Analysis of the final scene of the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky “Thunderstorm. Did Katerina have another way out

Analysis final scene drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

Love is higher than the sun and stars
She moves the sun and the stars
But if it's true love.
The drama Thunderstorm was written by Ostrovsky on the eve of the revolutionary situation in Russia, in the pre-storm era. At the heart of the play
there is a conflict of irreconcilable contradictions between the individual and the surrounding society. Cause of conflict and all
misfortunes - money, The division of society into rich and poor. In the plays of Ostrovsky there is a protest against despotism, lies,
oppression of man by man.
This protest reached its greatest strength in the drama Thunderstorm.
The struggle for a person for his right to freedom, happiness, a meaningful life - this is the problem that Ostrovsky
decides in the play "Thunderstorm".
How does the main conflict of the drama develop? A strong, freedom-loving person finds himself in an environment alien to him, in a family,
where the personality is being strangled.
The tragedy of Katerina lies in the fact that she is a stranger to the Kabanov family: she was brought up in a free atmosphere.
Favorite daughter in the family. In the Kabanov family, everything is built on deception, lies. There is no sincere respect between family members, all
live under the fear of their mother, under blunt submission.
Katerina is a poetic nature, she feels the beauty of nature and loves it, she very sincerely wants to love, but
whom?! She wants to love her husband, mother-in-law.
Can a woman imbued with freedom, love for nature, with a bird's heart, put up with violence, a lie that
reigned in the Kabanov family.
Mutual relations tyranny and voicelessness brought it to tragic consequences.
Religion brought poetry to Katerina, because she did not read books, she did not know letters, but the features of folk wisdom,
denounced in a religious form, the church brought her - this beautiful world folk art, folklore, which was
Katerina is loaded.
Suffocating in the house of the Kabanovs, yearning for freedom, for love, for truly good human relations, Katerina is not
puts up with bondage, in her mind vaguely, indistinctly, the thought of how to leave the hateful house is born. But these feelings
suppress (she is Tikhon's wife). A terrible struggle is going on in the heart of a young woman. We see her in the midst of a tense
internal struggle. She fell deeply and honestly in love with Boris, but in every way she tries to suppress a living motivating feeling in herself.
She does not want to see her beloved, she suffers.
And the storm? Why is it said in the first act about an impending thunderstorm? This is a natural phenomenon. It seems like a mental storm
she is sinful and terrible. The world of religious ideas contradicts the living feelings that awaken in her. Sin
frightens Katherine.
How does the conflict develop in her own soul?
To Katerina's words that she does not know how to deceive! Varvara objects: “Our whole house rests on this.” But
Katerina does not accept the morality of the "dark kingdom". “... I don’t want that! ... I’ll better endure it while I endure it!”. “But not
endure, ... so no force can hold me back. 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."
“Oh, Varya, you don’t know my character. Of course, God forbid this happens!” “And I want to break myself, but not
I can't."... “Tonight the enemy troubled me again. After all, I was out of the house.” There is an internal struggle. What
affects in this painful struggle? Strength? Weakness? To break oneself means to remain a faithful wife of a man,
whom she does not love. (Yes, and there’s nothing to love him for.) But a woman with a free heart cannot be a slave in the Kabanikh’s house.
birds. And it seems to her that her call to will is the temptation of the devil.
A turning point is coming: Katerina is finally convinced that her husband is not worth not only love, but also respect. And
here is the last flash of intense internal struggle. Throw away the key first, because it contains death (death
spiritual, she is not afraid of her family, but of ruining her soul.)
"Drop him?! No, not for anything in the world!” The dating scene opens with a folk lingering song that emphasizes
tragedy of Katerina's love for Boris.
Katerina's first meeting with her beloved is deeply tragic. "Why have you come, my destroyer?" "You ruined me!" How
her feeling must be strong if she consciously goes to certain death in the name of him. Strong character! Deep
feeling! Enviable feeling! So not everyone can love. I am convinced of the extraordinary spiritual strength of Katerina. "Not,
I can't live!" She is sure of this, but the fear of death does not stop her. Love is stronger than this fear! Love
those religious notions by which her soul was bound were also victorious. “After all, I can’t pray for this sin, I can’t pray
never". “After all, he will fall on the soul like a stone,” Katerina says when she meets Boris, and admits to him that for the sake of love, “sin
not afraid." Her love was stronger than religious prejudices.
The storm, which is gathering in the first act, broke out here over the poor victim of the "dark kingdom". And the fight in
Katerina's soul is not yet complete. But I am sure that Katerina is not an unrequited victim, but a person with a strong, resolute
character, with a lively freedom-loving heart of a bird.
Not afraid of punishment, she ran away from home to say goodbye to Boris. Not only is she not hiding, she is at the top of her voice
calls a loved one: “My joy, my life, my soul, my love!” ... “Answer!”
Not! She is not a slave, she is free. If only because she lost everything, she has nothing more to cherish, even life, in the name of
love. "Why should I live now?!"
In the scene with Boris, Katerina is jealous of him: "You are a free Cossack." But Katerina does not know that Boris is weaker than Tikhon, he
shackled by fear of his uncle. He is not worthy of Katherine.
In the finale, victory is also made over the internal enemy: over dark religious ideas. Katerina
convinced of her right to freedom of choice between life and death. "It's all the same that death will come, that itself ...", but to live like that
it is forbidden!" she contemplates suicide. "Sin!" "Won't they pray? Whoever loves will pray.”
The thought of love is stronger than the fear of God. Last words- an appeal to a loved one: “My friend! My joy!
Goodbye!"
Ostrovsky showed the complex tragic process of the emancipation of the resurrecting soul. Here the darkness beats with the light,
ups are followed by downs. Emancipation develops into protest. And “the strongest protest is the one that
finally rises from the breasts of the weakest and most patient. (Dobrolyubov.)

