A play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" reveals many topics - the theme of fathers and children, the theme of moral choice, the theme of religiosity, the theme of internal struggle with oneself, the theme of freedom and many others. But all of them are revealed on the example of the most important line in the play - the theme of love.
Love is like freedom
It is love that for the heroine is synonymous with inner freedom, the possibility of changing the usual way of life. Brought up on prayers, tales of pilgrims and admiring nature, Katerina knew what true love is on the example of parental warmth and care.
Before marriage, she lived free, like a bird, she was groomed and cherished. Katerina brought up herself, watching the growth of flowers and the flight of butterflies. Her soul, strong and free, burned with divine light.
Boar
Accustomed to the will, the girl after the wedding ends up in the house of the despotic Martha Kabanova. Their family is used to living differently: everything is done under duress, the atmosphere is filled with fear and humiliation. Katerina's dreams of an ideal family did not come true.
She tried with all her might to love Tikhon, her husband. However, the influence of Kabanikha on his son was so strong that their relationship with mutual sympathy did not work out in any way. The mother tortured Kabanov so much that his only dream was to quickly run away from home and get drunk.
Tikhon
When things get tough for Katerina and her husband has a long business trip ahead of her, she practically begs him to take her with him. She seems to foresee the impending disaster, she is ready to beg her husband on her knees. But he does not hear her prayers, does not feel her heartache. He wants to break free from this patriarchal hell as soon as possible, and the problems of his wife turn out to be of secondary importance for him.
Katerina sees and understands her husband's weakness and therefore cannot respect him. Although he continues to love him humanly. Without respect and freedom, true love for Katerina is impossible.
New love
During the departure of Tikhon, Katerina fell in love with the visiting Boris, Diky's nephew. They started dating, and love with Boris for the heroine was a chance for a new happy life. For Katerina, Boris is a person who is unlike anyone around. He is well-read, educated, intelligent. It seemed to her that it was he who was able to turn the tide of events in her life and save her from the irrepressible hopelessness that filled her fate. However, Boris turned out to be completely different from what his girlfriend imagined. He turned out to be no stronger than Tikhon, he preferred to pretend for the sake of receiving an inheritance.
Because of the inability to love openly, to enjoy every minute spent next to her beloved, feelings of guilt towards her husband inside, Katerina has the most severe contradictions that break out just during a thunderstorm - she confesses her connection to her husband and mother-in-law.
Epilogue
The weight of public opinion hanging over her does not allow her to calm down. She runs away from people and rushes into the Volga, which from childhood personified freedom for her.
I think that Katerina is the only person in Kalinov who is capable of sincere and all-consuming love. Unfortunately, there was no one near her who could give her a strong helping hand.
The chosen natures have their own fate. Only it is not outside of them: they carry it in their own heart. When she comes on her first date with Boris, from the first words she showers him with reproaches for ruining her.
“Why did you come, my destroyer?” she says. “After all, I’m married, because my husband and I live to the grave, to the grave. “After all, what am I preparing for myself? Where is my place, you know?
Calm down, sit down.
Well, how did you not ruin me, if I, leaving the house at night, go to you.
It was your will.
I have no will. If I had my own will, I would not go to you. ( He raises his eyes and looks at Boris. A little silence.) Your will is now over me, can't you see! ( Throws itself on his neck.)
E! Why feel sorry for me, no one is to blame - she herself went for it. Don't be sorry, destroy me, let everyone know, let everyone see what I'm doing. If I am not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment? They say it's even easier when you endure for some sin here on earth.
Again, the whole character is visible. Again Russian motives. With a kind of voluptuousness, with a kind of daring, she already thinks about the moment when everyone learns about her fall and dreams of the sweetness of being executed in public for her deed. What kind of despotism after that could have an influence on such a nature. If she were surrounded by the kindest people, she, having committed her sin, would have been executed in the same way and yearned. Perhaps there would have been no suicide, but her life would still have been shattered. Such common women, as the author gives us, make no concessions either to the public court, or to the demands of youth, or even to the all-healing time. If she were a developed woman, she would find the justification for her love both in the thirst of a person to taste happiness on earth, and in her bitter share, and, finally, in the legitimacy in which she herself would clothe her love. All these higher considerations are completely alien to Katerina. What in ordinary language is called a misdemeanor, in her concept is a grave, mortal sin, worthy of all the torments of hell.
