What caused the death of the main character of the play? The death of Katerina is a forced death or liberation from oppression according to the play The Thunderstorm (A. N. Ostrovsky) What does the death of Katerina the thunderstorm prove

According to N.A. Dobrolyubova, “The Thunderstorm” is “Ostrovsky’s most decisive work.” In this play, the author depicts the tragedy of a freedom-loving, rebellious soul in an atmosphere of silence and tyranny. Thus, the playwright expresses his strong disagreement with the soulless system of the “dark kingdom.”

Life ends dramatically main character plays by Katerina Kabanova. She is driven to extremes and forced to commit suicide. How to evaluate this action? Was it a sign of strength or weakness?

Katerina's life is impossible

Call it a fight in in every sense this word, and, therefore, it is difficult to talk about defeat or victory. There were no direct clashes between Katerina and the “dark kingdom”. The heroine's suicide can be called more of a moral victory, a victory in the quest to gain freedom. Her voluntary departure from life is a protest against the semi-prison order in the provincial town and the callousness in Katerina’s family.

The play describes the life of a merchant with its patriarchal way of life, with its own established concepts of morality, largely indirect and hypocritical. People living in this closed little world either fully support its order (Dikoy and Kabanikha), or are forced to come to terms with it outwardly (Varvara, Tikhon). But Katerina, finding herself in these conditions, is unable to come to terms with her situation.

Katerina is strikingly different from the people around her. The love of freedom and sensitivity to beauty have been inherent in her since childhood. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild,” recalls the heroine. Katerina finds beauty in nature, in the songs of praying mantises, in church services.

For her, God is a moral law that cannot be broken. Katerina's religiosity is bright and poetic. Ostrovsky portrays a strong and integral nature, incapable of deception or pretense. Living in Kabanikha’s house, Katerina does not humiliate herself, pretending to be obedient. She always remains true to herself: “Whether in front of people or without people, I’m still alone, I don’t prove anything of myself.”

Life with an unloved husband under the supervision of a despotic mother-in-law seems like hell to the heroine. Katerina “withered completely” in this inhospitable house - miniature copy"dark kingdom" However, her heart did not calm down in captivity. The heroine fell in love with a man who stood out from the merchant environment. For Katerina, he personifies a different - brighter, free, kinder - world.

For the sake of her love, Katerina is ready to betray her husband and is faced with a choice: either duty or deception. The heroine decides to commit treason, considering it a grave sin and suffering from it. Having not yet accomplished anything, she already experiences the horror of moral failure in advance: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me there, but I have nothing to hold on to.” However, this desperate step is a chance for Katerina to break free.

Having cheated on her husband, Katerina is tormented by the realization of her guilt and wants to atone for her sin. Following Christian morality, she is sincerely convinced that repentance partially atones for guilt. Moreover, the heroine cannot live by deception, since this disgusts her open, ingenuous nature. This is its significant difference from Varvara’s position.

Thus, Katerina confesses everything to her husband, thereby cutting off her path to salvation. Now life in Kabanikha’s house begins to weigh doubly on Katerina. Life in a spiritual vacuum loses all meaning for her: “Why should I live now, well, for what? I don’t need anything...”, the heroine decides. She sees no other way to break free except to take her own life.

Katerina cannot leave home, because a woman in the 19th century had almost no rights, she belonged to her husband body and soul, and could not control herself independently. Katerina also could not leave with Boris, since he turned out to be a completely insignificant, weak, characterless person, incapable of decisive action.

It can be said that by taking her own life, Katerina went against God and became a great sinner for whom it was impossible to even pray. However, the heroine is sure: “Whoever loves will pray...”. Death does not frighten her. Even in death, Katerina sees beauty: she paints a picture of calm and tranquility.

So, Katerina’s suicide, in my opinion, is to a certain extent a justified action, which the heroine saw for herself as the only possible one under the given conditions. Katerina’s death is a kind of moral victory, a manifestation not of weakness, but of fortitude. The death of Katerina is another step towards the destruction of the “dark kingdom” of tyrants that has already begun.

