Synopsis of a lesson in literature on the topic "A.N. Ostrovsky. "Thunderstorm"

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As is known. There are several types of literary text analysis. Motivational analysis seemed to us the most interesting, as it gives students the opportunity to show creative initiative, demonstrating the level of erudition. This work contributes to the development critical thinking, the ability to independently construct their knowledge, navigate in the information space

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Work with the text of the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". Research

Motive "will-captivity"

The opposition motive of will-bondage is manifested, first of all, through the opposition of limited and unlimited space. The space in the drama has two polar beginnings: "here" and "there".
"Here" - everything is sparse and limited to the public garden. "Here" - captivity.
Bondage, according to Dahl, is not a simple thing, lack of freedom, coercion, subservience to force, dependence, obedience to someone else's will, an external limitation of desire, desire and action itself.
And "there" beyond the Volga - a rural view, fields, unlimited space. "There" is will.
Will - freedom, scope in actions. Power and strength, moral ability, right, power.
In folk literature, in poetic speech, the words volyushka - polyushko are synonymous (compare with Lermontov: And so they found a large field, there is a roam where in the wild).
The song that Kuligin sings depicts a Russian flat landscape, spreading without end and edge: “In the middle of a flat valley, at a smooth height ...”
A public garden with sparse vegetation evokes antithetical associations.
-The Biblical Garden of Eden. "And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and settled there the man whom he had created."

Garden of Gethsemane B. Pasternak: "At the end there was someone's garden ... The expanse of the universe was uninhabited. And only the garden was a place to live."
Thus, in one word - the garden, at the very beginning of the drama, the motive of the atoning sacrifice is introduced, which is necessary for the moral purification of the life of the city of Kalinov, overflowing with malice and hatred. Katerina will be such a victim.
In the second action of the drama, an even greater "narrowing" of space takes place - a room in the Kabanovs' house. The feeling of a cramped enclosed space does not suit even the ignorant maid in the Kabanovs' house - Glasha.

In its own way, it “strives” to freedom, tries to expand its “environment”: “and we are sitting here, we don’t know anything.”

The third action takes place on the street. The "limit" of what is permitted is immediately set - the gate of the Kabanovs' house. There is a bench in front of the gate: "look at me in people, but on the street, you don't care about my family."

The word gate is etymologically related to the word gate - collar. And when the gate is unbuttoned, then the people say: "the soul is wide open." Therefore, "opened the gate, opened the soul."
In the city of Kalinovo, “everyone’s gates have been locked for a long time ... and they are not locked from thieves, but so that people don’t see how they eat their own home, and tyrannize their family. And that tears flow behind these constipations; invisible and inaudible."
Nobody knows the soul of the Kalinovites - "The family is a secret, secret matter." Scene 2 of Act 3 takes place at night. A ravine covered with bushes. At the top there is a fence of the Kabanovs' garden and a gate; at the top there is a path.
The action moves into the night, into the darkness. Under the cover of night, “dark” deeds are usually performed, this is the time when the forces of darkness are released. The space turns out to be looped: the bottom-ravine is “a deep long depression on the surface of the earth”, the top is a fence and a gate under constipation. Among the people, ravines were considered “ an unclean place", a refuge of dark forces.
Katerina, in her dreams, has already visited a similar place: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me. And there’s nothing to hold me for.”
The ravine behind the Kabanovs' garden will become the abyss where Katerina will "die".
Katerina: Why do you want my death?

Boris: Am I a villain?
Katerina (shaking her head): Ruined, ruined, ruined! ... Well, how did you not ruin me, if I, leaving the house, go to you at night.
Boris: It was your will.
Katerina: I have no will. If I had my own will, I wouldn’t go to you ... Now your will is over me, don’t you see!
This is followed by the remark “It throws itself on his neck.” The semantic load of the verb is thrown in two ways (this duality is confirmed by the “werewolves” of the motive.
On the one hand, it rushes and falls down.

On the other hand, he throws himself up, raising his hands to hug his neck, therefore upwards. Again, in the changed conditions, the motive of flight appears: “When you stand on a mountain, you are drawn to fly. That's how I would have run up, raised my hands and flew.
Love and will merge inextricably in Katerina's soul, she is ready to follow her beloved to the ends of the world, that is, to expand her living space to infinity: “if you beckoned, I would follow you; even if you go to the ends of the world, I would follow you and not look back. Only here's the trouble, not the man Boris, who could lead his beloved, he himself is forced. He has no strength! And Katerina, going down the path, goes through her "seven circles of hell" and eventually finds herself under the vaults of an old building that begins to collapse, where heavenly - earthly - underground spaces merge.
Lady: Where are you hiding, stupid! You can't get away from God! ... All in the fire you will burn inextinguishable.
Katerina comes up to the wall, kneels down to pray, then quickly jumps up.
- Ah! Hell! Hell! Gehenna fiery!
Next comes the scene of Katerina's public repentance, which ends with the words of Kabanova: What, son! Where will the will lead!
The remarks of the 1st, 4th and 5th acts help answer the question of where the will leads.
The river from the stage direction of the first act is the spatial boundary that separates will from bondage.
Kuligin says: “I look at the Volga and I can’t see enough. The view is extraordinary! Beauty!"
From the first appearance, the motive of will-bondage is intertwined with the motive of "beauty". Motives are as fluid as the course of the Volga River. Being formed, the motive loses its separateness, discreteness, repeating in other combinations: will - bondage, will - life, will - death, will - beauty.
Will and beauty act as mutually consequential, interchangeable concepts. The remark of the 4th act “behind the arches is the shore and the view of the Volga”, as it were, duplicates the words of the half-crazy lady that “It’s better with beauty in the pool! Yes, hurry, hurry” And the scenery of the 5th act, repeating the scenery of the 1st “closes” the spatial circle, leaving the heroine only one way out - to the Volga. Katerina runs away from home to say goodbye to Boris, arbitrarily pushing the space apart, not being afraid of punishment for her act. She not only does not hide, does not hide, but loudly, at the top of her voice, calls her beloved: “My joy, my life, my soul, I love you! Reply!" And, as in a fairy tale, her lover hears a voice and appears, but not to save, protect her beloved, but only to “cry” for her unfortunate lot.
Katerina: You are a free Cossack.
Boris: I can't, Katya. I'm not going of my own free will; uncle sends.
At the thought of violence: “But they will catch me, but they will forcefully return me home,” Katerina exclaims: “Hurry! Hurry!” And then again the motive word - deed:
The woman jumped into the water!
Since ancient times, the Slavs worshiped the rivers, believed that they all flow to the end of the bright white, where the sun rises from the sea, to the country of truth and goodness.
Since childhood, Katerina has been looking for protection by the river - mother from resentment, untruth, evil:
- I was born so hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, but it was in the evening (and in% the effect of twilight is evening), it was already dark, I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore.
- In the Russian folk tale "Geese - Swans", a girl, fleeing from her pursuers, turns to the river with a request to save, protect her from them:
- The river is mother, save, protect, shelter me in your banks.
And the river helps the girl escape from her pursuers. Katerina's inner world is in constant motion. Every minute of her state is fluid and contradictory. Involuntarily, a semantic association arises Katerina - a river! Tracing the movement of the dialogue between Kabanova and Katerina, you are convinced that the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law speak simply different languages. Katerina Kabanova objects to the sincere words:
-What did you jump out, in the eyes - then prick! So that everyone can see how much you love your husband? So we know, we know, in the eyes - then you prove it to everyone.
Katerina is deeply offended by the suspicion that for Kabanova it seems quite natural:

You are talking about me, mother, in vain. With people, that without people, I'm all alone, I don't prove anything from myself.

Yes, even by the way, why are you offended by me? …

In vain - now who is pleased!
The heroine’s rejection of slander and evil ceases to be ready to leave the world if everything in it gets cold: “And if I get too cold here, they won’t hold me by any force. IN I'll throw out the window I'll throw the Volga." Through the motive will-bondage, moral and personal viability is manifested - the failure of the heroes, that is, the motive is transformed into a test of the heroes.
The general assessment of life in Kalinovo - captivity is given by two completely different characters in the drama.
Kuligin:
- Cruel morals, sir, in our city. Cruel.
Feklusha:
- Blah - alepie, dear! Blah - alepie! Wonderful beauty you live in the promised world.
The rhythm of the phrase, the repetition of the main word are the same, but their meaning is diametrically opposed. Different assessments of the "dark kingdom", colliding, mutually complement each other.
1.Savel Prokofievich Wild- this evil released into the wild. His very first remark is a curse at the wordless, unrequited nephew of Boris. Dikoy believes that “he has a place everywhere”, that is, he is “spatially” unlimited. His self-will and arrogance are based on wealth, power, money:
- Why are you suing, what will you do with me? So you know that you are a worm. If I want - I will have mercy, if I want - I will crush.
But one episode gives reason to think about whether such a transformation will happen to the willful Sabel, which happened to his biblical namesake - Saul? “From Saul to become Paul” (see the motif of “Thunderstorm” Saul, the persecutor of Christians). Once Saul heard a voice from heaven, reproaching him for dirty deeds. The shocked Saul took the name Paul (“paulus” - small, insignificant) and changed to the opposite.
Where will the will lead! Kabanova exclaims.
Hypothetically, the will leads to repentance.
The will, willfulness of the Wild show the duality of his nature.
“I scolded a man on a holiday ... After asked for forgiveness, bowed to him, right so. Truly I tell you: I bowed at the peasant's feet ... bowed to him in front of everyone.
Compare with the episode of Katerina's public repentance: “My whole heart broke! I can't take it anymore, Mother! Tikhon! I am a sinner before God and before you!”
Katerina's repentance is born from a sense of guilt and moral torment, Diky's false repentance is similar to his tyrannical deeds. He understands that he is doing badly, but as long as there is no more strong-willed - strong over him, he will be like that, “there is no one to reproach you,” Kabanova will say. Perhaps he, like Saul, will hear a voice from heaven?!?

2. Barbara
Free nature. She does not want to endure the power of her mother, does not want to live in "captivity". But she easily adapts to the morality of the "dark kingdom", embarking on the path of deception. This becomes habitual for her, because the whole house "is based on deceit": "And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary." Everyday rules its simple: "do whatever you want, if only it was sewn and covered."
Although Kuligin speaks of the possibility of will - freedom for young boys and girls in the "not free" Kalinov, he immediately makes a reservation:
- So these people steal another hour from sleep, well, they walk in pairs. Freedom - will for another hour, and then again under lock and key, into captivity.
Lyrics of the song - signal “Everyone is home, everyone is home!
And I want to go home! expresses the psychological state of captivity, anticipates further development events.
“The mother sharpened Varvara, sharpened, but she could not stand it, and she was like that, she took it and left.” The author does not try to clarify her fate. Giving free rein to our imagination. Do not forget that Varvara and Kudryash, who broke free, are poisoned dark kingdom. They will probably repeat the path of Kabanova and Dikoy, but in the changed conditions of the 60s and 70s of the XIX century. For them, a new cycle begins. A new circle of life outside the space of drama.

3.Tikhon

Initially, Tikhon is quiet, unresponsive, completely subordinate to the will of his mother:
- You see what other mind you have. And you still want to live by your will.
- Yes, I, mother, do not want to live by my own will. Where can I live with my will.
Tikhon's will is fettered, he is pathetic, impersonal.
Sending her son on business to another city, the mother punishes:
-If you want to listen to your mother. So, when you get there, do as I ordered you.
Khanzhesky sounds a conditional clause "if you want" when next to the verb - ordered (did not advise, did not ask, but ordered).
- Yes, how can I, mother, disobey you.
-Not very much - now the elders are respected.
- I, it seems, mother, out of will I want to. Well, then, wait, live in the wild when I'm gone.
-Think how you want, everything is your will; only I don’t know what kind of unfortunate person I was born into the world that I can’t please you with anything.
Before leaving, the mother gives the last instruction to her son. Varvara says this about their conversation:

They sit locked up with their mother. She sharpens it now, like rusting iron.
- ... It will be two weeks on the road, a secret matter! ... Her heart is aching all over. That he is walking on his own ...
Katerina remarks: “And in the wild, he seems to be bound.”
-Yes. How connected! He will go out and drink. He is now listening, and he himself is thinking how he could break out as soon as possible.
In act five, Varvara's words materialize in Tikhon's story about his trip to Moscow:
- I went to Moscow, you know? On the way, my mother read, read me an instruction. And as I left, I took a walk. I am very glad that I broke free. And he drank all the way, and in Moscow he drank everything, so it's a bunch, what the heck! So, to take a whole year off.
Tikhon's revelry and drunkenness is associated with a witches' coven. He can't dispose of his will, he doesn't know what to use it for, and therefore he returns not in two weeks, but in ten days. Dobrolyubov wrote: “It is known that extremes are reflected by extremes and that the strongest protest is

the one that rises at last from the breasts of the weak and patient."

In the last scene, the downtrodden, forced Tikhon shouts:
- Mom, you ruined her! You, you, you.

And further, after the formidable cry of the mother:
-What you? Al don't remember yourself! Forgot who you're talking to!
- You ruined her! You! You!
The threefold repetition of the pronouns "you" gives firmness to the statement, in contrast to a single one.
It can be assumed that in the depths of the soul lives in Tikhon kindness and generosity. He says about his wife:
I'm sorry to look at her...
If not for his mother, he is ready to forgive Katerina, he tries to support and even hug her at the moment of repentance.
In Tikhon lives an inner, albeit very weak, light of will in a servile position. Apparently, a formidable cry from his mother will return him to a servile position. How to know?!
Tikhon tells Kuligin about another illusory opportunity to break out of captivity:
- No, they say, my mind. And, therefore, live as a stranger. I’ll take it and drink the last one I have; let my mother then with me, like a fool, and babysit ...

