The play "Thunderstorm" was written by A.N. Ostrovsky in 1859, when the entire Russian society was in a state of expectation of upcoming changes. A social conflict was brewing in the country between the obsolete old conservative world of the patriarchal way of life and the young progressive forces born in the depths of this world.
The old world of the “dark kingdom” is presented in the play by the rich merchant Kabanova and the merchant Diky. Their power over others is still great, but they are already beginning to feel the awakening of something new, alien and hated by them. “In addition to them, without asking them, another life has grown, with other beginnings, and although it is far away, it is still not clearly visible, but it already gives itself a presentiment and sends bad visions to the dark arbitrariness of tyrants,” writes N. A. Dobrolyubov in the article "A ray of light in a dark kingdom."
Representatives of the younger generation in Groz are Katerina, Boris, Tikhon, Kudryash and Varvara. But are all of them and to what extent capable of repelling the tyranny of tyrants?
Can the clerk Wild Curly stand up for himself, who himself is reputed to be a rude person and does not want to “serve” before the owner? “I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me,” Kudryash boasts. But in his resistance, he himself is likened to the Wild, he responds to rudeness with rudeness. According to Dobrolyubov, “Kudryash does not need to quarrel with Dikiy: both of them need each other, and, it became Syt, Kudryash does not need special heroism to present his demands.”
Kabanova's daughter, Varvara, also easily adapts to the morality of the "dark kingdom". Not wanting to live in captivity, to endure the power of her mother, she easily takes the path of deceit, which is becoming habitual for her. She claims that it is impossible to live otherwise: their whole house is based on deceit. “And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary,” the girl justifies herself. “Do whatever you want, as long as it’s covered and covered,” she teaches Katerina. However, Varvara was cunning as long as there was an opportunity, when they began to lock her up, she ran away from home, broke free from the power of Kabanikha.
The son of Kabanova, Tikhon, is by nature simple-minded and gentle. He loves and pities his wife in his own way, according to Dobrolyubov, “he has a conscience, a desire for good, but he constantly acts against himself and serves as a submissive instrument of his mother.” This weak-willed man is so exhausted by the endless reproaches, admonitions and moralizing of his despotic mother that he is ready to rush headlong into revelry, leaving his wife in a desperate state, unable and unwilling to understand her restless soul.
But the best qualities of Tikhon, crushed under the yoke of Kabanikh, did not die completely. The death of his wife awakens them from their sleep. Freed at last from eternal fear and trembling before his mother, Tikhon dares to blame her for the first time in his life. “Mommy, you ruined her! You, you, you...” he shouts in despair, and in response to her formidable call he repeats again: “You ruined her! You! You!" In the face of tragedy, a terrible understanding was born in him that life in the "dark kingdom" is worse than death. Throwing himself on the corpse of his wife, he shouts in a frenzy: “It's good for you, Katya! And why did I stay in the world and suffer!”
Of the younger generation, Boris, Diky's nephew, is the weakest and most miserable. In character, he is very similar to Tikhon. “Boris is the same in essence, only “educated”. Education took away from him the power to do dirty tricks ... but it did not give him the strength to resist the dirty tricks that others do, ”the critic notes. Boris is unable to protect himself or the woman he loves. Realizing his impotence, he only rushes around helplessly and laments: “Oh, if only these people and people knew what it feels like to say goodbye to you!.. Oh, if only the strength!”
This powerless, weak-willed person becomes the subject of Katerina's great passion, pure, sublime, poetic nature. How different she is from other young people of Kalinov! The bondage of the patriarchal foundations of the “dark kingdom” is a burden to all of them, but they stand on the position of worldly compromises, they have learned to bypass the oppression of the elders, each according to his character. But it is precisely against the background of their unconscious and compromise position that the suffering Katerina looks morally lofty.