To answer the question: “What does Katerina’s suicide mean - her victory or defeat?”, it is necessary to examine the circumstances of her life, study the motives of her actions, pay special attention to the complexity and contradictory nature of the heroine and the extraordinary originality of her character.

Katerina is a poetic person, full of deep lyricism. She grew up and was brought up in a bourgeois family, in a religious atmosphere, but she absorbed all the best that the patriarchal way of life could give. She has a sense of self-esteem, a sense of beauty, and she is characterized by the experience of beauty, which was brought up in her childhood. N.A. Dobrolyubov saw the greatness of Katerina’s image precisely in the integrity of her character, in her ability to be herself everywhere and always, to never betray herself in anything.

Arriving at her husband’s house, Katerina was faced with a completely different way of life, in the sense that it was a life in which violence, tyranny, and humiliation of human dignity reigned. Katerina's life changed dramatically, and events became tragic character, but this might not have happened if not for the despotic nature of her mother-in-law, Marfa Kabanova, who considers the basis of “pedagogy” to be fear. Her life philosophy- to frighten and keep in obedience with fear. She is jealous of her son towards the Young Wife and believes that he is not strict enough with Katerina. She is afraid that she will youngest daughter Varvara can be “infected” by such a bad example, and how would she future husband didn't reproach

Then the mother-in-law is not strict enough when raising her daughter. Katerina, humble in appearance, becomes for Marfa Kabanova the personification of a hidden danger that she senses intuitively. So Kabanikha seeks to subjugate, break Katerina’s fragile character, force her to live according to her own laws, and so she sharpens her “like rusty iron.” But Katerina, endowed with spiritual gentleness and trepidation, is capable in some cases of showing both firmness and strong-willed determination - she does not want to put up with this situation. “Eh, Varya, you don’t know my character! - she says. - Of course, God forbid this happens! And if I’m really tired of being here, you won’t be able to hold me back by any force. I’ll throw myself out the window, throw myself into the Volga. I don’t want to live here, I won’t, even if you cut me!” She feels the need to love freely and therefore enters into a struggle not only with the world of the “dark kingdom”, but also with her own beliefs, with her own nature, incapable of lies and deception. A heightened sense of justice makes her doubt the correctness of her actions, and she perceives the awakened feeling of love for Boris as a terrible sin, because, having fallen in love, she violated those moral principles that she considered sacred.

But she also cannot give up her love, because it is love that gives her the much-needed feeling of freedom. Katerina is forced to hide her dates, but living a life of deception is unbearable for her. Therefore, she wants to free herself from them by her public repentance, but only further complicates her already painful existence. Katerina’s repentance shows the depth of her suffering, moral greatness, and determination. But how can she continue to live, if even after she repented of her sin in front of everyone, it did not become easier. It is impossible to return to your husband and mother-in-law: everything there is foreign. Tikhon will not dare to openly condemn his mother’s tyranny, Boris is a weak-willed man, he will not come to the rescue, and continuing to live in the Kabanovs’ house is immoral. Previously, they couldn’t even reproach her, she could feel she was right in front of these people, but now she is guilty in front of them. She can only submit. But it is no coincidence that the work contains the image of a bird deprived of the opportunity to live in the wild. For Katerina, it is better not to live at all than to put up with the “miserable vegetation” that is destined for her “in exchange for her living soul" N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote that Katerina’s character “is full of faith in new ideals and selfless in the sense that it is better for him to die than to live under those principles that are disgusting to him.” To live in a world of “hidden, quietly sighing sorrow... prison, grave silence...”, where “there is no space and freedom for living thought, for sincere words, for noble deeds; a heavy, tyrannical ban has been imposed on loud, open, widespread activity,” there is no possibility for it. If she cannot enjoy her feeling, her will legally, “in the light broad daylight, in front of all the people, if something that is so dear to her is snatched from her, then she doesn’t want anything in life, she doesn’t even want life...”