4.Boris
It turns out to be in captivity at will (play on words) - the will of the grandmother. He will receive part of the inheritance if he is respectful to his uncle - Wild:
- This means ... that you will never see your inheritance.
Then why endure humiliation, insults, why not leave?
It turns out that he is kept in “captivity” by pity for his sister “I left everything, and left,” that is, I was freed, turned out to be free Katerina tells Boris “you are a free Cossack”, but these are just words, he is not free and not a Cossack in general, he lives with his uncle, fulfills his will: "do what they order." Boris's life is the constant fulfillment of someone else's will (requirements, shouts, orders). Katerina's attraction to him, not distinguished by either masculinity or strength of nature, apparently began with pity, sympathy for a person who was in an even more servile position than she was. But her chosen one only complains “after all, I walk completely dead, driven, hammered.” Even in love, Boris is pathetic, weak-willed. On the one hand, he claims: “I love you more than anything in the world, more than myself!” . When circumstances require action, that is, the realization of the motive "word - deed", he can only mumble:
- I can’t ... I’m not going of my own free will.

5. Katerina
"A ray of light in a dark kingdom" called Dobrolyubov Katerina. This "ray" appeared from the outside, it was formed in Kalinov's living conditions.
Katerina's life in her parents' house and in her mother-in-law's house can be presented as an opposition: the house is an anti-house, where the will of the heroine conflicts with the closed way of reality.

Preview:

Municipal budgetary educational institution

Altai secondary school

Research

(Literature)

The study of the motive "will-bondage" in the drama "Thunderstorm" by A.N. Ostrovsky

The work of a 10th grade student

At the end of Valentine

Head: Tsykunova Victoria Anatolyevna,

Teacher of Russian language and literature

2015-2016 academic year

1. Substantiation of the research topic, its relevance, goals, tasks pp. 1-4

2. Main body:

a) Introduction to the research topic pp. 5-7

b) Work with the text of the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". Research pp. 8-14

Motive "will-captivity".

3. Conclusion page

4. List of used literature p.

Subject research “Study of the motive “will-bondage” in the drama of A.N. Ostrovsky “Thunderstorm”, was not chosen by chance.

At literature lessons, when studying the works of A.N. Ostrovsky we

used one of the modern approaches to the analysis of literary works - motivational analysis

object research is a manifestation of the motive "will-bondage" in the drama

A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

Subject research is the text of the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

Research objectives:

1) Clarification of the role of the motive "will-bondage" to reveal the content of the work, the characteristics of the heroes of the drama.

2) Expanding the reader's horizons through involvement in

research activity.

3) Development of cognitive skills and critical thinking skills

4) Development of skills to independently construct their knowledge.

5) Development of the ability to navigate in the information space.

Research objectives:

1. Compare the manifestation of motive in different situations with different heroes.

1. Draw analogies.

3) Analyze the text.

4) Systematize the results

Research methods:

1) Partial search

2) Analytical

3) Reproductive

Relevance of the topic :

When an essay is returned to the practice of final certification, knowledge of the texts of literary works becomes of great value. successful delivery USE and examination essay.

Hypothesis:
The basis for putting forward the hypothesis was the statement of B. Gasparov: “The principle of leitmotiv construction is that a certain motive, once it has arisen, then repeats many times, entering each time in a new version, in new outlines and in all new combinations with other motives »

Introduction to the research topic

Motivational analysis is one of the new approaches to the analysis of a literary text. In literary criticism, there are two understandings of the term "motive".

The motive in a literary work is most often understood as a part, an element of the plot. Any plot is an interweaving of motifs that are closely related to each other, growing into one another.

One and the same motif can underlie a variety of plots and thus have a variety of meanings.

The strength and meaning of a motive change depending on what other motives it is adjacent to. The motive is sometimes very deeply hidden, but the deeper it lies, the more content it can carry. It sets off or complements the main, main theme of the work, not without reason for most people the word “motive” means singing a melody - it retains something of this meaning as a literary term. In poetry, almost any word can become a motif; in the lyrics, the word-motive is always shrouded in a cloud of former meanings and uses, around it the halo of former meanings “shines”.
The motive, according to the definition of A.N. Veselovsky, is the “nerve node” of the narrative. Touching such a node causes an explosion of aesthetic emotions, which is necessary for the artist, sets in motion a chain of associations that help the correct perception of the work, enriching it.
The motive, as a rule, exists immediately with two signs, in two guises, implies the existence of a motive - an antonym, and this does not mean at all that the motives will exist in one work. It is important for the development of literature that the motifs seem to echo each other not only and not so much within one plot, one work, but also across the boundaries of books and even literatures. Therefore, by the way, it is possible to study not only the system of motives belonging to one artist, but also the general network of motives used in the literature of a certain time, a certain direction, in one or another national literature.
Understood as an element of the plot, the motif borders on the notion of a theme. The understanding of the motive as a plot unit in literary criticism coexists and opposes the understanding of it as a kind of bunch of feelings, ideas, ideas, even ways of expression. Understood in this way, the motive is already approaching the image and can develop in this direction and develop into an image. The motive is two-faced, it is at the same time a representative of tradition and a sign of novelty. But the motive is just as dual within itself; it is not an indecomposable unit, it is, as a rule, formed by two opposing forces, it presupposes conflict within itself, transforming itself into action.
A motive is a category that allows us to consider literature as a single book, as a whole - through the particular, as an organism - through the cell.
Following B. Gasparov, the founder of motivic analysis, we understand the motive as an extrastructural beginning of the work, as the property of not only the text and its creator, but also the unrestricted thought of the interpreter of the work. "The properties of the motive grow each time anew in the process of the analysis itself, depending on which contexts of the writer's work the scientist refers to."
The principle of the leitmotif construction of the narrative, according to Gasparov, is that a certain motive, once having arisen, is then repeated many times, appearing each time in a new version, new outlines and in ever new combinations with other motives. At the same time, any phenomenon, any semantic "spot" - an event, a character trait, an element of the landscape, any object, a spoken word, paint, sound, can act as a motive. The only thing that defines a motif is its reproduction in the text, so that unlike the traditional plot narrative, where it is more or less predetermined what can be considered discrete components ("characters" or "events"), there is no given "alphabet » - it is formed directly in the deployment of the structure and through the structure. As a result, any fact loses its separateness and unity, because at any moment both can turn out to be illusory; the individual components of this fact will be repeated in other combinations, and it breaks up into a number of motives and at the same time becomes inseparable from other motives, originally introduced in connection with a seemingly completely different fact.
The motivic connections found in the structure of the work and the semantic associations that arise on their basis can be far from equivalent. Some connections are quite obvious, repeatedly confirmed at various points in the story; others turn out to be weaker and more problematic, since they appear only at isolated points (do not receive multiple confirmation) or are generally secondary in nature, arising as derivatives not directly from the text of the work, but even secondary associations awakened by this text.

As a result, in our perception of the work, a certain central semantic area appears, and along with this, peripheral areas surrounding it. The latter are filled with an open set of less and less obvious, more and more problematic associations, connections, parallels, going to infinity. form an open field, giving the meaning of the work features of openness and infinity, which is an integral feature of the mythological structure; an important positive function of peripheral associations lies in the identification of this feature.

Mythology, myth are the soil on which written culture arises and develops, the source from which it draws its original themes and forms. Myths were created to explain, comprehend what was happening in the world. Gradually, the myth was stratified into a fairy tale, religion and history. And still mythological images retained their meaning, they became ambiguous.
The science of the 19th century revealed the general universal themes of any mythology, and many writers began to consciously build their works in such a way that they were perceived against the background of these mythological models and from this acquired a deeper and more meaningful meaning.
The word myth is often used in a figurative sense, this is the name given to multifaceted works in which the authors generalize the eternal laws of human existence.
Since the author of any literary text tries to talk about eternal problems existence, then any work of art is a myth.
Myth is thus seen as a transhistorical generator of literature.
The work is a reflection on the article by B.Gasparov on the essence of motivic analysis.

The object of the study of the motive structure was the text of the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm".

The perceiving subject (reader, researcher) of the text initially enters into a subject-objective relationship with the text. As the text is repeatedly read, it would seem that the “primary truth” is revealed that life is a theater, and we are actors in it, then an associative paradigm is built: drama-theatre-life. The level of the researcher's relationship with the text changes qualitatively. These are no longer subjective-objective relations, but subject-subject ones. Each replica, each author's note, each word evokes more and more new semantic associations that line up in certain sequences, cycles that immediately transform into new ones and so on ad infinitum, that is, until the researcher's education, well-readness, his ability to see, hear, to compare, to compare, to generalize, to systematize. At the same time, there is always the possibility that an association that has arisen in our minds, but is not sufficiently confirmed in the text, looks like this only in so far as we have not noticed its confirmation at another point in the text.
Despite the fact that the author of the work sees his task in clarifying the motives in the text of the drama and trying to interpret them, he believes that it is basically impossible to identify all the motives, just as it is impossible to explain life in all its infinity of manifestations.

In this work, we explore one motive - "will-bondage" in all its manifestations and relationships.

Preview:

Parental home - paradise Life in the parental home seems to be “a lost paradise precisely because she lived with her mother, “she didn’t grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild” ... There was no violence or coercion in the parental home. In her dreams, Katerina seems to fly, and flies through the air ... - I was born so hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, but it was in the evening, it was already dark; I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat, and pushed it away from the shore. The next morning they already found it, ten miles away!

mother-in-law's house is hell Blooming together with nature, Katerina’s soul fades in a hostile environment: “I have withered completely ...” “Yes, everything here seems to be from bondage.” And now he dreams, but rarely, but not that. - And bondage is bitter, oh, how bitter! ... I live, toil, I don’t see a gap for myself! ... If not the mother-in-law! She crushed me... From her, and the house is disgusted: the walls are even disgusting. “And if it gets too cold for me here, they won’t hold me back by any force. I'll throw myself out the window, I'll throw myself into the Volga. I don’t want to live here, I won’t, even if you cut me!

Why don't people fly? - asks Katerina. This speaks in her desire to break free, to live differently from how they live around. Apparently, therefore, the spiritual world of Katerina is closed to Varvara:
- You're kind of tricky, God bless you. And in my opinion, do whatever you want, as long as it is sewn and covered.
Suffocating in the mother-in-law's house, longing for will, for love, for truly bright and good relations, Katerina does not put up with bondage, the thought of how to leave the hateful house is born in her mind. “It will make me so stuffy at home that I would run.” What beckons her there, behind the boar fence? All the same dream of freedom, nature, songs, love: "... I would now ride on the Volga in a boat, with songs, or in a troika, on a good one, hugging ...". The heroine will find herself on the banks of the Volga, but not in order to unite with her beloved, Boris is too weak and weak-willed, but in order to finally make her cherished flight to freedom, to the Lord.
“I would look from heaven to earth and rejoice in everything,” there is no opposition, the grave is home, there is no hopelessness, there is no despair.

Conclusion:
An attempt to study the manifestation of the "will-bondage" motive in A.N. Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm" allows us to draw some conclusions:
1. Taken for research, the oppositional motive “will-bondage” manifests itself in interconnection, interdependence, interdependence.
2. It turned out to be enough to "touch" one manifestation of the motive, so that new and new manifestations of the motive begin to turn on, expanding the spatial and temporal layers of the narrative to infinity.
3. It is not possible to make an exhaustive analysis of the motive structure of the work. One can only try, highlighting some motive, one way or another to interpret it, as far as the level of education, erudition, and general erudition of the researcher allows. The will-or-no-will motif arises in the first act of the drama as the space “here” and “there” runs through the entire drama, narrowing in the second act, expanding in the third act, and so on. causing more and more new associations of the researcher.
4. The study of the motive "will-force" expands our reader's horizons, the ability to navigate in the information space. We believe that a new independent analysis of a work in order to reveal its content will help in creating original text when writing an examination essay and writing an essay when passing the exam.

List of used literature:

1) Abraham Maslow Motivation and Personality M, Science 2002
2) Active Forms teaching literature R.I. Albetkova M, Enlightenment 1994
3) Bible M, 2002
4) Bulgakov M.A. "Master and Margarita" Nov. "Science" 1993
5) Bunin I.A. "Sir from San Francisco. The poetics of the cycle Dark alleys» Clean Monday
6) Byliny M, Enlightenment 1981

7) Vartanyan From the life of words ..., M, Enlightenment 1979

8) Introduction to literary criticism Barnaul ASPI
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18) Zepalova T. O. Methodological guide ... M, Enlightenment 1978

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40) Chekhov A.P. Plays by M. Bustard 2002

IgorSukhikh

RUSSIAN LITERATURE. XIX CENTURY

Storm (1859)

New drama: a monument to thousand-year-old Russia

"Columbus of Zamoskvorechye" is a familiar metaphor referring to Ostrovsky. Indeed, merchant's Moscow, spread out just opposite the Kremlin, was his homeland and his original theme. "Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky resident" - his first prose experience was called. But as his work developed, the narrowness and insufficiency of even this flattering definition for the playwright became clear. Zamoskvorechye turned out to be only the starting point on the map of the world created by Ostrovsky.

In 1874, Goncharov was about to write a critical article about Ostrovsky (the article was never finished, its materials were published many years after the writer's death). The author of Oblomov, who himself suffered a lot from the inattention of criticism, once gave a review of The Thunderstorm (after which Ostrovsky received the honorary Uvarov Prize), tried to indicate a new scale of what Ostrovsky had done in Russian literature.

All Ostrovsky's plays, Goncharov argued, add up to one huge picture depicting "the life not of the city of Moscow, but the life of the Moscow, that is, the Great Russian state.<...>This painting is "The Thousand-Year-Old Monument of Russia".<...>Lived a thousand years old Russia- and Ostrovsky erected a thousand-year-old monument to her.

