The role of the voice in the play Thunderstorm. Characteristics of the main characters of the work Thunderstorm, Ostrovsky

It was not for nothing that Ostrovsky gave the name to his work “Thunderstorm”, because before people were afraid of the elements, they associated it with the punishment of heaven. Thunder and lightning inspired superstitious fear and primitive horror. The writer told in his play about the inhabitants of a provincial town, who are conditionally divided into two groups: the "dark kingdom" - rich merchants who exploit the poor, and "victims" - those who tolerate the arbitrariness of tyrants. The characteristics of the heroes will tell in more detail about the life of people. The storm reveals the true feelings of the characters in the play.

Characteristics of the Wild

Savel Prokofich Wild is a typical petty tyrant. This is a rich merchant who has no right. He tortured his relatives, because of his insults, households scatter through attics and closets. The merchant is rude to the servants, it is impossible to please him, he will definitely find something to cling to. You can’t beg for a salary from the Wild, because he is very greedy. Savel Prokofich, an ignorant man, a supporter of the patriarchal system, does not want to know the modern world. The stupidity of the merchant is evidenced by his conversation with Kuligin, from which it becomes clear that Wild does not know, a thunderstorm. The characterization of the heroes of the "dark kingdom", unfortunately, does not end there.

Description of Kabanikhi

Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova is the embodiment of the patriarchal way of life. A rich merchant's wife, a widow, she constantly insists on observing all the traditions of her ancestors and herself strictly follows them. The boar brought everyone to despair - this is precisely what the characterization of the heroes shows. "Thunderstorm" is a play that reveals the mores of a patriarchal society. A woman gives alms to the poor, goes to church, but does not give life to her children and daughter-in-law. The heroine wanted to maintain her former way of life, so she kept her family at bay, taught her son, daughter, daughter-in-law.

Characteristics of Katerina

In a patriarchal world, humanity, faith in goodness can be preserved - this is also shown by the characteristics of the heroes. "Thunderstorm" is a play in which there is a confrontation between the new and the old world, only the characters of the work defend their point of view in different ways. Katerina happily recalls her childhood, because she grew up in love and understanding. She belongs to the patriarchal world and up to a certain point everything suited her, even the fact that her parents themselves decided her fate and gave her in marriage. But Katerina does not like the role of the humiliated daughter-in-law, she does not understand how one can constantly live in fear and captivity.

The main character of the play is gradually changing, a strong personality awakens in her, able to make her choice, which manifests itself in love for Boris. Katerina was killed by her entourage, the lack of hope pushed her to suicide, because she could not live in the Kabanikhi home prison.

The attitude of the children of Kabanikh to the patriarchal world

Barbara is one who does not want to live according to the laws of the patriarchal world, but she is not going to openly oppose the will of her mother. She was crippled by the house of Kabanikha, because it was here that the girl learned to lie, cheat, do whatever she wanted, but carefully hide the traces of her misdeeds. To show the ability of some persons to adapt to different conditions, Ostrovsky wrote his play. A thunderstorm (the characterization of the heroes shows what kind of blow Varvara inflicted on her mother by escaping from the house) brought everyone to clean water, during bad weather the inhabitants of the town showed their real faces.

Tikhon is a weak person, the embodiment of the completion of the patriarchal way of life. He loves his wife, but cannot find the strength to protect her from her mother's tyranny. It was Kabanikha who pushed him to drunkenness, destroyed him with her moralizing. Tikhon does not support the old order, but he sees no reason to go against his mother, passing her words on deaf ears. Only after the death of his wife does the hero decide to rebel against Kabanikh, accusing her of the death of Katerina. To understand the worldview of each character and his attitude to the patriarchal world allows characterization of the characters. "Thunderstorm" is a play with a tragic end, but faith in a better future.