The suddenly awakened feeling of love is perceived by her as a terrible unforgivable sin. A young woman resists her “sinful” passion with all her might, but does not find support in this struggle: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss, and someone is pushing me there, but there’s nothing to hold on to.” Alien to the slightest lie and falsehood, Katerina is not capable of deceit and pretense. “Let everyone know, let everyone see what I'm doing! If I was not afraid of sin for you, will I be afraid of human judgment? she says to Boris. Katerina does not want and cannot cheat, pretend. This is confirmed by the scene of confession of treason. Neither a thunderstorm, nor a frightening prophecy of a mad lady, nor a fear of a “fiery hell” prevented the heroine from telling the truth. “The whole heart is broken! I can't take it anymore!" - so she began her confession. For her honest and whole nature, the false position in which she found herself is unbearable. To live just to live is not for her. To live means for her to be herself. Her most precious value is personal freedom, the freedom of the soul. But after public repentance of her sin, Katerina had only to submit to her mother-in-law, to become a meek slave of her husband. This freedom-loving nature could not come to terms with such a fate. She finds a way out of an unbearable situation in death.
Katerina is a deeply religious and God-fearing person. Since, according to the Christian religion, suicide is a great sin, by deliberately committing it, she showed not weakness, but strength of character! Her death is a challenge to the “dark force”, a desire to live in the “light kingdom” of love, joy and happiness.
Tragic as such an outcome may be, Dobrolyubov notes that “this end seems to us gratifying...: it presents a terrible challenge to the tyrannical force... with its violent, deadening beginnings.” According to the critic, the image of Katerina embodied the "great people's idea" - the idea of liberation.
Young people are the most important part of society, a kind of creator of the future, a creator who passes through the prism of their own perception and their own common sense the prejudices and progressive ideas of the “old people” and, thus, determines what will be embodied in public life in a few decades and what will die together with the last representatives of the older generation. By the state of youth, one can also determine the state of the whole society, because social vices primarily affect its most sensitive and vulnerable part, which is the youth. And the worst thing is that the younger generation may lose the ability to analyze and evaluate reality and turn from a judge-transformer into an accurate reflection of the older generation - then there can be no talk of any development of society.
It was precisely this situation that he showed in the drama "", depicting the deplorable situation of young people, who are left with the right to only agree with their elders in everything. One of the main qualities of children is curiosity, that is, the desire to learn something new, which subsequently turns into anti-conservatism, that is, the desire to introduce this new into life. There is no place for curiosity in the city of Kalinov, because information about the world around us comes here through wanderers like Feklusha, who fanatically convince everyone and everything that “you have paradise and silence in your city, but in other cities it’s so simple sodom.” calls Kuligin a "Tatar" for trying to explain what a thunderstorm is. In the atmosphere of the general conviction that “a thunderstorm is sent to us as a punishment”, young people believe everything: both stories about people with dog heads, and Diky’s stories about their right to dispose of people. Learning from childhood that one must be afraid of elders and unquestioningly obey them, young people are deprived of the ability to critically assess reality and are forced to accept as an unchanging reality both the house-building orders and the right of the old people, the “aces” of this world, to power backed up only by the authority of money. Education in the home-building traditions, when parents literally “crush the ribs” of their children, either suppresses and breaks the child’s character, or forces the child to adapt and learn by tricks to avoid punishment for crimes against imposed morality.
An example of the first type of young people are Tikhon Kabanov and Boris Grigorievich. They are best characterized by the words of Tikhon: “No ... my own mind. And, therefore, live a century as a stranger. All their lives they are under the heel of their relatives and cannot change this situation, but can only feel sorry for themselves. They are incapable of committing any significant act: Tikhon is jealous of Katerina's death, but he himself cannot decide to commit suicide; Boris obeys his uncle, even when he tells him to leave Katerina and leave for Siberia. These people cannot truly love strongly: Tikhon treats Katerina as one of the components of his “bondage”: “There won’t be any thunderstorm over me for two weeks, there are no shackles on my legs, so am I up to my wife?” Boris, to Katerina’s words that her husband left for two weeks, says: “Oh, so we will take a walk! Time is enough." Parting with Katerina, he asks God "that she die as soon as possible, so that she does not suffer for a long time!" Boris and Tikhon are puppets in the hands of the "dark kingdom", weak-willed puppets, incapable of either an act or a true feeling.