Katerina did not want to put up with the reality that kills human dignity, could not live without moral purity, love and harmony, and therefore got rid of suffering in the only way possible in those circumstances. “... Simply as a human being, we are glad to see Katerina’s deliverance - even through death, if there is no other way... A healthy personality breathes upon us with joyful, fresh life, finding within itself the determination to end this rotten life at any cost !..” - says N.A. Dobrolyubov. And therefore, the tragic ending of the drama - Katerina’s suicide - is not a defeat, but an affirmation of the strength of a free person, - this is a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, “proclaimed under domestic torture, and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself,” this is “a terrible challenge to the tyrant power " And in this sense, Katerina’s suicide is her victory.

Drama A.N. Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm" - the playwright's most significant work - appeared in 1860, at a time when the foundations of serfdom were breaking down and a thunderstorm was really brewing in the stuffy Russian atmosphere.

The work is based on the conflict of a young woman, Katerina, with the “dark kingdom,” the kingdom of tyrants, despots, and ignoramuses. You can understand why this conflict arose, why the end of the drama is so tragic, only by looking into Katerina’s soul.

From Katerina’s words, we learn about her life as a girl: “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.” Her mother “doted on her”, did not force her to do housework, “dressed her up like a doll.” Life in her home was free: the girl got up early, went to the spring to wash, watered the flowers, of which there were many in the house, with spring water, went with her mother to church, and then did handicrafts and listened to the stories of the wanderers with whom the house was always full.

By nature, Katerina is an integral, passionate, dreamy person. She sincerely accepts faith with all her soul. “And to death I loved going to church! Surely, it happened that I would enter heaven, and I didn’t see anyone, and I didn’t remember the time, and I didn’t hear when the service was over!” During service and in dreams, she often flew to heaven, soared above the clouds, and communicated with angels. She sometimes got up in the middle of the night and prayed and cried until the morning. What she prayed for, what she cried for - she herself did not know. She simply did not notice everything that contradicted her idea of ​​\u200b\u200blife, carried away in her dreams to heaven.

For all her piety, Katerina is naturally endowed with a strong character and love of freedom. Once, at the age of six, offended by something, she ran away to the Volga at night, got into a boat and pushed off from the shore! Another important detail of her life was that she lived in her own world, fenced off from reality. Her life was pure and complete, her soul was at peace. A naive, kind, pious girl with the makings of a strong, integral, freedom-loving personality - that’s what Katerina was before her marriage.

Marriage changes everything. Although Katerina, in a sense, was lucky: although her husband is subordinate to his mother, he does not offend his wife and even protects him in his own way. Why do we understand from the very beginning of the play that Katerina’s soul is suffering and tossing about?

The first thing Katerina lost when she got married was freedom. In a house that has not become home to her, it is difficult for her from the very need to live in a confined space, to be locked within four walls, limited only by the circle of household chores. Katerina respects herself, and Kabanikha’s Domostroevsky habits constantly hurt her sensitive soul. She does not know how not to notice them and not react to them; she does not want and cannot remain silent, listening to undeserved reproaches. Defending her own dignity, Katerina speaks to her mother-in-law on a first-name basis, as if she were her equal.

After constant communication with nature, which filled her childhood, Katerina finds the reclusive existence full of deception, hypocrisy, cruelty, lawlessness, submission to someone else’s will unbearable; she is stuffy and bored in her mother-in-law’s house.

In addition, she was married off very early, without love, she, according to Varya, did not play around with girls, her heart “didn’t go away.” But according to Katerina herself, it never “goes away”: “she was born too hot.” Katerina is trying to find her happiness in her love for Tikhon: “I will love my husband. Silence, my dear, I won’t exchange you for anyone.” But to love sincerely and openly, as the soul asks, is not accepted in the “dark kingdom”: Kabanikha pulls her daughter-in-law back: “Why are you hanging around your neck, shameless one? It’s not your lover you’re saying goodbye to.” Katerina admits to Varvara: “Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity.”

