The image of Katerina is a ray of light in a dark kingdom. Katerina is a ray of light in a dark kingdom essay. Several interesting essays

The main character of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky "" is . Critics consider her image to be one of the strongest and most strong-willed female characters of that time. Famous writers call Katerina a ray of light in the “dark kingdom.” Why is that? Yes, because this girl is not like the other residents of the city of Kalinov, she has no equal in her desire for freedom, in her spiritual purity and in her high feelings of love.

Getting to know the heroine, we understand that she is quite a dreamy person. We often come across her thoughts about how wonderful it would be to become a bird or a butterfly and flutter from tree to tree, from flower to flower. Katerina’s story about her childhood, about life in her parents’ house touches the reader. She did not know troubles and suffering, spent her free hours in her favorite garden, admired flowers and enjoyed a wonderful life. She believed in the Almighty and constantly said prayers to heaven.

Finding herself in the world of the “dark kingdom” after her marriage, the girl found herself as if in hell. Katerina constantly feels oppressed, because she was not like the others, the submissive victims of the Kabanov estate and the entire town.

As the plot develops, we watch how a deep and high feeling arises in the soul of such a pure and innocent woman - love. She understands that her inner world is changing. She becomes a person who is able to go against religious principles and follow the will of her heart. Katerina experiences real feelings of love for Boris and surrenders to his arms. She cheats on her husband Tikhon and thereby provokes the wrath of Kabanikha and the rest of her entourage. Her spiritual sin and the bitter attitude of those around her leave the girl no other choice - she ends her life by suicide. The main character dies. But with her act she deals an irreparable blow to the world of the “dark kingdom”, the world of cruelty, hypocrisy, callousness, hatred and anger.

That is why the image of Katerina can be called a real ray of light in that social darkness and the impenetrable wilderness of human souls.

The play “The Thunderstorm,” written by Ostrovsky in 1860, was published at a time when “thunderclouds” were in the air, seeking to destroy centuries-old serfdom.

As in many of his plays, in The Thunderstorm Ostrovsky describes the life of the merchants.

The central figure is Katerina, who is sharply different from the other characters in the drama. Having grown up in love and affection, having known freedom, the girl languishes in the world where she ended up after marriage. An alien environment, ruled by the evil and cruel mother-in-law Kabanikha, a weak-willed husband who has no right to vote and is not a protection - all this oppresses Katerina, who dreams of flying like a bird.

Despite the fact that the girl came from the same merchant environment as the others, her life before marriage differs sharply from her present situation. There was no coercion or violence in her family; everyone lived in complete harmony.

The stuffy, oppressive situation weighs on Katerina. Her pure, bright soul resists the “dark kingdom”, in which anger and despotism reign.

Married by agreement of her parents, who did not love her husband from the beginning, Katerina tries to find at least some response in his soul. But, blindly obeying his oppressive mother, Tikhon loses respect in her eyes.

It is at this moment that Boris meets on her way, to whom she gives all her love. For the sake of her lover, the girl is ready to do anything, going against her beliefs and principles. Considering her feelings a terrible sin, Katerina is ready to follow her beloved to the ends of the earth.

Despite the fact that she could not resist her love, open, sincere Katerina cannot lie and admits to cheating on her husband. Katerina is ready to leave with Boris. But he, turning out to be as weak-willed and weak-willed as her husband, is afraid to break with his usual world and leaves the girl.

Left alone, without support, not wanting to return to her former life, the religious girl, who believes that her soul has already been destroyed, sees no other way out but to die. Not wanting to come to terms with the “dark kingdom”, striving to break free, she flies into the pool free, like a bird.

Katerina's death became the impetus that prompted even such a timid person as Tikhon to rebel against his mother. Her act became a challenge to the “tyrant force” and marked the beginning of the destruction of the previous order.

By creating the image of Katerina, Ostrovsky showed that even in the kingdom of darkness, personalities can appear who can illuminate it with a “ray of light.”

Essay about a ray of light - Katerina

In Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" there are a lot of negative characters, but Katerina appears. She is like a ray of light in this darkness. Her bright image makes you think that even if everyone around you is evil, you need to smile and do good.

The action takes place in a city where there are special rules. In this city, everyone does not live by the rules. The heroine is the only one who lives correctly and honestly. The girl had a carefree youth filled with love and affection. And she was not used to humiliation and ridicule. Katerina was given away in a loveless marriage. Her husband’s family doesn’t like her and they constantly reproach her for something. The girl thinks about running away, but she cannot hurt her husband. She has too good a heart to do that. The darkness and her kind soul fight inside her. She believes that it is better to drown in the river so as not to endure her hated mother-in-law.