In "Thunderstorm" best play Ostrovsky, the image of a thousand-year-old, historical Russia found the most concentrated expression.

Like any remarkable writer of modern times (the literature of antiquity was built according to different laws), Ostrovsky, relying on tradition, updates it. Drama as a literary genre remained one of the most conservative forms of art in the 19th century. Its themes expanded: along with the extreme states in which the characters found themselves, the drama, like the novel, began to depict the phenomena of “ordinary, prosaic life” (Belinsky). Accordingly, its architectonics became more complex, its emotional range became more diverse: those that determined the development of the old drama laughter And tears freely mixed now within the same work.

So within the framework of the dramatic kind appeared new genre: drama(in the narrow sense of the word), drama as such, which almost destroyed the old high tragedy and significantly pressed comedy.

This new drama gradually abolished what was considered mandatory for the drama of the old principle of three unities. (“One event, contained in a day,
/ In a single place, let it flow on the stage, / Only in this case it will captivate us, ”N. Boileau, the French theorist of classicism, strictly warned).
In "Woe from Wit" they are still observed in full. In The Inspector General, the unity of time is no longer there (the time of the comedy takes more than a day), although the other two are still available. In Boris Godunov there is neither unity of place nor unity of time.

Unity of action has traditionally been considered the most important and strict.
Unlike the novel, which “blurts everything to the end” (Pushkin), the dramatic conflict had to flow from one source and naturally, consistently develop according to the laws of the plot, without delaying or deviating to the side. Moreover, in the drama there should not have been “superfluous” characters that are not related to the main conflict and plot. So run as fast as possible. exposure and go to eyeballs, which usually denotes the seed of a dramatic conflict, was considered the playwright's first duty. Gogol was proud that he managed to put the plot of The Inspector General into one sentence. “I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you the unpleasant news: the auditor is coming to us,” says the Governor. “How is the auditor? How is the auditor? - the officials are frightened, - and the action rolled (and the exposition - the state of the city before the arrival of the auditor - the cunning playwright will outline in dotted lines, after the plot).

The Thunderstorm, from this point of view, is the wrong play. It at least partially preserves the unity of place (everything happens, if not in one house, then in one city), the unity of time is violated (between the third and fourth acts, as it is said in the remark, ten days pass, the fifth act unfolds even later), but the unity of action undergoes the most fundamental transformation. The conflict relations between Katerina and Kabanova are outlined only in the fifth phenomenon of the first act, the plot of the love drama is shifted to the end of the second act (Katerina receives the key and decides to go on a date), another love story develops in parallel (Kudryash - Varvara), and some important characters (Kuligin, Feklusha, the crazy lady), seems to have nothing to do with the plot at all.

In 1874, having learned that The Thunderstorm was going to be translated into French, Ostrovsky wrote to Turgenev: “I highly appreciate the ability of the French to make plays and I am afraid to offend their delicate taste with my terrible ineptitude.
From the French point of view, the construction of the Thunderstorm is ugly, but it must be admitted that it is generally not very coherent. When I wrote The Thunderstorm, I got carried away with finishing the main roles and treated the form with unforgivable frivolity ... "Further on, the playwright proposed to remake the play so that it would become only" a little worse than the French. It was so easy for Ostrovsky to abandon his masterpiece. He was so strict with his work. Fortunately, this intention remained unfulfilled: we know the Russian "Thunderstorm", and not a "well-made play" in the French spirit.

In an effort to explain not what is not in Ostrovsky's dramas, but what is in them There is, Dobrolyubov came up with a special genre definition for them. “Already in Ostrovsky’s previous plays, we noticed that these were not comedies of intrigue and not comedies of characters proper, but something new, to which we would give the name “plays of life.”<...>We want to say that in his foreground is always the general environment of life, independent of any of the characters. It can be said that the plot in the "plays of life" is built not only on the plot. The “environment of life” itself becomes the plot, and the plot turns out to be only a part of the characteristics of this environment. The life and customs of the city of Kalinov in The Thunderstorm are no less important characters than Katerina or Kabanikha. For a more complete and detailed depiction of this life, Ostrovsky needed many characters unnecessary for the plot.

Hearing Realist: Patterned Language

The “finishing of roles” (and not necessarily the main ones) is done by the playwright, first of all, with the help of speeches. The intricately constructed artistic conversations in Ostrovsky's plays often make one forget about the complex intrigue in the French spirit.

The poet and critic I. F. Annensky called Ostrovsky a “realist-hearing”: “This is a virtuoso of sound images: merchants, wanderers, factory workers and teachers of the Latin language, Tatars, gypsies, actors and sex workers, bars, clerks and petty bureaucrats - Ostrovsky gave a huge gallery of typical
speeches, unfortunately, often not devoid of caricature, more spectacularly bright than subtly truthful. The paradox of a genuine work of art, however, lies in the fact that brightness eventually turns into truthfulness.

Indeed, the characters in The Thunderstorm speak wonderfully. The frank rudeness of Diky, the dryness and will of Kabanova hidden behind hypocrisy, Feklusha's ingenuous ignorance, Kudryash's boldness and irony, Kuligin's old-fashioned pathos and constant quotation, Katerina's poetry and lyricism are perfectly conveyed in their speech. Heroes of Ostrovsky, without even seeing the play on stage, but simply reading it, one must learn hear. The monologues of Kudryash, Feklusha or Katerina, short remarks of nameless passers-by can bring artistic pleasure in themselves, as an example of a word game, a sound score by a wonderful playwright.

Prefabricated city: life according to the laws of "Domostroy"

Speaking of The Inspector General, Gogol came up with a wonderful definition of the play's chronotope (although at the same time he gave it an abstract moral character): "prefabricated city" Kalinov is also not an ordinary provincial town of the pre-reform era, but, like the scene in The Inspector General, it is a “prefabricated city”, the way of life in which has developed in the mists of time, in ancient Russian history.

The play begins with a look into the distance. From the high bank of the Volga, two people look at the landscape spread out before them. “Miracles ... - admires one. - For fifty years I have been looking beyond the Volga every day and I can’t see enough of everything.<…>The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices!” Another indifferently objects: “What?<…>Something.<...>Well, what's the deal with you! You are an antique, a chemist.” Curly finds Kuligin's admiration strange. He switches to city affairs with greater interest: “This is scolding the Wild nephew.<…>He got Boris Grigoryevich as a sacrifice ... ”So in the very first phrases, the general atmosphere of city life is outlined. Against the background of a magnificent landscape, the usual life goes on and the first victim appears.

A general description of the life of urban life is given by the same Kuligin. “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! In philistinism, sir, you will see nothing but rudeness and bare poverty. And we, sir, will never get out of this bark! Because honest labor will never earn us more daily bread. And whoever has money, sir, he tries to enslave the poor, so that for his labors free more money make money” (d. 1, yavl. 3). Here the poles of urban life are defined. The central figure of this bleak picture is the merchant Wild. He makes money wrong. “A lot of people stay with me in a year; you understand: I won’t pay them any pennies per person, but I make thousands of this, so it’s good for me! - he confesses to the mayor. He tyrannizes at home, including a nephew awaiting inheritance. “Who will please him if his whole life is based on cursing?” - Curly asks rhetorically.

This "piercing man" is accustomed to the absolute humility and resignation of those around him. “And the honor is not great, because you have been fighting with the women all your life,” Kabanova accurately notices (d. 2, yavl. 2). But any attempt to resist causes the Wild desire to recoup on people who are completely subordinate to him. Kudryash says that after he scolded the hussars on the ferry, the family hid from his anger in closets and attics for two weeks.

Curly himself is not afraid of Wild, although he serves as his clerk. He also responds to the owner’s abuse with abuse: “He is the word, and I am ten; spit, and go." In reserve, he also has such a means of influence: “Four of us, five of us in an alley somewhere would talk to him face to face, so he would become silk” (case 1, appearance 1).

He knows how to speak with Diky and Kabanova, answering his rudeness no less sharply: “Well, don’t open your throat too much! Find me cheaper! (d. 3, yavl. 2). After such a rebuke, set out in an economic language understandable to the merchant, the tipsy Dikoy resigns himself and begins a normal and even sincere conversation with his godfather: “Here’s what: talk to me so that my heart passes. You are the only one in the whole city who knows how to talk to me.

The second influential figure in the city is just Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, Kabanikha. Her difference from the godfather is determined by Kudryash at the beginning of the first act: “Well, yes, at least she, at least, is all under the guise of piety, but this one has broken loose!” Wild is an outright tyrant who understands that even by Kalinov's standards he lives unrighteously, sinfully, for which he blames his "hot heart". Having out of habit scolded a peasant who came to ask for money, he can then bow at his feet and repent (which manifests a peculiar perversion of the rich man).

A boar can never and nowhere feel wrong. She perceives herself as the guardian of the patriarchal law, in the non-observance of which she constantly accuses her family. From the point of view of this law, the world of human relations appears to be absolutely formalized and
manageable. The younger ones must always unquestioningly obey the elders, the wife - her husband and mother-in-law. Young girls can go out in the evenings, and wives are obliged to stay at home. When parting with a husband, love must also be shown according to strict rules: do not throw yourself on his neck, but bow at his feet, and then howl on the porch for an hour and a half to demonstrate your grief to the neighbors ... The life of the city of Kalinov is entangled with such rules that exist for every case, like a cobweb. Where are their origins, where did they come from?

Writer and researcher folk life P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky drew an interesting parallel. He saw a direct connection between the orders described in Domostroy, a book compiled in the middle of the 16th century by an associate of Ivan the Terrible, priest Sylvester, and the customs that exist in Kalinovo. “Each rule of the Sylvester Rule, each word of his<… >entered the flesh and blood of tyrants of the 14th and 15th centuries and since then, as a kind of sacred and inviolable tradition, is orally passed down from generation to generation and reverently kept in the tightly sealed sanctuaries of the family life of the “middle kind of people”, ”Melnikov-Pechersky noted in reviews of The Thunderstorm (1860). It is Kabanikha, from the point of view of the critic, who is the personification of family despotism, the high priestess of Domostroy.

The heroes of Ostrovsky could not read Domostroy; his manuscript was published only at the end of the 1840s in a special historical edition. But the playwright himself undoubtedly knew this monument. He is reverently quoted by the clerk Kochetov, the hero of Ostrovsky's late comedy The Comedian of the 17th Century (1872).

Dispute about time: own and others

Contemporaries living nearby can actually exist in different historical times, different chronotopes. Ostrovsky independently discovers the law of historical relativity. Therefore, the time of his play has a clear calendar (about two weeks), but is devoid of a date. Kalinov was lost not only in space, but also in time, in thousand years of history Russia.

Here, the inhabitants, especially married women, as in the old days, are locked up, only occasionally, on holidays, going out to church and to the boulevard. They do not read magazines and books here (even very old ones, like Oblomov or Pushkin's uncle, who looked into the "calendar of the eighth year"). They rarely go anywhere. The main source of information about the outside world here, as in the 16th century, is the stories of wanderers, experienced people.

It is no coincidence that so much space is given to Feklusha in the drama. Although she is not directly related to the main conflict of the play, scenes with her open the second and third acts. Without Feklusha, the atmosphere of Kalinov's life would be incomplete. The wanderer, like the Boar, is the keeper of legends. But it complements the everyday ideas of the Kalinovites with geography, history and philosophy.

Feklusha was in Moscow, but saw nothing there but bustle, running around and the devil on the roof, showering the poor Muscovites with "tares" - temptations. The devilish invention, the "fiery serpent" is Feklusha and the steam locomotive seen in Moscow. (One can imagine how educated theater-goers, contemporaries of Ostrovsky, had fun when they heard a similar description of their own city in 1860: they already lived in a different historical time.) Further, beyond Moscow, absolutely fantastic lands begin, where people with dog heads live, rule non-Orthodox Saltans Makhnut Turkish and Makhnut Persian. (Just like Feklusha, the walking townspeople will argue in the fourth act: “What is this Lithuania?<…>And they say, my brother, she fell on us from the sky.")

Feklusha also retells a philosophical - very unusual - explanation of the difference between his own and someone else's, old and new times (the mythological time of Oblomov and historical time Stolz in Goncharov's novel). “Hard times, mother Marfa Ignatievna, hard times. Already, time began to come to belittlement. - How so, my dear, in derogation? - Of course, not we, where should we notice something in the bustle! And here smart people notice that our time is getting shorter. It used to be that summer and winter dragged on and on, you couldn’t wait until they were over; and now you will not see how they fly by. The days and hours seem to have remained the same, but time, for our sins, is getting shorter and shorter” (case 3, appearance 1).

The characteristics of the new "short" time given by Kuligin and Feklusha seem to coincide; Ostrovsky even builds these far-flung phrases on syntactic parallelism: "Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!", "Difficult times, mother Marfa Ignatievna, difficult." But in fact, there is a fundamental difference in the positions of these characters.

Kuligin condemns morals in " our city”And wants to bring into it the light of progress from the big world: a sundial, walks on the boulevard, “mercy for the fallen” (it is he who advises Tikhon to forgive his wife). Feklusha, on the contrary, condemns Big world and wants to hide from him in Kalinov's Eden, which seems to her the embodiment of all the virtues lost in the rest of the world. “You live in the promised land! And the merchants are all pious people, adorned with many virtues!” (d. 1, yavl. 3). “The last times, mother Marfa Ignatievna, the last, according to all signs, the last. (Again we have the same intonation and syntactic structure. - I. S.) You also have paradise and silence in your city, but in other cities it’s so simple Sodom, mother ... ”(d. 3, yavl. 1).

So there are two opposite points of view on the world of Kalinov. Kuligin sees the city in which he lives dark kingdom(after Dobrolyubov's article, this definition became generally accepted), where they quarrel, torture, and torture their neighbors. Feklusha - how blessed paradise city, in which splendor and silence reign.

