become silk. But I wouldn’t even say a word to anyone about our science, I’d just walk around and look around.” Perhaps Kudryash was right when he spoke about this method of dealing with the “scold” Dikiy. After all, we see that with equals, for example, with Kabanova, Savel Prokofievich behaves completely differently. As they say, strength feels strength. Marfa Ignatievna, without ceremony, interrupts Dikiy: “Well, don’t let your throat loose! Find me cheaper! And I’m dear to you!” And Dikoy changes his tone, it turns out that he knows how to speak like a human being: “Wait, godfather, wait! Do not be angry...".

But Kudryash is ready to fight the Wild and other methods (and low and mean ones): “It’s a pity that his daughters are teenagers, none of them are big... I would respect him. I’m too crazy about girls!”

Only Katerina dares to openly declare to her mother-in-law about her human dignity: “It’s a shame, well, it’s nice for anyone to endure!” The plot of the drama is defined by literary scholars in different ways. A. I. Revyakin considers Boris’s declaration of love for Katerina, combined with the heroine’s reciprocal confession, to be the beginning. More common and, in my opinion, correct is Katerina’s answer to her mother-in-law’s nagging, full of a sense of her own dignity: “You are talking about me, mamma, in vain. Whether in front of people or without people, I’m still alone, I don’t prove anything of myself.”

The boar, seeing such resistance from her daughter-in-law, tries to break her and humiliate her. What is the scene worth when Kabanova forces Tikhon to give na-kazy to his wife! Perhaps this was the last straw, and Katerina decided to cheat. But this betrayal weighed heavily on Katerina’s soul and led her to suicide.

You can also think about Katerina’s suicide. What is this: weakness or protest, an attempt to break out of captivity? Of course, in the behavior of the main character there are both weak and strong sides, but in general she is the only one who rejects the principles of Domostro-evsky morality, albeit at the cost of her life, more subconsciously than consciously, in a fit of feelings, but still this is a protest against the foundations of the surrounding world.

Katerina could adapt, like Varvara, to continue meeting secretly with Boris, continuing to deceive the family. But this would mean that Katerina had come to terms with her lot and became the same as the others - vicious and deceitful. Katerina, despite the betrayal, remains pure in her soul.

The problem of human dignity in the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm".

Three themes attracted particular attention of Russian writers in the 50-60s of the 19th century: serfdom, the emergence of a new force in public life - the common intelligentsia, and the position of women in the family and society. Among these themes there was one more - the tyranny of tyranny, the tyranny of money and ancient authority in the merchant environment, tyranny, under the yoke of which all members of merchant families, especially women, suffocated. The task of exposing economic and spiritual tyranny in the “dark kingdom” of the merchants was set by A. N. Ostrovsky in the drama “The Thunderstorm”.

The tragic conflict between Katerina's living feelings and the dead way of life is the main plot line of the play.

The drama presents two groups of inhabitants of the city of Kalinov. One of them personifies the oppressive power of the “dark kingdom”. This is Dikoy and Ka-banikha. Another group includes Katerina, Kuligin, Tikhon, Boris, Kudryash and Varvara. These are victims of the “dark kingdom”, who equally feel its brute force, but express their protest against this force in different ways.

In terms of character and interests, Katerina stands out sharply from the environment into which she found herself due to everyday circumstances. It is precisely in the exclusivity of her character that lies the reason for the deep life drama that

Katerina had to survive, falling into the “dark kingdom” of the Wild and Kabanovs.

Katerina is a poetic and dreamy person. The caresses of her mother, who doted on her, caring for her favorite flowers, of which Katerina had “many, many”, embroidering on velvet, visiting church, walks in the garden, stories of wanderers and praying mantises - this is the range of daily activities, under the influence of which the inner Katerina's world. Sometimes she plunged into some kind of waking dreams, like fairy-tale visions. Katerina talks about her childhood and girlhood, about the feelings she experiences when looking at beautiful nature. Katerina’s speech is figurative and emotional. And such an impressionable and poetically minded woman finds herself in the Kabanova family, in a musty atmosphere of hypocrisy and intrusive guardianship. She finds herself in an environment that reeks of deathly cold and soullessness. Of course, the conflict between this atmosphere of the “dark kingdom” and the bright spiritual world of Katerina ends tragically.