She meets Boris. Katerina falls in love to such an extent that she is ready to go anywhere with him. But Boris is afraid and does not take her with him. She can't just live like this anymore. Katerina decided to repent to her husband, but in response she only hears bullying from her mother-in-law. Not knowing what to do with this love and this resentment, she rushes into the Volga. It's better to die than to live without your beloved Boris. She leaves this cruel world. The death of the heroine makes her husband think and he finally fights back against his mother. Katerina, like a ray of light, opens her husband’s eyes to what is happening. She helps you understand that you don’t always need to listen and indulge your mother. But this happens only after her death. It’s a pity that the girl gave her life for her husband’s insight.

It’s very good that the work has such a bright and clean image. The work has a very gloomy and sad atmosphere, evil and negative characters. But Katerina defuses everything with her kindness and honesty. The heroine, going through all the trials, remained true to her principles and her position. There was always humanity in her, which is so lacking in the work and in general in our time.

Essay on literature on the topic:

Katerina is a ray of light in a dark kingdom.

A.N. Ostrovsky is an outstanding playwright who wrote a large number of works. Mostly plays. All of them are devoted to the theme of merchants and nobility. In them he described modern society: ignorant and submissive. Moreover, these definitions are addressed to two completely opposite sides. As, for example, in the drama “The Thunderstorm”, to which I dedicate my story.

It must be said that the characters in the play were divided into two halves. One half is the “dark kingdom”, the second is Katerina. At first glance, the first half has a significant advantage, but I think that this is not the case. Katerina is an extremely complex hero, in contrast to the ignoramuses and ignoramuses surrounding the Kabanikha estate. But how exactly does she differ from her surroundings?

I think that the whole point is in her idealization of the world and the perception of everything that happened to her after marriage. But there are no ideals! Nothing and never! I believe that Katerina was an unprepared person. After all, she too was raised in a merchant family. But that life was very different from the real life, the one that took place in Kabanikha’s house. Here she faced lies, hatred and injustice.

Katerina herself said that she lived at home like a bird and did not worry about anything, but after she got married, she unsuccessfully fought against the wall of misunderstanding of her mother-in-law.

In my parents' house there were always many people close to the church. This made Katerina religious and spiritual. Since childhood, I knew what sin was and how not to lead to it. In my opinion, excessive religiosity made her sensitive and vulnerable. Katerina also knew how to listen: both useful things and even the ravings of a half-crazy lady.

At home, Katerina dreamed of true love, of mutual understanding. After all, she wanted to be her husband's wife. But, unfortunately, fate did not provide her with the opportunity to find her. According to the laws of modern times, she was married to a complete stranger to her. Compared to Dikiy and Kabanikha, her husband (Tikhon) turned out to be a characterless person.

She does not lose hope of finding true love. And all the actions that she subsequently performs, she does in the name of love. And even enters into an unequal battle with the “dark kingdom.”

Can we say that this war is lost? I think no. After all, Katerina was able to maintain morality, will and reason. She did not succumb to the pressure of Kabanikha’s society. Of course, suicide is the most terrible sin, and I in no way condone it. But in this case it was the only way out.

Katerina can be considered a “ray of light”, because she was the only person who wanted, if not to eradicate, then at least try to change the house-building society. I believe that with her rebellion she was able to “lighten” this “dark kingdom.”

Parfenov K.

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 is based on lies, 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.

" At the beginning of it, Dobrolyubov writes that “Ostrovsky has a deep understanding of Russian life.” Next, he analyzes articles about Ostrovsky by other critics, writing that they “lack a direct view of things.”

Then Dobrolyubov compares “The Thunderstorm” with dramatic canons: “The subject of the drama must certainly be an event where we see the struggle between passion and duty - with the unhappy consequences of the victory of passion or with the happy ones when duty wins.” Also, the drama must have unity of action, and it must be written in high literary language. “The Thunderstorm”, at the same time, “does not satisfy the most essential goal of the drama - to instill respect for moral duty and show the harmful consequences of being carried away by passion. Katerina, this criminal, appears to us in the drama not only not in a sufficiently gloomy light, but even with the radiance of martyrdom. She speaks so well, suffers so pitifully, everything around her is so bad that you take up arms against her oppressors and thus justify vice in her person. Consequently, drama does not fulfill its high purpose. All the action is sluggish and slow, because it is cluttered with scenes and faces that are completely unnecessary. Finally, the language in which the characters speak exceeds any patience of a well-bred person.”

Dobrolyubov makes this comparison with the canon in order to show that approaching a work with a ready-made idea of ​​what should be shown in it does not provide true understanding. “What to think about a man who, upon seeing a pretty woman, suddenly begins to resonate that her figure is not like that of the Venus de Milo? The truth is not in dialectical subtleties, but in the living truth of what you are discussing. It cannot be said that people are evil by nature, and therefore one cannot accept for literary works principles such as, for example, that vice always triumphs and virtue is punished.”

