What literary genre does dowry belong to? Ostrovsky, "Dowry": analysis and characteristics of the heroes

A. N. Ostrovsky described quite accurately the picture of indifference and heartlessness of those times. Today we will look at the characteristics of the heroes. “Dowry” is a work that has entered the annals of world literature. So let's get started.

Karandyshev

In the play, Yuliy Kapitonich is a poor official who cannot boast of either a full wallet or self-respect. The main feature of the hero is pride, which, in principle, led to a tragic end. What are the characteristics of the heroes? “The Dowry” by A. N. Ostrovsky is a work that is a little simplified by the fact that the outstanding playwright endowed his characters with meaningful names. Let's consider this technique of the author using the example of the same Karandyshev.

Although he has the name of a great man (Julius Caesar), the surname comes from the word “karatysh”. The author shows us the discrepancy between his desires and real possibilities. Larisa is a way of self-affirmation for him, this is how he cherishes his pride. The Ogudalov family considers him a backup option, the only possible way out of the situation, although not a very successful one. Yuliy Kapitonich is greatly offended. His “beloved” is a way to defeat a stronger opponent, Paratov.

What do the characteristics of the heroes say? “The Dowry” is a work that does not require much effort to understand, since the author accurately and in detail describes his characters, their feelings and true being. The tragic end is another moment with which A. N. Ostrovsky ridicules Karandyshev’s nature. Since Yuliy Kapitonich cannot defeat his rival, he kills the subject of their dispute. The figure of this man is very pitiful and funny.

Paratov

This character continues our characterization of heroes. “The Dowry” is a work that cannot do without an analysis of the image of the main rival Yuli Kapitonich. We have already talked about distinctive feature A. N. Ostrovsky and about speaking names. So, Sergei Sergeich’s surname originates from the word “paraty”, which means “predator”.

Note that his behavior in the play can also be characterized: “He has no heart, that’s why he’s so brave.” This is a quote that characterizes the hero as a heartless and cruel character. He is young and ambitious, a very prudent and greedy person: “And now, gentlemen, I have other matters and other calculations. I will marry a very rich girl and take gold mines as a dowry.”

Larisa

Who else can continue the characterization of the heroes? “The Dowry” is a work that cannot ignore the main character, who has become the subject of a dispute between two heartless and greedy people. She evokes a feeling of compassion, since she is truly passionate about Sergei Sergeich, who betrayed her for the sake of profit. Larisa Ogudalova is a homeless girl, a girl from a poor family, but she is an incredibly subtle and sensual person.

When Paratov rejected her, she has one last hope - to marry Karandyshev, since she considers him a man with kind soul and a heart, incomprehensible to anyone, but incredibly kind. When Larisa realized that she was a toy in the wrong hands, she tried to kill herself, but she did not have the strength to do it. Only Karandyshev’s shot helps her get rid of her torment.

“Dowry”: characteristics of the heroes. Table

Let's try to systematize the analysis of the main characters of the drama using a table.

This is how we presented the characteristics of the main characters. In order to draw your own conclusions, we advise you to read this work.

A brief summary of the play “The Dowry” will be useful to those readers who want to superficially familiarize themselves with the work. In this article you can find a basic retelling of the events in all four acts. The material will help you get a general impression of the work of the author Nikolai Ostrovsky and understand main idea.

The beginning of the story

The summary of “Dowry” begins with the showing of a Volga town called Bryakhimov. On the higher bank there is a coffee shop, where Gavrilo and a servant are trying to prepare the establishment. Two merchants named Mokiy Knurov and Vasily Vozhevatov walk in this area every day and like to stop by for a glass of champagne. They call it their special tea, and Gavrilo must pour it from a special container. This is how they hide their habit from people. Soon they arrive and start discussing all the news. Vasily reports the purchase of the Lastochka steamship from Sergei Paratov. The next topic was the marriage of the third daughter of the widow Kharita Ogudalova, named Larisa. The merchants believe that she will suffer the same bad fate.

Sisters' Misfortune

The summary of “The Dowry” in the first act continues with the fact that the daughters of the widow Kharita Ogudalova are haunted by misfortunes in marriage. The eldest girl married a Caucasian prince - a very jealous man. For this reason, he stabbed her to death even before they reached their future place of residence. The middle sister became infatuated with a foreigner, under whose guise a cheater was hiding. Only Larisa Dmitrievna remains in the family, but young men do not want to take her due to the lack of a dowry. The heroine sings beautifully, plays the guitar, and this attracts attention. The widow Harita is pretty herself and wants to rebuild her personal life. But first of all, you need to arrange for your daughter, and the option with Sergei Paratov failed. The rich shipowner managed to make Larisa fall in love with him, but the wedding did not come to fruition. He said that he did not see any benefit for himself in such a marriage. The girl suffered because of unrequited love, although later there were other contenders. The mother said her word, and the daughter married the first one who called. This man turned out to be Yuli Karandyshev.

Conversation in a coffee shop

The summary of “The Dowry” at the end of the first act returns the reader to the coffee shop where the Ogudalovs and Yuliy Karandyshev come. The poor official invites everyone present to dinner in honor of his future wife. The merchants decided to disagree, but mother Kharita explained that this was only in honor of Larisa’s birthday. A conversation begins between the newlyweds, in which Julius reproaches the girl for her way of life. The reason was the familiar treatment of the merchant Vasily Vozhevatov. At this moment, guns sound on the pier, and Larisa remembers the shipowner Paratov, who is usually greeted with such a signal. She realizes that she loves him even now. It turns out that the shots were fired precisely in honor of this rich man. Later, Sergei enters the coffee shop and introduces everyone to his new friend Arkady Schastlivtsev. He picked him up on a deserted island, where the captain of the ship dropped the guy off because of drunkenness. Paratov also notifies everyone that he is marrying a rich girl, and gold mines will go to him as a dowry. For this reason, he sold his best steamship "Swallow" and other ships.

The beginning of the celebration

In the summary of Ostrovsky's "Dowry" in the second act, the events begin with the birthday of Larisa. Vozhevatov gives an expensive brooch, and the mother immediately sells it for seven hundred rubles. Knurov begins a conversation with Kharita about the wedding youngest daughter wrong. She should not marry a poor official, because her appearance and talents should be valued much higher. The merchant claims that Larisa will run away in any case, and to improve the situation, Harita will need a powerful friend. Knurov offers himself as such. Because of his interest, the married hero offers to pay for all the necessary items for the wedding. Soon Larisa herself appears with a guitar, sings romances and shares dreams of life in the village with her mother. The widow Ogudalova immediately calms her daughter down by the fact that Zabolotye is far from best place and she may not like it there. Larisa calls from the window to her friend Ilya, who tunes the guitar at the request of the heroine. He reports that an important man has come to see them.

Birthday

In the summary of “The Dowry” the story continues at Larisa’s birthday. Her fiancé appears and she asks him to go to the village as soon as possible. He refuses to hold the wedding in his homeland. He will not allow rumors to spread that Yuliy Karandyshev is not a match for her. This dinner is the first step towards the wedding, and at it he proposes a toast to Larisa. At the same time, the man mentions that the girl treated him extremely responsively, unlike other people. Soon Paratov himself appears, who promised to call on Kharita Ogudalova. He calls her “auntie,” talks about a successful engagement and reproaches Larisa for forgetting about him so quickly. The former ship owner, in a conversation with the main character, learns that she still has feelings for him. After this, the man deliberately quarrels with Karandyshev and promises to punish the poor official for his insolence. Other guests arrive, and Yuliy, under pressure, invites Paratov. The master agrees, but only because of the opportunity to take revenge on Larisa's fiancé.

Lunch from the groom

The summary of the play “Dowry” in the third act begins with insulting the guests. The dinner included cheap wine in expensive bottles, cigarettes with inferior grades of tobacco, and a minimum of food. High-ranking merchants also did not like the fact that Karandyshev had already gotten drunk. Paratov is consoled by this circumstance of affairs, and therefore says that he sent his friend Arkady to Larisa’s fiancé. This is why he is in this state. After this, all the guests and gypsies decide that they should go for a walk along the Volga. Vozhevatov became generous and promised to pay for the rowers. He lied to Arkady about the future trip to Paris and the need for rest before the difficult journey. All the people who arrived for lunch, including Paratov, agree that you need to take Larisa with you for complete fun. All that remains is to persuade the girl and finally get Karandyshev drunk. This idea was successfully implemented.