<…>How, they say, could Katerina fall in love with such a vulgar gentleman as Boris! Among so many convex and bright faces in the drama, this face really catches the eye with its impersonality and insignificance. Not a single property that makes up the character is indicated in it directly and positively by the author. The flabbiness and passivity of this person appear in him as if by themselves, without the knowledge of the author. All this is true, but what of it? How could Katerina now find out what kind of person this was? She fell in love with him without saying a single word to him; on the first date she came to him as to a stranger; before she saw him, her heart already demanded love. She liked him because he suffers grief just as much as she does. Finally, she just fell in love with his face, and she fell in love with Boris. You never know who and for what women love, the most developed, not like Katerina in this respect, a simple and direct woman.
Dostoevsky M.M. ""Storm". Drama in five acts by A.N. Ostrovsky"
Read also other topics of analysis of the drama "Thunderstorm":
Dobrolyubov N.A. "A Ray of Light in a Dark Realm"
Why did Katerina decide to love Boris? Liter. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" URGENT!!! and got the best answer
Answer from Madam_freud[guru]
Boris did not flaunt his masculine qualities. Perhaps the reason was that she lacked something pure in the stuffy atmosphere of the Kabanikh's house. And love for Boris was this pure, did not allow Katerina to completely wither away, somehow supported her. She went on a date with Boris because she felt like a person with pride, elementary rights. It was a rebellion against resignation to fate, against lawlessness. Katerina knew that she was committing a sin, but she also knew that it was still impossible to live on. She sacrificed the purity of her conscience to freedom and Boris.
Answer from Liudmila Sharukhia[guru]
Katerina has been trying for a long time to adapt to the way of life in the Kabanov family. But then it doesn't last. Her love for Boris is a kind of protest against oppression, humiliation and slavery. How does Katerina see Boris? Of course, he seems to her not at all like Tikhon and most of the people around her. Every person, falling in love, tends to idealize the object of his love, and, of course, Katerina is no exception. She idealizes her beloved, he seems to her stronger, nobler and more sublime than he really is.
However, the young man compares favorably with the bulk of Ostrovsky's characters. He looks smarter and more educated. He is cultured and educated. But at the same time, Boris is weak, and therefore is inactive and goes with the flow. He brought misfortune even to the woman he loved. Katerina gave him everything she could, sacrificed honor, even her life. Boris did not have the courage to help the poor woman standing on the edge of the abyss.
From the very beginning, Boris knew that loving a married woman was a crime. He had noticed Katerina for a long time, but did not dare to get to know her. When Boris has a conversation with Kudryash about love, he tells him about local customs: “We are free about this. Girls walk around as they want, father and mother do not care. Only women are locked up.” And then Boris confesses that he is in love with a married woman. Curly persuades him to give up this idea, because such love should be banned. “After all, this means,” says Kudryash, “you want to ruin her completely, Boris Grigorievich! ”
What is Boris' reaction to these words? He in every possible way assures that in no case does he want to destroy the woman he loves: “God save! Save me, Lord! No, Curly, how can you! Do I want to kill her! I just want to see her somewhere, I don’t need anything else.”
Katerina is open to the world like a child. She gives her all without getting anything in return. Katerina's trouble is that Boris turned out to be unworthy of her love. With seeming positive qualities, he is actually a small, selfish person who thinks only of himself. Katerina's love for him is just entertainment, although he tries to prove to her that he acts only by succumbing to the power of passion. When Boris finds out that Katerina's husband has left for two weeks, he rejoices: “Oh, so we will take a walk! Time is enough.” These simple phrases are the best way to speak about his attitude to Katerina and their connection.
Boris submits to the will of his uncle, who sends him to Siberia. The scene of Katerina's farewell to her beloved shows how hard it is for a woman and how reserved Boris behaves at the same time. He says: “What is there to talk about me! I am a free bird."
Boris's words seem monstrous: “Well, God bless you! There is only one thing we must ask God for, that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time! Goodbye! ". And these words a man says about his beloved woman! He does not even try to alleviate her fate, at least console her. Boris just wants her dead. And such is Katerina's retribution for the happiness that lasted only ten days!
