this is a clash of two or more parties that do not coincide in their views and worldviews. There are several conflicts in Ostrovsky's play The 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 in the play. Of course, if we see in the image of Katerina a reflection of the spontaneous protest of the masses against the constraining conditions of the dark kingdom and perceive Katerina’s death as a result of her collision with her tyrant mother-in-law, the genre of the play should be defined as a social and everyday drama. Drama is a work in which the public and personal aspirations of people, and sometimes their lives themselves, are under the threat of death from external forces beyond their control. The play also contains a generational conflict between Katerina and Kabanikha, the new always comes on the heels of the old, the old does not want to give in to the new . But the play is much deeper than it might seem at first glance. After all, Katerina, first of all, fights with herself, and not with Kabanikha, the conflict develops not around her, but in herself. Therefore, the play The Thunderstorm can be defined as a tragedy.
A tragedy is a work in which there is an insoluble conflict between the personal aspirations of the hero and the super-personal laws of life that occur in the mind of the main character. In general, the play is very similar to an ancient tragedy; the chorus is replaced by some extra-plot characters; the denouement ends with the death of the main character, like the ancient tragedy except the immortal Prometheus. Death Katerina is the result of a collision of two historical eras.
Some of the characters in the play seem to differ from the times in which they live. For example, Kuligin is a man of the 18th century, he wants to invent a sundial, which was known back in the antiquity, or a perpetuum mobile, which is a distinctive feature of the Middle Ages, or a lightning rod. He himself reaches with his mind something that has already been invented a long time ago, but he only dreams about it. He quotes Lomonosov and Derzhavin - this is also a human trait
13. Depiction of the “dark kingdom” in the play by A.N. Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm".
In order to show the contradictions between rudeness and honor, between ignorance and dignity, the play shows two generations: people of the older generation, the so-called “dark kingdom,” and people of a new trend, more progressive, who do not want to live by old laws and customs.
Dikoy and Kabanova are typical representatives of the “dark kingdom”. It was in these images that Ostrovsky wanted to show the ruling class in Russia at that time.
Dikoy and Kabanova are that very “dark kingdom”, relics, supporters of the foundations of this “dark kingdom”. That's who they are, these Wild and Kabanovs, stupid, ignorant, hypocritical, rude. They preach the same peace and order. This is a world of money, anger, envy and hostility. They hate everything new and progressive.
A. N. Ostrovsky’s idea was to expose the “dark kingdom” using the images of Dikiy and Kabanova. He denounced all rich people for lack of spirituality and meanness. Basically, in the secular society of Russia in the 19th century there were such Wilds and Kabanovs, as the author showed us in his drama “The Thunderstorm”.
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was endowed with great talent as a playwright. He is deservedly considered the founder of the Russian national theater. His plays, varied in theme, glorified Russian literature. Ostrovsky's creativity had a democratic character. He created plays that showed hatred of the autocratic serfdom regime. The writer called for the protection of the oppressed and humiliated citizens of Russia and longed for social change.
Ostrovsky’s great merit is that he opened the world of merchants to the enlightened public, oh Everyday life of which Russian society had a superficial concept. Merchants in Rus' provided trade in goods and food; they were seen in shops and were considered uneducated and uninteresting. Ostrovsky showed that behind the high fences of merchant houses, almost Shakespearean passions play out in the souls and hearts of people from the merchant class. He was called the Columbus of Zamoskvorechye.
Ostrovsky’s ability to affirm progressive trends in Russian society was fully revealed in the play “The Thunderstorm,” published in 1860. The play reflects the irreconcilable contradictions between the individual and society. The playwright raises a pressing issue in the 1860s about the position of women in Russian society.
The play takes place in the small Volga town of Kalinov, where the mainly merchant population lives. In his famous article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom,” the critic Dobrolyubov characterizes the life of merchants as follows: “Their life flows smoothly and peacefully, no interests of the world disturb them, because they do not reach them; kingdoms can collapse, new countries open up, the face of the earth... change - the inhabitants of the town of Kalinov will continue to exist in complete ignorance of the rest of the world... The concepts and way of life they accept are the best in the world, everything new comes from evil spirits... A dark mass, terrible in its naivety and sincerity.”