Kuligin, with his sundial, talk about electricity, the dream of a perpetual motion machine, quotes from Derzhavin and Lomonosov, causes rudeness and mistrust. “Why are you climbing to me with all sorts of nonsense!<...>And for these words, send you to the mayor, so he will ask you! - swears by Wild (d. 4, yavl. 2). Feklusha with her "knowledge" and "education" is a necessary part of this world, she is seriously listened to, she is obediently heeded. “There are no miracles in the world! And we're sitting here, we don't know anything. It is also good that there are good people: no, no, and you will hear what is being done in the world; otherwise they would have died like fools, ”the servant Glasha exclaims (d. 2, yavl. 1).

"Own" Kuligin for the inhabitants of the city - a stranger. The stranger, the wanderer Feklusha, is his own, flesh of the flesh of the Kalinovsky world.

But the image of a self-taught watchmaker in Ostrovsky is subordinate general principles images of the "prefabricated city". Both the sphere of Kuligin's scientific interests and his undoubted literary education are defiantly out of date. It is no coincidence that the Nizhny Novgorod self-taught mechanic I.P. Kulibin (1735-1818) is called the prototype of Kuligin. Fantastic tales
about people with dog heads, Kuligin contrasts the myth of a perpetual motion machine. In the "prefabricated city" the 16th century collides with the 18th century. "Domostroy" -
with Lomonosov. To present in this city the empiricist and nihilist Bazarov
with his experiments on frogs or some other "new man" is decidedly impossible. The provincial life depicted in The Thunderstorm does not yet suspect such heroes.

We can say that the central conflict of "Thunderstorm" is based on the opposition their And strangers. They live according to Kalinov's laws, even when they seem to be violated. His Curly in this world: he fights with his own Wild weapon - swearing; his prowess and fun are part of the habitual code of conduct for a slick merchant. Own and Barbara. She is not indignant at Kalin's orders, but habitually bypasses them with the help of deceit: “Our whole house rests on that. And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary ”(d. 2, yavl. 2).

True faith in the house-building orders has long been lost. They are based mainly on hypocrisy, the formal observance of the old rules. In the scene of parting with her husband, Kabanikha can force Katerina to bow at Tikhon's feet, but no longer dares to order her to howl on the porch for an hour and a half, limiting herself to mild condemnation. “If you don’t know how to do it, at least make this example; still more decent; and then, apparently, in words only "
(d. 2, yavl. 7). Marfa Ignatievna sincerely fears that the old order will end with her: “What does youth mean! It's funny to even look at them! If not my own, I would have laughed to my heart's content.<…>It’s good, whoever has elders in the house, they keep the house while they are alive.<…>I don’t know what will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will stand, I don’t know ”(d. 2, yavl. 6).

The strangers who deny Domostroev's morals and orders include, in addition to Kuligin, Boris and, of course, Katerina. Boris, in anticipation of the inheritance, seems to obey his uncle in everything. But he cannot please him in any way, not only because Savel Prokofievich does not like to give money away. Boris, like Kuligin, irritates Wild by the very fact of existence, education, courteous manners. “Bucklings, you came here to beat! Parasite! Get lost!<...>I don't even want to talk to you, to the Jesuit.<…>Here it is imposed! (d. 1, yavl. 2). Boris himself constantly feels like a stranger in Kalinovo: “Everyone looks at me somehow wildly, as if I’m superfluous here, as if I’m disturbing them. I don't know the customs. I understand that all this is our Russian, native, but still I can’t get used to it in any way ”(d. 1, yavl. 3).

Katerina and others: sin and will

But Katerina feels herself the strangest bird in Kalinovo. Having grown up in this world, she demonstrates the maximum alienation to him. Already the second replica of the heroine in the play, with all her deference, shows the integrity of her nature, not demonstrative, but a direct denial of hypocritical mores, moral formalism, to which they are accustomed in the city. “You are talking about me, mother, in vain you say this. With people, that without people, I'm all alone, I don't prove anything from myself ”(d. 1, yavl. 5).

The image of Katerina Ostrovsky builds differently than the images of other characters in the drama. In the drama, her whole life seems to pass before us. But the playwright leaves many details unattended. After marriage, Katerina, like Boris, finds herself alone in a strange city. “According to the patriarchal house-building custom, she issued, but not came out. They didn’t ask her if she loved Tikhon, she was given away with the blessing of her parents for an ugly one, in the hope that, they say, “she will endure - she will fall in love,” wrote Melnikov-Pechersky, at the same time noting that in folk songs, in the colloquial language of merchants, philistines and peasants, only such a form is found - “issued”. “Here that she got married, that she was buried - it doesn’t matter,” Boris sighs, translating Kalinov’s “gave out” to a more civilized “married”, but essentially speaking about the same thing (case 3, scene 3, scene 2).

But in the drama there is not a single hint of Katerina's connection with her former life. Where is her hometown? What happened to her family? Does she meet with relatives? None of these questions are answered in the play. Katerina, like a fairy-tale heroine, finds herself in a strange enchanted city. All her ties to her former life have been severed. The past remained only in her few memories.

Instead of a specific biography, Ostrovsky offers poetic history shaping the character of Katerina. Its main properties are sincerity, passion, determination, religious and poetic perception of the world. “I was born so hot. I was still six years old, no more, so I did it. They offended me with something at home, but it was in the evening, it was already dark, I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat, and pushed it away from the shore. The next morning they already found it, ten miles away! (d. 2, yavl. 2). In another monologue, the heroine recalls in more detail about life in her native home: she went to church with her mother, prayed earnestly both in the temple and at home, talked with wanderers, watered flowers, had poetic dreams in which she flew through the air. To Varvara’s surprised remark, “But it’s the same with us,” Katerina replies: “Yes, everything here seems to be from bondage” (case 1, phenomen 7).

Katerina's life in Kalinovo is a constant attempt to adapt to captivity, which is hindered by the integrity and sincerity of the heroine. Church, prayer in Kalinovo become not a need of a living soul, but a hateful duty. Although Katerina issued for Tikhon, she wants to fall in love with him, to build some kind of common life with him, which is constantly hindered by both the instructions of her mother and the reproaches of her husband himself. “Yes, I didn’t stop loving; and with a kind of bondage from any beautiful wife you want, you will run away! (d. 2, yavl. 4).

Will (bondage) is one of the main motives keynote plays. The words "will" and its antonym "bondage" are found in the text more than thirty times. Only characters drawn into the main conflict talk about will: Kabanikha, Tikhon, Katerina and Boris (once Kuligin also mentions this in passing).

The attitude of the characters to this concept coincides with the division into friends and foes. In the ethics of Domostroy, will is seen as a negative, destructive phenomenon. For strangers, by the will of circumstances thrown into the Kalinovsky world, the will seems like a dream, a dream.

Kabanikha connects the will with the death of the familiar world and its foundations. “I have long seen that you want the will. Well, wait, live in freedom, when I am gone” (d. 1, yavl. 5). “What, son! Where will the will lead? she cries, hearing Katerina's confession.

Tikhon's will seems to be a short-term flight from his native home, although, as Katerina notes, "even in freedom, he seems to be bound."

Boris also perceives his position in the city as bondage, but at the same time, in comparison with Katerina, he is a “free Cossack”, a “free bird”.

For Katerina, will is the main condition for her existence, captivity is the path to death. “It will make me so stuffy, so stuffy at home, that I would run. And such a thought would come to me that, if it were my will, I would now ride along the Volga, in a boat, with songs, or in a troika on a good one, embracing ... ”(d. 1, yavl. 7). “This is how our sister dies. In captivity, someone has fun!<…>And bondage is bitter, oh, how bitter! Who does not cry from her! And most of all, we women. Here I am now!” (d. 2, yavl. 10).

Katerina's highest poetic manifestation of will is her desire to fly. The dream of flying accompanies her whole life. She says that she flew in childhood dreams. She, suddenly, as if remembering her childhood, asks Varvara why people do not fly, and wants to try to fly right now. Later, on the eve of her meeting with Boris, she imagines the flight of her soul after death (case 2, appearance 8).

In Ostrovsky's drama, the concept of will also has one more - psychological - meaning. Will - the ability of a person to achieve his goal, the ability of the soul to break free.

In this sense, Tikhon, who dreams of a free life, is completely devoid of will. His will is broken by a strong-willed mother: “Yes, mother, I don’t want to live by my will. Where can I live with my will! (d. 1, yavl. 5).

The will is also discussed during the night meeting between Katerina and Boris. “Well, how did you not ruin me, if I, leaving the house, go to you at night. - Your will was on that. - I have no will. If I had my own will, I would not go to you.<...>Your will is over me now, can't you see! ( Throws itself on his neck.)»

Characteristically, civilized European concept Liberty Kalinov is familiar only to Kudryash, and even then he uses it in a reduced, distorted sense: “We are free about this. Girls walk around as they want, father and mother do not care. Only women are locked up” (case 3, scene 2, appearance 2).

Love for Boris for Katerina is an act as free as forced. Making her free choice, the heroine is limited by the circumstances. Boris is a stranger in the "dark kingdom", but he is forced to live by his rules, obey his uncle, although he understands that he will deceive him anyway. "Free Cossack" or "free bird" he is only in his mind. “Boris is not a hero and is not far from Katerina, she fell in love with him more in the absence of people,” Dobrolyubov accurately noted.

When this love arises, Katerina, as if between two fires, finds herself between the desire for will and feeling sin. "Sin" - like "will" - is the key motif of the drama. He appears in The Thunderstorm more than forty times. Almost all the characters talk about sin and their sins, except for the educated Kuligin and Boris. “And brought him to sin at such a time! He sinned after all: he scolded, so scolded that it was impossible to demand better, almost nailed him. Here it is, what kind of heart I have, ”either he confesses, or boasts Dika in front of the Kabanikha, remembering the peasant who came to ask for the money he had earned (d. 2, scene 1, fig. 2). “What can I say to a fool! only one sin!" - Kabanikha interrupts the conversation with his son (d. 1, yavl. 5). “I have sinned all my life since I was young. Ask what they say about her! That’s what she’s afraid of dying, ”says Varvara about the crazy lady (d. 1, yavl. 9). "Why should I judge you! I have my own sins, ”she answers Katerina’s confession (d. 1, yavl. 7). “Themselves, tea, is also not without sin!” - trying to persuade Kuligin offended husband. “What can I say!” - Tikhon readily responds (d. 5, yavl. 1). It turns out that even God's wanderer has his own sins. “I have one sin, for sure; I myself know what it is. I love sweet food, ”Feklusha admits (d. 2, yavl. 1).

Sincerely brought up in religious concepts, Katerina perceives her whole life in the categories of a sinful and righteous life. She considers the very love for Boris to be a sin. “Ah, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I did not do to myself! I can't get away from this sin. Nowhere to go. After all, this is not good, this is a terrible sin, Varenka, that I love another? (d. 1, yavl. 7).

Varvara arranges another test for Katerina. In the hands of Katerina is the key, which makes it possible to have a nightly date. Holding the key-temptation in her hand, the heroine painfully reflects on life, torn between the former life-torment and the life-sin. “I live - toil, I don’t see a gap for myself! Yes, and I will not see, know! What's next is worse. And now this sin is on me. ( Thinking.) If it wasn’t for my mother-in-law! .. She crushed me ... she made me sick of the house; the walls are disgusting. ( He looks thoughtfully at the key.) Drop it? Of course you have to quit. And how did he get into my hands? To temptation, to my ruin. But this struggle is resolved in favor of a new life: “Come what may, and I will see Boris!” (d. 2, yavl. 10).

Then, already during the date, she once again hesitates, making the final choice. “Do you know: after all, I can’t pray for this sin, never pray! After all, he will lie like a stone on the soul, like a stone.<…>Why feel sorry for me, no one is to blame - she herself went for it. Don't be sorry, kill me! Let everyone know, let everyone see what I'm doing! ( Hugs Boris.) If I am not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment? They say that it is even easier when you suffer for some sin here on earth” (case 3, scene 2, scene 7).

The subsequent recognition is caused by further spiritual work and a sense of guilt, not only before neighbors, but also before heaven. “I am a sinner before God and before you!” (d. 4, yavl. 6). Confession removes sin from Katerina's soul, but aggravates her situation even more. The boar urges her husband to "bury her alive in the ground so that she can be executed." Tikhon could not disobey his mother and “beat a little” his wife, although he actually pities her. The house finally becomes unloving for Katerina, a stranger, the remnants of her respect for her husband disappear. Running away from home and a date with Boris pushes her to last step. “Where to now? Go home? It doesn’t matter to me what goes home, what goes to the grave ”(d. 5, yavl. 4). This choice is especially terrible for a deeply religious person, because the heroine takes on another mortal sin - suicide. And yet she chooses him, not the return home. “It’s all the same that death, that itself ... but you can’t live! Sin! Will they not pray? Whoever loves will pray...” (case 5, appearance 4).

However, already at the very beginning of the play, the heroine is seized with bad forebodings. “I will die soon,” she says to Varvara immediately after her childhood memories and dreams of flying. “No, I know that I will die” (case 1, appearance 7). And this feeling of catastrophe, of the near end, runs through the whole drama. One of the first critics called Ostrovsky's heroine "a female Hamlet from a merchant's life." Shakespeare's Hamlet saw Denmark as a prison. The city of Kalinov becomes such a prison for Katerina. The only escape from it is death.

Thunderstorm over the world: topical and eternal

The "play of life" is built on a gradual increase in tension, which is discharged thunderstorm.

Most of Ostrovsky's plays are named according to the functions of the characters ("Pupil", "Dowry") or proverbs and sayings ("Poverty is not a vice", "Each sage is quite simple"). But in this case the playwright came up with a wonderful title-symbol.