Continuation of the story

In the summary of Ostrovsky's "Dowry", the story continues from dinner at Karandyshev's house. Kharita Ogudalova starts a quarrel with him because of his condition. The poor official retorts this by saying that in his house it can be anything. After this, the widow comes to Paratov so that he does not continue to mock Larisa’s future groom. Sergei agrees to drink with him for the sake of reconciliation, but only cognac. Karandyshev finally gets drunk, and the former shipowner goes to Larisa Dmitrievna. He asks to sing something, but the girl is too depressed by Yuli’s behavior. The drunken groom intervenes with a ban on singing for his future wife. This offends Larisa, who immediately begins to perform the romance. Gypsy Ilya, out of joy, picks up the song and complements the performance with a second voice. When the heroine finishes singing, all the guests praise her talent. After that, they leave, and Larisa is left alone with Sergei Paratov.

Conversation between people in love

If you start reading the summary of Ostrovsky’s “Dowry,” then in the third act you can learn about Sergei Paratov’s confession to Larisa. He says that the girl’s singing made him regret refusing to marry. The master mentioned that he barely managed to restrain himself from leaving his arranged marriage and returning to this beauty. A man invites the heroine with other guests for a walk along the Volga. Larisa couldn’t make up her mind for a long time, and then she remembered Karandyshev’s vengeful toast. She was able to put aside her doubts and agree. The guests return, and Paratov says a toast to the groom Yuli, who is so lucky with his bride. All the guests seize the moment when the groom goes for a bottle of wine and run away through the back gate. Larisa told her mother Kharita that she should either be happy or look for a girl after this day in the Volga. Karandyshev returns and understands the actions of the guests. The man is not going to forgive this huge offense, and therefore takes a gun and leaves the house.

Beginning of the fourth act

In the chapter-by-chapter summary of “The Dowry,” Yuliy Karandyshev goes to the coffee shop in the last act. Assistant Ivan sees him with a gun. Meanwhile, the future groom asks Paratov's friend Arkady about where the guests have gone. He is offended by Vozhevatov’s behavior and talks about their walk along the Volga. The gypsies soon return to the coffee shop, and with them the merchants Vozhevatov and Knurov. On the way, rich men say that Larisa Dmitrievna again believed the cunning Paratov. This gentleman would never trade his rich bride for her. They talk about the abandonment of Yulia and who will take the girl to support out of the two of them. Merchants want to go with a beautiful lady to an exhibition in Paris.

End of the work

A brief summary of Ostrovsky’s play “Dowry” at the end of the work tells about the situation between Larisa and Paratov. Sergei tells her to go home, and she demands an answer about who she is to him. The master stuns the heroine by the fact that he is already engaged to another girl. He blames it all on a momentary passion that made him distracted. Larisa drives him away, and she herself wants to commit suicide, although she cannot decide. Knurov appears and invites her to become a kept woman for this married merchant. He played a toss with Vozhevatov on it and won. Karandyshev returns and begs Larisa to return to him, because he will be able to forgive everything. The girl replies that she already feels like a simple thing. She calls Knurov, but Yuliy shoots at her. The main character perceives death as salvation. The gypsies begin to hum different melodies; Larisa tells the people who come running that she shot herself.

Ostrovsky's play "Dowry" was written in 1874 - 1878. The play premiered in the fall of 1878. The play is a striking example of psychological realism in Russian literature. In “The Dowry,” Ostrovsky brought to the fore the conflict between the material world, the world of money (represented by Paratov, Vozhevatov, Knurov, Ogudalova) and the spiritual, world of love (represented in the image of Larisa Dmitrievna). The leading theme of the play is the theme of “little people”.

Main characters

Larisa Dmitrievna – a dowryless daughter of Ogudalova, a very beautiful young girl who sings beautifully and can play several instruments.

Sergei Sergeich Paratov -“a brilliant gentleman from a ship owner, over 30 years old,” a calculating man whom Larisa loved unrequitedly.

Yuliy Kapitonich Karandyshev -“a young man, a poor official,” a man with a painful sense of self-esteem, Larisa’s fiancé, who at the end of the work shot the girl.

Other characters

Vasily Danilych Vozhevatov – “ a very young man, one of the representatives of a wealthy trading company,” for whom money is the most important thing in life, has known Larisa from an early age.

Moky Parmevich Knurov- “one of the big businessmen of recent times, old man, with a huge fortune,” a married man who wants to become Larisa’s “friend” and patron.

Kharita Ignatievna Ogudalova- “a middle-aged widow”, Larisa’s mother, loves to “live cheerfully”, and begs the necessary funds from her daughter’s suitors.

Robinson- an actor who came with Paratov.

Gavrilo- “the owner of a coffee shop on the boulevard.”

Ivan- “a servant in a coffee shop.”

Act one

Phenomenon 1

The events of the play take place in the large city of Bryakhimov on the Volga. The action begins on City Boulevard near the coffee shop.

Phenomenon 2

Vozhevatov tells Knurov that he was going to buy the steamer “Swallow” from Paratov, but he still can’t wait for Sergei Sergeevich. Gavrilo assures Vasily Danilych that Paratov will definitely come, since the best quadruplets in the city have already been prepared for him.

Vozhevatov orders that champagne be served to them in tea sets and “over tea” he tells Knurov that the beautiful, dowry-less beauty Larisa Dmitrievna, famous in the city, is marrying Karandyshev. Knurov is surprised, because Karandyshev is not a match for the girl. Vozhevatov explained that Larisa Dmitrievna agreed to a modest marriage after she experienced last year’s infatuation with Paratov, who, having beaten off all her suitors, disappeared to no one knows where. After him, an “old man with gout”, an always drunk manager of some prince, and a cashier, who caused a loud scandal in their home, were wooed. Unable to bear it, Larisa Dmitrievna said that she would marry the first one who wooed her. Here Karandyshev, who had been in their house for a long time, “and right there” with a proposal, and now “he’s happy, shining like an orange.” Knurov feels sorry for Larisa Dmitrievna, saying that she was “created for luxury” - “an expensive diamond is expensive and requires a setting.”

Phenomenon 3

Karandyshev and Larisa and their mother join the men. Over tea, Karandyshev, pompous, turns to Knurov and Vozhevatov as equals, inviting them to his place for lunch today. Kharita Ignatievna explains that this dinner is being arranged for Larisa.

Phenomenon 4

Left alone with Larisa Dmitrievna, Karandyshev accuses the girl of taking excessive liberties when communicating with Vozhevatov. The man calls the Ogudalovs’ house a “gypsy camp,” which brings the girl to tears.

Larisa says that in their “camp” there were also noble people - such as Sergei Sergeevich Paratov. Karandyshev, who treats Paratov with hostility, asks why he is worse than Sergei Sergeevich. Larisa Dmitrievna replies that Paratov is “the ideal man.” Suddenly a cannon shot is heard (the salute with which Paratov arrived). Larisa Dmitrievna gets scared and asks to be taken away.

Phenomena 5 – 6

Paratov was not in the city for a whole year. Sergei Sergeevich arrived accompanied by Robinson, the provincial actor Arkady Schastlivtsev. Paratov somehow picked him up from an uninhabited island, where Arkady and his friend were dropped off after they caused a brawl on the ship. Knurov wonders if Sergei Sergeevich feels sorry for “Swallows”. Paratov replied: “What is a pity, I don’t know that”, “I’ll find a profit, so I’ll sell everything, anything,” and immediately said that he would soon marry a very rich girl, who would be given gold mines as a dowry. And that’s why he wants to have a lot of fun before the wedding.

Phenomenon 7

Vozhevatov negotiates with Gavrila to give them a walk along the Volga and a picnic in the evening, but at the last moment he remembers that Karandyshev invited them to his place that evening.

Act two

Phenomenon 1

Ogudalova's house, the main feature of the interior is a piano on which lies a guitar.

Phenomenon 2

Knurov comes to Ogudalova. Mokiy Parmevych, having learned that Karandyshev is poor, expresses his indignation at the upcoming marriage. According to Knurov, there is no “earthly” or “everyday” in Larisa, she was created “for brilliance.” Knurov believes that the girl will quickly leave her husband, and then she will need a respectable, rich “friend,” and he will not spare anything for the girl. When leaving, Knurov orders Ogudalova to order a nice wedding “wardrobe” for her daughter and send him the bills.

Phenomenon 3

Larisa tells her mother that she wants to go to the village as quickly as possible, “even if it’s wild, and deaf, and cold; for me, after the life that I experienced here, every quiet corner will seem like paradise.” The girl picks up the guitar, singing “Don’t tempt me unnecessarily,” but the instrument is out of tune. Seeing the gypsy Ilya from the window, the girl invited him into the house.

Phenomenon 4

Ilya reports that the master has arrived, whom they have been waiting for a whole year.

Phenomenon 5

Ogudalova is worried whether they “missed” the groom by rushing into the wedding. Larisa replies that she has had enough humiliation.

Phenomenon 6

Karandyshev comes to see the women. Larisa asks when they will leave for the village, but Yuliy Kapitonich does not want to rush, because he wants, as Ogudalova said, to “glorify himself.”