The tragedy of Katerina’s situation is complicated by the fact that she was married to a man whom she did not know and could not love, although she tried with all her might to be Tikhon’s faithful wife. Katerina’s attempts to find a response in her husband’s heart are broken by his slavish humiliation, narrow-mindedness, and rudeness. Since childhood, he has been accustomed to obeying his mother in everything; he is afraid to go against her will. He endures all of Kabanikha’s bullying without complaint, not daring to protest. Tikhon’s only cherished desire is to escape from his mother’s care, at least for a short time, to drink, and to go on a spree so that he can “take time off for the whole year.” This weak-willed man, himself a victim of the “dark kingdom,” of course, not only could not help Katerina, but simply understand her, and Katerina’s spiritual world was too complex, high and inaccessible for him. Naturally, he could not foresee the drama that was brewing in the soul of his wife.

Boris, Dikiy's nephew, is also a victim of a dark, sanctimonious environment. He stands significantly higher than the “benefactors” around him. The education he received in Moscow, at a commercial academy, contributed to the development of his cultural views and needs, so Boris finds it difficult to get along among the Kabanovs and the Wild. But he does not have enough character to break out from under their power. He is the only one who understands Katerina, but is unable to help her: he lacks the determination to fight for Katerina’s love, he advises her to submit to fate and leaves her, foreseeing that Katerina will die. Lack of will, inability to fight for their happiness doomed Tikhon and Boris to “live in the world and suffer.” And only Katerina found the strength to challenge the painful tyranny.

Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” The death of a young, gifted woman, a passionate, strong nature, illuminated this sleeping “kingdom” for a moment and sparkled against the background of dark, gloomy clouds.

Dobrolyubov rightly views the suicide of Katerina as a challenge not only to the Kabanovs and the Wild, but also to the entire despotic way of life in gloomy feudal-serf Russia.

Throughout his career, A. N. Ostrovsky created a number of realistic works in which he depicted the contemporary reality and life of the Russian province. One of them is the play “The Thunderstorm”. In this drama, the author showed the wild, deaf society of the district town of Kalinov, living according to the laws of Domostroy, and contrasted it with the image of a freedom-loving girl who did not want to come to terms with Kalinovsky norms of life and behavior. One of the most important problems raised in the work is the problem of human dignity, especially relevant in the middle of the 19th century, during the crisis of the outdated, outdated orders that then reigned in the province.
The merchant society shown in the play lives in an atmosphere of lies, deceit, hypocrisy, and duplicity; within the walls of their estates, representatives of the older generation scold and lecture their household members, and behind the fence they pretend to be courteous and benevolent, putting on cute, smiling masks. N.A. Dobrolyubov, in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom,” applies the division of the heroes of this world into tyrants and “downtrodden individuals.” Tyrants - merchant Kabanova, Dikoy - are powerful, cruel, considering themselves the right to insult and humiliate those who depend on them, constantly tormenting their household with reprimands and quarrels. For them, the concept of human dignity does not exist: in general, they do not consider their subordinates to be people.
Constantly humiliated, some members of the younger generation lost their self-esteem and became slavishly submissive, never arguing, never objecting, and having no opinion of their own. For example, Tikhon is a typical “downtrodden personality,” a man whose mother, Kabanikha, crushed his already not very spirited attempts to demonstrate character since childhood. Tikhon is pitiful and insignificant: he can hardly be called a person; drunkenness replaces all the joys of life for him, he is incapable of strong, deep feelings, the concept of human dignity is unknown and inaccessible to him.
Less “downtrodden” individuals are Varvara and Boris; they have a greater degree of freedom. Kabanikha does not forbid Varvara to go for a walk (“Walk before your time comes, you’ll still be tired”), but even if reproaches begin, Varvara has enough self-control and cunning not to react; she does not let herself be offended. But again, in my opinion, she is driven more by pride than by self-esteem. Dikoy publicly scolds Boris, insulting him, but thereby, in my opinion, he humiliates himself in the eyes of others: a person who brings family squabbles and quarrels into public view is unworthy of respect.
But Dikoy himself and the population of the city of Kalinov adhere to a different point of view: Dikoy scolds his nephew - that means the nephew depends on him, which means Dikoy has a certain power - that means he is worthy of respect.
Kabanikha and Dikoy are unworthy people, tyrants, corrupted by the unlimited power of their home...
mentally callous, blind, insensitive, and their life is dull, gray, filled with endless teachings and reprimands to their family. They do not have human dignity, because the person who has it knows the value of himself and others and always strives for peace and peace of mind; tyrants are constantly trying to assert their power over people, often mentally richer than themselves, provoking them into quarrels and exhausting them with useless discussions. Such people are not loved or respected, they are only feared and hated.
This world is contrasted with the image of Katerina, a girl from a merchant family who grew up in an atmosphere of religiosity, spiritual harmony and freedom. Having married Tikhon, she finds herself in the Kabanovs’ house, in an unfamiliar environment, where lying is the main means of achieving something, and duplicity is the order of the day. Kabanova begins to humiliate and insult Katerina, making her life impossible. Katerina is a mentally vulnerable, fragile person; Kabanikha’s cruelty and heartlessness hurt her painfully, but she endures without responding to insults, and Kabanova keeps provoking her into a quarrel, jabbing and humiliating her dignity with every remark. This constant bullying is unbearable. Even the husband is unable to stand up for the girl. Katerina's freedom is sharply limited. “Everything here is somehow out of bondage,” she says to Varvara, and her protest against the insult to human dignity results in her love for Boris - a man who, in principle, simply took advantage of her love and then ran away, and Katerina, who could not stand it further humiliation, she committed suicide.
None of the representatives of Kalinovsky society knows a sense of human dignity, and no one can understand and appreciate it in another person, especially if this is a woman, by Domostroev standards - a housewife who obeys her husband in everything, who can, in extreme cases, beat her. Not noticing this moral value in Katerina, the World of the city of Kalinov tried to humiliate her to its level, to make her a part of itself, to drag her into a web of lies and hypocrisy, but human dignity is one of the innate and ineradicable qualities, it cannot be taken away, which is why Katerina does not can become like these people and, seeing no other way out, throws herself into the river, finally finding the long-awaited peace and quiet in heaven, where she has been striving all her life.
The tragedy of the play “The Thunderstorm” lies in the intractability of the conflict between a person with self-esteem and a society in which no one has any idea about human dignity. “The Thunderstorm” is one of Ostrovsky’s greatest realistic works, in which the playwright showed the immorality, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness that reigned in provincial society in the mid-19th century.