Its original meaning is quite specific. A thunderstorm is a natural phenomenon depicted twice in the play. At the end of the first act, it follows after Katerina confesses her sinful love for Boris. At the culmination of the fourth act, along with other menacing symptoms (critics have counted five to nine "melodramatic elements" here), she provokes the recognition of the heroine.

But this original meaning acquires additional symbolic meanings.

For urban dwellers, a thunderstorm is God's punishment, which must be accepted without reasoning. “The storm is sent to us as a punishment,” Dikoy Kuligina explains. “You mark my word that this thunderstorm will not pass in vain. I tell you truly, therefore I know. Either he will kill someone, or the house will burn down ... ”- one of the nameless townspeople predicts in the fourth act.

For the educator Kuligin, on the contrary, it is a cleansing force, proving the rational, harmonious structure of the world of God. “Well, what are you afraid of, pray tell! Now every grass, every flower rejoices, but we hide, we are afraid, just what kind of misfortune! The storm will kill! This is not a storm, but grace! Yes, grace! You are all thunder!<…>From everything you have made yourself a scarecrow. Eh, people! I'm not afraid here. Let's go, sir!" he turns to Boris. "Let's go! It's scarier here!" - he responds (d. 4, yavl. 4).

For Katerina, a thunderstorm becomes a sign of a spiritual catastrophe associated with a sense of betrayal and sin. In this sense, she is similar to other residents, but she refers God's punishment not to others, but to herself.

Thunder, however, rumbles over the world of the Boar and the Wild, although they themselves do not yet suspect this. The death of the heroine is a formidable warning to the "dark kingdom". The drama ends with Tikhon's first, albeit belated, attempt at rebellion. “Mama, you ruined her! You, you, you…” he repeats over the corpse of his wife. And although Kabanikha is trying to regain his power with a sharp cry (“Al don’t you remember yourself? You forgot who you are talking to!”), The cry of a person who has lost everything does not stop. Tikhon, out of habit, repeats “mother,” but he already accuses her directly and openly, in front of all the people. The conflict goes beyond the home into the world.

Ostrovsky called his play a drama. Some literary scholars translate it into a different, higher and more ancient genre, defining it as a "folk tragedy". There are reasons for this. The memory of the tragedy is in the "Thunderstorm"
and a five-act division according to the traditional plot principle (exposition - plot - development of the action - climax - denouement) and the final catastrophe, the death of the heroine. However, the inclusion of Ostrovsky's play into the tradition of classical tragedy is hampered, first of all, by its everyday character. The heroes of classical tragedy as a high genre were usually tall, status characters, raised above everyday life. Immersed in everyday life, tragedy turns into “bourgeois tragedy” (D. Diderot), that is, into drama as such, drama in the narrow sense of the word.

But the main thing is something else. A tragic conflict arises if a crack runs through the soul of each character involved in it. The German philosopher Hegel argued that a real tragedy is possible when "both sides of the opposite are justified" and are capable of causing catharsis, compassion. “Scoundrels and scoundrels cannot inspire us with this kind of compassion,” continues Hegel. “If, therefore, a tragic character, which instilled in us fear of the power of violated morality, in its misfortune should cause us tragic empathy, then in itself it should be meaningful and significant.”

In The Thunderstorm, only one side evokes tragic empathy.

Katerina grows up on the same soil, but falls into the cage of harsh and almost meaningless laws of the “dark kingdom”, gets entangled in its nets, cannot withstand the severity of bondage, feels sin and dies.

Kalinov's "heavy morals" kill a bird woman with a poetic soul. Katerina dreams of taking off, but in the end she throws herself into the abyss. Thrust up, into the air, ended with a jump down into the pool.

But the tragedy of Katerina demonstrates not insight, but a deep crisis of the world, in which the heroine refused to exist. The world of the “dark kingdom” does not learn anything, does not know doubts and hesitations. Wild and at the end of the drama continues to mock Boris, sending him to Siberia. The boar even hypocrites over the corpse of her daughter-in-law, bowing to the people ("Thank you, good people, for your service"), and threatens Tikhon: "Well, I'll talk to you at home."

In an effort to preserve the "foundations", Kalinov's petty tyrants cut the branch on which they sit, trample the surrounding space. And the surviving children of the Kalinovsky world either run away from it, like Kudryash and Varvara, or try to show independence, like Tikhon. There are no conscious defenders and continuers of the house-building orders in the new generation.

In the article about Ostrovsky, with which our conversation about Groz began,
Goncharov outlined the boundaries and finale of the picture of thousand-year-old Russia created by the playwright. “At one end, it rests on prehistoric time (“Snegurochka”), on the other, it stops at the first railway station
with petty tyrants who bowed their heads in front of a public court, in front of a nephew stringer who was rude to him.<...>Ostrovsky was saturated with the air of this life and fell in love with it, as one loves one's home, coast, field. And no other life and other heroes will replace Ostrovsky with this kingdom of his - stretching from Gostomysl to the Crimean campaign and the Regulations of February 19.

After the reform of 1861, thousand-year-old Russia, like Atlantis, slowly sank to the bottom. The world depicted in The Thunderstorm was gradually melting and disappearing. The conflict of the play could seem historically exhausted, when a woman received relative freedom from her husband, from her family, and she could decide her own fate. But after a decade and a half, the novel by L. N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina" appears, the heroine of which, a woman from a completely different social environment, repeats the path of Katerina: dissatisfaction with family life - a new passionate love - ostracism, contempt of others - suicide.

And in other eras, a nervous, conscientious, acutely aware of his dignity man often finds himself in conflict with a strange, hostile, cold world that lives according to soulless laws. The "dark realm" could be an army barracks, a dorm room, or a modern office.

"Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky broke out and passed. But worldly thunderstorms are regularly repeated.

Since 1859, for a person associated with Russian culture, a thunderstorm has been not only a natural phenomenon, but one of the symbols of Ostrovsky's Russia.

To be continued

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HEARING REALIST: PATTERNED LANGUAGE

The “finishing of roles” (and not necessarily the main ones) is done by the playwright primarily with the help of speech. The intricately constructed artistic conversations in Ostrovsky's plays often make one forget about the complex intrigue in the French spirit.

The poet and critic I. F. Annensky called Ostrovsky a wonderful “realist-hearing”: “This is a virtuoso of sound images: merchants, wanderers, factory workers and teachers of the Latin language, Tatars, gypsies, actors and sex workers, bars, clerks and petty bureaucrats - Ostrovsky gave a huge gallery of typical speeches, unfortunately, often not devoid of caricature, more spectacularly bright than subtly truthful ... ”(“ Three Social Dramas ”, 1906).

The paradox of a genuine work of art, however, lies in the fact that brightness eventually turns into truthfulness.

Indeed, the characters in The Thunderstorm speak wonderfully. The frank rudeness of Diky, the dryness and will of Kabanova hidden behind hypocrisy, Feklusha's ingenuous ignorance, Kudryash's boldness and irony, Kuligin's old-fashioned pathos and constant quotation, Katerina's poetry and lyricism are perfectly conveyed in their speech. Heroes of Ostrovsky, without even seeing the play on stage, but simply reading it, you can hear.

"At it's such an institution. With us, no one even dare to utter a peep about a salary, scolds what the world is worth. “You, he says, how do you know what I have in mind? Somehow you can know my soul! Or maybe I will come to such an arrangement that five thousand ladies will be given to you. So you talk to him! Only he had never come to such a position in his entire life” (case 1, appearance 3).

“No, mother, because you have silence in the city, that many people, if only to take you, are decorated with virtues, like flowers; that is why everything is done coolly and decently. After all, this running around, mother, what does it mean? After all, this is vanity! For example, in Moscow: people are running back and forth for no one knows why. Here it is the vanity. Vain people, mother Marfa Ignatievna, so they run around. It seems to him that he is running after business; he is in a hurry, the poor man, he does not recognize people, it seems to him that someone is beckoning him; but he comes to the place, but it is empty, there is nothing, there is only one dream. And he will go in anguish” (case 3, scene 1, appearance 1).

“How I miss him! Oh, how I miss him! If I don’t see you, then at least hear me from afar! Violent winds, transfer my sadness and longing to him! Father, I'm bored, bored!<…>My joy! My life, my soul, I love you! Reply!" (d. 5, yavl. 2).

The monologues of Kudryash, Feklusha or Katerina, even short remarks of nameless passers-by can bring artistic pleasure in themselves, as an example of a word game, a sound score by a wonderful playwright.

ASSEMBLY CITY: LIFE UNDER THE LAWS OF HOUSE-BUILDING

Speaking of The Inspector General, Gogol came up with a wonderful definition of the play's chronotope (although at the same time he gave it an abstract moral character): prefabricated city. Kalinov is also not an ordinary provincial town of the pre-reform era, but, like the setting in The Government Inspector, it is a prefabricated town whose way of life was formed in the mists of time, in ancient Russian history.

The play begins with a look into the distance. From the high bank of the Volga, two people look at the landscape spread out before them. “Miracles,” one admires. - For fifty years every day I have been looking beyond the Volga and I can’t get enough of everything.<…>The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices! Another indifferently objects: “What?<…>Something.<…>Well, what's the deal with you! You are an antique, a chemist.”

Curly finds Kuligin's admiration strange. He switches to city affairs with great interest: “This is scolding the Wild nephew.<…>He got Boris Grigorievich as a sacrifice, so he rides on it.

Thus, in the very first phrases, external and internal conflicts drama: against the background of a magnificent landscape, rough city life goes on and the first victim appears.

The same Kuligin gives a general description of Kalinovsky's existence. “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! In philistinism, sir, you will see nothing but rudeness and bare poverty. And we, sir, will never get out of this bark! Because honest labor will never earn us more daily bread. And whoever has money, sir, he tries to enslave the poor, so that he can make even more money on his free labors ”(case 1, scene 3).

Conflict poles were immediately determined: the rich, those who have money and power, petty tyrants - "poverty naked", forced to endure and suffer without any hope of improvement.

The central figure of this bleak picture is the merchant Wild. He makes money wrong. “A lot of people stay with me in a year; you understand: I will not pay them a penny a penny per person, and I make up thousands of this, so it’s good for me! - he confesses to the mayor. He doesn't like to give them away. He endlessly tyrannizes his family, including his nephew, who is awaiting the inheritance. “Who will please him if his whole life is based on cursing?” - Curly asks rhetorically.

This "piercing man" is accustomed to the absolute humility and resignation of those around him. “And the honor is not great, because you have been fighting with the women all your life,” Kabanova accurately notices (d. 2, yavl. 2).

But any attempt to counteract, contradictions causes the Wild to be taken aback and the desire to recoup on people who are completely subordinate to him. Kudryash recalls: after he scolded the hussars on the ferry, the family hid from his anger in closets and attics for two weeks.

Curly himself is also not afraid of Wild, although he serves as his clerk. He also responds to the owner’s abuse with abuse: “He is the word, and I am ten; spit and go." In reserve, he also has such a powerful means of influence: “Four of us, five of us in an alley somewhere would talk to him face to face, so he would become silk. And about our science, I wouldn’t utter a word to anyone, I would just walk around and look around” (case 1, appearance 1).

He knows how to speak with Diky and Kabanova, answering his rudeness no less sharply: “Well, don’t open your throat too much! Find me cheaper! And I love you! Go on your way, where you went” (case 3, appearance 2). After such a rebuke, set out in an economic language understandable to the merchant, the tipsy Dikoy resigns himself and begins a normal and even sincere conversation with his godfather: “Here’s what: talk to me so that my heart passes. You are the only one in the whole city who knows how to talk to me.

The second influential figure in the city is just the interlocutor of Wild Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, Kabanikha. Her difference from the godfather is also determined by Curly at the beginning of the first act. “The Boar is also good,” Shapkin notes. “Well, at least that one, at least, everything is under the guise of piety, but this one broke loose,” Kudryash clarifies.

Dikoy and Kabanikhi have clearly defined roles. Wild is an outright tyrant who understands that even by Kalinov's standards he lives unrighteously, sinfully, for which he blames his "hot heart". Having scolded out of habit a peasant who came to ask for money, he can then ask for forgiveness, bow at his feet and repent (which also manifests a kind of perverted pride of the rich man).

The boar never and nowhere, from the first appearance to the finale of the drama, can feel wrong. She perceives herself as the guardian of tradition, the patriarchal Law, in the non-observance of which she constantly accuses her family.

From the point of view of this law, the world of human relations appears to be absolutely formalized and absolutely manageable. The younger ones must always unquestioningly obey the elders, the wife - her husband and mother-in-law. Young girls can go out in the evenings, while wives are required to stay at home. When parting with a husband, love must also be shown according to strict rules: do not throw yourself on his neck, but bow at his feet, and then howl on the porch for an hour and a half to demonstrate your grief to the neighbors.

The life of the city of Kalinov is entangled with such rules that exist for every case, like a cobweb. Where are their origins, where did they come from?

Having read The Thunderstorm for the first time, P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky, a well-known writer and researcher of folk life, drew an interesting parallel. He saw a direct connection between the orders described in Domostroy, a book compiled in the middle of the 16th century by an associate of Ivan the Terrible, priest Sylvester, and the customs that exist in Kalinovo.

“Each rule of the Sylvester Rule, every word of it ... entered the flesh and blood of tyrants of the XIV and XV centuries, and since then, as some kind of sacred and inviolable tradition, it has been orally transmitted from generation to generation and reverently kept in tightly sealed sanctuaries family life“neuter kind of people”” (“Thunderstorm”. Drama in five acts by A. N. Ostrovsky, 1860). It is Kabanikha, from the point of view of the critic, who is "the personification of family despotism, the high priestess of Domostroy".