"Thunderstorm", as you know, presents us with an idyll of the "dark kingdom", which little by little illuminates us with Ostrovsky's talent. The people you see here live in blessed places: the city stands on the banks of the Volga, all in greenery; from the steep banks one can see distant spaces covered with villages and fields; a fertile summer day beckons to the shore, to the air, under the open sky, under this breeze blowing refreshingly from the Volga ... And the inhabitants, as if, sometimes walk along the boulevard over the river, although they have already looked at the beauties of the Volga views; in the evening they sit on the rubble at the gate and engage in pious conversations; but they spend more time at home, do housework, eat, sleep - they go to bed very early, so it is difficult for an unaccustomed person to endure such a sleepy night as they ask themselves. But what should they do, how not to sleep when they are full? Their life flows smoothly and peacefully, no interests of the world disturb them, because they do not reach them; kingdoms can collapse, new countries open up, the face of the earth can change as it pleases, the world can start a new life on new principles - the inhabitants of the town of Kalinov will exist for themselves as before in complete ignorance of the rest of the world. From time to time an indefinite rumor will run to them that Napoleon with two or ten tongues is rising again or that the Antichrist has been born; but even this they take more as a curious thing, like the news that there are countries where all people have dog heads; they will shake their heads, express surprise at the wonders of nature, and go and have a bite to eat ... From their youth they still show some curiosity, but there is nowhere for her to get food: information comes to them, as if in ancient Rus' from the time of Daniel the Pilgrim *, only from wanderers, and even those now a few real ones; one has to be content with those who "themselves, due to their weakness, did not go far, but heard a lot," like Feklusha in The Thunderstorm. From them only the inhabitants of Kalinovo learn about what is happening in the world; otherwise they would think that the whole world is the same as their Kalinov, and that it is absolutely impossible to live otherwise than them. But the information reported by the Feklushs is such that they are not able to inspire a great desire to exchange their life for another.

Feklusha belongs to a patriotic and highly conservative party; she feels good among the pious and naive Kalinovites: she is both revered, and treated, and supplied with everything necessary; she can seriously assure that her very sins come from the fact that she is higher than other mortals: “ordinary people,” she says, “everyone is embarrassed by one enemy, but to us, strange people, to whom there are six, to whom twelve are assigned, that’s it. overcome them all." And they believe her. It is clear that the simple instinct of self-preservation should make her not say a good word about what is being done in other lands. And in fact, listen to the conversations of the merchants, the bourgeoisie, petty bureaucrats in the district wilderness - how many amazing information about the unfaithful and filthy kingdoms, how many stories about those times when people were burned and tortured, when robbers robbed cities, etc. , and how little information about European life, about the best way of life! Even in the so-called educated society, in the Europeanized people, in the multitude of enthusiasts who admired the new Parisian streets and the Mabil, don't you find almost the same number of respectable connoisseurs who intimidate their listeners with the fact that nowhere but Austria, in all of Europe, is there any order? and no justice can be found! .. All this leads to the fact that Feklusha expresses so positively: “bla-alepie, dear, bla-alepie, wondrous beauty! What can I say, you live in the promised land!” It certainly goes like that, how to figure out what is being done in other lands. Listen to Feklusha:

“They say there are such countries, dear girl, where there are no Orthodox tsars, and the Saltans rule the earth. In one land, the Turkish Saltan Mahnut sits on the throne, and in the other, the Persian Saltan Mahnut; and they do justice, dear girl, over all people, and whatever they judge, everything is wrong. And they, dear girl, cannot judge a single matter righteously - such a limit has been set for them. We have a righteous law, and they, my dear, are unrighteous; that according to our law it turns out that way, but according to theirs everything is the other way around. And all their judges, in their countries, are also all unrighteous; so to them, dear girl, and in requests they write: “Judge me, unjust judge!” And then there is still the land, where all the people with dog heads.

“Why is it so with the dogs?” Glasha asks. “For infidelity,” Feklusha replies shortly, considering any further explanations to be superfluous. But Glasha is glad for that too; in the languid monotony of her life and thoughts, she is pleased to hear something new and original. In her soul, the thought is already vaguely awakening, “that, however, people live and not like us; it is certainly better with us, but by the way, who knows! After all, we are not well; but about those lands we still do not know well; you will only hear something from good people”... And the desire to know more and more solidly creeps into the soul. This is clear to us from the words of Glasha on the departure of the wanderer: “Here are some other lands! There are no miracles in the world! And we're sitting here, we don't know anything. It's also good that there are good people; no, no, and you will hear what is happening in the wide world; otherwise they would have died like fools. As you can see, the unrighteousness and unfaithfulness of foreign lands does not arouse horror and indignation in Glasha; she is only interested in new information, which seems to her something mysterious - "miracles", as she puts it. You see that she is not satisfied with Feklusha's explanations, which only arouse in her regret for her ignorance. She is obviously halfway to skepticism. But where can she keep her distrust when it is constantly undermined by stories like Feklushin's? How can she reach correct concepts, even just reasonable questions, when her curiosity is locked in such a circle, which is outlined around her in the city of Kalinovo? Moreover, how could she dare not to believe and to inquire when older and better people are so positively reassured in the conviction that the concepts and way of life they have adopted are the best in the world and that everything new comes from evil spirits? It is terrible and hard for every newcomer to attempt to go against the requirements and convictions of this dark mass, terrible in its naivety and sincerity. After all, she will curse us, she will run around like those with the plague, not out of malice, not out of calculations, but out of a deep conviction that we are akin to the Antichrist; it’s good if she only thinks she’s crazy and laughs at her ... She seeks knowledge, loves to reason, but only within certain limits, prescribed to her by the basic concepts in which her mind gets confused.

