Message about the dark kingdom. The Dark Kingdom in the play "The Thunderstorm" - what is it? Hypocrisy in the guise of virtue
The drama “The Thunderstorm” was written by A.N. Ostrovsky on the eve of the peasant reform in 1859. The author reveals to the reader the features of the social structure of that time, the characteristics of a society standing on the threshold of significant changes.
Two camps
The play takes place in Kalinov, a merchant town on the banks of the Volga. Society was divided into two camps - the older generation and the younger generation. They involuntarily collide with each other, since the movement of life dictates its own rules, and it will not be possible to preserve the old system.
« Dark Kingdom“—a world characterized by ignorance, lack of education, tyranny, house-building, and aversion to change. The main representatives are the merchant's wife Marfa Kabanova - Kabanikha and Dikoy.
Kabanikha's world
Kabanikha torments her family and friends with groundless reproaches, suspicions and humiliations. For her, it is important to adhere to the rules of the “old times,” even at the expense of ostentatious actions. She demands the same from her environment. Behind all these laws there is no need to talk about any feelings even towards one’s own children. She brutally rules over them, suppressing their personal interests and opinions. The entire way of life of the Kabanovs' house is based on fear. To intimidate and humiliate is the life position of a merchant’s wife.
Wild
Even more primitive is the merchant Dikoy, a true tyrant, humiliating those around him with loud shouts and abuse, insults and exaltation of his own personality. Why is he acting this way? It’s just that for him it’s a kind of way of self-realization. He brags to Kabanova about how he subtly scolded this or that, admiring his ability to come up with new abuse.
The heroes of the older generation understand that their time is coming to an end, that their usual way of life is being replaced by something different, fresh. This makes their anger become more and more uncontrollable, more violent.
The philosophy of the Wild and Kabanikha is supported by the wanderer Feklusha, a respected guest for both. She tells frightening stories about foreign countries, about Moscow, where instead of people there are certain creatures with dog heads. These legends are believed without realizing that they are thereby exposing their own ignorance.
Subjects of the "dark kingdom"
The younger generation, or rather its weaker representatives, succumb to the influence of the kingdom. For example, Tikhon, who since childhood has not dared to say a word against his mother. He himself suffers from her oppression, but he does not have enough strength to resist her character. Largely because of this, he loses Katerina, his wife. And only bending over the body of his deceased wife does he dare to blame his mother for her death.
Dikiy’s nephew, Boris, Katerina’s lover, also becomes a victim of the “dark kingdom.” He was unable to resist cruelty and humiliation and began to take them for granted. Having managed to seduce Katerina, he could not save her. He didn't have the courage to take her away and start a new life.
A ray of light in a dark kingdom
It turns out that only Katerina breaks out of the usual life of the “dark kingdom” with her inner light. She is pure and spontaneous, far from material desires and outdated life principles. Only she has the courage to go against the rules and admit it.
Dark Kingdom
The most important feature of Ostrovsky's theater to this day remains the topicality of the plays. Ostrovsky’s works are still successfully performed on theater stages today, because the characters and images created by the artist have not lost their freshness. To this day, viewers reflect on who is right in the dispute between patriarchal ideas about marriage and freedom of expression of feelings, immerse themselves in an atmosphere of dark ignorance, rudeness and are amazed at the purity and sincerity of Katerina’s love.
The city of Kalinov, in which the action of the drama “The Thunderstorm” unfolds, is an artistic space within which the writer sought to extremely generalize the vices characteristic of the merchant environment of the mid-19th century. It’s not for nothing that the critic Dobrolyubov calls Kalinov a “dark kingdom.” This definition exactly describes the atmosphere described in the city.
Ostrovsky depicts Kalinov as a closed space: the gates are locked, no one cares about what happens behind the fence. In the exposition of the play, the audience is presented with a Volga landscape, evoking poetic lines in Kuligin’s memory.
But the description of the vastness of the Volga only strengthens the feeling of the closedness of the city, in which no one even walks along the boulevard. The city lives its own boring and monotonous life. The poorly educated residents of Kalinov learn news about the world not from newspapers, but from wanderers, for example, such as Feklusha. The favorite guest in the Kabanov family talks about how “there is still a land where all the people have dog heads,” and in Moscow there are only “promenades and games, and there is a roar and a groan along the Indian streets.” The ignorant inhabitants of the city of Kalinov willingly believe in such stories, which is why Kalinov seems to the townspeople to be a paradise. Thus, separated from the whole world, like a distant state, in which residents see almost the only promised land, Kalinov himself begins to acquire fairy-tale features, becoming symbolically sleepy kingdom. The spiritual life of the inhabitants of Kalinov is limited by the rules of Domostroy, the observance of which is required by each generation of parents from each generation of children; tyranny reigns all around and money rules.