Her feeling for Boris, which flared up at first sight and became the cause of her endless mental suffering, becomes a breath of freedom for her. For a devout woman, the very thoughts of loving someone else’s man are sinful. Hence Katerina’s depression, fear, and premonition of imminent death. Outwardly, she has not yet done anything, but she has already transgressed her internal moral law and is tormented by a feeling of guilt. That is why she no longer experiences the delight of going to church, cannot continue to pray, and is unable to concentrate on her thoughts. Anxious thoughts that trouble the soul do not allow her to admire nature. Her dreams also changed. Instead of heaven, she sees someone who hugs her warmly and takes her somewhere, and she follows him. Internally, she has already sinned and recognizes her love as a “terrible sin,” and therefore is afraid to die suddenly, without repentance, to appear before God “as... is, with all... sins, with all evil thoughts.”

It’s hard for her at home, she wants to run away from her mother-in-law, who constantly humiliates her human dignity, out of sadness she is ready to do something with herself. Struggling with her feelings, like a drowning man clutching at straws, she asks her husband not to leave her alone. But he says that he himself is tired of life in his mother’s house and wants to take a walk in freedom. Katerina doesn’t have children either, but they could brighten up her loneliness and become her support: “I don’t have children: I would still sit with them and amuse them. I really like talking to children - they are angels.”

So Katerina is left alone. Varya does not understand her, considers her too sophisticated, acts as a temptress, handing over the key to the gate and promising to send Boris. According to it, do whatever you want, as long as everything is covered and covered. Once upon a time she, like Katerina, did not know how to lie, but life taught her both lies and hypocrisy.

Why, in the struggle of motives: to see Boris or throw away the key, does the first desire “come what may, but I will see Boris!” win? Katerina was not lying even to herself, she knew that she was committing a sin, but, apparently, her life had become so unbearable for her that she decided: “I should at least die and see him.” And on the first date, Katerina says to Boris: “You ruined me!”; “If I had my own will, I would not have gone to you. Your will is now over me, don’t you see!”

Katerina cannot live with such a grave sin in her soul. That's why she's so afraid of thunderstorms. For her, she is a manifestation of the wrath of God. To be killed by a thunderstorm (and she is sure that it will definitely kill her) and to appear before God without repenting seems impossible to her. Her own judgment of herself is unbearable for her. Her inner foundations are crushed. This is not just a “family deception” - a moral catastrophe has occurred, the moral norms that seemed eternal to Katerina have been violated. She considers repentance to be the only way to save her soul. But no one needs her public recognition, not even her husband: “No need, no need! don't talk! What you! Mother is here!

In the minds of ordinary people, her suffering is not a tragedy at all: there are many cases when a wife goes for a walk in the absence of her husband. In addition, Tikhon loves Katerina and forgives her everything. But she is not able to forgive herself, and therefore life turns into constant torment for her; death alone seems to her to be a deliverance.

Katerina would not have become Katerina, who received literary immortality, if she had everything “sewn up.” Just as human judgment is not scary for her, so no deal with conscience is possible for her. “No, it’s all the same to me whether I go home or go to the grave... It’s better in the grave.”

Katerina's emotional drama ends in tragedy. This decisive, integral, Russian nature appointed itself such a punishment for its sin. And if you forget for a moment that the play was written a century and a half ago, then you can see that such a drama could have happened not only in that distant era, it is possible at all times. Because this is the drama of a freedom-loving personality who cannot unfold in the unbearable surrounding world of violence, primarily against a person. This is drama moral personality in a world of surrounding immorality. In the very impossibility for a person to reconcile these contradictory principles, I see the reason for Katerina’s drama.

The death of the main character ends Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm", the genre of which could easily be described as a tragedy. The death of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” is the denouement of the work and carries a special meaning. The scene of Katerina’s suicide gave rise to many questions and interpretations of this plot twist. For example, Dobrolyubov considered this act noble, and Pisarev was of the opinion that such an outcome was “completely unexpected for her (Katerina) herself.” Dostoevsky believed that Katerina’s death in the play “The Thunderstorm” would have occurred without despotism: “this is a victim of her own purity and her beliefs.” It is easy to see that the opinions of critics differ, but at the same time each is partly true. What made the girl make such a decision, take such a desperate step? What does the death of Katerina, the heroine of the play “The Thunderstorm” mean?