The heroes of Ostrovsky could not read Domostroy; his manuscript was published only at the end of the 1840s in a special historical edition. But the playwright himself undoubtedly knew this monument. He is reverently quoted by the clerk Kochetov, the hero of Ostrovsky's late comedy "Comedian XVII century» (1872).

The prefabricated city of Ostrovsky turns out to be an island or a continent of life according to the laws of housing construction in Russia in the nineteenth century.

DISPUTE ABOUT TIME: OURS AND THES

Historians say: the historical epoch is not only socially, but also psychologically multilayered. Contemporaries living nearby can actually exist in different historical times, different chronotopes.

Ostrovsky independently discovers the law of historical relativity. Therefore, the time of his play has a clear calendar (about two weeks), but lacks an accurate chronology. Kalinov was lost not only in space, but also in time, in the thousand-year history of Russia. Ages passed over him almost without a trace.

Here, the inhabitants, especially married women, as in the old days, are locked up, only occasionally, on holidays, going out to church and to the boulevard. They do not read magazines and books here (even very old ones, like Oblomov or Pushkin's uncle, who looked into the "calendar of the eighth year"). They rarely go anywhere. The main source of information about the outside world here, as in the 16th century, is the stories of wanderers, experienced people.

It is no coincidence that so much space is given to Feklusha in the drama. Although she is not directly related to the main conflict of the play, scenes with her open the second and third acts. Without Feklusha, the atmosphere of Kalinov's life would be incomplete. The wanderer, like the Boar, is the keeper of the traditions of this world. But it complements the everyday ideas of the Kalinovites with geography, history and philosophy.

Feklusha visited Moscow, but saw nothing there but bustle, running around, and the devil on the roof, showering poor Muscovites with "tares" - temptations. The devilish invention, the "fiery serpent" is Feklusha and the steam locomotive seen in Moscow. One can imagine how educated contemporaries of Ostrovsky had fun when they heard a similar description of their own city in 1860: they already lived in a different historical time, where “Domostroy” was published in the “Vremennik of the Imperial Moscow Society of History and Antiquities”, and did not live according to it .

Beyond Moscow, absolutely fantastic lands begin, where people with dog heads live, non-Orthodox Saltans Makhnut Turkish and Makhnut Persian rule, judges judge according to an unrighteous law. (Just like Feklusha, the walking townspeople will argue in the fourth act: “What is this - Lithuania? - And they say, my brother, it fell on us from the sky.”)

Feklusha also retells a philosophical - very unusual - explanation of the difference between one's own and someone else's, old and new times (the mythological time of Oblomov and the historical time of Stolz in Goncharov's novel clashed in approximately the same way).

“Hard times, mother Marfa Ignatievna, hard times. Already, time began to come to belittlement. - How so, my dear, in derogation? - Of course, not we, where should we notice something in the bustle! But smart people notice that our time is getting shorter. It used to be that summer or winter dragged on and on, you couldn’t wait until it was over; and now you will not see how they fly by. The days and hours seem to have remained the same, but time is getting shorter and shorter because of our sins” (case 3, scene 1).

The characteristics of the new, "short" time by Kuligin and Feklusha seem to almost coincide. Ostrovsky even builds remarks that are far apart from each other on syntactic parallelism.

"Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!"

"Hard times, mother Marfa Ignatievna, hard times."

But in fact, there is a fundamental difference in the positions of the heroes.

Kuligin criticizes mores our city and wants to bring into it the light of progress from the big world: a sundial, walks on the boulevard, "mercy for the fallen" (it is he who advises Tikhon to forgive his wife).

Feklusha, on the contrary, condemns Big world and tries to hide from him in the blessed Kalinovsky Eden, which seems to her the embodiment of all earthly virtues. “You live in the promised land! And the merchants are all pious people, adorned with many virtues!” (d. 1, yavl. 3). “The last times, mother Marfa Ignatievna, the last, according to all signs, the last. (Again we have the same intonation and syntactic structure. - I. S.) You also have paradise and silence in your city, but in other cities it’s so simple Sodom, mother ... ”(d. 3, yavl. 1).

So there are two opposite points of view on the world of Kalinov.

Kuligin sees the city in which he lives dark kingdom(after Dobrolyubov's article, this definition became generally accepted, it was also used by Melnikov-Pechersky), where they quarrel, torture, and torture their neighbors. Feklusha - how blessed paradise city, in which splendor and silence reign.

Kuligin, with his talk about electricity, the dream of a perpetual motion machine, quotations from Derzhavin and Lomonosov, causes rudeness and mistrust. “Why are you climbing to me with all sorts of nonsense!<…>And for these words, send you to the mayor, so he will ask you! - threatens Wild (d. 4, yavl. 2).

Feklusha with her "knowledge" and "education" is a necessary part of this world, she is seriously listened to, she is obediently heeded. “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 world; otherwise they would have died like fools, ”the servant Glasha exclaims ingenuously (d. 2, yavl. 1).

"Own" Kuligin for the inhabitants of the city - a stranger. The stranger, the wanderer Feklusha, is his own, flesh of the flesh of the Kalinovsky world.

But even Ostrovsky's characterization of a self-taught watchmaker is subject to the general principles of depicting a "prefabricated city". Both the sphere of Kuligin's scientific interests and his undoubted literary education are defiantly out of date. It is no coincidence that the self-taught mechanic I.P. Kulibin (1735–1818) from Nizhny Novgorod is called the generally recognized prototype of Kuligin. Kuligin contrasts fantastic stories about people with dog heads with the scientific myth of a perpetual motion machine.

In the "prefabricated city" of Kalinov, the sixteenth century collides with the eighteenth, "Domostroy" with Lomonosov. It is absolutely impossible to imagine here the empiricist and nihilist Bazarov with his experiments on frogs, or any other "new man". The provincial life depicted in The Thunderstorm does not yet suspect such heroes.

We can say that the central conflict of "Thunderstorm" is based on the opposition their And strangers.

They live according to Kalinov's laws, even when they seem to be violated. His Curly in this world: he fights with his own Wild weapon - swearing; his prowess and fun are part of the habitual code of conduct for a rude merchant. Own and Barbara. She does not resent Kalinov's orders, but habitually bypasses them with the help of deceit. “Our whole house is based on that. And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary ”(d. 2, yavl. 2).

This is possible because the true faith in the house-building orders has long been lost. They are based mainly on hypocrisy, the formal observance of the old rules. In the scene of parting with her husband, Kabanikha can force Katerina to bow at Tikhon's feet, but no longer dares to order her to howl on the porch for an hour and a half, limiting herself to mild condemnation. “If you don’t know how to do it, at least make this example; still more decent; otherwise it can be seen only in words ”(case 2, yavl. 7).

In the monologue preceding this instruction, Marfa Ignatievna sincerely fears that the old order will end with her: “What does youth mean! It's funny to even look at them! If not my own, I would have laughed to my heart's content. They can't do anything. It’s good, whoever has elders in the house, they keep the house while they are alive. But, too, stupid ones, they want to go free, but if they go free, they get confused in obedience and for laughter kind people. Of course, who will regret it, but most of all they laugh. Yes, it’s impossible not to laugh; guests will be called, they do not know how to seat. Moreover, look, they will forget one of the relatives. Laughter, and more! So that's the old something and displayed. I don't want to go to another house. And if you go up, then you will spit and get out as soon as possible. I don’t know what will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will stand, I don’t know ”(d. 2, yavl. 6).

The strangers who deny Domostroev's morals and orders include, in addition to Kuligin, Boris and, of course, Katerina.

Boris, in anticipation of the inheritance, seems to obey his uncle in everything. But he cannot please him in any way, not only because Savel Prokofievich does not like to give money away. He, like Kuligin, annoys Wild by the very fact of existence, education, courteous manners. “Bullshit, have you come here to beat? Parasite! Get lost!<…>Once I told you, twice I said: “Do not dare to meet me”; you get it all! Is there enough space for you? Wherever you go, here you are.<…>You failed! I don't even want to talk to you, to the Jesuit. Here it is imposed! (d. 1, yavl. 2).

Boris himself constantly feels like a stranger in Kalinovo. “Everyone looks at me somehow wildly, as if I’m superfluous here, as if I’m disturbing them. I don't know the customs. I understand that all this is our Russian, native, but still I can’t get used to it in any way ”(d. 1, yavl. 3).

KATERINA AND OTHERS: SIN AND WILL

But Katerina feels herself the strangest bird in Kalinovo. Having grown up in this world, she demonstrates the maximum alienation to him.

Already the second replica of the heroine in the play, with all her deference, shows the integrity of her nature, not demonstrative, but a direct denial of hypocritical mores, moral formalism, to which they are accustomed in the city. “You are talking about me, mother, in vain you say this. With people, that without people, I'm all alone, I don't prove anything from myself ”(d. 1, yavl. 5).

The image of Katerina Ostrovsky builds differently than the images of other characters in the drama. In the drama, her whole life seems to pass before us. But on the other hand, the playwright ignores many obvious details.

After marriage, Katerina, like Boris, finds herself alone in a strange city. “According to the patriarchal house-building custom, she issued, but not came out. They didn’t ask her if she loved Tikhon, she was given away with the blessing of her parents for not nice, in the hope that, they say, “be patient - fall in love”, ”wrote P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky, at the same time noticing that in folk songs, in the colloquial language of merchants, philistines and peasants, only such a form is found - “issued”.

“Here that she got married, that they buried - it doesn’t matter.<…>Well, I got to the town! - Boris sighs, translating Kalinov's "issued" to a more civilized "came out", but, in fact, talking about the same thing (case 3, scene 3, scene 2).

However, in the drama there is not a single hint of Katerina's connection with her former life. Where is her hometown? What happened to her family? Does she meet with relatives? None of these questions are answered in the play.

Katerina, like a fairy-tale heroine, finds herself in a strange enchanted city. All her ties to her former life have been severed. The past remained only in her few memories.

Instead of a specific biography, Ostrovsky offers poetic history shaping the character of Katerina. Its main properties are sincerity, passion, determination, religious and poetic perception of the world.

“This is how I was born, hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, but it was towards evening, it was already dark; I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore. The next morning they already found it, ten miles away! (d. 2, yavl. 2).

In another monologue, the heroine recalls in more detail about life in her native home: she went to church with her mother, prayed earnestly both in the temple and at home, talked with wanderers, watered flowers, had poetic dreams in which she flew through the air. To Varvara’s surprised remark: “But it’s the same with us,” Katerina replies: “Yes, everything here seems to be from captivity” (case 1, phenomen 7).

Katerina's life in Kalinovo is a constant attempt to adapt to captivity, which is hindered by the integrity and sincerity of the heroine. Church, prayer in Kalinovo become not a need of a living soul, but a hateful duty. Although Katerina issued for Tikhon, she wants to fall in love with him, to build some kind of common life with him, which is constantly hindered by both the instructions of her mother and the reproaches of her husband himself. “Yes, I didn’t stop loving, but with such bondage, you will run away from any beautiful wife you want!” (d. 2, yavl. 4).

Will (bondage) one of the main motives keynote- plays. Words will and its antonym captivity occur more than thirty times in the text. Only the characters involved in the main conflict talk about the will: Kabanikha, Tikhon, Katerina and Boris (once Kuligin also mentions this in passing).

Will In this sense - opportunity to live according to own desires, without external restrictions and prohibitions."Will - given to man arbitrariness of action; freedom, scope in actions; the absence of bondage, rape, coercion, ”says Ostrovsky’s contemporary V.I. Dal in the famous Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. And then he cites dozens of - very contradictory - Russian proverbs, some seem to be a direct commentary on the "Thunderstorm": "The tsar's own will is more." “The husband gave his wife the will not to be good.” “Willing your own is better than captivity. Even though I chew needles, I live in freedom.

The attitude of the characters to this concept coincides with the division into friends and foes. In the ethics of house-building, will is seen as a negative, destructive phenomenon. For strangers, by the will of circumstances thrown into the Kalinov world, the will seems like a dream, a dream.

Kabanikha connects the will with the death of the familiar world and its foundations. “I have long seen that you want the will. Well, then, wait, live and be free when I'm gone. Then do what you want, there will be no elders over you. Or maybe you will remember me too” (case 1, appearance 5). “What, son! Where will the will lead? she cries triumphantly when she hears Katerina's confession.

Tikhon's will seems to be a short-term flight from his native home, although, as Katerina notes, "even in freedom, he seems to be bound."

Boris also perceives his position in the city as bondage, but at the same time, in comparison with Katerina, he is a “free Cossack”, a “free bird”.

For Katerina, will is the main condition for her existence, captivity is the path to death. “It will make me so stuffy, so stuffy at home, that I would run. And such a thought would come to me that, if it were my will, I would now ride along the Volga, on a boat, with songs, or on a good troika, embracing ... ”(d. 1, yavl. 7). “This is how our sister dies. In captivity, someone has fun!<…>And bondage is bitter, oh, how bitter! Who does not cry from her! And most of all, we women. Here I am now!” (d. 2, yavl. 10).

Katerina's highest poetic manifestation of will is her desire to fly. The dream of flying accompanies her whole life. She says that she flew in childhood dreams. She, suddenly, as if remembering her childhood, asks Varvara why people do not fly, and wants to try to fly right now. Later, on the eve of her meeting with Boris, she imagines the flight of her soul after death (case 2, appearance 8).

In Ostrovsky's drama, the concept of will also has one more - psychological - meaning. Will is the ability of a person to achieve a goal.

In this sense, Tikhon, who dreams of a free life, is completely devoid of will. His will is broken by a strong-willed mother, which Kabanikha says triumphantly in one of his instructions. “You see what other mind you have, and you still want to live by your will. “Yes, mother, I don’t want to live by my own will. Where can I live with my will! (d. 1, yavl. 5).