Kudryash stands apart from them. At first glance, it seems that Kudryash is that “revolutionary” capable of challenging the world around him, but it turns out that he, too, bears the disfiguring stamp of the “dark kingdom”. Curly belongs to the type of people who have adapted to the difficult conditions of life, he entered into an unspoken agreement with Wild: Curly is needed by Wild, therefore Wild can do nothing with Curly. Curly is satisfied with this state of affairs and does not think about the problems of society or the situation of other people. His interests are selfish, they lie in the sphere of "walking - quarreling with Wild (that is, once again enjoying the feeling of his own" inviolability ")", he may even be able to love (as evidenced by his relationship with Varvara), but he cannot and does not want to fight the "dark kingdom", his activity is similar, by definition, to "running a squirrel in a wheel." So did Barbara: she learned to ignore Kabanikh's scolding, she learned to lie. (“And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.”) So she acquires limited freedom of action and follows the basic principle: “Do what you want, if only it was sewn and covered.” In the actions of Barbara there is no protest against the orders of the "dark kingdom", she only wants to "work up" before the wedding. And with Kudryash, Varvara runs away not because of love for him (she yawns on a date), but rather from maternal tyranny. These two types of people form the basis of Kalinov's youth. There is nothing progressive about them; adapted or broken, they do not even realize their powerlessness to change anything in society, their worthlessness, they do not understand the horror of their situation. But Ostrovsky still leaves hope to the younger generation, showing the type of people who can lead society out of a deplorable situation. Katerina belongs to this type of youth. It does not break under the pressure of the house-building orders, but it cannot adapt to them either. (“I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything.”) Katerina openly protests against everything that is being imposed on her, she protests “at the call of nature”; protests because she is physically unable to live in the "dark kingdom". But her protest does not find a response, so she can only dream of a "better world", and when the oppression of the "dark kingdom" becomes unbearable, and besides, Boris leaves her, Katerina has no choice but to commit suicide.
In the "dark kingdom" there are no conditions for the appearance of people like Lopukhov, and any protest of the mind will be suppressed, and the protester will either completely submit or direct his mind to the search for "loopholes" in the morality of society. Here nature itself comes to the rescue, giving birth to people like Katerina. This is the only type of youth capable of surviving and retaining its positive qualities unchanged, retaining the ability to improve society. Their protest is unconscious, it comes from the depths of the soul, but it is still a protest. Their strength is in unity, the fate of singles is the fate of Katerina. Katerina is an exception that should develop into a rule, the first "ray of light", a harbinger of a new type of youth who, with the combined forces of her nature, will be able to destroy the "dark kingdom" and create a new world.
The play "Thunderstorm" was written by A. N. Ostrovsky in 1859, when the entire Russian society was in a state of expectation of the upcoming changes. A social conflict was brewing in the country between the obsolete old conservative world of the patriarchal way of life and the young progressive forces born in the depths of this world.
The old world of the "dark kingdom" is presented in the play by the rich merchant Kabanova and the merchant Diky. Their power over others is still great, but they are already beginning to feel the awakening of something new, alien and hated by them. “Besides them, without asking them, another life has grown, with other beginnings, and although it is far away, it is still not clearly visible, but it already gives itself a presentiment and sends bad visions to the dark arbitrariness of tyrants,” writes N. A. in the article “ A ray of light in a dark realm.
Representatives of the younger generation in Groz are Katerina, Boris, Tikhon, Kudryash and Varvara. But are all of them and to what extent capable of repelling the tyranny of tyrants?
Can the clerk Wild Curly stand up for himself, who himself is reputed to be a rude person and does not want to “serve” before the owner? “I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me,” Kudryash boasts. But in his resistance, he himself is likened to the Wild, he responds to rudeness with rudeness. According to Dobrolyubov, “Kudryash does not need to quarrel with Wild: both of them need each other, and, it became Syt, Kudryash does not need special heroism to present his demands.”
The play "Thunderstorm" was written by A.N. Ostrovsky in 1859, when the whole of Russian society was in a state of expectation of upcoming changes. A social conflict was brewing in the country between the obsolete old conservative world of the patriarchal way of life and the young progressive forces born in the bowels of this world.