Karandyshev condemns the morals of society, indignant that the only rumors in the city are that the master - Sergei Sergeich Paratov - has arrived. In fright, Larisa asks to leave for the village immediately. At this time, Paratov himself drives up to the Ogudalovs.

Phenomenon 7

Paratova accepts Ogudalov, he behaves playfully and seriously with her. The man says that a year ago he had to leave to settle matters with his property, and now he is going to marry a bride with a dowry of half a million. At Paratov’s request, Ogudalova calls Larisa.

Phenomenon 8

Paratov, reproaching Larisa for not waiting for him, reduces this to female frivolity: “women” - “your name is nothingness.” Offended, the girl admits that she still loves Sergei Sergeevich, and she has to get married out of despair. Having satisfied his pride, Paratov says that now “I will keep the most pleasant memory of you for the rest of my life, and we will part as best friends» .

Phenomenon 9

They are joined by Ogudalova and Karandyshev. Paratov tries in every possible way to offend Larisa’s fiancé, and they quarrel. Ogudalova asks for an apology and forces her son-in-law to invite Sergei Sergeevich to dinner.

Phenomenon 10

Vozhevatov and Robinson come to see Ogudalova. Vozhevatov passes Robinson off as an Englishman.

Phenomenon 11

Paratov, who really didn’t like Karandyshev, is going to “make fun” of the man during lunch.

Act three

Phenomenon 1

Karandyshev’s office, furnished “with pretensions, but without taste.” On one of the walls “there is a carpet nailed to it, on which weapons are hung.”

Phenomenon 2

Ogudalova and Larisa discuss Karandyshev's evening. The women did not know where to hide from shame. Karandyshev thinks that he surprised everyone with his luxury, but the guests get him drunk on purpose for fun.

Phenomenon 3

Aunt Karandysheva complains to the women about the losses from the dinner, and then calls them to her place. Paratov, Knurov and Vozhevatov enter the office.

Phenomena 4 – 5

Knurov complains about terrible dishes and wines (“a potion that he calls wine”). The men laugh at the stupidity of the owner, who was the first of all to drink himself to death. They managed to get him drunk thanks to the help of the promiscuous Robinson.

Phenomenon 6

Karandyshev enters the office with cigars. He doesn't notice that the men are making fun of him.

Phenomena 7–8

Ogudalova, who comes in, tries to reprimand Karandyshev, but he replies that today he is happy and triumphant. Paratov offers a drink for brotherhood and Yuliy Kapitonich leaves to get some cognac.

Phenomena 9 – 10

Paratov, Knurov and Vozhevatov are going for a boat trip.

Phenomenon 11

Paratov asks Larisa to sing something. Karandyshev tries to forbid her, this outrages the girl. Larisa and the gypsy Ilya, who accompanies her, sing “Do not tempt”. Everyone is delighted with the girl’s singing. Karandyshev leaves to get champagne to drink to Larisa’s health.

Phenomenon 12

In private, Paratov tells Larisa that she is a treasure and he is guilty before her for exchanging her for another. Sergei Sergeevich persuades the girl to go with the company for a ride along the Volga. Larisa agrees, calling Paratov her “overlord.”

Phenomenon 13

Everyone drinks champagne for Larisa Dmitrievna. Karandyshev makes a toast, calling the girl’s most important advantage the ability to “appreciate and choose people,” because she chose him among all her fans. Karandyshev is sent for wine. At this time, the men gather and, taking Larisa with them, leave.

Phenomenon 14

Upon returning, Karandyshev is surprised where Larisa went. Ivan informs him that the girl has gone with the gentlemen beyond the Volga for a picnic. Karandyshev is in despair: “I’m funny - well, laugh at me, laugh in my eyes! Come dine with me, drink my wine and swear, laugh at me - I'm worth it. But to break the chest of a funny man, tear out his heart, throw him under his feet and trample him!” Threatening revenge, the man grabs a pistol from the table and runs away.

Act four

Phenomenon 1 – 2

Karandyshev with a pistol comes to the coffee shop where Robinson is at that time and tries to find out from the actor where his comrades have gone. However, Robinson pretends not to know them.

Phenomenon 3 – 5

Knurov and Vozhevatov, who returned from the picnic, sympathize with Larisa - the men understand that Sergei Sergeevich will not give up a profitable marriage for the sake of a girl, and after what happened, Larisa is compromised.

Phenomenon 6

Knurov believes that in the current situation they are obliged to take part in her fate (the man wanted to take the girl with him to Paris, but now an opportunity presented itself). To avoid rivalry, the men toss a coin, and it falls to Knurov to go with Larisa Dmitrievna.

Phenomenon 7

Paratov thanks Larisa for going on a picnic with them. The girl asks to answer her: is she now his wife or not? Sergei Sergeevich replies that he is engaged and cannot break up with his bride. The man assures the girl that her fiancé will take her back in any case.

Phenomenon 8

Paratov gives orders to Robinson to take the girl home and goes to the cafeteria. Larisa asks Vozhevatov for help, but he evades, leaving the girl with Knurov. Mokiy Parmevych invites Larisa to go with him to Paris and full provision for life. Larisa remained silent in response.

Phenomenon 9

Left alone, Larisa wants to throw herself into the sea, but does not dare commit suicide.

Phenomenon 10 – 11

Robinson leads to Larisa Karandysheva. The man believes that he should be the girl’s protector. Larisa tells Karandyshev that his patronage for her is the gravest insult. The man reproaches her for being undemanding, saying that Knurov and Vozhevatov played a toss with her and generally treated her like a thing. Larisa agreed that she was a thing, but “too expensive a thing” for Karandyshev - “if you are a thing, there is only one consolation - to be expensive, very expensive.”

Larisa asks to call Knurov to her. Karandyshev tries to persuade her to leave with him, but the girl explains that it is too late and she will never be his. With the words “So don’t let anyone get you,” Karandyshev shoots Larisa with a pistol. With words of gratitude, Larisa picks up the pistol that had fallen from Karandyshev’s hands and puts it on the table and slowly lowers herself onto a chair.

Phenomenon 12

Larisa explained to those who came running to the shot: “It’s me myself... No one is to blame, no one... It’s me myself.” Gypsies begin to sing behind the stage, Paratov orders everyone to be silent, but Larisa, dying to the gypsy choir, asks: “Let them have fun, those who are having fun.”<…>you are all good people... I love you all... I love you all.”

Conclusion

In "Dowry" Ostrovsky portrayed tragic fate a girl who knows how to love sincerely, but finds herself in a society where money is valued in many ways above true feelings. Neither my own mother nor future husband Karandyshev, nor Larisa’s lover Paratov, did not take her feelings seriously - each of them only wanted to take advantage of the girl. The death of the heroine at the end of the work brings moral purification; despite everything that happened, Larisa still loves everyone.

A brief retelling of the work “Dowry” does not fully convey the intense psychologism of the play by the great playwright, so we advise you to read the full version of the drama.

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"Dowry"- play by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. Work on it continued for four years - from 1874 to 1878. The premiere performances of “The Dowry” took place in the fall of 1878 and caused protest among spectators and theater critics. Success came to the work after the death of the author.

The play was first published in the magazine “Domestic Notes” (1879, No. 1).

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Subtitles

History of creation

In the 1870s, Alexander Ostrovsky served as an honorary justice of the peace in Kineshma district. Participation in trials and familiarity with criminal chronicles gave him the opportunity to find new topics for his works. Researchers suggest that the plot of “Dowry” was suggested to the playwright by life itself: one of the high-profile cases that shook up the entire county was the murder of his young wife by local resident Ivan Konovalov.

When starting a new work in November 1874, the playwright made a note: “Opus 40.” Work, contrary to expectations, proceeded slowly; In parallel with “Dowry,” Ostrovsky wrote and published several more works. Finally, in the fall of 1878, the play was completed. In those days, the playwright told one of his actor acquaintances:

I had already read my play in Moscow five times; among the listeners there were people who were hostile to me, and everyone unanimously recognized “The Dowry” as the best of all my works.

Subsequent events also indicated that the new play was doomed to success: it easily passed censorship, the magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski began preparing the work for publication, and the troupes of first the Maly and then the Alexandrinsky Theater began rehearsals. However, the premiere performances in Moscow and St. Petersburg ended in failure; Reviews from critics were replete with harsh assessments. Only ten years after the author’s death, in the second half of the 1890s, did “Dowry” gain recognition from viewers; it was associated primarily with the name of actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya.