The game of the psychological concept of "will" is also played during the night meeting between Katerina and Boris. “Well, how did you not ruin me, if I, leaving the house, go to you at night. - It was your will. - I have no will. If I had my own will, I would not go to you.<…>Your will is over me now, can't you see! (She throws herself on his neck.) ”(case 3, scene 1, scene 3).

It is characteristic that the civilized, European concept "Liberty" Kalinov is familiar only to Kudryash, and even then he uses it in a reduced, distorted sense: “We are free about this. Girls walk around as they want, father and mother do not care. Only women are locked up” (case 3, scene 2, scene 2).

Love for Boris for Katerina is an act as free as it is forced. Making her free choice, the heroine is limited by the circumstances at hand. Boris is a stranger in the "dark kingdom", but he is forced to live by his rules, obey his uncle, although he understands that he will deceive him anyway. "Free Cossack" or "free bird" he is only in his mind. “Boris is not a hero and is not far from Katerina, she fell in love with him more in the wilderness,” Dobrolyubov noted accurately.

When this love arises, Katerina, as if between two fires, finds herself between the desire for will and feeling sin.

"Sin" - like "will" - is the key motif of the drama. He appears in The Thunderstorm more than forty times. Almost all the characters talk about sin and their sins, except for the educated Kuligin and Boris.

“And brought him to sin at such a time! He sinned after all: he scolded, so scolded that it was impossible to demand better, almost nailed him. Here it is, what kind of heart I have, ”either confesses, or is proud of Dika in front of the Kabanikha, remembering the peasant who came to ask for the money he had earned (case 2, scene 1, scene 2).

“What can I say to a fool! There is only one sin!” - Kabanikha interrupts the conversation with his son (d. 1, yavl. 5).

“I have sinned all my life. Ask what they say about her. That’s what she’s afraid of dying, ”says Varvara about the crazy lady (d. 1, yavl. 9).

"Why should I judge you! I have my own sins,” she answers Katerina’s confession (d. 1, yavl. 7).

“Themselves, tea, is also not without sin!” - Kuligin tries to persuade the offended husband. “What can I say!” - Tikhon readily responds (case 5, appearance 1).

It turns out that even God's wanderer has his own sins. “And I, dear girl, am not absurd, I don’t have this sin. There is one sin for me, for sure; I myself know what it is. I like sweet food,” Feklusha admits (d. 2, yavl. 1).

Sincerely brought up in religious concepts, Katerina perceives her whole life in the categories of a sinful and righteous life.

She considers the very love for Boris to be a sin. “Ah, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I did not do to myself! I can't get away from this sin. Nowhere to go. After all, this is not good, this is a terrible sin, Varenka, that I love another? (d. 1, yavl. 7).

Varvara arranges another test for Katerina. In the hands of Katerina is the key, which makes it possible to have a nightly date. Holding in her hand the key-temptation, the key to a new secret life, the heroine oscillates between the former life-torment and the life-sin. “I live, toil, I don’t see a light for myself! Yes, and I will not see, know! What's next is worse. And now this sin is on me. ( Thinking.) If not for my mother-in-law! .. She crushed me ... she made me sick of the house; the walls are disgusting. ( He looks thoughtfully at the key.) Drop it? Of course you have to quit. And how did he get into my hands? To temptation, to my ruin. But this struggle is resolved in favor of a new life: “Come what may, but I will see Boris!” (d. 2, yavl. 10).

During the date, Katerina hesitates and makes her final choice. “Do you know: after all, I can’t pray for this sin, never pray! After all, he will lie like a stone on the soul, like a stone.<…>Why feel sorry for me, no one is to blame - she herself went for it. Don't be sorry, kill me! Let everyone know, let everyone see what I'm doing! ( Hugs Boris.) If I am not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment? They say that it is even easier when you endure for some sin here on earth” (case 3, scene 2, scene 7).

Katerina's subsequent confession was caused by further spiritual work and a sense of guilt not only before her neighbors, but also before heaven. “I am a sinner before God and before you!” (d. 4, yavl. 6).

Confession removes sin from Katerina's soul, but aggravates her situation even more. The boar urges her husband to "bury her alive in the ground so that she can be executed." Tikhon could not disobey his mother and “beat a little” his wife, although he actually pities her. The house finally becomes unloving for Katerina, a stranger, the remnants of her respect for her husband disappear.

Running away from home and a date with Boris pushes her to the last step. “Where to now? Go home? It’s all the same to me what goes home, what goes to the grave” (d. 5, yavl. 4).

This choice is especially scary for a deeply religious person, because the heroine takes on another terrible mortal sin - suicide. And yet Katerina chooses him, and not returning home. “It’s all the same that death, that itself ... but you can’t live! Sin! Will they not pray? Whoever loves will pray…” (case 5, appearance 4).

However, already at the very beginning of the play, the heroine is seized with bad forebodings. “I will die soon,” she says to Varvara immediately after her childhood memories and dreams of flying. “No, I know that I will die” (case 1, appearance 7). And this feeling of catastrophe, of the near end, also runs through the whole drama.

One of the first critics called Ostrovsky's heroine "a female Hamlet from a merchant's life." Shakespeare's Hamlet saw Denmark as a prison. The city of Kalinov becomes such a prison for Katerina. The only escape from it is death.

Essay plan
1. Introduction. Variety of symbolism in the play.
2. The main part. The motives and themes of the play, artistic anticipations, symbolism of images, phenomena, details.
— Folklore motifs as an artistic anticipation of the heroine's situation.
- Dreams of Katerina and the symbolism of images.
- A story about childhood as a compositional anticipation.
- The motive of sin and retribution in the play. Kabanova and Wild.
- The motive of sin in the images of Feklusha and the half-mad lady.
- The motive of sin in the images of Curly, Barbara and Tikhon.
— Katerina's perception of sin.
- The idea of ​​the play.
— The symbolic meaning of the images of the play.
- The symbolism of objects.
3. Conclusion. Philosophical and poetic subtext of the play.

Symbolism in the play by A.N. Ostrovsky is diverse. The very title of the play, the theme of the thunderstorm, the motives of sin and judgment are symbolic. Landscape paintings, objects, some images are symbolic. Some motifs, themes acquire allegorical meaning folk songs.
At the very beginning of the play, the song “Among the Flat Valley ...” sounds (sung by Kuligin), which already at the very beginning introduces the motive of a thunderstorm and the motive of death. If we remember the entire text of the song, then there are the following lines:

Where can I rest my heart
When will the storm rise?
A gentle friend sleeps in the damp earth,
Help will not come.

The theme of loneliness, orphanhood, life without love also arises in it. All these motives seem to anticipate life situation Catherine at the beginning of the play:

Ah, bored lonely
And the tree will grow!
Oh, bitter, bitter young man
Without a sweet life to lead!

The dreams of the heroine in The Thunderstorm also acquire symbolic meaning. So, Katerina yearns because people do not fly. “Why don’t people fly! .. I say: why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you are drawn to fly. That's how it would have run up, raised its hands and flew. Try something now?” she says to Varvara. In the parental home, Katerina lived like a "bird in the wild." She dreams about how she flies. Elsewhere in the play, she dreams of becoming a butterfly. The theme of birds introduces the motif of captivity, cages into the narrative. Here we can recall the symbolic rite of the Slavs to release birds into the wild from cages, which is based on the belief of the Slavs in the ability of the reincarnation of the human soul. As Yu.V. Lebedev, “the Slavs believed that the human soul is capable of turning into a butterfly or a bird. In folk songs, a woman yearning on a foreign side in an unloved family turns into a cuckoo, flies into the garden to her beloved mother, complains to her about a dashing lot. But the theme of birds sets here the motive of death. Thus, in many cultures, the Milky Way is called the "Bird Road", because the souls flying along this road to heaven were represented by birds. Thus, already at the beginning of the play, we notice the motives that precede the death of the heroine.
Katerina's story about her childhood also becomes a kind of artistic anticipation: “... I was born so hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, but it was towards evening, it was already dark; I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore. The next morning they already found ten miles away! But Katerina's story is also a compositional preview of the play's finale. The Volga for her is a symbol of will, space, free choice. And in the end, she makes her choice.
The final scenes of "Thunderstorm" are also preceded by Kudryash's song:

Like a Don Cossack, a Cossack led a horse to water,
Good fellow, he is already standing at the gate.
Standing at the gate, he thinks himself
Duma thinks how he will destroy his wife.
As a wife prayed to her husband,
In a hurry, she bowed to him:
You, father, are you a dear friend of the heart!
You do not beat, do not ruin me from the evening!
You kill, ruin me from midnight!
Let my little kids sleep
To small children, to all close neighbors.

This song develops in the play the motive of sin and retribution, which runs through the whole story. Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova constantly recalls sin: “How long to sin! A conversation close to the heart will go, well, you will sin, you will get angry, ”“ Complete, complete, do not swear! Sin!”, “What a fool and talk! There is only one sin!” Judging by these remarks, the sin for Kabanova is irritation, anger, lies and deceit. However, in this case, Marfa Ignatievna sins constantly. She is often irritated, angry at her son and daughter-in-law. Preaching religious commandments, she forgets about love for her neighbor and therefore lies to others. “The hypocrite… clothes the poor, and completely stuck with the family,” Kuligin says about her. Kabanova is far from true mercy, her faith is harsh and merciless. Dikoy also mentions sin in the play. Sin for him is his “cursing”, anger, absurdity of character. "Sins" Wild often: gets from him to his family, nephew, Kuligin, peasants.
The pilgrim Feklusha thinks thoughtfully about sin in the play: “It’s impossible, mother, without sin: we live in the world,” she says to Glasha. For Feklusha, anger, quarrel, absurdity of character, gluttony are sins. For herself, she recognizes only one of these sins - gluttony: “There is one sin for me, for sure; I myself know what it is. I love sweet food." However, at the same time, Feklusha is also prone to deceit, to suspicion, she tells Glasha to look after "the poor woman" so that she "doesn't steal anything." The motive of sin is also embodied in the image of a half-mad lady who sinned a lot from her youth. Since then, she has been prophesying a "whirlpool", "fire ... inextinguishable" to everyone.
In a conversation with Boris, Kudryash also mentions sin. Noticing Boris Grigorych near the Kabanovs' garden and at first considering him a rival, Kudryash warns young man: "I love you, sir, and I'm ready for any service for you, but on this path you don't meet with me at night, so that, God forbid, no sin has happened." Knowing Curly's disposition, we can guess what kind of "sins" he has. Barbara, in the play, "sins" without talking about sin. This concept lives in her mind only in the usual way of life, but she obviously does not consider herself a sinner. Tikhon also has his sins. He himself admits this in a conversation with Kuligin: “I went to Moscow, you know? On the road, my mother read, read instructions to me, and as soon as I left, I went on a spree. I am very glad that I broke free. And he drank all the way, and in Moscow he drank everything, so it's a bunch, what the heck! So, to take a whole year off. I never thought about the house." Kuligin advises him to forgive his wife: "Themselves, tea, is also not without sin!" Tikhon unconditionally agrees: “What can I say!”.
Katerina often thinks about sin in the play. That is how she regards her love for Boris. Already in the first conversation about this with Varya, she clearly indicates her feelings: “Ah, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I did not do to myself! I can't get away from this sin. Nowhere to go. After all, this is not good, because this is a terrible sin, Varenka, that I love another? Moreover, for Katerina, not only the act as such is a sin, but also the thought of it: “I’m not afraid to die, but when I think that suddenly I will appear before God the way I am here with you, after this conversation, - that's what's scary. What's on my mind! What a sin! It's scary to say!" Katerina recognizes her sin even at the moment when she meets Boris. “If I am not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment? They say it’s even easier when you suffer for some sin here on earth.” However, then the heroine begins to suffer from the consciousness of her own sin. Her own behavior is at odds with her ideal ideas about the world, of which she herself is a particle. Katerina introduces into the narrative the motive of repentance, retribution for sins, God's punishment.
And the theme of God's punishment is connected both with the title of the play and with a thunderstorm as a natural phenomenon. Ostrovsky's theme is symbolic. However, what meaning does the playwright put into the concept of "thunderstorm"? If we remember the Bible, then the peals of thunder are likened to the voice of the Lord. Almost all Kalinovtsy relate to a thunderstorm unambiguously: it inspires them with mystical fear, reminds them of God's wrath, of moral responsibility. Wild says: "... a thunderstorm is sent to us as a punishment so that we feel ...". The prophecies of the crazy lady also hint at the punishment of God: “You will have to answer for everything ... You won’t get away from God.” Katerina perceives the storm in the same way: she is convinced that this is nothing but a retribution for her sins. However, the Bible has another meaning for this phenomenon. The gospel sermon is compared with thunder here. And this, I think, is the true meaning of this symbol in the play. The storm is "designed" to crush the stubbornness and cruelty of the Kalinovites, to remind them of love and forgiveness.
This is exactly what the Kalinovtsy should have done with Katerina. The public repentance of the heroine is an attempt of her reconciliation with the world, reconciliation with herself. Biblical wisdom sounds in the subtext of the play: “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged, for by what judgment you judge, so you will be judged ...” parable.
In addition to themes and motives, we note symbolic meaning some of the characters in the play. Kuligin introduces the ideas and themes of enlightenment thinking into the play, and this character also introduces the image of natural harmony and grace. Ostrovsky’s image of a half-mad lady is a symbol of Katerina’s sick conscience, Feklusha’s image is a symbol of the old patriarchal world whose foundations are crumbling.
The last times of the “dark kingdom” are also symbolized by some objects in the play, in particular old gallery and key. In the fourth act, we see in the foreground a narrow gallery with an old building that is beginning to collapse. Its painting reminds of quite definite plots - “fiery hell”, the battle of Russians with Lithuania. However, now it has almost completely collapsed, everything is overgrown, after the fire it has not been corrected. symbolic detail is also the key that Varvara gives to Katerina. The scene with the key plays a crucial role in the development of the play's conflict. In the soul of Katerina there is an internal struggle. She perceives the key as a temptation, as a sign of impending doom. But the thirst for happiness wins: “Why am I saying that I am deceiving myself? I have to die to see him. To whom am I pretending! .. Throw the key! No, not for anything! He is mine now ... Come what may, and I will see Boris! Ah, if only the night would come sooner!..” The key here becomes a symbol of freedom for the heroine; it seems to unlock her soul, languishing in captivity.
Thus, Ostrovsky's play has both poetic and philosophical overtones, expressed in motives, images and details. The storm that swept over Kalinov becomes "a cleansing storm that carried away deeply rooted prejudices, cleared the place for other" mores ".