The old world of the "dark kingdom" is presented in the play by the rich merchant Kabanova and the merchant Diky. Their superiority over those around them is still great, but they are already beginning to feel the awakening of something new, alien and hated by them. “In addition to them, without asking them, another life has grown, with other beginnings, and although it is not yet visible well in the distance, it already gives itself a presentiment and sends bad visions to the dark arbitrariness of tyrants,” N. A. Dobrolyubov describes in the article "A ray of light in a dark kingdom."
Representatives of the younger generation in Groz are Katerina, Boris, Tikhon, Kudryash and Varvara. But are all of them, and to what extent, capable of delivering a rebuff to the tyranny of tyrants?
Can the clerk Wild Curly stand up for himself, who himself is reputed to be a rude person and does not want to "serve" before the owner? “I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me,” Kudryash boasts. But in his resistance, he himself is likened to the Wild, he responds to rudeness with rudeness. According to Dobrolyubov, "Kudryash does not have to quarrel with Dikiy: both of them need a friend to a friend, and, it became Syt, Kudryash does not need special heroism to present his demands."
Kabanova's daughter, Varvara, also easily adapts to the morality of the "dark kingdom". Not wanting to exist in captivity, to endure the upper hand of her mother, she easily takes the path of deception, which is becoming habitual for her. She claims that it is impossible to exist in a different way: all their housing is based on deceit. “And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary,” the young lady justifies herself. “Do whatever you want, as long as it’s covered and covered,” she teaches Katerina. However, Varvara was cunning, as long as there was a chance, when they began to lock her up, she ran away from home, broke free from the power of Kabanikha.
The son of Kabanova, Tikhon, is by nature simple-minded and gentle. He loves and pities his wife in his own way, according to Dobrolyubov, "he has a conscience, there is a desire for good, but he constantly acts against himself and serves as a submissive instrument of his mother." This weak-willed man is so exhausted by the endless reproaches, admonitions and moralizing of his despotic mother that he is ready to rush headlong into revelry, leaving his wife in a desperate state, unable and unwilling to understand her restless soul.
But the best qualities of Tikhon, crushed under the yoke of Kabanikh, did not die completely. The death of his wife awakens them from their sleep. Freed at last from eternal fear and trembling before his mother, Tikhon for the first time in his life dares to blame her. "Mamma, you ruined her! You, you, you..." he shouts in despair, and in response to her gloomy call he repeats again: "You ruined her! You! You!" In the face of tragedy, a terrible understanding was born in him that life in the "dark kingdom" is worse than death. Throwing himself on the corpse of his wife, he shouts in a frenzy: "It's good for you, Katya! And why am I left to exist in the world and suffer!"
Of the younger generation, Boris, Diky's nephew, is the weakest and most miserable. In character, he is very similar to Tikhon. “Boris is the same in essence, only “educated.” Education took away his strength to work dirty tricks ... but it did not give him the strength to resist the dirty tricks that others do,” the critic notes. Boris is not able not to offend either himself or his beloved woman. Realizing his impotence, he only rushes about helplessly and laments: "Oh, if only these people and people knew what it feels like to say goodbye to you!.. Oh, if only strength!"
This powerless, weak-willed person becomes the subject of Katerina's great passion, pure, sublime, poetic nature. How different she is from other young people of Kalinov! All of them are burdened by the bondage of the patriarchal foundations of the "dark kingdom", but they stand on the position of worldly compromises, they have learned to bypass the oppression of their elders, any according to their character. But precisely against the background of their unconscious and compromise position, suffering Katerina looks morally high.
The unexpectedly awakened feeling of love is perceived by her as a terrible unforgivable sin. The young lady resists her “sinful” passion with all her might, but does not find support in this struggle: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss, and someone is pushing me there, but there’s nothing to hold on to.” Alien to the slightest lie and falsehood, Katerina is not capable of deceit and pretense. "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?" she says to Boris. Katerina does not want and cannot cheat, pretend. This is confirmed by the scene of confession of treason. Neither the storm, nor the frightening prophecy of the crazy lady, nor the fear of the "fiery hell" prevented the heroine from telling the truth. "My whole heart broke! I can't take it anymore!" - so she began her confession. For her honest and whole nature, the false position in which she found herself is unbearable. To live just to exist is not for her. To live means for her to be herself. Her most precious value is personal freedom, the freedom of the soul. But after public repentance of her sin, Katerina had only to submit to her mother-in-law, to become a meek slave of her husband. This freedom-loving nature could not come to terms with such a fate. She finds a way out of an unbearable situation in death.