Throughout his career, A. N. Ostrovsky created a number of realistic works in which he depicted the contemporary reality and life of the Russian province. One of them is the play “The Thunderstorm”. In this drama, the author showed the wild, deaf society of the district town of Kalinov, living according to the laws of Domostroy, and contrasted it with the image of a freedom-loving girl who did not want to come to terms with Kalinovsky norms of life and behavior. One of the most important problems raised in the work is the problem of human dignity, especially relevant in the middle of the 19th century, during the crisis of the outdated, outdated orders that then reigned in the provinces.

The merchant society shown in the play lives in an atmosphere of lies, deceit, hypocrisy, and duplicity; within the walls of their estates, representatives of the older generation scold and lecture their household members, and behind the fence they pretend to be courteous and benevolent, putting on cute, smiling masks. N.A. Dobrolyubov, in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom,” applies the division of the heroes of this world into tyrants and “downtrodden individuals.” The tyrants - merchant Kabanova, Dikoy - are powerful, cruel, considering themselves the right to insult and humiliate those who depend on them, constantly tormenting their family with reprimands and quarrels. For them, the concept of human dignity does not exist: in general, they do not consider their subordinates to be people.

Constantly humiliated, some members of the younger generation lost their self-esteem and became slavishly submissive, never arguing, never objecting, and having no opinion of their own. For example, Tikhon is a typical “downtrodden personality,” a person whose mother, Kabanikha, crushed his already not very spirited attempts to demonstrate character since childhood. Tikhon is pitiful and insignificant: he can hardly be called a person; drunkenness replaces all the joys of life for him, he is incapable of strong, deep feelings, the concept of human dignity is unknown and inaccessible to him.

Less “downtrodden” individuals are Varvara and Boris; they have a greater degree of freedom. Kabanikha does not forbid Varvara to go for a walk (“Walk before your time comes, you’ll still be tired”), but even if reproaches begin, Varvara has enough self-control and cunning not to react; she does not let herself be offended. But again, in my opinion, she is driven more by pride than by self-esteem. Dikoy publicly scolds Boris, insulting him, but thereby, in my opinion, he humiliates himself in the eyes of others: a person who brings family squabbles and quarrels into public view is unworthy of respect.

But Dikoy himself and the population of the city of Kalinov adhere to a different point of view: Dikoy scolds his nephew - that means the nephew depends on him, which means Dikoy has a certain power - which means he is worthy of respect.