Characters

• Kharita Ignatievna Ogudalova - middle-aged widow, mother of Larisa Dmitrievna.
• Larisa Dmitrievna Ogudalova - a young girl surrounded by admirers, but without a dowry.
• Mokiy Parmenych Knurov - a big businessman, an elderly man, with a huge fortune.
• Vasily Danilych Vozhevatov - a young man who has known Larisa since childhood; one of the representatives of a wealthy trading company.
• Yuliy Kapitonich Karandyshev - poor official.
• Sergei Sergeich Paratov - a brilliant gentleman, a shipowner, over 30 years old.
• Robinson - provincial actor Arkady Schastlivtsev.
• Gavrilo - club bartender and owner of a coffee shop on the boulevard.
• Ivan - servant in a coffee shop.

Plot

Act one

The action takes place on the site in front of a coffee shop located on the banks of the Volga. Local merchants Knurov and Vozhevatov are talking here. During the conversation, it turns out that the shipowner Paratov is returning to the city. A year ago, Sergei Sergeevich hastily left Bryakhimov; the departure was so rapid that the master did not have time to say goodbye to Larisa Dmitrievna Ogudalova. She, being a “sensitive” girl, even rushed to catch up with her beloved; she was returned from the second station.

According to Vozhevatov, who has known Larisa since childhood, her main problem is the lack of a dowry. Kharita Ignatievna, the girl’s mother, trying to find a suitable groom for her daughter, keeps the house open. However, after Paratov’s departure, the candidates for the role of Larisa’s husband were unenviable: an old man with gout, the always drunk manager of some prince, and a fraudulent cashier who was arrested right in the Ogudalovs’ house. After the scandal, Larisa Dmitrievna announced to her mother that she would marry the first person she met. It turned out to be a poor official Karandyshev. Listening to his colleague’s story, Knurov notices that this woman was created for luxury; she, like an expensive diamond, needs an “expensive setting.”

Soon the Ogudalov mother and daughter appear on the site, accompanied by Karandyshev. Larisa Dmitrievna's fiance invites coffee shop visitors to his place for a dinner party. Kharita Ignatievna, seeing Knurov’s contemptuous bewilderment, explains that “it’s the same as we have lunch for Larisa.” After the merchants leave, Yuliy Kapitonovich arranges a scene of jealousy for the bride; to his question what is so good about Paratov, the girl replies that she sees in Sergei Sergeevich the ideal of a man.

When a cannon shot is heard on the shore, announcing the arrival of the master, Karandyshev takes Larisa away from the coffee shop. However, the establishment is not empty for long: a few minutes later the owner Gavrilo meets the same merchants and Sergei Sergeevich, who arrived in Bryakhimov along with the actor Arkady Schastlivtsev, nicknamed Robinson. The actor received the name of the book hero, as Paratov explains, because he was found on a deserted island. The conversation between long-time acquaintances revolves around Paratov’s sale of the steamship “Lastochka” - from now on Vozhevatov will become its owner. In addition, Sergei Sergeevich reports that he is going to marry the daughter of an important gentleman, and is taking gold mines as a dowry. The news of Larisa Ogudalova's upcoming marriage makes him think. Paratov admits that he feels a little guilty towards the girl, but now “the old scores are over.”

Act two

The events unfolding in the second act take place in the Ogudalovs' house. While Larisa is changing clothes, Knurov appears in the room. Kharita Ignatievna greets the merchant as a dear guest. Moky Parmenych makes it clear that Karandyshev is not the best match for such a brilliant young lady as Larisa Dmitrievna; in her situation, the patronage of a rich and influential person is much more useful. Along the way, Knurov reminds that the bride’s wedding dress should be exquisite, and therefore the entire wardrobe should be ordered from the most expensive store; he bears all expenses.

After the merchant leaves, Larisa informs her mother that she intends to leave with her husband immediately after the wedding for Zabolotye, a distant county where Yuliy Kapitonich will run for justice of the peace. However, Karandyshev, appearing in the room, does not share the bride’s wishes: he is annoyed by Larisa’s haste. In the heat of the moment, the groom makes a long speech about how all of Bryakhimov has gone crazy; cab drivers, tavern handlers, gypsies - everyone rejoices at the arrival of the master, who, having been wasted in carousing, is forced to sell his “last steamboat.”

Next it is Paratov’s turn to pay a visit to the Ogudalovs. First, Sergei Sergeevich sincerely communicates with Kharita Ignatievna. Later, left alone with Larisa, he wonders how long a woman can live apart from her loved one. This conversation is painful for the girl; When asked if she loves Paratov as before, Larisa answers yes.

Paratov’s acquaintance with Karandyshev begins with a conflict: having uttered a saying that “one loves watermelon, and the other loves pork cartilage,” Sergei Sergeevich explains that he learned the Russian language from barge haulers. These words infuriate Yuli Kapitonovich, who believes that barge haulers are rude, ignorant people. Kharita Ignatievna stops the flaring quarrel: she orders champagne to be brought. Peace has been restored, but later, in a conversation with the merchants, Paratov admits that he will find an opportunity to “make fun” of the groom.

Act three

There is a dinner party at Karandyshev's house. Yulia Kapitonovich's aunt, Efrosinya Potapovna, complains to the servant Ivan that this event takes too much effort, and the expenses are too high. It’s good that we managed to save on wine: the seller sold the batch for six hryvnia per bottle, re-sticking the labels.

Larisa, seeing that the guests did not touch the offered dishes and drinks, feels ashamed for the groom. The situation is aggravated by the fact that Robinson, who is tasked with making his owner drunk until he is completely insensitive, suffers loudly due to the fact that instead of the declared Burgundy he has to use some kind of “Kinder Balsam”.

Paratov, demonstrating affection towards Karandyshev, agrees to have a drink with his rival for brotherhood. When Sergei Sergeevich asks Larisa to sing, Yuliy Kapitonovich tries to protest. In response, Larisa takes the guitar and performs the romance “Don’t tempt me unnecessarily.” Her singing makes a strong impression on those present. Paratov admits to the girl that he is tormented by the fact that he lost such a treasure. He immediately invites the young lady to go beyond the Volga. While Karandyshev proposes a toast in honor of his bride and looks for new wine, Larisa says goodbye to her mother.

Returning with champagne, Yuliy Kapitonovich discovers that the house is empty. The desperate monologue of the deceived groom is dedicated to the drama of a funny man who, when angry, is capable of revenge. Grabbing a pistol from the table, Karandyshev rushes in search of the bride and her friends.

Act four

Knurov and Vozhevatov, returning from a night walk along the Volga, discuss Larisa’s fate. Both understand that Paratov will not exchange a rich bride for a dowry. To remove the question of possible rivalry, Vozhevatov proposes to resolve everything by drawing lots. The thrown coin indicates that Knurov will take Larisa to the exhibition in Paris.

Meanwhile, Larisa, climbing up the mountain from the pier, has a difficult conversation with Paratov. She is interested in one thing: is she now Sergei Sergeevich’s wife or not? The news that her lover is engaged comes as a shock to the girl.

She is sitting at a table not far from the coffee shop when Knurov appears. He invites Larisa Dmitrievna to the French capital, guaranteeing, if she agrees, the highest content and fulfillment of any whims. Karandyshev comes up next. He tries to open the bride's eyes to her friends, explaining that they see her only as a thing. The found word seems successful to Larisa. Having informed her ex-fiancé that he is too petty and insignificant for her, the young lady passionately declares that, having not found love, she will look for gold.

Karandyshev, listening to Larisa, takes out a pistol. The shot is accompanied by the words: “So don’t get it to anyone!” In a fading voice, Larisa informs Paratov and the merchants who have run out of the coffee shop that she is not complaining about anything and is not offended by anyone.

Stage fate. Reviews

The premiere at the Maly Theater, where the role of Larisa Ogudalova was played by Glikeria Fedotova, and Paratov was Alexander Lensky, took place on November 10, 1878. The excitement around the new play was unprecedented; in the hall, as reviewers later reported, “all of Moscow, loving the Russian stage, gathered,” including the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. Expectations, however, were not met: according to a columnist for the newspaper Russkie Vedomosti, “the playwright tired the entire audience, right down to the most naive spectators.” It was the most deafening failure in creative biography Ostrovsky.

The first production on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater, where Maria Savina played the main role, evoked fewer derogatory responses. Thus, the St. Petersburg newspaper “Novoye Vremya” admitted that the performance of “Dowry” made a “strong impression” on the audience. However, there was no need to talk about success: a critic of the same publication, a certain K., complained that Ostrovsky spent a lot of effort on creating few people interesting story about the “silly seduced girl”:

Those who expected a new word, new types from the venerable playwright are sorely mistaken; in return, we received updated old motives, we received a lot of dialogue instead of action.

The critics did not spare the actors who participated in “Dowry.” The capital's newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti (1878, No. 325) noted that Glikeria Fedotova “did not understand the role at all and played poorly.” Journalist and writer Pyotr Boborykin, who published a note in Russkie Vedomosti (1879, March 23), remembered only “the panache and falsehood from the first step to last word". Actor Lensky, according to Boborykin, when creating the image, placed too much emphasis on the white gloves that his hero Paratov put on “unnecessarily every minute.” Mikhail Sadovsky, who played the role of Karandyshev on the Moscow stage, presented, in the words of the New Time observer, “a poorly conceived type of official-groom.”