You can communicate some geographical knowledge to the Kalinov residents; but do not touch upon the fact that the earth stands on three whales and that there is the navel of the earth in Jerusalem—they will not yield to you, although they have the same clear idea of ​​the navel of the earth as they have of Lithuania in The Thunderstorm. “This, my brother, what is it?” one civilian asks another, pointing to the picture. “And this is a Lithuanian ruin,” he replies. - Battle! see! How ours fought with Lithuania. “What is this Lithuania?” “So she is Lithuania,” the explainer replies. “And they say, my brother, she fell on us from the sky,” continues the first; but it is not enough for his interlocutor to have such a need: “well, p. the sky so from the sky, ”he answers ... Then the woman intervenes in the conversation:“ talk more! Everyone knows that from the sky; and where there was a battle with her, mounds were poured there for memory. “What, my brother! It's so true!" exclaims the questioner, quite satisfied. And after that ask him what he thinks about Lithuania! All the questions asked here by natural curiosity have a similar outcome. And this is not at all because these people were more stupid and stupid than many others whom we meet in academies and learned societies. No, the whole point is that by their position, by their life under the yoke of arbitrariness, they have all been accustomed to see the lack of accountability and senselessness and therefore find it awkward and even daring to persistently seek out reasonable grounds for anything. Ask a question - there will be more of them; but if the answer is such that “the cannon itself, and the mortar itself,” then they no longer dare to torture further and are humbly content with this explanation. The secret of such indifference to logic lies primarily in the absence of any logic in life relationships. The key to this mystery is given to us, for example, by the following line of Diky in "Thunderstorm". Kuligin, in response to his rudeness, says: “Why, sir Savel Prokofich, would you like to offend an honest man?” Dikoy replies:

Report, or something, I'll give you! I don't report to anyone more important than you. I want to think about you like that, I think so! For others, you are an honest person, but I think that you are a robber - that's all. Would you like to hear it from me? So listen! I say that the robber, and the end. What are you going to sue, or what, will you be with me? So know that you are a worm. If I want - I'll have mercy, if I want - I'll crush.

What theoretical reasoning can stand there. where life is based on such principles! The absence of any law, any logic - that is the law and logic of this life...

Involuntarily, you will stop resonating here, when the fist answers every reason, and in the end the fist always remains right ...

Dobrolyubov N.A. "A Ray of Light in a Dark Realm"

The Thunderstorm by A. N. Ostrovsky made a strong and deep impression on his contemporaries. Many critics were inspired by this work. However, in our time it has not ceased to be interesting and topical. Raised to the category of classical drama, it still arouses interest.

The arbitrariness of the "older" generation lasts for many years, but some event must occur that could break the patriarchal tyranny. Such an event is the protest and death of Katerina, which awakened other representatives of the younger generation.

Let us consider in more detail the characteristics of the main acting heroes.

The wanderer Feklusha is a very significant character in the play. In general, wanderers, blessed and holy fools were a common sign of merchant houses. Ostrovsky quite often mentioned them in his works, but they were always off-stage characters. Some of them wandered for religious reasons (collected funds for the construction of temples, went to worship shrines, etc.).

etc.), others - used the generosity of the population helping the wanderers and simply led an idle life, existing at the expense of others. Faith for such people was just a pretext, with their stories about shrines and miracles, they paid for shelter and alms. Ostrovsky did not like such a sanctimonious manifestation of religiosity, so he always mentioned wanderers and the blessed in ironic tones, characterizing the environment or an individual character with their help. Only in The Thunderstorm did the writer bring such a typical wanderer to the stage, making her an essential character, who then became one of the most famous in the Russian comedy repertoire.

Feklusha does not participate directly in the action of the play, but the significance of her image does not decrease from this. Firstly, she is the most important character, with the help of which the author characterizes the situation in general and, in particular, the image of Kabanikha. Secondly, the dialogue between Feklusha and Kabanikhi plays a very important role in understanding the life philosophy of Kabanikhi, her tragic sense of the collapse of the patriarchal world.

For the first time, Feklusha appears on stage immediately after Kuligin's statement about the "cruel morals" of the city and before the appearance of Kabanikha, mercilessly sawing her children. At the same time, Feklusha heartily praises the house of the Kabanovs for their generosity, confirming Kuligin's words that the Kabanikha is kind only to the poor, and completely ate at home.