Ostrovsky, against the backdrop of a beautiful landscape, depicts the joyless life of the inhabitants of Kalinov. Kuligin, who in the play opposes the ignorance and arbitrariness of the “dark kingdom,” says: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!”
The term “tyranny” came into use along with Ostrovsky’s plays. The playwright called the “masters of life,” the rich, tyrants whom no one dared contradict. This is how Savel Prokofievich Dikoy is portrayed in the play “The Thunderstorm”. It was no coincidence that Ostrovsky gave him a “speaking” surname. Dikoy is famous for his wealth, acquired through deception and exploitation of other people's labor. No law is written to him. With his quarrelsome, rude disposition, he instills fear in those around him; he is a “cruel scolder”, a “shrill man”. His wife is forced to persuade those around her every morning: “Fathers, don’t make me angry! Darlings, don’t make me angry!” Impunity has corrupted the Wild One, he can shout and insult a person, but this only applies to those who do not fight back. Half the city belongs to the Dikiy, but he does not pay those who work for him. He explains to the mayor this way: “What’s special here, I won’t give them a penny, but I have a fortune.” Pathological greed clouds his mind.
A progressive man, Kuligin, turns to Dikiy with a request to give money to install a sundial in the city. In response he hears: “Why are you bothering me with all this nonsense! Maybe I don’t even want to talk to you. You should have first found out whether I am inclined to listen to you, a fool, or not. That’s how you start talking straight away.” Dikoy is completely unbridled in his tyranny, he is sure that any court will be on his side: “For others, you are an honest person, but I think that you are a robber, that’s all... Are you going to sue me or something? .. So know that you are a worm, I’ll crush you if I want.”
Another prominent representative of the morals of the “dark kingdom” is Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova. Kuligin speaks of her like this: “Prude. He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” Kabanova single-handedly rules the house and her family; she is accustomed to unquestioning obedience. In her person, Ostrovsky shows an ardent defender of the wild order of house-building in families and in life. She is sure that only fear holds a family together; she does not understand what respect, understanding, and good relations between people are. Kabanikha suspects everyone of sins and constantly complains about the lack of proper respect for elders on the part of the younger generation. “They don’t really respect elders these days...” she says. Kabanikha always puts herself down and pretends to be a victim: “Mother is old and stupid; Well, you, young people, smart ones, shouldn’t exact it from us, fools.” Material from the site
Kabanova “feels in her heart” that the old order is coming to an end, she is anxious and scared. She turned her own son into a dumb slave who has no power in his own family and acts only according to his mother’s orders. Tikhon happily leaves home, just to take a break from scandals and the oppressive atmosphere of his home.
Dobrolyubov writes: “The tyrants of Russian life, however, begin to feel some kind of discontent and fear, without knowing what and why... Besides them, without asking them, another life grew up, with different beginnings, and although it is far away, is not clearly visible, but already gives a presentiment and sends bad visions to the dark tyranny of tyrants.”
Showing the life of the Russian province, Ostrovsky paints a picture of extreme backwardness, ignorance, rudeness and cruelty, which kill all living things around. People's lives depend on the arbitrariness of the Wild and Boars, who are hostile to any manifestations of free thought and self-esteem in a person. Having shown from the stage the life of the merchants in all its manifestations, Ostrovsky pronounced a harsh verdict on despotism and spiritual slavery.
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Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" caused a strong reaction in the field of literary scholars and critics. A. Grigoriev, D. Pisarev, F. Dostoevsky dedicated their articles to this work. N. Dobrolyubov, some time after the publication of “The Thunderstorm,” wrote an article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.” Being a good critic, Dobrolyubov emphasized good style the author, praising Ostrovsky for his deep knowledge of the Russian soul, and reproached other critics for the lack of a direct look at the work. In general, Dobrolyubov’s view is interesting from several points of view. For example, the critic believed that dramas should show the harmful influence of passion on a person’s life, which is why he calls Katerina a criminal. But Nikolai Alexandrovich nevertheless says that Katerina is also a martyr, because her suffering evokes a response in the soul of the viewer or reader. Dobrolyubov gives very accurate characteristics. It was he who called the merchants the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm”.