In September 1896, he undertook to revive the play, which had long been removed from the repertoire. Alexandrinsky Theater. The role of Larisa Ogudalova, performed by Vera Komissarzhevskaya, initially caused the familiar irritation of reviewers: they wrote that the actress “played unevenly, in the last act she fell into melodrama.” However, the audience understood and accepted the new stage version of "Dowry", in which the heroine was not between suitors, and over them; The play gradually began to return to the country's theaters.

Productions

Main characters

Larisa, included in the gallery of notable female images second literature half of the 19th century century, strives for independent actions; she feels like a person capable of making decisions. However, the impulses of the young heroine collide with the cynical morality of society, which perceives her as an expensive, sophisticated thing.

The girl is surrounded by four fans, each of whom is trying to get her attention. At the same time, according to researcher Vladimir Lakshin, it is not love that drives Larisa’s suitors. So, Vozhevatov is not very upset when the lot in the form of a thrown coin points to Knurov. He, in turn, is ready to wait until Paratov comes into play, so that later he can “take revenge and take the broken heroine to Paris.” Karandyshev also perceives Larisa as a thing; however, unlike his rivals, he does not want to see his beloved stranger thing The simplest explanation for all the heroine’s troubles, associated with the lack of a dowry, is broken by the theme of loneliness that young Ogudalova carries within herself; her inner orphanhood is so great that the girl looks “incompatible with the world.”

Critics perceived Larisa as a kind of “continuation” of Katerina from Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” (they are united by ardor and recklessness of feelings, which led to a tragic ending); at the same time, she revealed features of other heroines of Russian literature - we are talking about some of Turgenev’s girls, as well as Nastasya Filippovna from “The Idiot” and Anna Karenina from the novel of the same name:

The heroines of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Ostrovsky are brought together by the unexpected, illogical, reckless actions they commit, dictated by emotions: love, hatred, contempt, repentance.

Karandyshev, like Larisa, is poor. Against the background of the “masters of life” - Knurov, Vozhevatov and Paratov - he looks like a “little man” who can be humiliated and insulted with impunity. At the same time, unlike the heroine, Yuliy Kapitonovich is not a victim, but Part cruel world. Wanting to connect his life with Larisa, he hopes to settle accounts with his former offenders and demonstrate to them his moral superiority. Even before the wedding, he tries to dictate to the bride how to behave in society; her reciprocal protest is incomprehensible to Karandyshev; he cannot delve into the reasons for their disagreements, because he is “too busy with himself”

A.I. ZHURAVLEVA, M.S. MAKEEV. CHAPTER 6

Ostrovsky's genre of psychological drama.

“DOWER”, “TALENTS AND FANS”

Along with the genre of satirical comedy, it is customary to talk about the formation in late creativity Ostrovsky genre of psychological drama. Thus, the creator of the national theater solves the problem of maintaining the repertoire at the level of modern contemporary artistic discoveries, at the forefront of which were narrative prose genres.

Literature has always strived to more or less adequately portray a person and his inner life in accordance with certain ideas. The emergence of psychologism in prose is not simply connected with breaking stereotypes in the description of the hero. In prose of the mid-19th century. the falsity of any rationalizing principle in understanding his inner world is affirmed, the rejection of everything “ready-made” in the depiction of the human personality. Thus, a person appears as a problem that must be posed and understood anew every time, in every new text, in every new situation.

L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, whose work is the pinnacle of the world psychological novel, in their works they developed an original and complex technique, systems of techniques for constructing characters in such a way that they were at the same time part of the whole author's intention, and went beyond it, raising the question of the essence of man in general, i.e. would be open outward, into the world of empirical reality of human existence.

The dominant element of classical dramaturgy was intense action, therefore the embodiment of the human personality in drama was based on the role system. Role is a specifically theatrical way of portrayal in which a person and his inner world are identified with several qualities or character traits (“mean”, “chatterbox”, etc.). At the same time, the set of such roles in each dramaturgical system is quite limited, and variations of the same types migrate from play to play, from history to history, acquiring private new features, but essentially remaining unchanged.

This principle replaces a real person with his simplified likeness, making it possible to turn him into an integral part of the plot, a dramatic character (a combination of a set of traits of a stable role with the addition of additional ones that do not contradict the main ones, but give the image a new color), whose actions coincide with those what are called theatrical springs that move the action.

Ostrovsky's theater, as mentioned above, is also based on the role system. Its originality is associated with its change, the introduction of new types, but the very principle of reflecting the human personality remains traditional. Being limited in human understanding, the role system is not limited in another respect: using repeating types, it is capable of generating an infinite number of texts with a very different range of problems and ideas. And Ostrovsky himself, who created more than 40 original plays based on it, is an example of this.

Psychological drama in Ostrovsky’s theater arises on the basis of a kind of compromise between action that requires “reducing” the complexity of the human personality, and attention to its problematic nature. A certain gap between the role to which the dramatic character belongs, his texture, and his individuality has always existed in Ostrovsky: “In Ostrovsky’s world, everything is decided by the harmonization of speech images, the incorporation of individual speech experience into the general image of the type, role... But such incorporation and Harmony does not at all mean depersonalization, the destruction of individuality.” Usually this gap in the playwright’s plays is erased by the fact that “not only the genre, not only the author typifies the characters: the character is like a living person, individuality actively participates in this.” The writer’s task when creating a psychological drama is to identify this gap and tell a story, create a dynamic plot, discover the limitations of his own artistic system, its inability to cope with the depiction of an individual inner world.

For this purpose, Ostrovsky uses two techniques borrowed from prose: the first is the paradoxization of the characters’ behavior, which calls into question the perfect role selection and hierarchy of the character’s properties; the second is silence, which, without outwardly violating the integrity of the role, seems to indicate the existence in the character of traits and properties that do not fit into his stage role. Two plays that are the pinnacles of Ostrovsky's psychologism - "Dowry" and "Talents and Admirers" - give us the opportunity to see how these techniques are combined with traditional dramatic means of creating action and depicting its participants. In both, the images of the central heroines become the object of artistic experimentation.

"DOWER" (1878)

Creating a scandalous and touching story which happened in provincial town Bryakhimov, where they live “in the old days...: from late mass everything to pie and cabbage soup, and then, after bread and salt, seven hours of rest,” Ostrovsky builds a plot usual for his previous plays: the struggle for a bride, a young girl of marriageable age , between several rivals. An astute critic and reader, both in the main character and in the contenders for her favor, easily saw a modification of the roles familiar from previous plays: these are two types of “money bags,” a “romantic hero” of the Pechorin type and a small official leading a modest working life.

However, while remaining recognizable, the initial situation is modified to become a new story with original problems. What the change is, the reader learns immediately from the exposition: outwardly, the struggle is already in the past, an engagement took place, and the heroine’s hand went to one of the applicants, a small official preparing for service in a place even more remote and distant than the city of Bryakhimov itself. Where, for example, the comedy “Labor Bread” and a lot of other Ostrovsky comedies end, the drama “Dowry” is just beginning.

The poor official Karandyshev is the only one who was able to offer his hand and heart to the poor bride. However, outwardly, Larisa’s consent to marry him, made out of hopelessness, looks like a preference for respectable or bright people for a person whom all other fans consider an absolute nonentity, and this consent hurts their pride. Therefore, the unquestioned love for the beauty, the undiminished desire to possess her, is combined with the desire to take revenge on the opponent, showing him his real place, to humiliate him, despite the fact that Larisa will also be humiliated with him. Possession itself will now become at the same time a means of humiliating an insignificant rival.

So the subject new history becomes the transformation of love from “an example and guarantee of pure human relations between people in contrast to everything<…>monetary, vain and corrupt”, according to A.P. Skaftymova, in love-humiliation. The plot will be subordinated to the confrontation between love and pride. Accordingly, representatives of Ostrovsky’s traditional roles are endowed with such features that, while remaining recognizable, they simultaneously become participants in this new history. At the same time, by changing, representatives of the role seem to bring with them new play traces of his life from previous plays, complicating its problems, introducing additional nuances into the action.

Knurov and Vozhevatov are characters representing variations in the role of a rich man in love (they can be compared, for example, with Flor Fedulych or many business people from Ostrovsky’s previous and subsequent plays), moreover, a “new” rich man, outwardly civilized, reading foreign newspapers, a potential theater fan or some other form of art. The traditional contradiction for this type between the desire for real feeling, the craving for the beautiful, the noble and the rational desire for profit, the coldness and rationality of nature indicates that such people lack the ability for a deep emotional perception of the world. Wealth, according to Ostrovsky, makes a person’s life easier, but at the same time deprives it of depth and authenticity.