Katerina is a strongly religious and God-fearing person. Since, according to the Christian religion, suicide is a great sin, having deliberately committed it, she showed not weakness, but strength of character! Her death is a challenge to the "dark force", the desire to exist in the "light kingdom" of love, joy and happiness.
Tragic as such an outcome may be, Dobrolyubov notes that "the same end seems to us gratifying...: it presents a terrible challenge to the tyrannical force... with its violent, deadening beginnings." According to the critic, the image of Katerina embodied the "great people's idea" - the idea of liberation.
Ostrovsky performed his plays at the turning point from the 1940s to the 1950s. This was a critical period in the history of the Russian stage, when it was filled with vaudeville and melodrama, partly borrowed from the West. Actually, there was no Russian folk theater that would widely reflect the life of Russia. Ostrovsky appeared in his plays primarily as a first-class realist artist. Perfectly knowing Russian life, especially the life of the merchants, Ostrovsky transferred Russian life to the stage in all its originality and naturalness. The family life of merchants with its despotism and tyranny, rudeness and ignorance in public and domestic life, the powerless position of women, the ritual side of life, prejudices and superstitions, folk dialect - all this was reflected in Ostrovsky's everyday plays.
Having finally broken with the patterns of classicism and romanticism, making his numerous works "plays of life", Ostrovsky completed the work of Fonvizin, Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol in dramaturgy and forever established the triumph of realistic drama in Russia. The drama The Thunderstorm was written in 1859. She spoke about the tyranny of tyranny, money and old Testament authority among the merchants. The author set himself the task of exposing the economic and moral tyranny of the "dark kingdom".
Two groups from the city of Kalinov perform in the play. One of them personifies the oppressive power of the "dark kingdom". These are Wild and Boar, oppressors and enemies of everything living and new. The other includes Katerina, Kuligin, Tikhon, Boris, Kudryash and Varvara. These are the victims of the "dark kingdom", the oppressed, equally feeling the brute force pressing on them. They differently, but still express their protest against this force.
The younger generation, in turn, is divided into those in whom tyranny and despotism have suppressed glimpses of freedom and independence. And on those who managed to resist the "dark kingdom", if not externally, then internally.
The victims of the "dark kingdom" in the play are Tikhon and Boris. Tikhon from childhood was accustomed to obey his mother in everything: “But how can I, mother, disobey you!” - he says to Kabanova and then adds: “Yes, mother, I don’t want to live by my own will.” Tikhon's only cherished desire is to escape, at least for a short time, from under the care of his mother, to take a walk so that he can take a walk for a whole year. By nature, he is not only weak-willed, but also limited, rustic. For example, the spiritual world of Katerina is too high and incomprehensible for him. “I won’t understand you, Katya!” he tells her. Tikhon does not find enough strength and confidence in himself to be able to resist his mother. A mother who brought her family to complete collapse with her soulless despotism and hypocrisy. Only at the end of the play does Tikhon show something like disobedience. For the first time in his life he contradicts Kabanikhe. But this protest will remain single and will not develop into a rebellion against the "dark kingdom". Over time, he himself will become the representative of those whom he now hates so much.
Boris Grigoryevich, Dikiy's nephew, stands significantly higher than his environment in terms of his level of development. The education he received in Moscow, at a commercial academy, instilled in him progressive views. It is difficult for him to get along among the Wild and Kabanovs. But he, like Tikhon, lacks the character to break free from their enslaving power. Lacks determination to fight for his love. He advises Katerina to submit to fate, and he resigns himself - he leaves at the insistence of Diky as a clerk in Kyakhta. Boris is a kind, gentle person. But Dobrolyubov is right, noting that Katerina loved him “more on the desert”, that is, in her environment, he was the best of the worst.
Thus, both of them - both Tikhon and Boris - did not manage, and ultimately will not be able to escape from the yoke of the “dark kingdom” that enslaved them. And this happened because they did not know that it was possible to live differently, that it was possible to be happy.