The main guardians of the age-old order in the city are Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova and Savel Prokofievich Dikoy, whose moral standards are distorted. A striking example of tyranny is the episode in which Ostrovsky ironically portrays Diky, speaking about his “kindness”: having scolded a man who asked him for a salary, Savel Prokofievich repents of his behavior and even asks for forgiveness from the worker. Thus, the writer depicts the absurdity of the Wild’s rage, replaced by self-flagellation. Being a wealthy merchant and having a lot of money, Dikoy considers people below him to be “worms” whom he can pardon or crush at will; the hero feels impunity for his actions. Even the mayor is unable to influence him. Dikoy, feeling himself not only the master of the city, but also the master of life, is not afraid of the official. The family is also afraid of a wealthy merchant. Every morning his wife tearfully begs those around her: “Fathers, don’t make me angry!” But Savel Prokofievich quarrels only with those who cannot fight back. As soon as he encounters resistance, his mood and tone of communication change dramatically. He is afraid of his clerk Kudryash, who knows how to resist him. Dikoy does not quarrel with the merchant's wife Marfa Ignatievna, the only one who understands him. Only Kabanikha is able to pacify the violent temper of Savel Prokofievich. She alone sees that Dikoy himself is not happy with his tyranny, but she can’t help herself, so Kabanikha considers herself stronger than him.
And indeed, Marfa Ignatievna is not inferior to Dikiy in despotism and tyranny. Being a hypocrite, she tyrannizes her family. Kabanikha is depicted by Ostrovsky as a heroine who considers herself the keeper of the foundations of Domostroy. The patriarchal system of values, of which only the external side remains, is most important to her. Ostrovsky demonstrates Marfa Ignatievna’s desire to follow previous traditions in everything in the scene of Tikhon’s farewell to Katerina. A conflict arises between Katerina and Kabanikha, reflecting the internal contradictions between the heroines. Kabanikha blames Katerina for not “howling” or “lying on the porch” after her husband’s departure, to which Katerina remarks that to behave this way is “to make people laugh.”
The boar, doing everything “under the guise of piety,” demands complete obedience from her household. In the Kabanov family, everyone must live as Marfa Ignatievna demands. Kuligin absolutely accurately characterizes Kabanikha in his dialogue with Boris: “Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family!” The main objects of her tyranny are her own children. The power-hungry Kabanikha does not notice that under her yoke she has raised a pathetic, cowardly man who has no opinion of her own - her son Tikhon and her cunning daughter Varvara, who gives the impression of being decent and obedient. In the end, unjustified cruelty and the desire to control everything lead Kabanikha to tragedy: his own son blames his mother for the death of his wife Katerina (“Mama, you ruined her”), and his beloved daughter, who does not agree to live within the tyranny, runs away from home.
Assessing the images of the “dark kingdom,” one cannot but agree with Ostrovsky that cruel tyranny and despotism are real evil, under the yoke of which human feelings fade, wither, the will weakens, and the mind fades. “The Thunderstorm” is an open protest against the “dark kingdom”, a challenge to ignorance and rudeness, hypocrisy and cruelty.
The Dark Kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky - this allegorical statement is familiar to everyone from the light hand of his contemporary, literary critic Dobrolyubova. This is exactly how Nikolai Ivanovich considered it necessary to characterize the difficult social and moral atmosphere in the cities of Russia in early XIX century.
Ostrovsky - a subtle connoisseur of Russian life
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky made a brilliant breakthrough in Russian drama, for which he received a worthy review article. He continued the traditions of the Russian national theater laid down by Fonvizin, Gogol, and Griboyedov. In particular, Nikolai Dobrolyubov highly appreciated the playwright’s deep knowledge and truthful portrayal of the specifics of Russian life. The Volga city of Kalinov, shown in the play, became a kind of model for all of Russia.
The deep meaning of the allegory “dark kingdom”
The Dark Kingdom in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is a clear and succinct allegory created by the critic Dobrolyubov, which is based on both a broad socio-economic explanation and a narrower literary one. The latter is formulated regarding provincial town Kalinov, in which Ostrovsky depicted an average (as they now say - statistically average) Russian town of the late 18th century.
The broad meaning of the concept of “dark kingdom”
Let's first describe the broad meaning this concept: the dark kingdom in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is a figurative description of the socio-political state of Russia at a certain stage of its development.