Knurov (“one of the big businessmen of recent times, an elderly man, with a huge fortune; European in costume) embodies the power of money, a calm, cold-blooded and unusually calculating force, represents a person whose wealth makes him, as it were, a born master of life. Knurov is a real businessman, outwardly the least emotional of all the heroes, he understands the situation most rationally and sees its benefit for himself. He is less annoyed than other contenders by Larisa’s connection with Karandyshev. He understands that after marriage with this impostor leads her to disappointment, it will be possible to safely take possession of her with the help of money, and before the wedding he talks with Larisa’s mother about his views on her daughter after marriage.

Knurov’s character shows a combination of love, the desire to possess with a lack of spiritual attention to the object of passion. Appreciating the sophistication, grace and poetry of Larisa’s inner world, Knurov, in a moment of her despair, directly turns to her with an offer to become a kept woman, arguing his action by the hopelessness of her situation and the fact that no one will dare to publicly reproach her (“... I can offer you this enormous content that the most evil critics of other people’s morality will have to shut up and open their mouths in surprise”). This is a passion that is unable to overcome selfishness, self-confidence and faith in calculation.

Modern director's theater, starting with Stanislavsky, has taught us the principle of mise-en-scène, for example, to think about what the hero who is on stage thinks during a remark or monologue of another actor. In part, such a vision seems legitimate when analyzing the image of Knurov, who is silent more than other heroes and is even characterized as the most and rightfully silent of all the characters, as the richest man in the city.

Ostrovsky does not attach any additional importance to this. Knurov's silence is a sign of arrogance and isolation. Hiding himself with a newspaper, he does not peek out of the corner of his eye and thereby does not hide any feelings. Knurov demonstrates his position, closing the possibility of any layman unworthy of such an honor turning to him.

Vozhevatov (“a very young man, one of the representatives of a wealthy company,” who, like Knurov, “is European in dress”) is characterized as an inexperienced person compared to Knurov and therefore more open and impulsive. This variation of the role also embodies the power of money, but the owner of the power himself, being younger, does not rely only on the crushing power of wealth to win a woman’s heart. He is much more expansive than Knurov and more active on stage, and his courtship of Larisa is manifested not in bribing her mother, but in a kind of seduction, seducing the poor girl with expensive gifts. Therefore, in him, unlike Knurov, there is no calm confidence, a duality arises between wounded pride and love for Larisa. He actively participates in the ridicule and persecution of Karandyshev, very emotionally perceives all the vicissitudes of their relationship with Larisa, it is he who owns the evil and ironic story about the background of everything that is happening. At the same time, he especially emphasizes the desire to play, a peculiar lightness of nature, a combination of calculation and a frivolous attitude towards life as pleasure and towards people as toys that can brighten it up (this is emphasized by the joy with which Vozhevatov takes Robinson as a jester). And the story with Larisa is to some extent a game for him, naturally ending in a game of toss, in which he also easily admits defeat.

When Knurov and Vozhevatov talk about a trip with Larisa to Paris for an exhibition, both mean different things: a long relationship - the first and fleeting pleasure - the second. But resolving the dispute over who will get Larisa by tossing a coin, as it were, unites them again into one whole, demonstrating both the identical nature of the images of the heroes and their equality in the duel for Larisa: their rivalry cannot be resolved in any other way.

The most organic image for this story is Sergei Sergeich Paratov. The remark relating to him is indicative: “...a brilliant gentleman, one of the shipowners, over 30 years old.” Paratov, who gives the impression of a “brilliant master,” is a much more primitive character than Larisa, Karandyshev and even Knurov and Vozhevatov. This hero is closely associated with the role of a chic playmaker, a handsome man, a gentleman, who in the end turns out to be a dowry seeker, a contender for the hand of a rich merchant's wife, whose passionate heart and affection will put an end to his life's quest(compare with such Ostrovsky characters as Dulcin from “The Last Victim” or Okoyomov from “Handsome Man”),

All the traits that Larisa admires in Paratov are of no value in Ostrovsky’s world. In the “chic”, external splendor of such characters, the playwright sees only a pose; they lack genuine emotional life, there is no harmony of feelings. They differ from a hero like Karandyshev in that it is in this position that they feel most comfortable. The mask has become second nature to Paratov, while he easily combines lordly irrationality (the ability to waste money, a risky bet involving shooting the woman he loves, etc.) and simple, unsightly calculation. However, the ability to theatricalize, to make any of his actions spectacular and mysterious, based on an accurate feeling of the requirements of that mask of a rich master and at the same time a “fatal hero” that Paratov wears (and this feeling is sorely lacking in such “amateurs” as Karandyshev), gives him the ability even outright baseness should be presented as something extraordinarily noble.

There is nothing behind Paratov’s spectacular pose. He is an empty place, a man leading an ephemeral, illusory existence, which is well understood by Knurov and Vozhevatov, who oppose him as the true masters of life. For example, they, truly rich people, drink champagne from cups so as not to attract attention, while he, the squandered gentleman, is greeted with cannon fire and gypsy singing.

From the background reported by Vozhevatov, we see that it was Paratov, and not Karandyshev, who seemed destined for Larisa. He is her real master, who suddenly, for unknown reasons, lost her to her rivals. In relation to Larisa, Paratov now occupies a position similar to Knurov and Vozhevatov, dividing them state of mind: on the one hand, he realizes that everything has been resolved for the better and Larisa’s engagement to Karandyshev saves him from unnecessary troubles; on the other hand, she experiences a feeling of annoyance and humiliation from her choice.

The image of Karandyshev is developed in detail in the play. This “young man, a poor official” - special hero in Ostrovsky's world, adjacent to the role " little man”, the type of poor worker with self-esteem. In constructing the character of Karandyshev, Ostrovsky shows the same “degradation” of love, which is in a complex relationship with pride. At the same time, pride in Karandyshev is so hypertrophied that it becomes a substitute for any other feeling. “Getting” Larisa for him means not just taking possession of the girl he loves, but also taking away his woman from Paratov, who irritates him, and triumphing over him, at least in this way, by taking possession of a second-hand thing, but still having value for Paratov.

Feeling like a benefactor, taking as his wife a dowryless woman, who is also partly compromised by her relationship with Paratov, Karandyshev is at the same time faced with the fact that he is constantly being made to understand: he was chosen simply because of unfortunate circumstances, if they changed, he would not be They would have been allowed into this house at all. Even being almost an official groom, he is perceived by the Ogudalovs as a “backup option” in case the rich and handsome “ideal man” does not turn up. And this humiliates Karandyshev, deprives him of the feeling of victory, triumph, the feeling of completeness and authenticity of possession.

Karandyshev rejects the path to true possession that Larisa offers him: “You see, I stand at a crossroads; support me, I need approval, sympathy; treat me tenderly, with affection! Seize the minutes, don’t miss them!” - the path of humility, trying to earn love with meekness and devotion, by the way, the same way that he won her hand. Karandyshev, like Larisa, is in captivity of a phantom, in captivity of the illusion of the greatness and brilliance of Paratov. His irritated, painful pride takes precedence over love, the desire to look like Paratov’s happy rival in the eyes of others turns out to be higher than the desire to truly possess and be loved. To Larisa’s requests to go into the wilderness from city life, he replies: “Only to get married - definitely here; so that they don’t say that we are hiding, because I am not your groom, not a couple, but only that straw that a drowning man grabs at...”

Thus, a situation arises when the hero is not able to become a real owner; he wants not so much to get a bride as to make this fact publicly known. With amazing tenacity, Karandyshev seems to present it to his rivals, as if the engagement does not end, but only begins the struggle. And his weakness in such a fight brings the heroine herself more and more to the fore.

In the remark, Larisa Dmitrievna Ogudalova is described laconically: “dressed richly, but modestly,” we learn more about her appearance from the reactions of others. her image is adjacent to the most important role for the plot of Ostrovsky’s plays of the poor bride, who is the subject of rivalry between several contenders for her feelings or hand. Ostrovsky's idea of ​​female psychology is quite simple if we consider it from the point of view of the “psychological method” in literature. All such brides can be divided into two groups: either they are girls with a strong character who stand their ground, and then one of the applicants must persevere to rise to her level, or they are girls without an inner core and therefore capable of falling under the absolute influence of superficial “beauty” and eccentricity and do crazy things for them. Moreover, the character of such a heroine is, as it were, made up of traits embodied by the contenders vying for her hand and heart.

Larisa, of course, belongs to the second type. In her soul there is a struggle between a feeling of high love for the “fatal hero” - Paratov and the desire to come to terms with the fate of the wife of the poor official Karandyshev.