If we trace how the merchant class and adjacent social strata were displayed over the decades, a complete picture of degradation and decline emerges. In “The Minor” the Prostakovs are shown as limited people, in “Woe from Wit” the Famusovs are frozen statues who refuse to live honestly. All these images are the predecessors of Kabanikha and Wild. It is these two characters that support the “dark kingdom” in the drama “The Thunderstorm”.
The author introduces us to the morals and customs of the city from the very first lines of the play: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!” In one of the dialogues between residents, the topic of violence is raised: “Whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor... And among themselves, sir, how they live!... They quarrel with each other.” No matter how much people hide what is happening inside families, others already know everything. Kuligin says that no one has prayed to God here for a long time. All the doors are locked, “so that people don’t see how... they eat their own family and tyrannize their family.” Behind the locks there is debauchery and drunkenness. Kabanov goes to drink with Dikoy, Dikoy appears drunk in almost all scenes, Kabanikha is also not averse to having a glass - another in the company of Savl Prokofievich.
The entire world in which the inhabitants of the fictional city of Kalinov live is thoroughly saturated with lies and fraud. Power over the “dark kingdom” belongs to tyrants and deceivers. The residents are so accustomed to dispassionately fawning over wealthier people that this lifestyle is the norm for them. People often come to Dikiy to ask for money, knowing that he will humiliate them and not give them the required amount. The merchant's most negative emotions are caused by his own nephew. Not even because Boris flatters Dikoy in order to get money, but because Dikoy himself does not want to part with the inheritance he received. His main traits are rudeness and greed. Dikoy believes that since he has a large amount of money, it means that others should obey him, fear him and at the same time respect him.
Kabanikha advocates for the preservation of the patriarchal system. She a real tyrant, capable of driving anyone she doesn't like crazy. Marfa Ignatievna, hiding behind the fact that she reveres the old order, essentially destroys the family. Her son, Tikhon, is glad to go as far as possible, just not to hear his mother’s orders, her daughter does not value Kabanikha’s opinion, lies to her, and at the end of the play she simply runs away with Kudryash. Katerina suffered the most. The mother-in-law openly hated her daughter-in-law, controlled her every action, and was dissatisfied with every little thing. The most revealing scene seems to be the farewell scene to Tikhon. Kabanikha was offended by the fact that Katya hugged her husband goodbye. After all, she is a woman, which means she should always be inferior to a man. A wife’s destiny is to throw herself at her husband’s feet and sob, begging for a quick return. Katya does not like this point of view, but she is forced to submit to the will of her mother-in-law.
Dobrolyubov calls Katya “a ray of light in a dark kingdom,” which is also very symbolic. Firstly, Katya is different from the residents of the city. Although she was brought up according to the old laws, the preservation of which Kabanikha often talks about, she has a different idea of life. Katya is kind and pure. She wants to help the poor, she wants to go to church, do household chores, raise children. But in such a situation, all this seems impossible because of one thing simple fact: in the “dark kingdom” in “The Thunderstorm” it is impossible to find inner peace. People constantly walk in fear, drink, lie, cheat on each other, trying to hide the unsightly sides of life. In such an atmosphere it is impossible to be honest with others, honest with oneself. Secondly, one ray is not enough to illuminate the “kingdom”. Light, according to the laws of physics, must be reflected from some surface. It is also known that black has the ability to absorb other colors. Similar laws apply to the situation with the main character of the play. Katerina does not see in others what is in her. Neither the city residents nor Boris, a “decently educated man,” could understand the reason internal conflict Kati. After all, even Boris is afraid public opinion, he is dependent on the Wild and the possibility of receiving an inheritance. He is also bound by a chain of deception and lies, because Boris supports Varvara’s idea of deceiving Tikhon in order to maintain a secret relationship with Katya. Let's apply the second law here. In Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm,” the “dark kingdom” is so all-consuming that it is impossible to find a way out of it. It eats Katerina, forcing her to take on one of the most terrible sins from the point of view of Christianity - suicide. "The Dark Kingdom" leaves no other choice. It would find her anywhere, even if Katya ran away with Boris, even if she left her husband. No wonder Ostrovsky transfers the action to a fictional city. The author wanted to show the typicality of the situation: such a situation was typical of all Russian cities. But is it only Russia?