The younger generation, which is trying to resist the old order, which is "a ray of light in the dark kingdom", includes Katerina and Kuligin.
Katerina is the central character in the drama Thunderstorm. In terms of character and interests, she stands out sharply from the environment in which she fell. This exclusivity is the reason for the deep life drama that the heroine had to go through in the kingdom of the Wild and Kabanovs. The girls of her society in those days were not given education. The book was replaced by stories of idle wanderers and praying mantises. Hence her dreaminess and impressionability. Dobrolyubov defined her character as "loving and ideal". Katerina at the same time has an ardent and passionate soul. “I was born so hot! she said. - I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, but it was towards evening, it was already dark; I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat, and pushed it away from the shore.
Katerina is a woman not only with a passionate, but also with a strong character. She is the only one, of all the characters in the play, capable of a complete break with the environment and life that has disgusted her. Her suicide, as if for a moment, illuminated the deep darkness of the “dark kingdom”. In her tragic death, according to the critic, “a terrible challenge was given to self-foolish power ... In Katerina we see a protest against the boar’s concepts of morality, a protest carried to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.”
As already mentioned, Kuligin can also be called a bright ray. This is a poor watchmaker, a self-taught mechanic who dreams of finding a perpetuum mobile, a perpetual motion machine. He thinks not about his own personal benefit, but about serving society, about the improvement of his native city, about the situation of the poor. This Kuligin and differs, for example, from Wild. He is simply forced to submit to the force, since he is a loner, and the force is not on his side: "They will eat it, they will swallow it alive!" But to submit outwardly does not mean to calm down inwardly. In the words of Kuligin, the author expresses his views on cruel morals and sympathy for talented people from the people, crushed by the socio-political system. Ostrovsky showed that enlightenment was beginning to penetrate into the most diverse corners and strata of Russian society.
Thus, Ostrovsky in the drama "Thunderstorm" with the help of images of the younger generation showed that the time had come for the awakening of the individual, hinting at the inevitability of the struggle against the autocratic-feudal system. And although the protest of Katerina and Kuligin is doomed to failure, the mortal wound to the "dark kingdom" has already been inflicted. And even Kabanikh begins to realize this doom. "The old days are coming to an end," she declares grimly. So, in the drama "Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky pronounced a harsh sentence on the obsolete and hated past, on the socio-political system that supported the "dark kingdom" in every possible way.
Tikhon, Boris, Kuligin, Katerina - representatives of the younger generation in the drama of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"
Ostrovsky performed his plays at the turning point from the 1940s to the 1950s. This was a critical period in the history of the Russian stage, when it was filled with vaudeville and melodrama, partly borrowed from the West. Actually, there was no Russian folk theater that would widely reflect the life of Russia. Ostrovsky appeared in his plays primarily as a first-class realist artist. Perfectly knowing Russian life, especially the life of the merchants, Ostrovsky transferred Russian life to the stage in all its originality and naturalness. The family life of merchants with its despotism and tyranny, rudeness and ignorance in public and domestic life, the powerless position of women, the ritual side of life, prejudices and superstitions, folk dialect - all this was reflected in Ostrovsky's everyday plays.
Having finally broken with the patterns of classicism and romanticism, making his numerous works "plays of life", Ostrovsky completed the work of Fonvizin, Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol in dramaturgy and forever established the triumph of realistic drama in Russia. The drama The Thunderstorm was written in 1859. She spoke about the tyranny of tyranny, money and old Testament authority among the merchants. The author set himself the task of exposing the economic and moral tyranny of the "dark kingdom".
Two groups from the city of Kalinov perform in the play. One of them personifies the oppressive power of the "dark kingdom". These are Wild and Boar, oppressors and enemies of everything living and new. The other includes Katerina, Kuligin, Tikhon, Boris, Kudryash and Varvara. These are the victims of the "dark kingdom", the oppressed, equally feeling the brute force pressing on them. They differently, but still express their protest against this force.
The younger generation, in turn, is divided into those in whom tyranny and despotism have suppressed glimpses of freedom and independence. And on those who managed to resist the "dark kingdom", if not externally, then internally.