In Katerina's position, we see that all the "ideas" instilled in her from childhood, all the principles of the environment, rebel against her natural aspirations and actions. The terrible struggle to which the young woman is condemned takes place in every word, in every movement of the drama, and this is where all the importance of the introductory characters for which Ostrovsky is so reproached turns out. Take a good look: you see that Katerina was brought up in concepts that are the same as the concepts of the environment in which she lives, and cannot get rid of them, having no theoretical education. The stories of the wanderers and the suggestions of the household, although they were reworked by her in her own way, could not but leave an ugly trace in her soul: and indeed, we see in the play that Katerina, having lost her bright dreams and ideal, lofty aspirations, retained from her upbringing one thing a strong feeling - fear of some dark forces, something unknown, which she could not explain to herself well, nor reject. For every thought she fears, for the simplest feeling she expects punishment for herself; it seems to her that a thunderstorm will kill her, because she is a sinner, the pictures of fiery hell on the church wall seem to her already a foreshadowing of her eternal torment ... And everything around her supports and develops this fear in her: Feklushi go to Kabanikha to talk about the last times; Wild insists that a thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment, so that we feel; the mistress who has come, inspiring fear in everyone in the city, is shown several times in order to shout over Katerina in an ominous voice: “You will all burn in fire in unquenchable.” Everyone around is full of superstitious fear, and everyone around, in accordance with the concepts of Katerina herself, should look at her feelings for Boris as the greatest crime. Even the daring Curly, the esprit-fort * of this environment, and he finds that the girls can hang out with the guys as much as they want - that's nothing, but the women should really be locked up. This conviction is so strong in him that, having learned about Boris's love for Katerina, he, despite his daring and some kind of outrage, says that "this business must be abandoned." Everything is against Katerina, even her own ideas about good and evil; everything must make her — to stifle her impulses and wither in the cold and gloomy formalism of family silence and obedience, without any living aspirations, without will, without love — or else learn to deceive people and conscience.<…>
The environment in which Katerina lives requires her to lie and deceive; “It’s impossible without this,” Varvara tells her, “remember where you live; Our whole house is based on this. And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary. Katerina succumbs to her position, goes out to Boris at night, hides her feelings from her mother-in-law for ten days ... You might think: another woman has gone astray, learned to deceive her family and will debauchery on the sly, pretending to caress her husband and wearing the disgusting mask of a humble woman! One could not strictly blame her for this either: her situation is so difficult! But then she would have been one of the dozens of faces of the type that is already so worn out in stories that showed how "environment seizes good people." Katerina is not like that: the denouement of her love, despite the whole home environment, is visible in advance, even when she only approaches the matter. She does not engage in psychological analysis and therefore cannot express subtle observations of herself; what she says about herself, it means that she strongly makes herself known to her. And she, at the first suggestion of Varvara about her meeting with Boris, cries out: “No, no, don’t! what are you, God forbid: if I see him at least once, I will run away from home, I will not go home for anything in the world! It is not a reasonable precaution that speaks in her, it is a passion; and it’s already clear that no matter how hard she restrains herself, passion is above her, above all her prejudices and fears, above all suggestions. heard by her since childhood. In this passion lies her whole life; all the strength of her nature, all her living aspirations merge here. She is attracted to Boris not only by the fact that she likes him, that he is not like the others around her both in appearance and speech; she is attracted to him by the need for love, which has not found a response in her husband, and the offended feeling of the wife and woman, and the mortal anguish of her monotonous life, and the desire for freedom, space, hot, unrestricted freedom. She keeps dreaming about how she could “fly invisibly wherever she wanted”; otherwise such a thought comes: “if it were my will, I would now ride on the Volga, on a boat, with songs, or in a troika on a good one, embracing” ... “Not with my husband,” Varya tells her, and Katerina does not can hide her feelings and immediately opens up to her with the question: “How do you know?” It is evident that Varvara's remark explained a lot to herself: in telling her dreams so naively, she did not yet fully understand their significance. But one word is enough to give her thoughts the certainty that she herself was afraid to give them. Until now, she could still doubt whether this new feeling really contained the