In Paratov's absence, his image is transformed in her mind. For her, this is no longer just a loved one who has external beauty, but distant, romanticized through the haze of memories and in contrast with the gray and boring reality. Larisa loves Paratov as a person who embodies and is able to give her a different life. She was, as it were, “poisoned” by Paratov, with him the idea of ​​a completely different, poetic and light world entered her consciousness once and for all, which certainly exists, but is forbidden to her, although she is intended, in the opinion of those around her, precisely for such a world: a beauty , possessing irresistible power over men's hearts, delicate and noble (“After all, in Larisa Dmitrievna there is no earthly, this worldly... After all, this is ether... She was created for brilliance").

It is often noted that Larisa’s passion for Paratov is reflected in her craving and love for luxury and wealth. This is true, but only partly. Ostrovsky significantly limits the possibility of such an understanding of the character main character, contrasting her with Kharita Ignatievna, in whom it is precisely respect and love for wealth that erase the difference between the position of a faithful wife and a kept woman (let us recall that with hints about his views on Larisa, Knurov first turns to Kharita and does not meet with a decisive refusal), for whom there is no differences between Knurov's business proposal and an eccentric escape with romantic hero, as long as both bring wealth. For Larisa, Paratov’s world is a world of fantasy, a world much more poetic than it really is. As if echoes of this world in her own life are the poems she pronounces, the romances she performs, her dreams - all this gives the image of the heroine attractiveness.

The world that Larisa dreams of can be given by a strong and handsome man, always triumphant, proud, easily winning the hearts of women and men, completely opposite to her future husband. By marrying Karandyshev, Larisa feels even more humiliated, unfairly sentenced to the life that a petty official can give her, constantly suffering humiliation in attempts to catch up with Paratov. For her, the difference between them becomes more and more obvious: “Who do you look up to! - she turns to Karandyshev. “Is such blindness possible!” It is his absurd mistakes that make the prospect of living with him more and more disgusting; in his love she sees only humiliation: “There is no worse shame than this, when you have to be ashamed of others. We’re not guilty of anything, but it’s a shame, a shame, I should have run away somewhere.” All this makes her an unusually organic participant in the unfolding drama, the center of the game of vanity and rivalry of egos. This duality is reflected in Larisa's speech and behavior. For her remarks and monologues, she used primarily the style of a cruel romance, which at the same time has a peculiar poetry and borders on vulgarity, falsehood, and “beautifulness”; Quotes from Lermontov and Boratynsky are combined in her speech with statements like “Sergei Sergeich... is the ideal of a man,” “You are my master.” This reflects the quality of the ideal itself that attracts Larisa, an ideal that is poetic in its own way, although empty and false. She tries to see her future life with Karandyshev in a poetic light: “Soon the summer will pass, and I want to walk through the forests, pick berries, mushrooms...” But she doesn’t need someone who is not able to stand up for himself, not someone who who is humiliated, and the one who is easily able to humiliate another.

Thus, all the characters, being, as always, different from each other, which is due to both their “previous life” and belonging to different roles, vary the same features in their character, becoming similar to parts of one phrase, precisely and dramatically. emotionally expressing a judgment about the world and human life.

After Ostrovsky’s traditional extensive exposition, the action develops along two parallel lines: the humiliation and ridicule of Karandyshev and the enticement of Larisa, the symmetry of which is subtly managed by the playwright. The beginning is the return of Paratov. His appearance causes opposite reactions in the main characters. Larisa wants to run away, Karandyshev, on the contrary, strengthens his desire to stay. Larisa knows that the fight is lost in advance, Karandyshev believes that it has already been won and all he can do is reap the laurels, which will be even sweeter from the direct presence of his main rival.

Karandyshev's line is tragicomic. He is crushed by his rival immediately, at the very first clash over a trivial matter, and then in the ridiculous dinner scene. Inspired by the illusion of victory, Karandyshev goes not to defeat, but to the discovery of the truth. For greater humiliation, he is given Robinson - a jester, a living toy in the hands of a rich bar, hired to play the role of a noble foreigner. Another comic figure appearing on stage to humiliate the little official in his claim to a luxurious dinner party is his aunt with the funny name Efrosinya Potapovna, who with her stinginess thwarts Karandyshev’s attempt to amaze the rich with the sophistication of dishes and wines: “Again he wanted to buy expensive wine in a ruble or more, but the merchant was an honest man; take it, he says, around six hryvnia per bottle, we’ll put on the labels you want! I’ve already let go of the wine! You could say it's an honor. I tried a glass, and it smells like cloves, and roses, and something else. How can it be cheap when it contains so many expensive perfumes!”

In the dinner scene we see a traditional dramatic device: the husband is fooled and exposed to ridicule while a lucky rival seduces his wife. However, for this story, it is not just the deception of the supposedly “happiest of mortals” that is important; the sight of his humiliation is the surest way to arouse the bride’s contempt for him and win her heart. The traditional technique turns out to be a connecting link between two storylines.

Paratov's visit to the Ogudalovs' house seems ambiguous. On the one hand, he is extremely defiant and insulting after Paratov’s sudden departure, which is very reminiscent of an escape from a girl who is practically perceived by everyone as his fiancée. However, Paratov is a hero who creates an aura of mystery around himself with his eccentric actions, and, on the other hand, his visit also seems mysterious: everyone tends to look for some kind of mystery behind his actions. hidden meaning, and this hidden meaning is present in Paratov’s conversations with Kharita Ignatievna and Larisa.

In fact, Larisa’s fall is predetermined by the entire essence of her role. The mere appearance of the “handsome man” is enough to make the ending completely predictable, regardless of whether the “fatal man” has a conscious intention to win the heroine’s heart. The first dialogue between Larisa and Paratov is written as if in a dotted manner, with omissions that are easily restored with the help of context. Paratov came here with a purpose that was not entirely clear to him, out of curiosity, and acts as if automatically, guided by the principle of always and everywhere looking impressive and being a winner in any situation. This is also the specific behavior of a Don Juan, a “fatal man,” with a woman.

Accustomed to playing with women's feelings, Paratov, alone with Larisa, seeks to hurt her and challenge her with almost Pechorin-like phrases: “I want to know how soon a woman forgets a passionately loved person: the next day after separation from him, a week or a month... Is Hamlet right to tell his mother that she “hasn’t worn out her shoes yet,” and so on. He very subtly operates with understatement, without revealing the reasons for his return, only attacking, provoking, forcing him to solve the riddle. This is also an extremely traditional gallant duel for world drama, the result of which is predetermined, but the fabric itself word game, the alternation of “pricks” and defensive maneuvers can be varied endlessly. Ostrovsky in this case is quite laconic, as if saving the rhetorical resources of Larisa’s role for subsequent scenes.

I would like to make one remark. The last performer of the role of Paratov in the cinema, N. Mikhalkov, brings an ironic shade to Paratov’s words about Hamlet. His Paratov seems to be making fun of his own rhetoric, looking at it from the position of modern taste or from the point of view of Ostrovsky himself, thereby inviting Larisa to similar irony. And yet the whole scene is taken seriously. Paratov’s words, in which we feel vulgarity and unbearable falsehood, really hurt Larisa, but to her and to Paratov himself they seem nobly sublime.

The duel continues and reaches its climax in the third act. In the scene of a shameful dinner in Karandyshev’s house, two storylines come to the highest point: Karandyshev is endlessly humiliated, and Paratov is at the pinnacle of success. Larisa's game ends. The Paratov principle wins in it, and its further fate is approximately clear to the viewer. She “made sure” that Paratov had come for her and deciphered all his misunderstandings. Paratov’s world seems to suddenly become available to her again.

It seems that the path to this romantic world lies through an equally strong, reckless (free from petty calculations, such as Karandyshev’s desire to run for office in Zabolotye, where there are no competitors) and spectacular act, with which she must prove her equality with Paratov (analogous to the one shown once readiness to stand under his gun). And Larisa achieves such heights of eccentricity when she goes on a men’s picnic across the Volga.

This act is a continuation of her role and is very traditional for her role. As always, running away with the “fatal man” leads nowhere, and the frivolous girl has to return home. This act is reckless, pushing towards the abyss, because it was committed in pursuit of a ghost, which in this case represents Paratov, the world that exists only in poetry and romances. Just like Karandyshev, Larisa makes a choice in favor of illusion rather than reality. For Ostrovsky, this attempt to get love and happiness right away, with the help of one spectacular act, looks like a refusal, an escape from one’s own destiny.

Faced with a terrible reality for himself at the end of his unsuccessful dinner, Karandyshev waits for Larisa to return from the picnic (act four). This new situation is key to understanding his personality.

At first glance, Karandyshev undergoes the same procedure as Dostoevsky’s heroes: having gone through a scandal that spilled out everything hidden from prying eyes, depriving a person of his shell, the hero can no longer hide behind his appearance. This is the moment of identity with oneself, the only moment when a person appears in his own self.