After all, a thoughtful reader interested in history has a clear idea of what kind of Russia (late 18th century) we are talking about. The huge country, a fragment of which was shown by the playwright in the play, lived in the old fashioned way, at a time when industrialization was dynamically taking place in European countries. The people were socially paralyzed (which was abolished in 1861). Strategic ones have not yet been built railways. The people for the most part were illiterate, uneducated, and superstitious. In fact, the state was little involved in social policy.
Everything in provincial Kalinov seems to be “cooked in own juice" That is, people are not involved in large projects - production, construction. Their judgments betray complete incompetence in the simplest concepts: for example, in the electrical origin of lightning.
The dark kingdom in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is a society devoid of a vector of development. The class of industrial bourgeoisie and proletariat had not yet taken shape... The financial flows of society were not formed insufficient for global socio-economic transformations.
The dark kingdom of the city of Kalinov
In a narrow sense, the dark kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm” is a way of life inherent in the philistinism and merchant class. According to the description given by Ostrovsky, this community is absolutely dominated by wealthy and arrogant merchants. They constantly exert psychological pressure on others, not paying attention to their interests. There is no government for these ghouls who “eat like crazy.” For these tyrants, money is equivalent social status, and human and Christian morality is not a decree in their actions. They practically do whatever they please. In particular, realistic, artistically complete images - the merchant Savel Prokopyevich Dikoy and the merchant's wife Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova - initiate the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm”. What are these characters? Let's take a closer look at them.
The image of the merchant Saveliy Prokofich Dikiy
Merchant Dikoy is the richest man in Kalinov. However, his wealth does not border on breadth of soul and hospitality, but on “tough character.” And he understands his wolf nature, and wants to change somehow. “Once I fasted about fasting, about great things...” Yes, tyranny is his second nature. When a “little man” comes to him asking to borrow money, Dikoy rudely humiliates him, moreover, it almost comes to beating the unfortunate man.
Moreover, this psychotype of behavior is always characteristic of him. (“What can I do, my heart is like that!”) That is, he builds his relationships with others on the basis of fear and his dominance. This is his usual pattern of behavior towards people with inferior
This man was not always rich. However, he came to wealth through a primitive aggressive established social model of behavior. He builds relationships with others and relatives (in particular, with his nephew) on one principle only: to humiliate them, formally - to deprive them of social rights, and then to take advantage of them himself. However, having felt psychological rebuff from a person of equal status (for example, from the widow of the merchant Kabanikha), he begins to treat him more respectfully, without humiliating him. This is a primitive, two-variant behavior pattern.
Behind the rudeness and suspicion (“So you know that you are a worm!”) hidden greed and self-interest. For example, in the case of a nephew, he effectively disinherits him. Savel Prokofich harbors in his soul hatred for everything around him. His credo is to reflexively crush everyone, crush everyone, clearing a living space for himself. If we were living at this time, such an idiot (sorry for being blunt) could easily, just in the middle of the street, beat us up for no reason, just so that we would cross to the other side of the street, clearing the way for him! But such an image was familiar to serf Russia! It’s not for nothing that Dobrolyubov called the dark kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm” a sensitive and truthful reflection of Russian reality!
The image of the merchant's wife Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova
The second type of Kalinov’s wild morals is the rich merchant widow Kabanikha. Her social model of behavior is not as primitive as that of the merchant Dikiy. (For some reason, regarding this model, an analogy comes to mind: “The poor eyesight of a rhinoceros is the problem of those around him, not the rhinoceros itself!) Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, unlike the merchant Dikiy, builds her social status gradually. The tool is also humiliation, but of a completely different kind. She influences mainly her family members: son Tikhon, daughter Varvara, daughter-in-law Katerina. She bases her dominance over others on both her material and moral superiority.
Hypocrisy is her key to The merchant's wife has a double morality. Formally and outwardly following the Christian cult, it is far from a truly merciful Christian consciousness. On the contrary, she interprets her ecclesiastical status as a kind of deal with God, believing that she is given the right not only to teach everyone around her everything, but also to indicate how they should act.
She does this constantly, completely destroying her son Tikhon as a person, and pushing her daughter-in-law Katerina to suicide.
If you can bypass the Dikiy merchant, having met him on the street, then with regard to Kabanikha the situation is completely different. If I can put it this way, then she continuously, constantly, and not episodically, like Dikoy, “generates” the dark kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm”. Quotes from the work characterizing Kabanikha testify: she zombifies her loved ones, demanding that Katerina bow to her husband when he enters the house, instilling that “you can’t contradict mother,” so that the husband gives strict orders to his wife, and on occasion beats her...