Kabanikha and Dikoy are unworthy people, tyrants, corrupted by the unlimited power of their home, mentally callous, blind, insensitive, and their life is dull, gray, filled with endless teachings and reprimands to their family. They do not have human dignity, because the person who has it knows the value of himself and others and always strives for peace and peace of mind; tyrants are constantly trying to assert their power over people, often mentally richer than themselves, provoking them into quarrels and exhausting them with useless discussions. Such people are not loved or respected, they are only feared and hated.

This world is contrasted with the image of Katerina, a girl from a merchant family who grew up in an atmosphere of religiosity, spiritual harmony and freedom. Having married Tikhon, she finds herself in the Kabanovs’ house, in an unfamiliar environment, where lying is the main means of achieving something, and duplicity is the order of the day. Kabanova begins to humiliate and insult Katerina, making her life impossible. Katerina is a mentally vulnerable, fragile person; Kabanikha’s cruelty and heartlessness hurt her painfully, but she endures without responding to insults, and Kabanova keeps provoking her into a quarrel, jabbing and humiliating her dignity with every remark. This constant bullying is unbearable. Even the husband is unable to stand up for the girl. Katerina's freedom is sharply limited. “Everything here is somehow out of bondage,” she says to Varvara, and her protest against the insult to human dignity results in her love for Boris - a man who, in principle, simply took advantage of her love and then ran away, and Katerina, who could not stand it further humiliation, committed suicide. None of the representatives of Kalinovsky society knows a sense of human dignity, and no one can understand and appreciate it in another person, especially if this is a woman, by Domostroevsky standards - a housewife who obeys her husband in everything, who can help her as a last resort, beat him. Not noticing this moral value in Katerina, the World of the city of Kalinov tried to humiliate her to its level, to make her a part of itself, to drag her into a web of lies and hypocrisy, but human dignity is one of the innate and ineradicable qualities, it cannot be taken away, which is why Katerina does not can become like these people and, seeing no other way out, throws herself into the river, finally finding the long-awaited peace and quiet in heaven, where she has been striving all her life.

The tragedy of the play “The Thunderstorm” lies in the intractability of the conflict between a person with self-esteem and a society in which no one has any idea about human dignity. “The Thunderstorm” is one of Ostrovsky’s greatest realistic works, in which the playwright showed the immorality, hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness that reigned in provincial society in the mid-19th century.

The Thunderstorm is, without a doubt, Ostrovsky's most decisive work; the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought to the most tragic consequences in it... There is even something refreshing and encouraging in “The Thunderstorm”. N. A. Dobrolyubov

A. N. Ostrovsky received literary recognition after the appearance of his first major play. Ostrovsky's dramaturgy became a necessary element of the culture of his time; he retained the position of the best playwright of the era, the head of the Russian dramatic school, despite the fact that at the same time A. V. Sukhovo-Kobylin, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. F. Pisemsky, A. K. Tolstoy and L. N. Tolstoy. The most popular critics viewed his works as a true and profound reflection of modern reality. Meanwhile, Ostrovsky, following his own original creative path, often baffled both critics and readers.

Thus, the play “The Thunderstorm” came as a surprise to many. L. N. Tolstoy did not accept the play. The tragedy of this work forced critics to reconsider their views on Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy. Ap. Grigoriev noted that in “The Thunderstorm” there is a protest against the “existing”, which is terrible for its adherents. Dobrolyubov argued in his article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.” that the image of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” “breathes on us with new life.”

Perhaps for the first time, scenes of family, “private” life, the arbitrariness and lawlessness that were hitherto hidden behind the thick doors of mansions and estates, were shown with such graphic power. And at the same time, this was not just an everyday sketch. The author showed the unenviable position of a Russian woman in a merchant family. The enormous power of the tragedy was given by the special truthfulness and skill of the author, as D.I. Pisarev rightly noted: “The Thunderstorm” is a painting from life, which is why it breathes truth.”

The tragedy takes place in the city of Kalinov, which is located among the greenery of gardens on the steep bank of the Volga. “For fifty years I’ve been looking across the Volga every day and I can’t get enough of it. The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices,” Kuligin admires. It would seem that the life of the people of this city should be beautiful and joyful. However, the life and customs of the rich merchants created “a world of prison and deathly silence.” Savel Dikoy and Marfa Kabanova are the personification of cruelty and tyranny. The order in the merchant's house is based on the outdated religious dogmas of Domostroy. Dobrolyubov says about Kabanikha that she “gnaws at her victim... long and relentlessly.” She forces her daughter-in-law Katerina to bow at her husband’s feet when he leaves, scolds her for “not howling” in public when seeing off her husband.