bliss for which she was so languidly seeking. But once she has uttered the word of mystery, she will not depart from it even in her thoughts. Fear, doubts, the thought of sin and human judgment - all this comes into her head, but no longer has power over her; this is so, formalities, to clear the conscience. In the monologue with the key (the last one in the second act), we see a woman in whose soul a decisive step has already been taken, but who only wants to “speak” herself somehow. She makes an attempt to stand somewhat aloof from herself and judge the act she has decided on as an extraneous matter; but her thoughts are all directed towards the justification of this act. “Here,” he says, “is it a long time to die ... Someone has fun in captivity ... At least now I live, toil, I don’t see a gap for myself ... my mother-in-law crushed me” ... etc. d. - all exculpatory articles. And then more easing considerations: “it’s already clear that fate wants it that way ... But what kind of sin is it if I look at it once ... Yes, even if I talk about it, it’s not a problem. Or maybe such a case will never happen again in a lifetime ... ”This monologue aroused in some critics a desire to sneer at Katerina as over a shameless and submissive *; but we know no greater shamelessness than to assure that we or one of our ideal friends are not involved in such transactions with conscience ... It is not individuals who are to blame for these transactions, but those concepts that have been hammered into their heads from childhood and which so often they are contrary to the natural course of the living strivings of the soul. Until these concepts are expelled from society, until the full harmony of the ideas and needs of nature is restored in the human being, until then such transactions are inevitable. It is also good if, while doing them, one comes to what seems natural and common sense, and does not fall under the yoke of conventional instructions of artificial morality. This is precisely what Katerina became strong for, and the stronger nature speaks in her, the calmer she looks in the face of children's nonsense, which those around her have taught her to be afraid of. Therefore, it even seems to us that the artist, who plays the role of Katerina on the St. Petersburg stage, is making a small mistake, giving the monologue we are talking about too much heat and tragedy. She obviously wants to express the struggle going on in Katerina's soul, and from this point of view she conveys the difficult monologue admirably. But it seems to us that it would be more in line with the character and position of Katerina in this case - to give her words more calm and lightness. The struggle, in fact, is already over, only a little thought remains, the old rag still covers Katerina, and she gradually throws her off her. The end of the monologue betrays her heart. “Come what may, and I will see Boris,” she concludes, and in the oblivion of premonition she exclaims: “Oh, if only the night would come sooner!”
Such love, such a feeling will not get along within the walls of a boar's house, with pretense and deceit. Katerina, although she decided on a secret meeting, but for the first time, in the rapture of love, she says to Boris, who assures that no one will know anything: “Eh, no one is to blame for pitying me, she herself went for it. Don't be sorry, kill me! Let everyone know, let everyone see what I'm doing... If I'm not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment?
And for sure, she is not afraid of anything, except for depriving her of the opportunity to see her chosen one, to talk with him, to enjoy these summer nights with him, these new feelings for her. Her husband arrived, and her life became unrealistic. It was necessary to hide, to be cunning; she did not want to and did not know how; she had to go back to her callous, dreary life—it seemed to her bitterer than before. Moreover, I had to be afraid every minute for myself, for my every word, especially in front of my mother-in-law; one also had to be afraid of a terrible punishment for the soul ... Such a situation was unbearable for Katerina: days and nights she kept thinking, suffering, exalted her imagination, already hot, and the end was one that she could not endure - for all people crowded in the gallery of the old church, repented of everything to her husband. His first movement was fear of what his mother would say. “Don’t, don’t say, mother is here,” he whispers, confused. But the mother has already listened and demands a full confession, at the end of which she draws her moral: “What, son, where will the will lead?”
It is difficult, of course, to mock common sense more than how Kabanikha does it in his exclamation. But in the “dark kingdom” common sense means nothing: with the “criminal” they took measures that were completely opposite to him, but usual in that life: the husband, at the behest of his mother, beat his wife a little, the mother-in-law locked her up and began to eat. ..
The will and peace of the poor woman are over: before, at least they could not reproach her, at least she could feel that she was completely right in front of these people. And now, after all, one way or another, she is guilty before them, she violated her duties to them, brought grief and shame to the family; now the most cruel treatment of her already has reasons and justification. What is left for her?