Weak attempts to resist tyrants
What contrasts the community of the city of Kalinov with the expansion of the two aforementioned tyrants? Yes, practically nothing. They live in a society that is comfortable for them. As Pushkin wrote in “Boris Godunov”: “The people are silent...”. Someone, educated, tries to timidly express his opinion, like engineer Kuligin. Someone, like Varvara, crippled herself morally, living a double life: giving in to tyrants and doing as she pleases. And someone will face an internal and tragic protest (like Katerina).
Conclusion
Is the word “tyranny” encountered in our everyday life? We hope that for the majority of our readers - much less often than for the residents of the fortress town of Kalinov. Accept your sympathy if your boss or someone from your family circle is a tyrant. Nowadays, this phenomenon does not immediately spread to the entire city. However, it does exist in places. And we should look for a way out of it...
Let's return to Ostrovsky's play. Representatives create the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm”. Their common features are the presence of capital and the desire to dominate society. However, it does not rely on spirituality, creativity, or enlightenment. Hence the conclusion: the tyrant should be isolated, depriving him of the opportunity to lead, as well as depriving him of communication (boycott). A tyrant is strong as long as he feels the indispensability of himself and the demand for his capital.
You should simply deprive him of such “happiness”. It was not possible to do this in Kalinov. Nowadays this is real.
The drama “The Thunderstorm” is considered to be one of the main works of A. N. Ostrovsky. And this cannot be denied. The love conflict in the play recedes almost into the background; instead, the bitter social truth is exposed, the “dark kingdom” of vices and sins is shown. Dobrolyubov called the playwright a subtle connoisseur of the Russian soul. It is difficult to disagree with this opinion. Ostrovsky very subtly describes the experiences of one person, but at the same time is accurate in depicting universal human vices and flaws human soul, which are inherent in all representatives of the “dark kingdom” in “The Thunderstorm”. Dobrolyubov called such people tyrants. Kalinov’s main tyrants are Kabanikha and Dikoy.
Dikoy is a bright representative of the “dark kingdom”, initially shown as an unpleasant and slippery person. He appears in the first act along with his nephew Boris. Savl Prokofievich is very dissatisfied with Boris’s appearance in the city: “Darmoed! Get lost!" The merchant swears and spits on the street, thereby showing his bad manners. It should be noted that in the life of the Wild there is absolutely no place for cultural enrichment or spiritual growth. He knows only what he is supposed to know in order to lead the “dark kingdom.”
Savl Prokofievich does not know either history or its representatives. So, when Kuligin quotes Derzhavin’s lines, Dikoy orders not to be rude to him. Usually speech allows you to say a lot about a person: about his upbringing, manners, outlook, and so on. Dikiy’s remarks are full of curses and threats: “not a single calculation is complete without abuse.” In almost every appearance on stage, Savl Prokofievich is either rude to others or expresses himself incorrectly. The merchant is especially irritated by those who ask him for money. At the same time, Dikoy himself very often deceives when making calculations in his favor. Dikoy is not afraid of either the authorities or the “senseless and merciless” rebellion. He is confident in the inviolability of his person and the position he occupies. It is known that when talking with the mayor about how Dikoy allegedly robs ordinary men, the merchant openly admits his guilt, but as if he himself is proud of such an act: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles! I have a lot of people a year: you understand: I won’t pay them a penny extra per person, but I make thousands out of this, so it’s good for me!” Kuligin says that in trade everyone is friend They also steal a friend, and choose as assistants those who, from prolonged drunkenness, have lost both their human appearance and all humanity.
Dikoy does not understand what it means to work for the common good. Kuligin proposed installing a lightning rod, with the help of which it would be easier to obtain electricity. But Savl Prokofievich drove the inventor away with the words: “So you know that you are a worm. If I want, I’ll have mercy. If I want, I’ll crush it.” In this phrase, the position of the Wild is most clearly visible. The merchant is confident in his rightness, impunity and power. Savl Prokofievich considers his power absolute, because the guarantee of his authority is money, of which the merchant has more than enough. The meaning of the Wild's life is to accumulate and increase his capital by any legal or illegal methods. Dikoy believes that wealth gives him the right to scold, humiliate and insult everyone. However, his influence and rudeness frighten many, but not Curly. Kudryash says that he is not afraid of the Wild One, so he only acts as he wants. By this, the author wanted to show that sooner or later the tyrants of the dark kingdom will lose their influence, because the prerequisites for this already exist.