The next time the reader meets Feklusha is already in the Kabanovs' house. She advises the girl Glasha to look after the wretched woman so that she does not pull off anything. Glasha gets annoyed, because all the beggars slander each other, and she understands people well and sees for herself who can be trusted. At the same time, listening to Feklusha's stories about other countries, where people walk with dog heads "for infidelity", Glasha ingenuously perceives everything as the truth. This is proved by the fact that Kalinov is a closed world that knows nothing about other lands. Then Feklusha begins to tell Kabanikha about Moscow and the railway. The wanderer assures that according to all the signs, the "end times" are coming. People are fussing, in a hurry somewhere, and even time began to go faster, which means that the end of the world is not far off. The boar listens sympathetically to these speeches, and from her remarks one can judge that she is also aware of the impending collapse of her world.

Thanks to Ostrovsky's play, the name Feklusha has long become a household name and denotes a person who spreads all sorts of ridiculous stories under the guise of pious reasoning.

The play "Thunderstorm" by the famous Russian writer of the XIX century Alexander Ostrovsky, was written in 1859 in the wake of a public upsurge on the eve of social reforms. It became one of the best works of the author, opening the eyes of the whole world to the mores and moral values ​​of the then merchant class. It was first published in the Library for Reading magazine in 1860 and, due to the novelty of its subject matter (descriptions of the struggle of new progressive ideas and aspirations with old, conservative foundations), immediately after publication caused a wide public outcry. She became the subject for writing a large number of critical articles of that time (“A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” by Dobrolyubov, “Motives of Russian Drama” by Pisarev, criticism by Apollon Grigoriev).

History of writing

Inspired by the beauty of the Volga region and its vast expanses during a trip with his family to Kostroma in 1848, Ostrovsky began writing the play in July 1859, after three months he finished it and sent it to the court of St. Petersburg censorship.

Having worked for several years in the office of the Moscow Conscientious Court, he knew well what the merchants were like in Zamoskvorechye (the historical district of the capital, on the right bank of the Moscow River), more than once, on duty, faced with what was happening behind the high fences of the merchants' choir , namely with cruelty, tyranny, ignorance and various superstitions, illegal transactions and scams, tears and suffering of others. The plot of the play is based on the tragic fate of a daughter-in-law in the wealthy merchant family of the Klykovs, which happened in reality: a young woman rushed into the Volga and drowned, unable to withstand the harassment of her imperious mother-in-law, tired of her husband’s spinelessness and secret passion for the postal clerk. Many believed that it was stories from the life of the Kostroma merchants that became the prototype for the plot of the play written by Ostrovsky.

In November 1859, the play was performed on the stage of the Maly Academic Theater in Moscow, and in December of the same year at the Alexandrinsky Drama Theater in St. Petersburg.

Analysis of the work

Story line

At the center of the events described in the play is the wealthy merchant family of the Kabanovs, who live in the fictional Volga city of Kalinovo, a kind of peculiar and closed little world, symbolizing the general structure of the entire patriarchal Russian state. The Kabanov family consists of a domineering and cruel woman-tyrant, and in fact the head of the family, a wealthy merchant and widow Marfa Ignatievna, her son, Tikhon Ivanovich, weak-willed and spineless against the backdrop of the heavy temper of his mother, the daughter of Varvara, who learned by deceit and cunning to resist the despotism of her mother , as well as daughter-in-law Katerina. A young woman, who grew up in a family where she was loved and pitied, suffers in the house of an unloved husband from his lack of will and the claims of her mother-in-law, in fact, having lost her will and becoming a victim of the cruelty and tyranny of the Kabanikh, left to the mercy of fate by a rag-husband.

From hopelessness and despair, Katerina seeks solace in love for Boris Diky, who also loves her, but is afraid to disobey her uncle, the wealthy merchant Savel Prokofich Diky, because the financial situation of him and his sister depends on him. Secretly, he meets with Katerina, but at the last moment he betrays her and runs away, then, at the direction of his uncle, he leaves for Siberia.

Katerina, being brought up in obedience and submission to her husband, tormented by her own sin, confesses everything to her husband in the presence of his mother. She makes the life of her daughter-in-law completely unbearable, and Katerina, suffering from unhappy love, reproaches of conscience and cruel persecution of the tyrant and despot Kabanikhi, decides to end her torment, the only way in which she sees salvation is suicide. She throws herself off a cliff into the Volga and dies tragically.