<…> Less impossibility would have been another solution - to run away with Boris from the arbitrariness and violence of the household. Despite the severity of the formal law, despite the bitterness of crude tyranny, such steps are not impossible in themselves, especially for such characters as Katerina. And she does not neglect this way out, because she is not an abstract heroine who wants to die on principle. Having run away from home to see Boris, and already thinking about death, she, however, is not at all averse to escaping; having learned that Boris is going far away, to Siberia, she very simply tells him: "take me with you from here." But then a stone emerges in front of us for a minute, which keeps people in the depths of the whirlpool, which we called the “dark kingdom”. This stone is material dependence. Boris has nothing and is completely dependent on his uncle, Diky; Dikoy and the Kabanovs were arranged to send him to Kyakhta, and, of course, they would not let him take Katerina with him. That is why he answers her: “It is impossible, Katya; I’m not going of my own free will, my uncle is sending, the horses are already ready, ”and so on. Boris is not a hero, he is far from being worth Katerina, she fell in love with him more in the wilderness. He has had enough of "education" and will not be able to cope either with the old way of life, or with his heart, or with common sense - he walks around as if lost. He lives with his uncle because he and his sister must give part of the grandmother's inheritance, "if they are respectful to him." Boris is well aware that Dikoi will never recognize him as respectful and therefore will not give him anything; yes, this is not enough. Boris argues as follows: “No, he will first break into us, scold us in every possible way, as his heart desires, but all the same will end up by not giving anything or so, some little, and even will begin to tell what he has given out of mercy, that it shouldn't be." And yet he lives with his uncle and endures his curses; For what? - unknown. At the first meeting with Katerina, when she talks about what awaits her for this, Boris interrupts her with the words: “well, what to think about it, it’s good for us now.” And at the last meeting, she cries: “who knew that we would suffer so much for our love with you! I'd better run then!" In a word, this is one of those very frequent people who do not know how to do what they understand, and do not understand what they are doing. Their type has been portrayed many times in our fiction, sometimes with exaggerated compassion for them, sometimes with excessive bitterness against them. Ostrovsky gives them to us as they are, and with a special skill he draws with two or three features of their complete insignificance, although, by the way, not without a certain degree of spiritual nobility. There is nothing to talk about Boris, he, in fact, should also be attributed to the situation in which the heroine of the play finds herself. He represents one of the circumstances that makes its fatal end necessary. If it were a different person and in a different position, then there would be no need to rush into the water. But the fact of the matter is that the environment, subject to the power of the Dikikhs and Kabanovs, usually produces Tikhonovs and Boriss, unable to perk up and accept their human nature, even when confronted with such characters as Katerina. We have said a few words above about Tikhon; Boris is the same in essence, only "educated". Education took away from him the power to do dirty tricks, it is true; but it did not give him the strength to resist the dirty tricks that others do; it has not even developed in him the ability to behave in such a way as to remain alien to all the vile things that swarm around him. No, not only does he not oppose, he submits to other people's nasty things, he willy-nilly participates in them and must accept all their consequences. But he understands his position, talks about it, and often even deceives, for the first time, truly lively and strong natures, who, judging by themselves, think that if a person thinks so, understands so, then he must do so. Looking from their point of view, such natures will not hesitate to say to “educated” sufferers who are moving away from the sad circumstances of life: “take me with you, I will follow you everywhere.” But this is where the impotence of the sufferers will turn out; it turns out that they did not foresee, and that they curse themselves, and that they would be glad, but it’s impossible, and that they have no will, and most importantly, that they have nothing in their souls and that in order to continue their existence, they must serve that but to the Wild one, whom we would like to get rid of together with us ...
There is nothing to praise or scold these people, but attention must be paid to the practical ground on which the question passes; it must be admitted that it is difficult for a person who expects an inheritance from an uncle to shake off his dependence on this uncle, and then one must give up excessive hopes in nephews who expect an inheritance. even if they were “educated” to the utmost. If we analyze the guilty here, then it will be not so much the nephews that are to blame, but the uncles, or, better, their inheritance.
Dobrolyubov N.A. "A Ray of Light in a Dark Realm"