1. Lebedev Yu.V. Russian literature XIX century. Second half. The book for the teacher. M., 1990, p. 169–170.

2. Lion P.E., Lokhova N.M. Decree. cit., p.255.

3. Buslakova T.P. Russian literature of the 19th century. Educational minimum for the applicant. M., 2005, p. 531.

In the drama "Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky created a very psychologically complex image - the image of Katerina Kabanova. This young woman disposes the viewer with her huge, pure soul, childish sincerity and kindness. But she lives in the musty atmosphere of the "dark kingdom" merchant morals. Ostrovsky managed to create a bright and poetic image of a Russian woman from the people. The main storyline of the play is a tragic conflict between the living, feeling soul of Katerina and the dead way of life of the “dark kingdom”. Honest and touching Katerina turned out to be a disenfranchised victim of the cruel orders of the merchant environment. No wonder Dobrolyubov called Katerina "a ray of light in a dark kingdom." Katerina did not reconcile herself to despotism and tyranny; driven to despair, she challenges the "dark kingdom" and dies. Only in this way can she save her inner world from rough pressure. According to critics, for Katerina “not death is desirable, but life is unbearable. To live for her means to be herself. Not to be herself means not to live for her.

The image of Katerina is built on a folk-poetic basis. Her a pure soul merged with nature. She presents herself as a bird, the image of which in folklore is closely connected with the concept of will. “I lived, didn’t grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild.” Katerina, who got into the house of Kabanova, as in a terrible prison, is often remembered parental home where she was treated with love and understanding. Talking to Varvara, the heroine asks: “... Why don't people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird." Katerina is torn to freedom from the cage, where she is forced to remain until the end of her days.

Religion evoked high feelings, a surge of joy and reverence in her. The beauty and fullness of the heroine's soul were expressed in prayers to God. “On a sunny day, such a bright pillar goes down from the dome, and smoke walks in this pillar, like clouds, and I see, it used to be that angels in this pillar fly and sing. And then, it happened ... I would get up at night ... but somewhere in a corner and pray until the morning. Or early in the morning I’ll go to the garden, as soon as the sun rises, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry.”

Katerina expresses her thoughts and feelings in poetic folk language. The melodious speech of the heroine is colored by love for the world, the use of many diminutive forms characterizes her soul. She says “sunshine”, “voditsa”, “grave”, often resorts to repetitions, as in the songs: “on a troika on a good one”, “people are disgusting to me, and the house is disgusting to me, and the walls are disgusting.” Trying to throw out the feelings seething in her, Katerina exclaims: “Wild winds, transfer my sadness and longing to him!”

The tragedy of Katerina is that she does not know how and does not want to lie. And in the "dark kingdom" lies are the basis of life and relationships. Boris tells her: "No one will know about our love ...", to which Katerina replies: "Let everyone know, let everyone see what I'm doing!" These words reveal the courageous, wholesome nature of this woman, who risks challenging philistine morality, confronting society alone.

But, having fallen in love with Boris, Katerina enters into a struggle with herself, with her convictions. She, married woman feels like a great sinner. Her faith in God is not the hypocrisy of Kabanikha, who covers up her malice and misanthropy with God. Awareness of one's own sinfulness, pangs of conscience haunt Katerina. She complains to Varya: “Ah, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I did not do to myself! I can't get away from this sin. Nowhere to go. After all, this is not good, this is a terrible sin, Varenka, that I love another? Katerina does not think about the fact that they committed violence against her, giving her in marriage to the unloved. Her husband, Tikhon, is happy to leave home and does not want to protect his wife from her mother-in-law. Her heart tells her that her love is the greatest happiness, in which there is nothing wrong, but the morality of society and the church does not forgive the free manifestation of feelings. Katerina wrestles with unresolvable questions.

The tension in the play is growing, Katerina is afraid of a thunderstorm, hears the terrible prophecies of a crazy lady, sees a picture depicting the Last Judgment on the wall. In the darkening of her mind, she repents of her sin. Repentance from pure heart according to religious laws, it necessarily requires forgiveness. But people have forgotten the kind, forgiving and loving god, they still have a God who punishes and punishes. Katerina does not receive forgiveness. She does not want to live and suffer, she has nowhere to go, her beloved turned out to be as weak and dependent as her husband. Everyone betrayed her. The church considers suicide a terrible sin, but for Katerina it is an act of despair. It is better to be in hell than to live in the "dark kingdom". The heroine cannot harm anyone, so she decides to die herself. Throwing herself off a cliff into the Volga, Katerina at the last moment thinks not about her sin, but about love, which illuminated her life with great happiness. Katerina's last words are addressed to Boris: “My friend! My joy! Goodbye!" One can only hope that God will be more merciful to Katerina than people.

• In The Thunderstorm, Ostrovsky shows the life of a Russian merchant family and the position of a woman in it. The character of Katerina was formed in a simple merchant family, where love reigned and her daughter was given complete freedom. She acquired and retained all the beautiful features of the Russian character. This is a pure, open soul that does not know how to lie. “I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything,” she says to Varvara. In religion Katerina found the highest truth and beauty. Her desire for the beautiful, the good, was expressed in prayers. Coming out […]
• Whole, honest, sincere, she is not capable of lies and falsehood, therefore, in a cruel world where wild and wild boars reign, her life is so tragic. Katerina's protest against the despotism of Kabanikha is the struggle of the bright, pure, human against the darkness, lies and cruelty of the "dark kingdom". No wonder Ostrovsky, who paid great attention to the selection of names and surnames of the characters, gave such a name to the heroine of "Thunderstorm": in Greek, "Catherine" means "eternally pure." Katerina is a poetic nature. IN […]
• Katerina Varvara Character Sincere, sociable, kind, honest, pious, but superstitious. Gentle, soft, at the same time, decisive. Rude, cheerful, but taciturn: "... I don't like to talk a lot." Determined, can fight back. Temperament Passionate, freedom-loving, bold, impetuous and unpredictable. She says about herself “I was born so hot!”. Freedom-loving, smart, prudent, bold and rebellious, she is not afraid of either parental or heavenly punishment. Upbringing, […]
• "The Thunderstorm" was published in 1859 (on the eve of the revolutionary situation in Russia, in the "pre-storm" era). Its historicism lies in the conflict itself, the irreconcilable contradictions reflected in the play. She responds to the spirit of the times. "Thunderstorm" is an idyll of the "dark kingdom". Tyranny and silence are brought in it to the limit. In the play, a real heroine from the people's environment appears, and it is the description of her character that is given the main attention, and the little world of the city of Kalinov and the conflict itself are described more generally. "Their life […]
• 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 […]
• The play by Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" is historical for us, as it shows the life of the bourgeoisie. "Thunderstorm" was written in 1859. It is the only work of the cycle "Nights on the Volga" conceived, but not realized by the writer. The main theme of the work is a description of the conflict that arose between two generations. The Kabanihi family is typical. The merchants cling to their old ways, not wanting to understand the younger generation. And because the young do not want to follow the traditions, they are suppressed. I'm sure, […]
• In "Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky, operating with a small number of characters, managed to uncover several problems at once. Firstly, this is, of course, a social conflict, a clash of "fathers" and "children", their points of view (and if we resort to generalization, then two historical eras). Kabanova and Dikoy belong to the older generation, actively expressing their opinion, and Katerina, Tikhon, Varvara, Kudryash and Boris belong to the younger one. Kabanova is sure that order in the house, control over everything that happens in it, is the key to a good life. Correct […]
• Let's start with Catherine. In the play "Thunderstorm" this lady is the main character. What is the problem with this work? The issue is the main question that the author asks in his creation. So the question here is who will win? The dark kingdom, which is represented by the bureaucrats of the county town, or the bright beginning, which is represented by our heroine. Katerina is pure in soul, she has a tender, sensitive, loving heart. The heroine herself is deeply hostile to this dark swamp, but is not fully aware of it. Katerina was born […]
• The critical history of "Thunderstorm" begins even before its appearance. To argue about "a ray of light in the dark realm", it was necessary to open the "Dark Realm". An article under this title appeared in the July and September issues of Sovremennik in 1859. It was signed by the usual pseudonym of N. A. Dobrolyubova - N. - bov. The reason for this work was extremely significant. In 1859, Ostrovsky summed up the intermediate result of his literary activity: his two-volume collected works appeared. "We consider it the most […]
• Dramatic Events plays by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" are deployed in the city of Kalinov. This town is located on the picturesque bank of the Volga, from the high steepness of which the vast Russian expanses and boundless distances open up to the eye. “The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices, ”the local self-taught mechanic Kuligin admires. Pictures of endless distances, echoed in lyric song. In the midst of the flat valley," which he sings, have great importance to convey a sense of the immense possibilities of the Russian […]
• Katerina is the main character in Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm", Tikhon's wife, daughter-in-law of Kabanikhi. 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 character of the heroine. From the words of Katerina, we learn about her childhood and adolescence. Here is drawn perfect option patriarchal relations and the patriarchal world in general: “I lived, not about […]
• A conflict is a clash of two or more parties that do not coincide in their views, attitudes. There are several conflicts in Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm", but how to decide which one is the main one? In the era of sociologism in literary criticism, it was believed that social conflict was the most important thing in a play. Of course, if we see in the image of Katerina a reflection of the spontaneous protest of the masses against the shackling conditions of the “dark kingdom” and perceive the death of Katerina as the result of her collision with the tyrant mother-in-law, […]
• In general, the history of the creation and the idea of ​​the play “Thunderstorm” are very interesting. For some time there was an assumption that this work was based on real events that took place in the Russian city of Kostroma in 1859. “In the early morning of November 10, 1859, the Kostroma bourgeois Alexandra Pavlovna Klykova disappeared from the house and either threw herself into the Volga, or was strangled and thrown there. The investigation revealed a dull drama that played out in an unsociable family living with narrowly trading interests: […]
• Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was endowed with a great talent as a playwright. He is deservedly considered the founder of the Russian national theater. His plays, varied in subject matter, glorified Russian literature. Creativity Ostrovsky had a democratic character. He created plays in which hatred for the autocratic-feudal regime was manifested. The writer called for the protection of the oppressed and humiliated citizens of Russia, longed for social change. The great merit of Ostrovsky is that he opened the enlightened […]
• Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was called the "Columbus of Zamoskvorechye", a district of Moscow where people from the merchant class lived. He showed what a tense, dramatic life goes on behind high fences, what Shakespearean passions sometimes seethe in the souls of representatives of the so-called "simple class" - merchants, shopkeepers, petty employees. The patriarchal laws of the world that is fading into the past seem unshakable, but a warm heart lives according to its own laws - the laws of love and kindness. Heroes of the play "Poverty is not a vice" […]
• The love story of the clerk Mitya and Lyuba Tortsova unfolds against the backdrop of the life of a merchant's house. Ostrovsky once again delighted his fans with his remarkable knowledge of the world and surprisingly vivid language. Unlike earlier plays, in this comedy there is not only the soulless factory owner Korshunov and Gordey Tortsov, who boasts of his wealth and power. They are opposed by simple and sincere people, kind and loving Mitya, and the squandered drunkard Lyubim Tortsov, who, despite his fall, […]
• The focus of the writers of the 19th century is a person with a rich spiritual life, a changeable inner world. The new hero reflects the state of the individual in the era of social transformations. The authors do not ignore the complex conditionality of the development of the human psyche by the external material situation. The main feature of the image of the world of the heroes of Russian literature is psychologism , that is, the ability to show the change in the soul of the hero In the center of various works, we see "extra […]
• The action of the drama takes place in the Volga city of Bryakhimov. And in it, as elsewhere, cruel orders reign. The society here is the same as in other cities. The main character of the play, Larisa Ogudalova, is a dowry. The Ogudalov family is not rich, but, thanks to the perseverance of Kharita Ignatievna, he gets acquainted with the mighty of the world this. Mother inspires Larisa that, although she does not have a dowry, she should marry a rich groom. And Larisa, for the time being, accepts these rules of the game, naively hoping that love and wealth […]
• Special Hero in the world of Ostrovsky, adjoining the type of a poor official with a sense of his own dignity, is Karandyshev Julius Kapitonovich. At the same time, pride in him is so hypertrophied that it becomes a substitute for other feelings. Larisa for him is not just a beloved girl, she is also a “prize” that makes it possible to triumph over Paratov, a chic and rich rival. At the same time, Karandyshev feels like a benefactor, taking as his wife a dowry, partly compromised by […]
• A feature of Gogol's comedy "The Government Inspector" is that it has a "mirage intrigue", that is, officials are fighting against a ghost created by their bad conscience and fear of retribution. Anyone who is mistaken for an auditor does not even make any deliberate attempts to deceive, to fool the officials who have fallen into error. The development of the action reaches its climax in act III. The comic fight continues. The mayor deliberately goes towards his goal: to force Khlestakov to “let slip”, “tell more” in order to […]