The only person with whom the merchant speaks normally is another characteristic representative“dark kingdom” - Kabanikha. Marfa Ignatievna is known for her difficult and grumpy disposition. Marfa Ignatievna is a widow. She herself raised her son Tikhon and daughter Varvara. Total control and tyranny have led to horrific consequences. Tikhon cannot act against the will of his mother; he also does not want to say something incorrect from Kabanikha’s point of view. Tikhon coexists with her, complaining about life, but not trying to change anything. He is weak and spineless. Daughter Varvara lies to her mother, secretly meeting with Kudryash. At the end of the play, she runs away from her home with him. Varvara changed the lock on the gate in the garden so that she could freely go for a walk at night while Kabanikha was sleeping. However, she also does not openly confront her mother. Katerina suffered the most. Kabanikha humiliated the girl, tried in every possible way to hurt her and put her in a bad light in front of her husband (Tikhon). She chose an interesting manipulation tactic. Very measuredly, slowly, Kabanikha gradually “ate” her family, pretending that nothing was happening. Marfa Ignatievna hid behind the fact that she was taking care of the children. She believed that only the old generation retained an understanding of the norms of life, so it is imperative to pass on this knowledge to the next generation, otherwise the world will collapse. But with Kabanikha, all wisdom becomes mutilated, perverted, false. However, it cannot be said that she is doing a good deed. The reader understands that the words “caring for children” become an excuse to other people. Kabanikha is honest with herself and understands perfectly what she is doing. She embodies the belief that the weak should fear the strong. Kabanikha herself speaks about this in the scene of Tikhon’s departure. “Why are you standing there, don’t you know the order? Order your wife how to live without you!” To Tikhon’s quite reasonable remark that Katerina has no need to be afraid of him, because he is her husband, Kabanikha responds very sharply: “Why be afraid! Are you crazy, or what? He won’t be afraid of you, and even less so of me.” Kabanikha has long ceased to be a mother, a widow, a woman. Now he is a real tyrant and dictator who seeks to assert his power by any means.
In Ostrovsky's drama "The Thunderstorm" the problems of morality are widely raised. Using the example of the provincial town of Kalinov, the playwright showed the truly prevailing cruel morals. Ostrovsky depicted the cruelty of people living in the old fashioned way, according to Domostroi, and a new generation of young people who reject these foundations. The characters in the drama are divided into two groups. On one side stand the old people, champions of the old order, who, in essence, carry out this “Domostroy”; on the other, Katerina and the younger generation of the city.
The heroes of the drama live in the city of Kalinov. This city occupies a small, but not the least place in Russia at that time, at the same time it is the personification of serfdom and “Domostroy”. Outside the walls of the city one imagines another, alien world. It is not for nothing that Ostrovsky mentions the Volga in his stage directions, “a public garden on the banks of the Volga, beyond the Volga there is a rural view.” We see how Kalinov’s cruel, closed world differs from the external, “uncontrollably huge” one. This is the world of Katerina, born and raised on the Volga. Behind this world lies the life that Kabanikha and others like her are so afraid of. According to the wanderer Feklushi, “ old world" is leaving, only in this city is there "paradise and silence", in other places "just sodomy": people in the bustle of each other do not notice, harnessing the "fiery serpent", and in Moscow "now there are walks and games, and along the streets There's a roar and a groan." But something is changing in old Kalinov too. Kuligin carries new thoughts. Kuligin, embodying the ideas of Lomonosov, Derzhavin and representatives of more early culture, suggests putting a clock on the boulevard to tell the time by it.
Let's meet the rest of Kalinov's representatives.
Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova is a champion of the old world. The name itself paints a picture of an overweight woman with a difficult character, and the nickname “Kabanikha” complements this unpleasant picture. Kabanikha lives the old fashioned way, in accordance with strict order. But she only observes the appearance of this order, which she supports in public: a kind son, an obedient daughter-in-law. He even complains: “They don’t know anything, no order... 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.” There is real arbitrariness in the house. The boar is despotic, rude to the peasants, “eats” the family and does not tolerate objections. Her son is completely subordinate to her will, and she expects this from her daughter-in-law as well.
Next to Kabanikha, who day after day “sharpenes all her household like rusting iron,” stands the merchant Dikoy, whose name is associated with wild power. Dikoy not only “sharpenes and saws” his family members. The men whom he deceives during payments suffer from it, and, of course, the customers, as well as his clerk Kudryash, a rebellious and impudent guy, ready to teach a “scold” a lesson in a dark alley with his fists.