The drama "Thunderstorm", written in 1859, at the time of public upsurge on the eve of peasant reform, as if crowning the first stage creative activity Ostrovsky, a cycle of his plays about “ dark kingdom". This play was extremely popular. The drama was staged on the stages of almost all theaters in Russia: from large metropolitan theaters to theaters in small, lost towns. And it is not surprising, because Ostrovsky in the play showed a new heroine, symbolizing a protest against the old way of life, symbolizing the sprouts of a new life. This is how the play was received by the public. Even the censors perceived the “Thunderstorm” precisely as public play, since they demanded that Ostrovsky completely remove Kabanikha: it seemed to them that Kabanikha was a parody of the tsar, “Nikolai Pavlovich in a skirt.”

According to V. Lakshin, "Thunderstorm" struck Ostrovsky's contemporaries with its "poetic power and drama of the story about the fate of Katerina." The play was perceived as a denunciation of the merchant norms of morality and arbitrariness that prevailed in the country.

I think that no one will argue with the fact that Katerina's fate is really dramatic. She, perhaps without realizing it herself, protested against the tyranny and despotism of the society in which she lived. Her voluntary death is precisely a challenge to this tyrannical force. But was there a different outcome?

After some thought, one can come to the conclusion that, theoretically, Katerina Kabanova still had a choice. Let's try to analyze the possible resolutions of the play's conflict.

The first and, perhaps, the most desirable way is to leave with Boris. That is what the poor woman hopes for when she goes to last date with a loved man. But Boris, this “educated Tikhon”, is not able to answer for his actions, is not able to take responsibility for himself. He refuses Katherine. last hope is collapsing.

The second way is to get a divorce. But at that time, in order to get a divorce, one could wait a very long time, and one had to go through all the instances, experience all the humiliations. If divorce was rare in noble families (remember Anna Karenina), then for a merchant family it was simply impossible.

The third way is to go to a monastery. But a husband's wife could not be accepted into a monastery. She would have been found there anyway and returned to her husband.

The fourth and most terrible path is the path of Katerina Izmailova. Get rid of the husband and mother-in-law, kill them. But Katerina Kabanova cannot choose this path, cannot hurt another person, cannot violate the fifth commandment “Thou shalt not kill”, as she is unusually pious.

Katerina could not live according to the principle of Barbara: “Do whatever you want, as long as everything is sewn and covered.” Katerina's nature cannot accept a lie. Just leave your husband and return to parental home it was impossible, she would have been found and returned, and her shame would have fallen on the whole family.

There was one more way left - to live with Tikhon as before, because he loved her in his own way and forgave her sin. But could Katerina listen to the daily prodding and reproaches of her mother-in-law? Yes, and that's not the point. With Boris Katerina experienced true love, knew the charm of closeness with a loved one, the joy of being in his arms. And is it possible after that to live with an unloved husband, who is under the heel of Kabanikh, a husband who is not even able to protect his wife from insults of her mother? Of course not! Having fallen in love with Boris, Katerina could no longer love anyone else. Her whole nature, driven by feelings, did not even allow the thought of it. She couldn’t even think about returning to the Kabanovs’ house: “I don’t care whether it’s home or to the grave. Yes, either home, or to the grave!.. It's better in the grave... But I don't even want to think about life... People are disgusting to me, and the house is disgusting to me, and the walls are disgusting!.. You can't live! Sin!"

Thus, the only way out for Katerina was suicide. Such a decision is not at all a weakness, but a strength of her character. It is known that suicide in the Christian tradition is the greatest sin. Suicides are buried outside the fence of the church and are not buried. But this does not frighten the pious Katerina. “Won't they pray? she exclaims. “Whoever loves will pray...” Such spiritual talent and such integrity as Katerina has, one reward is death.