In order to answer this question, you need to study the text of the work in detail. The reader meets Katerina already in the first act. Initially, we observe Katya as a mute witness to the quarrel between Kabanikha and Tikhon. This episode allows us to understand the unhealthy environment of lack of freedom and oppression in which Katya has to survive. Every day she is convinced that her old life, the same as it was before marriage, will never be again. All power in the house, despite the patriarchal way of life, is concentrated in the hands of the hypocritical Marfa Ignatievna. Katya's husband, Tikhon, is unable to protect his wife from hysterics and lies. His weak-willed submission to his mother shows Katerina that in this house and in this family one cannot count on help.

Since childhood, Katya was taught to love life: go to church, sing, admire nature, dream. The girl “breathed deeply,” feeling safe. She was taught to live by the rules of Domostroy: respect the word of her elders, do not contradict them, obey her husband and love him. And now Katerina is married off, the situation changes radically. There is a huge, insurmountable gap between expectations and reality. Kabanikha’s tyranny knows no bounds; her limited understanding of Christian laws terrifies the believing Katerina. What about Tikhon? He is not at all a man who is worthy of respect or even compassion. Katya feels only pity for Tikhon, who drinks often. The girl admits that no matter how hard she tries to love her husband, nothing works.

A girl cannot realize herself in any area: not as a housewife, not as a loving wife, not as a caring mother. The girl regards Boris's appearance as a chance for salvation. Firstly, Boris is unlike the other residents of Kalinov, and he, like Katya, does not like unwritten laws dark kingdom. Secondly, Katya was visited by thoughts of getting a divorce and after that living with Boris honestly, without fear of condemnation from society or the church. Relations with Boris are developing rapidly. One meeting was enough for two young people to fall in love with each other. Even without the opportunity to talk, Boris dreams of Katya. The girl is very worried about the feelings that have arisen: she was brought up differently, Katya cannot walk with someone else secretly; purity and honesty “prevent” Katya from hiding her love, pretending that everything is “kept under cover” and others don’t realize.

For a very long time the girl decided to go on a date with Boris, and yet she went to the garden at night. The author does not describe the ten days when Katerina saw her lover. This, in fact, is not necessary. It is easy to imagine their leisure time and the growing feeling of warmth that was in Katerina. Boris himself said “he only lived for those ten days.” The arrival of Tikhon Kabanov revealed new sides to the characters. It turned out that Boris does not want publicity at all; he would rather abandon Katya than involve himself in intrigues and scandals. Katya, unlike the young man, wants to tell both her husband and mother-in-law about the current situation. Being a somewhat suspicious and impressionable person, Katya, driven by the thunder and the words of the crazy lady, confesses everything to Kabanov.

The scene ends. Next we learn that Marfa Ignatievna has become even tougher and more demanding. She humiliates and insults the girl much more than before. Katya understands that she is not as guilty as her mother-in-law wants to convince her, because Kabanikha needs such tyranny only for self-affirmation and control. It is the mother-in-law who becomes the main catalyst for the tragedy. Tikhon would most likely forgive Katya, but he can only obey his mother and go drink with Dikiy.

Imagine yourself in the heroine's place. Imagine all the things she had to deal with every day. The way the attitude towards her changed after the confession. A husband who cannot contradict his mother, but at every opportunity finds solace in alcohol. The mother-in-law, personifying all that dirt and abomination from which a pure and honest person wants to stay as far away as possible. Your husband’s sister, the only one who is interested in your life, but at the same time cannot fully understand. And a loved one, for whom public opinion and the possibility of receiving an inheritance turned out to be much more important than feelings for the girl.

Katya dreamed of becoming a bird, of flying away forever from the dark world of tyranny and hypocrisy, of breaking free, of flying, of being free. Katerina's death was inevitable.
However, as stated above, there are several different points of view on Katerina’s suicide. After all, on the other hand, couldn’t Katya just run away without making such desperate decisions? That's the point, she couldn't. This was not for her. To be honest with yourself, to be free - this is what the girl so passionately desired. Unfortunately, all this could only be obtained at the price own life. Katerina's death is a defeat or victory over " dark kingdom"? Katerina did not win, but she did not remain defeated either.