Are the findings really that disappointing? The power of the tyrants is gradually beginning to weaken. Kabanikha and Dikoy feel this. They feel that soon other people, new ones, will take their place. People like Katya. Honest and open. And, perhaps, it is in them that those old customs that Marfa Ignatievna zealously defended will be revived. Dobrolyubov wrote that the ending of the play should be viewed in a positive way. “We are glad to see Katerina’s deliverance - even through death, if it is impossible otherwise. Living in the “dark kingdom” is worse than death.” This is confirmed by the words of Tikhon, who for the first time openly opposes not only his mother, but also the entire order of the city. “The play ends with this exclamation, and it seems to us that nothing could have been invented stronger and more truthful than such an ending. Tikhon's words make the viewer think not about love affair, but about this whole life, where the living envy the dead.”
The definition of the “dark kingdom” and the description of the images of its representatives will be useful to 10th grade students when writing an essay on the topic “ Dark Kingdom in the play "The Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky.
Work test
Ostrovsky's most decisive work: Everyone perceives it in their own way. Some people find in it the most ordinary, love story with a sad ending; for others, in this, at first glance, odious and typical story, there is hidden a clearly expressed idea, a certain call from the author to the readers.
The play describes the truly depressing appearance of Russian provincial cities in the first half of the 19th century. “The Thunderstorm” tells an extremely emotional story about the confrontation between the dark kingdom and the bright, pure soul of Katerina. The inhabitants of one of these wretched towns, together with their poor and pitiful little souls, filled with eternal all-consuming fear, together with their hopeless limitations, unwillingness to learn more, with amazing hypocrisy and endless hypocrisy, form a terrible, pernicious, dark kingdom that sucks in everyone and everything. A kingdom where “all the gates have long been locked and the dogs are let down,” where even a thin ray of everything bright, pure, kind and good will never leak through.
Everyone characters dramas, as in many of Ostrovsky’s plays, can be divided into “tyrants” and “victims.” The “tyrants” are Kabanikha and Dikoy. The rest are classified in the opposite category, the category of “victims.” Kabanikha is “tyrant” in the name of her ideals, the formal execution of the traditional way of life, the sanctimoniously understood “piety,” and Dikoy does this to show his power over the weak, for the sake of money and personal gain: “Because honest work will never earn us more than our daily needs.” of bread. And whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors.”
Kabanikha embodies the patriarchal type of a Russian provincial town, and Dikoy is the “modern” one: the power of money and brute force. But still, their role is similar: they are representatives of the older generation, persecuting the young, preventing them from achieving their happiness.
In my opinion, Kabanikha and Dikoy are the most colorful characters of the dark kingdom, whose meager spiritual image is quite clearly expressed. The rest, in my opinion, are a boring and uninteresting gray mass of people living in constant fear, indulging people like Dikoy and Kabanikha in everything with the help of sycophancy. But they can be understood, since they have no other choice except, of course, death; all this is a kind of means of survival in a shifting dark kingdom.
Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" proves that there is still a force that will ultimately eclipse all this boundless arbitrariness and tyranny. Both Kabanikha and Dikoy perfectly feel the instability and quick end, the collapse and demise of their personal limited world with its own foundations and orders, the world of “tyrants.”
It went to the extreme, to the denial of all common sense; It is more than ever hostile to the natural demands of humanity and is trying more fiercely than ever to stop their development, because in their triumph it sees the approach of its inevitable destruction.