Of course, Katerina is “a ray of light in the dark kingdom”, but with her death it does not go out. The beam broke through a breach among the menacing clouds - the world of Wild and Boar. This gap is an ulcer in the “dark kingdom”. Katerina's death serves as a mute reproach to both Boris, "blindly submitting to the will of the Wild One", and Tikhon, "a weak-willed victim of fear of his mother." Katerina makes the apathetic Tikhon rouse inwardly, who accuses his mother of frenzy: “You ruined her! You! You!"

V. Lakshin wrote about this last scene drama: “This, though apparently fragile, victory over the fear of authority is the content of perhaps the most psychologically sharp and bold scene, worthy of crowning the whole drama.”

Composition based on the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

Drama A.N. Ostrovsky ends with the death of Katerina: in despair she rushes into the Volga. Death is always terrible, and the suicide of a young woman is doubly terrible. But did the heroine have another choice?

Russian critic N.A. Dobrolyubov called Katerina "a ray of light in a dark kingdom", and considered her suicide a protest, "a terrible challenge to self-foolish power." Indeed, the heroine is not like the other inhabitants " dark kingdom”: she is sincere and honest, all hypocrisy is alien to her. Katerina publicly admits to cheating on her husband and, according to Kabanikh, should be punished. There is no doubt that, having returned home, Tikhon's wife would have received "what she deserves." However, the heroine prefers a different path, protesting against the "dark kingdom" in her own way.

DI. Pisarev, another critic, assessed the image of Katerina differently. In the article "Motives of Russian Drama", he wrote that the life of Ostrovsky's heroine consists of contradictions that are resolved by a "stupid means" - suicide.

The point of view of D.I. is closer to me. Pisarev. Existence in the mother-in-law's house became unbearable for Katerina. As a result, the woman began something like a nervous breakdown. This is evidenced even by her speech, full of exclamations and pauses: “It’s all the same that death comes, that it’s on its own ... but you can’t live!”

At the end of the drama, Katerina is in a semi-mad state: life has lost all meaning for her. Boris leaves, leaving the woman to fend for herself. Homes are waiting unloved husband and cruel mother-in-law. “Go home? No, I don’t care whether it’s home or in the grave, ”the heroine admits in her last monologue, shortly before committing a terrible sin - suicide.

So did Katerina have another way out? I believe that the heroine could not do otherwise: her life became too meaningless and unbearable. Death was the only way out of pain.

Valery Kalinovsky

Thunderstorm "A. N. Ostrovsky - folk social tragedy, the first in Russian literature. It expresses advanced democratic ideas for its time, depicts heroes closely connected with the way of life, customs and interests of the people. The main conflict in The Thunderstorm is the struggle between old traditions and new trends. It is solved on the example of social and household, family relations and mores. Representatives of two worlds, old and new, are Katerina and Barbara in the play. Barbara is spiritually primitive. She does not trouble herself with remorse or moral suffering. Her primitivism was born from her surroundings, her whole way of life. Varvara is guided in all her actions by the instinct of self-preservation, worldly gain: “do whatever you want, as long as everything is covered and covered.” The merchant environment surrounding her from childhood brought up in the heroine the features of rudeness and swagger. But for all her cunning, adaptability and moral wretchedness, Barbara could not endure domestic tyranny. In the finale, she runs away from her mother's house. Before Barbara, the path is open to both good and evil. There are certainly good things in it. The heroine is not alien to kindness and compassion. Freed from her mother's influence, she may develop the best sides of her nature. The image of Katerina is covered with the finest poetry. It is characterized by deep spontaneity, naivety, tenderness and, at the same time, great strong-willed power. In this image, Ostrovsky showed the moral purity and beauty of a Russian woman from the people, her hatred of despotism and the desire for freedom, her ability not only to endure, but also to defend her human rights - resolutely, consistently, to the end. Therefore, Katerina chooses another life path. She cannot live in secret, "quietly." The open and truthful nature of Katerina tells her to act according to her conscience and the word of God, because the heroine is also very pious. And if she committed a misdemeanor, then she should be punished for it. That is why Katerina repents in public, confesses her betrayal to her husband. Barbara would never do that. This heroine would not have been tormented by conscience either. Katerina's death is a passionate call of her soul to life on new principles, a protest movement. She does not want to put up, does not want to take advantage of the miserable vegetative life that Kabanikha prepared for her after confessing to treason. Katerina felt with all her being that “to live in a dark kingdom, worse than death”, And chose to free herself from the oppression of the dark kingdom with her death. The main difference between these heroines is that Barbara mainly cares about the outside - so that people do not find out about her sins. This heroine does not think about her soul. Katerina, first of all, is concerned about the inner - her relationship with God, with her inner world. it fundamental difference and determines the lives and destinies of both heroines, which also radically differ from each other.