And here we also see Karandyshev, as if at the moment of tearing off his mask: if he once threatened Paratov at a masquerade, now he has a real pistol in his hands and real anger is seething in him at the entire world that humiliates him (hence some uncertainty of his intentions). It is interesting that in the last threatening monologue (third act) Karandyshev never utters Larisa’s name; he is going to take revenge on the whole world: “If all I can do in this world is either hang myself out of shame and despair, or take revenge, then I will take revenge. For me now there is no fear, no law, no pity; Only fierce anger and thirst for revenge choke me. I will take revenge on everyone until they kill me.”

However, if in Dostoevsky’s novels the situation of scandal, putting the hero before new problems, reveals paradoxical, unpredictable resources in human soul, then here we see something different. For Karandyshev, the same situation of humiliation of a person who is not loved, but tolerated for the time being, is repeated, but on a new level. This situation is characterized in two ways. On the one hand, Karandyshev feels that his suffering and humiliation of a “ridiculous” person confirmed his right to Larisa. This right is reinforced by both her sin and her crime against him. On the other hand, he encounters Larisa, who does not recognize this right and responds to his words with contempt. From her point of view, everything is different: humiliation and suffering deprive Karandyshev of this right.

Scandal is a common means of classical drama to create theatrical effects, allowing the characters on stage to speak louder and make gestures more sharply, but does not change the idea of ​​them. As a result, in a situation of discarded masks, we see the same Karandyshev as before, whose inner world does not go beyond the predetermined framework of the struggle of love and pride and whose actions remain within the standard for the role of an avenger and defender of desecrated honor - the role that he now takes at himself, although all his feelings are demonstrated as if at a higher intensity.

In Ostrovsky’s plays, the hero in such a situation was given two possibilities: the first was to offer the girl, no matter what, his hand and heart, which in this case meant refusing compensation for hurt pride, with humility to win her love, or at least gratitude, which could later develop into love. This behavior of the hero usually embodies in Ostrovsky the superiority of modest but genuine love and life over illusory life and selfish love. The second possibility is related to the reaction of the deceived husband (to whose position Karandyshev has some right) - the position of a cruel, unyielding moralist, covering up the thirst for satisfying wounded pride.

But the ambiguity of the situation, arising from Larisa’s specific behavior and the tension between the feeling of love and pride in the motivations for the actions of the “little man” himself, “splits” Karandyshev’s behavior into several types of reaction simultaneously. He tries to humiliate her to the limit, taking the position of a moralist (“Your friends are good! What respect for you! They don’t look at you as a woman, as a person - a person controls his own destiny, they look at you as a thing”) , and reward yourself with a moral victory, take the position of its defender (“I must always be with you to protect you”).

When Karandyshev throws himself on his knees and shouts “I love, I love,” this spectacular gesture is obviously useless: he does not have the opportunity to defeat Larisa with the power of passion. The confession is followed by murder: “Don’t let anyone get you” - this is a manifestation of the pose of the “little man”, asserting himself in the possession of a woman who is “not a match” for him. These are actions and words that seem to continue and develop the motive of a woman-thing serving as a subject of rivalry among men. Karandyshev cannot possess this living woman and asserts power over her dead; the only option left for him to take possession of her is murder. He does not have the money of Knurov and Vozhevatov, the beauty and chic nature of Paratov, which gives the right to possession, and he resorts to weapons as a last resort.

Karandyshev thereby differs, for example, from Krasnov from the play “Sin and misfortune lives on no one.” Karandyshev’s act, which is outwardly similar to Krasnov’s act, has a different meaning and motivation. This is not a variation on the Othello theme. The murder he commits is not retribution for the desecrated ideas of virtue, but an act of appropriation, a last attempt to triumph over rivals who are superior to him in everything.

We will not dwell on the question of how a small, insignificant person turns out to be capable of committing murder - an act that only a strong person can commit. But such an angle of view, being, of course, possible, will lead us away from understanding the play. He is not adequate to the world of Ostrovsky precisely because murder, as a theatrical writer, does not evoke such sacred awe as, for example, Dostoevsky. In the theater, the hero who commits murder is a scoundrel, a villain, etc. Killing here is not considered as a specific human ability, as an act isolated from everything else, i.e. murder is not a subject of psychological consideration; it is associated with and is the manifestation of other affects or functions of the character as their extreme and most effective manifestation. But at the same time, it would be incorrect to say that a murder in a theater, as a common expression goes, is “pure convention.” This is a functionally extremely significant gesture that does not have a purely psychological load.

In the last act, Larisa suffers punishment for a rash act, paying first of all with the loss of the ideal embodied for her in Paratov, from whom she hears: “But you hardly have the right to be so demanding of me,” everyday and social supports. The humiliation is intensified by Vozhevatov’s behavior, which she, not knowing its true background, probably takes as a demonstration of contempt for her act, then Knurova, and finally Karandyshev completes the scene of her humiliation with the message that two rich men played her at toss. Ostrovsky uses an extremely effective technique that is theatrical in nature: in the final act, all contenders for Larisa appear one after another to confront her with a manifestation of love-humiliation. The extreme point of humiliation is the awareness of oneself as a thing, an object of purchase and sale.

The situation of a woman - a thing, a prize that goes to a man in a fight - is an integral part of Ostrovsky's theater. However, in the world of the writer, this position of a woman is softened and compensated for by the love that A.P. writes about. Skaftymov. The hero who gets the bride not only appropriates the woman for himself, but also takes responsibility for her. This responsibility is embodied primarily in the readiness for compassion, which is especially clearly manifested at the moment of its “fall.”

After the trip beyond the Volga, Larisa, who has already paid for her act with a fall, a complete collapse of life’s illusions, goes beyond the sphere of evaluation and condemnation and falls into the sphere of compassion and pity, which is higher than justice. But the world of “The Dowry” is structured in such a way that among the motivating reasons for the actions of the heroes there is no pity or compassion. Therefore, in Larisa’s monologue following last explanation with Paratov, the motive of suicide prevails as the only possible outcome.

Suicide in the theater is the same stable technique as murder, the same way to picturesquely complete an action that has come to its logical conclusion, in this case to put an effective end to the story of the meaninglessness and impossibility of human existence in a world where the only incentive for a person is the satisfaction of pride , and love deceives and humiliates (“But it’s cold to live like this. It’s not my fault, I was looking for love and didn’t find it... it doesn’t exist in the world... there’s nothing to look for”). And it seems that Ostrovsky himself, with a skillful hand, brings the action to just such a conclusion, outlining a vicious circle around the heroine.

But if just now, in a conversation with Paratov, Larisa easily threatened him with suicide (“For unfortunate people there is a lot of space in God’s world: here is the garden, here is the Volga. Here you can hang yourself on every branch, on the Volga - choose any place. It’s easy to drown yourself everywhere if you want may she have enough strength"), then now her attitude towards such an act is changing. And although Karandyshev’s shot still puts an end to Larisa’s fate, replacing suicide with murder, her refusal to commit suicide, the paradoxical desire to live when “it is impossible and there is no need to live,” suddenly, at the very end of the action, raises a problem completely alien to the meaning of the entire play .

This trembling of a living being, seemingly determined to do anything before the horror of death, leads the reader’s attention beyond the role of Larisa in the plot of “The Dowry” - to the problem of the human personality in general, to the combination of strength and weakness in it, as if feeding each other. And the paradoxical continuation and consequence of this refusal to commit suicide is the desire to fight at the bottom of the fall, to respond with humiliation to humiliation, the readiness to oppose the cruel and immoral world with adequately cruel and immoral behavior and the feeling of Christian forgiveness and universal love that suddenly arises at the end.

All these impulses suddenly violate the hierarchy of Larisa’s character traits, dictated by her role in the system of the play, discover and bring to the fore overtones and details of her behavior, which are not important for the plot and do not play a role in the story of love and pride. The image of Larisa turns out to be broader than just a variation of a stable role, showing its insufficiency, inability to cope, to subjugate an integral and incredibly complex human personality. In order to combine all the elements of the heroine’s behavior, to create a holistic picture of her inner world, it is necessary to understand the essence of man in general.

At the same time, simultaneously exploding an unusually accurately and subtly constructed system, the image of Larisa reinforces the main idea of ​​the play. It is the feeling of an absolutely living life, taken in all its problematic and irrationality, that enhances the sense of tragedy of the fate depicted on the stage, the hostility of the cold world to a truly living, at the same time weak and courageous human heart, thirsting for love and compassion.

1 For more information about the concept of psychologism, see: Ginzburg L.Ya. About psychological prose. L., 1971. Ch. "The problem of the psychological novel."

Zhuravleva A.I., Nekrasov V.N. Ostrovsky Theater. M., 1986. P. 135.

Skaftymov A.P. Moral quests of Russian writers. M., 1972. P. 502.