N. A. Dobrolyubov
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, for the first time in Russian literature, deeply and realistically depicted the world of the “dark kingdom”, painted colorful images of tyrants, their life and customs. He dared to look behind the iron merchant gates and was not afraid to openly show the conservative power of “inertia”, “numbness”. Analyzing Ostrovsky’s “plays of life”, Dobrolyubov wrote: “Nothing holy, nothing pure, nothing right in this dark world: the tyranny dominating him, wild, insane, wrong, drove out of him all consciousness of honor and right... And they cannot be there , where human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the sanctity of honest labor have been crushed into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants.” And yet, many of Ostrovsky’s plays depict “the precariousness and the near end of tyranny.”
The dramatic conflict in “The Thunderstorm” lies in the clash of the obsolete morality of tyrants with the new morality of people in whose souls a sense of human dignity is awakening. In the play, the background of life itself, the setting itself, is important. The world of the “dark kingdom” is based on fear and monetary calculation. Self-taught watchmaker Kuligin tells Boris: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! He who has money tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors.” Direct financial dependence forces Boris to be respectful with the “scold” Dikiy. Tikhon is obediently obedient to his mother, although at the end of the play even he rises to a kind of rebellion. Wild Curly's clerk and Tikhon's sister Varvara are cunning and dodgy. Katerina’s discerning heart senses the falseness and inhumanity of the life around her. “Yes, everything here seems to be out of captivity,” she thinks.
The images of tyrants in “The Thunderstorm” are artistically authentic, complex, and lack psychological certainty. Dikoy is a rich merchant, a significant person in the city of Kalinov. At first glance, nothing threatens his power. Savel Prokofievich, according to Kudryash’s apt definition, “feels like he’s broken free from a chain”: he feels like the master of life, the arbiter of the destinies of the people under his control. Isn’t this what Dikiy’s attitude towards Boris speaks about? Those around him are afraid to anger Savel Prokofievich with something, his wife is in awe of him.
Dikoy feels the power of money and support on his side state power. The requests to restore justice made by the “peasants” deceived by the merchant to the mayor turn out to be futile. Savel Prokofievich patted the mayor on the shoulder and said: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles!”
At the same time, as already mentioned, the image of the Wild is quite complex. The harsh disposition of a “significant person in the city” encounters not some kind of external protest, not the manifestation of discontent of others, but internal self-condemnation. Savel Prokofievich himself is not happy with his “heart”: “I was fasting about fasting, about great things, but now it’s not easy and slip a little man in; I came for money, carried firewood... I did sin: I scolded him, I scolded him so much that I couldn’t ask for anything better, I almost beat him to death. This is the kind of heart I have! After asking for forgiveness, he bowed at his feet. This is what my heart brings me to: here in the yard, in the dirt, I bowed; I bowed to him in front of everyone.” This recognition of the Wild contains a terrible meaning for the foundations of the “dark kingdom”: tyranny is so unnatural and inhuman that it becomes obsolete and loses any moral justification for its existence.
The rich merchant Kabanova can also be called a “tyrant in a skirt.” Kuligin put into his mouth an exact description of Marfa Ignatievna: “Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” In a conversation with her son and daughter-in-law, Kabanikha hypocritically sighs: “Oh, a grave sin! How long will it take to sin!”
Behind this feigned exclamation lies a domineering, despotic character. Marfa Ignatievna actively defends the foundations of the “dark kingdom” and tries to conquer Tikhon and Katerina. Relations between people in the family should, according to Kabanova, be regulated by the law of fear, the Domostroevsky principle “let the wife fear her husband.” Marfa Ignatievna’s desire to follow previous traditions in everything is manifested in the scene of Tikhon’s farewell to Katerina.
The position of the mistress of the house cannot completely calm down Kabanikha. Marfa Ignatievna is frightened by the fact that young people want freedom, that the traditions of hoary antiquity are not respected. “What will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will remain, I don’t know. Well, at least it’s good that I won’t see anything,” Kabanikha sighs. In this case, her fear is completely sincere, and is not intended for any external effect (Marfa Ignatievna pronounces her words alone).