“The writer has so far been given a small role in this movement of humanity towards natural principles,” writes Dobrolyubov, after which he recalls Shakespeare, who “moved the general consciousness of people to several levels to which no one had risen before him.” Next, the author turns to other critical articles about “The Thunderstorm,” in particular, by Apollo Grigoriev, who argues that Ostrovsky’s main merit lies in his “nationality.” “But Mr. Grigoriev does not explain what nationality consists of, and therefore his remark seemed very funny to us.”

Then Dobrolyubov comes to define Ostrovsky’s plays in general as “plays of life”: “We want to say that with him the general situation of life is always in the foreground. He punishes neither the villain nor the victim. You see that their situation dominates them, and you only blame them for not showing enough energy to get out of this situation. And that’s why we never dare to consider as unnecessary and superfluous those characters in Ostrovsky’s plays who do not directly participate in the intrigue. From our point of view, these persons are just as necessary for the play as the main ones: they show us the environment in which the action takes place, they depict the situation that determines the meaning of the activities of the main characters in the play.”

In “The Thunderstorm,” the need for “unnecessary” persons (minor and episodic characters) is especially visible. Dobrolyubov analyzes the remarks of Feklusha, Glasha, Dikiy, Kudryash, Kuligin, etc. The author analyzes the internal state of the heroes of the “dark kingdom”: “everything is somehow restless, it’s not good for them. Besides them, without asking them, another life has grown up, with different beginnings, and although it is not yet clearly visible, it is already sending bad visions to the dark tyranny of tyrants. And Kabanova is very seriously upset about the future of the old order, with which she has outlived the century. She foresees their end, tries to maintain their significance, but already feels that there is no former respect for them and that at the first opportunity they will be abandoned.”

Then the author writes that “The Thunderstorm” is “Ostrovsky’s most decisive work; mutual relations of tyranny are brought to the most tragic consequences; and for all that, most of those who have read and seen this play agree that there is even something refreshing and encouraging in “The Thunderstorm”. This “something” is, in our opinion, the background of the play, indicated by us and revealing the precariousness and the near end of tyranny. Then the very character of Katerina, drawn against this background, also breathes on us with new life, which is revealed to us in her very death.”

Further, Dobrolyubov analyzes the image of Katerina, perceiving it as “a step forward in all of our literature”: “Russian life has reached the point where the need for more active and energetic people was felt.” The image of Katerina “is unswervingly faithful to the instinct of natural truth and selfless in the sense that it is better for him to die than to live under those principles that are disgusting to him. In this integrity and harmony of character lies his strength. Free air and light, contrary to all the precautions of dying tyranny, burst into Katerina’s cell, she strives for a new life, even if she has to die in this impulse. What does death matter to her? All the same, she does not consider life to be the vegetation that befell her in the Kabanov family.”

The author analyzes in detail the motives of Katerina’s actions: “Katerina does not at all belong to the violent character, dissatisfied, who loves to destroy. On the contrary, this is a predominantly creative, loving, ideal character. That's why she tries to ennoble everything in her imagination. The feeling of love for a person, the need for tender pleasures naturally opened up in the young woman.” But it won’t be Tikhon Kabanov, who is “too downtrodden to understand the nature of Katerina’s emotions: “If I don’t understand you, Katya,” he tells her, “then you won’t get a word from you, let alone affection, otherwise you yourself you’re climbing.” This is how spoiled natures usually judge a strong and fresh nature.”

Dobrolyubov comes to the conclusion that in the image of Katerina, Ostrovsky embodied a great popular idea: “in other creations of our literature, strong characters are like fountains, dependent on an extraneous mechanism. Katerina is like a big river: a flat, good bottom - it flows calmly, large stones are encountered - it jumps over them, a cliff - it cascades, they dam it - it rages and breaks through in another place. It bubbles not because the water suddenly wants to make noise or get angry at obstacles, but simply because it needs it to fulfill its natural requirements - for further flow.”

Analyzing Katerina's actions, the author writes that he considers the escape of Katerina and Boris possible as the best solution. Katerina is ready to flee, but here another problem emerges - Boris’s financial dependence on his uncle Dikiy. “We said a few words above about Tikhon; Boris is the same, in essence, only educated.”

At the end of the play, “we are pleased to see Katerina’s deliverance - even through death, if it is impossible otherwise. Living in the “dark kingdom” is worse than death. Tikhon, throwing himself on his wife’s corpse, pulled out of the water, shouts in self-forgetfulness: “Good for you, Katya!” Why did I stay in the world and suffer!“ With this exclamation the play ends, and it seems to us that nothing could have been invented stronger and more truthful than such an ending. Tikhon’s words make the viewer think not about a love affair, but about this whole life, where the living envy the dead.”

In conclusion, Dobrolyubov addresses the readers of the article: “If our readers find that Russian life and Russian strength are called by the artist in “The Thunderstorm” to a decisive cause, and if they feel the legitimacy and importance of this matter, then we are satisfied, no matter what our scientists say and literary judges."