Main characters

All the characters in the play are divided into two opposing camps, some (Kabanikha, her son and daughter, merchant Dikoy and his nephew Boris, maids Feklusha and Glasha) are representatives of the old, patriarchal way of life, others (Katerina, self-taught mechanic Kuligin) are new, progressive.

A young woman, Katerina, the wife of Tikhon Kabanov, is the central character of the play. She was brought up in strict patriarchal rules, in accordance with the laws of the ancient Russian Domostroy: a wife must obey her husband in everything, respect him, fulfill all his requirements. At first, Katerina tried with all her might to love her husband, to become a submissive and good wife for him, but due to his complete spinelessness and weakness of character, she can only feel pity for him.

Outwardly, she looks weak and silent, but in the depths of her soul there is enough willpower and perseverance to resist the tyranny of her mother-in-law, who is afraid that her daughter-in-law can change her son Tikhon and he will no longer obey the will of his mother. Katerina is cramped and stuffy in the dark realm of life in Kalinovo, she literally suffocates there and in her dreams she flies away like a bird away from this terrible place for her.

Boris

Having fallen in love with the visiting young man Boris, the nephew of a wealthy merchant and businessman, she creates in her head the image of an ideal lover and a real man, which is completely untrue, breaks her heart and leads to a tragic ending.

In the play, Katerina's character is opposed not to a specific person, her mother-in-law, but to the entire existing patriarchal way of life at that time.

Boar

Marfa Ignatyevna Kabanova (Kabanikha), like the merchant-tyrant Dikoy, who tortures and insults his relatives, does not pay wages and deceives his workers, are vivid representatives of the old, petty-bourgeois way of life. They are distinguished by stupidity and ignorance, unjustified cruelty, rudeness and rudeness, complete rejection of any progressive changes in the ossified patriarchal way of life.

Tikhon

(Tikhon, in the illustration near the Kabanikhi - Marfa Ignatievna)

Tikhon Kabanov throughout the play is characterized as a quiet and weak-willed person, who is under the complete influence of a despotic mother. Distinguished by his gentle nature, he makes no attempt to protect his wife from the attacks of his mother.

At the end of the play, he finally breaks down and the author shows his rebellion against tyranny and despotism, it is his phrase at the end of the play that leads readers to a certain conclusion about the depth and tragedy of the current situation.

Features of compositional construction

(Fragment from a dramatic production)

The work begins with a description of the city on the Volga of Kalinov, whose image is a collective image of all Russian cities of that time. The landscape of the Volga expanses depicted in the play contrasts with the musty, dull and gloomy atmosphere of life in this city, which is emphasized by the dead isolation of the life of its inhabitants, their underdevelopment, dullness and wild lack of education. The author described the general state of urban life as if before a thunderstorm, when the old, dilapidated way of life is shaken, and new and progressive trends, like a gust of furious thunderstorm wind, will carry away outdated rules and prejudices that prevent people from living normally. The period of life of the inhabitants of the city of Kalinov described in the play is just in a state when outwardly everything looks calm, but this is only the calm before the coming storm.

The genre of the play can be interpreted as a social drama, as well as a tragedy. The first is characterized by the use of a thorough description of living conditions, the maximum transfer of its "density", as well as the alignment of characters. The attention of readers should be distributed among all participants in the production. The interpretation of the play as a tragedy suggests its deeper meaning and solidity. If we see in the death of Katerina the consequence of her conflict with her mother-in-law, then she looks like a victim of a family conflict, and all the unfolding action in the play seems small and insignificant for a real tragedy. But if we consider the death of the main character as a conflict of a new, progressive time with a fading, old era, then her act is best interpreted in a heroic way, characteristic of a tragic narrative.

The talented playwright Alexander Ostrovsky from the social drama about the life of the merchant class gradually creates a real tragedy, in which, with the help of a love and domestic conflict, he showed the onset of an epoch-making turning point in the minds of the people. Ordinary people are aware of the awakening sense of their own dignity, they begin to relate to the world around them in a new way, they want to decide their own destinies and fearlessly express their will. This nascent desire comes into irreconcilable contradiction with the real patriarchal way of life. The fate of Katerina acquires a social historical meaning, expressing the state of the people's consciousness at the turning point of two eras.

Alexander Ostrovsky, who noticed in time the doom of decaying patriarchal foundations, wrote the play "Thunderstorm" and opened the eyes of the entire Russian public to what was happening. He depicted the destruction of the usual, outdated way of life, with the help of the ambiguous and figurative concept of a thunderstorm, which, gradually growing, will sweep away everything from its path and open the way for a new, better life.