The image of the wanderer Feklusha plays a significant role in Ostrovsky’s play. At first glance in front of us minor character. In fact, Feklusha is not directly involved in the action, but she is a myth-maker and defender of the “dark kingdom”. Let’s listen to the wanderer’s reasoning about “Persian sultan makhnute” and “Turkish sultan makhnute”: “And they cannot... judge a single case righteously, such is the limit set for them. Our law is righteous, but theirs is...unrighteous; that according to our law it turns out this way, but according to them everything is the opposite. And all their judges, in their countries, are also all unrighteous...” The main meaning of the above words is that “we have a righteous law.:”.
Feklusha, anticipating the death of the “dark kingdom,” shares with Kabanikha: “The last times, Mother Marfa Ignatievna, by all accounts, the last.” The wanderer sees an ominous sign of the end in the acceleration of the passage of time: “Time has already begun to diminish... smart people notice that our time is becoming shorter.” And indeed, time works against the “dark kingdom”.
Ostrovsky comes to large-scale artistic generalizations in the play and creates almost symbolic images (thunderstorm). The remark at the beginning of the fourth act of the play is noteworthy: “In the foreground is a narrow gallery with the arches of an ancient building that is beginning to collapse...” It is in this decaying, dilapidated world that Katerina’s sacrificial confession sounds from its very depths. The fate of the heroine is so tragic primarily because she rebelled against her own Domostroevsky ideas about good and evil. The ending of the play tells us that living “in the dark kingdom is worse than death” (Dobrolyubov). “This end seems joyful to us...” we read in the article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom”, “... it gives a terrible challenge to the tyrant power, it tells it that it is no longer possible to go further, it is impossible to live any longer with its violent, deadening principles.” The irresistibility of the awakening of man in man, the rehabilitation of living human feeling that replaces false asceticism, constitute, it seems to me, the enduring merit of Ostrovsky’s play. And today it helps to overcome the power of inertia, numbness, and social stagnation.
Essay on literature on the topic: “The Dark Kingdom” in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”
Other writings:
- A. N. Ostrovsky finished his play in 1859, on the eve of the abolition of serfdom. Russia was awaiting reform, and the play became the first stage in the awareness of impending changes in society. In his work, Ostrovsky presents us with a merchant milieu that personifies the “dark kingdom.” Read More......
- It is known that extremes are reflected by extremes, and that the strongest protest is not the one that finally rises from the mud of the weakest and most patient. N. A. Dobrolyubov Ostrovsky’s plays were not invented. These works were born from life itself, and the author only cited Read More......
- “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. It responds to the spirit of the times. “The Thunderstorm” represents the idyll of the “dark kingdom”. Tyranny and silence are brought to Read More ......
- The name of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is one of the most famous in the history of Russian literature and Russian theater. In 1812, the great Russian writer A. I. Goncharov, greeting Ostrovsky on his thirty-fifth birthday literary activity, said: “You have done everything that a great one should do Read More......
- “The Thunderstorm” is a most amazing work of Russian, powerful, completely self-mastered talent. I, S. Turgenev Autumn 1859. Premiere at the Moscow Maly Theater. Great actors play a play by a great playwright. Treatises will be written about this work, N. Dobrolyubov will come together in polemics about it Read More ......
- A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” was written in 1859. At this time, Russian society was wondering about the further path of development of Russia. Slavophiles and Westerners argued fiercely about what was better: patriarchy (autocracy, nationality, Orthodoxy) or orientation to Western values Read More ......
- Each person is a one and only world, with his own actions, character, habits, honor, morality, self-esteem. It is precisely the problem of honor and self-esteem that Ostrovsky raises in his play “The Thunderstorm”. In order to show the contradictions between rudeness and honor, between Read More......
- The drama “The Thunderstorm” was written by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky in 1859 after traveling along the Volga. It was believed that a certain Alexandra Klykova served as the prototype of Katerina. Her story is in many ways similar to the heroine’s story, but Ostrovsky finished work on the play a month before his suicide Read More ......