Option I

Katerina is the main character of A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”. N.A. Dobrolyubov defined her as the embodiment of a “strong Russian character” and called her “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” But, despite her spiritual strength and strong character, Katerina dies. Why?

The motif of space and flight is associated with the image of Katerina in the drama. She dreams of flying like a bird. From the very beginning of the drama, she has a presentiment of her death, perhaps because she is not created for life in the “dark kingdom.”

But, on the other hand, she was born and formed in the same environment as Kabanikha, Tikhon, Dikoy and others. The story of life as a girl is one of Katerina’s most poetic monologues, the main motive of which is the permeating mutual love. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild... I used to do whatever I wanted,” says Katerina.

The whole circle of her life is homework and religious dreams. This world is idyllic, in which the personal is connected with the general, which is the soul of the patriarchal worldview. But when the soul disappears, what remains is Kabanikha and the world, which rests on violence and coercion. It’s not for nothing that Varvara, after listening to Katerina’s story, exclaims in surprise: “But it’s the same with us.” And the sensitive Katerina answers her: “Yes, everything here seems to be out of control.”

A new feeling is born in Katerina, a new attitude towards the world, still unclear to herself: “There is something so extraordinary about me. Am I exactly starting to live again or... I don’t know,” she says.

This is a vague feeling that Katerina, of course, cannot explain rationally - an awakening sense of personality. In Katerina, a love is born and grows that does not fit into the framework of public morality. Katerina, due to her religiosity, perceives the awakened feeling of love as a terrible, indelible sin. Love for Boris for her, married woman, there is a violation of moral duty. Moral and religious commandments are full of meaning and meaning for her. She wants to be pure and impeccable, her moral demands on herself are limitless.

Having already realized her love for Boris, she strives with all her might to resist it, but does not find support in this struggle. “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me there, but I have nothing to hold on to,” she admits to Varvara. And indeed, everything is collapsing around her. Tikhon leaves - the hope of finding support in her husband’s love is destroyed. Varvara gives her the key to the gate. “I wasn’t afraid of sin for you, should I be afraid of human judgment!” - she says to Boris. These words are a harbinger of death. The consciousness of sin persists even in the rapture of happiness and completely takes possession of the heroine when this happiness ends.

She sees no other outcome to her torment other than death. The lack of hope for forgiveness pushes her to suicide - an even more serious sin from the point of view of Christian morality. “I’ve already lost my soul anyway,” says Katerina. Katerina’s death is predetermined and inevitable, no matter how the people on whom she depends behave. It is inevitable, because neither her self-consciousness nor the entire way of life in which she exists allows the personal feeling that has awakened in her to break out and bloom brightly in the “dark kingdom.”

Option II

The appearance of "The Thunderstorm" was met with fierce controversy in the literary community. If Turgenev saw in Ostrovsky’s drama “the most amazing, magnificent work of Russian, powerful, completely self-mastered talent,” then others (for example, the critic of the magazine “Our Time” N.F. Pavlov) declared the play immoral, not satisfying “the exactingness of enlightenment.” puppy demands." Turgenev's point of view still seems more in line with reality.

The central character of the drama is Katerina, whom Dobrolyubov rightly dubbed “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” Her nature is impressionable, sensitive, honest, she is suffocating in the atmosphere of anger and hatred that reigns in Kabanikha’s house (“Where to now? Should I go home? No, I’m either going home or going to the grave - it’s all the same... to the grave!” It’s better in the grave...”), in the musty atmosphere of the whole city (“To live again? No, no, don’t... not good! And the people are disgusting to me, and the house is disgusting to me, and the walls are disgusting!”).

Added to this unbearable situation is a constant and hopeless alienation in relation to the outside world, which is so unusual for her soul, which loves and strives for freedom (“Why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes it seems to me that I’m a bird. When you’re standing on a mountain, you’re drawn to fly. That’s how you’d run up, raise your arms and fly..."), the only thing that is a breath of happiness for her is love for Boris, and that’s it. considers it a grave sin, which, in her opinion, should be followed by cruel punishment.