The victims of the "dark kingdom" in the play are Tikhon and Boris. Tikhon from childhood was accustomed to obey his mother in everything: “But how can I, mother, disobey you!” - he says to Kabanova and then adds: “Yes, mother, I don’t want to live by my own will.” Tikhon's only cherished desire is to escape, at least for a short time, from under the care of his mother, to take a walk so that he can take a walk for a whole year. By nature, he is not only weak-willed, but also limited, rustic. For example, the spiritual world of Katerina is too high and incomprehensible for him. “I won’t understand you, Katya!” he tells her. Tikhon does not find enough strength and confidence in himself to be able to resist his mother. A mother who brought her family to complete collapse with her soulless despotism and hypocrisy. Only at the end of the play does Tikhon show something like disobedience. For the first time in his life he contradicts Kabanikhe. But this protest will remain single and will not develop into a rebellion against the "dark kingdom". Over time, he himself will become the representative of those whom he now hates so much.
Boris Grigoryevich, Dikiy's nephew, stands significantly higher than his environment in terms of his level of development. The education he received in Moscow, at a commercial academy, instilled in him progressive views. It is difficult for him to get along among the Wild and Kabanovs. But he, like Tikhon, lacks the character to break free from their enslaving power. Lacks determination to fight for his love. He advises Katerina to submit to fate, and he resigns himself - he leaves at the insistence of Diky as a clerk in Kyakhta. Boris is a kind, gentle person. But Dobrolyubov is right, noting that Katerina loved him “more on the desert”, that is, in her environment, he was the best of the worst.
Thus, both of them - both Tikhon and Boris - did not manage, and ultimately will not be able to escape from the yoke of the “dark kingdom” that enslaved them. And this happened because they did not know that it was possible to live differently, that it was possible to be happy.
The younger generation, which is trying to resist the old order, which is "a ray of light in the dark kingdom", includes Katerina and Kuligin.
Katerina is the central character in the drama Thunderstorm. In terms of character and interests, she stands out sharply from the environment in which she fell. This exclusivity is the reason for the deep life drama that the heroine had to go through in the kingdom of the Wild and Kabanovs. The girls of her society in those days were not given education. The book was replaced by stories of idle wanderers and praying mantises. Hence her dreaminess and impressionability. Dobrolyubov defined her character as "loving and ideal". Katerina at the same time has an ardent and passionate soul. “I was born so hot! she said. - I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, but it was towards evening, it was already dark; I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat, and pushed it away from the shore.
Katerina is a woman not only with a passionate, but also with a strong character. She is the only one, of all the characters in the play, capable of a complete break with the environment and life that has disgusted her. Her suicide, as if for a moment, illuminated the deep darkness of the “dark kingdom”. In her tragic death, according to the critic, “a terrible challenge was given to self-foolish power ... In Katerina we see a protest against the boar’s concepts of morality, a protest carried to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself.”
As already mentioned, Kuligin can also be called a bright ray. This is a poor watchmaker, a self-taught mechanic who dreams of finding a perpetuum mobile, a perpetual motion machine. He thinks not about his own personal benefit, but about serving society, about the improvement of his native city, about the situation of the poor. This Kuligin and differs, for example, from Wild. He is simply forced to submit to the force, since he is a loner, and the force is not on his side: "They will eat it, they will swallow it alive!" But to submit outwardly does not mean to calm down inwardly. In the words of Kuligin, the author expresses his views on cruel morals and sympathy for talented people from the people, crushed by the socio-political system. Ostrovsky showed that enlightenment was beginning to penetrate into the most diverse corners and strata of Russian society.
Thus, Ostrovsky in the drama "Thunderstorm" with the help of images of the younger generation showed that the time had come for the awakening of the individual, hinting at the inevitability of the struggle against the autocratic-feudal system. And although the protest of Katerina and Kuligin is doomed to failure, the mortal wound to the "dark kingdom" has already been inflicted. And even Kabanikh begins to realize this doom. "The old days are coming to an end," she declares grimly. So, in the drama "Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky pronounced a harsh sentence on the obsolete and hated past, on the socio-political system that supported the "dark kingdom" in every possible way.
