Was there another way for Katerina?
The play "Thunderstorm", which was written by Ostrovsky in 1859, is one of the author's most popular. Such success of the work is not at all surprising. The drama described a completely new female image, which was distinguished by strength and depth. The heroine seemed to personify a protest against the stuffy and musty world, where the patriarchal way of life reigned, according to the laws of which practically all of Rus' of that time lived. In fact, Katerina's actions can hardly be called a conscious protest. It's all about the dark
kingdom ”(as the world of Dobrolyubov called it) considers any movement of the soul as a challenge. The forces turned out to be unequal, and in the end it all ended in the suicide of the main character. But death in the play was the beginning of Katerina's immortality. The play, like 150 years, evokes a lively response from readers, and one of the most discussed questions is whether Katerina had a different path?
If we analyze the situation in which the heroine finds herself, then we can consider several ways out of it at once.
The path that Katerina herself dreamed about is connected with her beloved - Boris. For her, such a way out of the situation would be just a fairy tale. But a bad prince came out of Boris, and this fairy tale did not come true - her chosen one turned out to be too weak and selfish. He leaves for Siberia without her, which finally broke Katerina.
Another option is to get away from Tikhon. This path seems quite natural to modern people, but in those days getting a divorce was accompanied by a lot of bureaucratic costs, and Katerina would have to endure all possible humiliations. This process would take a very long time. In addition, by this act, she would have completely dishonored her own name and would have taken a great sin on her soul, since then marriages were really made before God.
For her salvation could be a religious path. She would become a nun and devote herself and her whole life to God, with whom all the happy moments of childhood were connected. But a married woman would never be taken into a monastery. If they knew that she was married, they would definitely return their spouse.
The fourth option is the way in which everything would remain as it was. She would also live with Tikhon and her mother-in-law, listening to everyday insults and reproaches from the latter. But in this case, the freedom-loving and sensitive Katerina would simply go crazy soon, especially in the absence of the support of her weak-willed husband.
So after considering everything possible options, we can conclude that Katerina's death was natural, and she was the only possible way out for the girl.But this decision speaks, rather, not about the weakness, but about the strength of her personality. She did not seek compromises with the outside world and with her conscience, but acted as her heart prompted.
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- The answer to the question: “Did the heroine have another way out?”
One of the most famous dramas by N. Ostrovsky "", repeatedly staged on stage, filmed, appeared in 1859. And the characters, and the conditional city of Kalinov, and even the image of the Volga - all this is a reflection of the personal impressions of the "writer of Zamoskvorechie", who, shortly before creating the drama, went on a trip along the Volga region. This explains the picturesque landscapes, a detailed description of the city itself, however, deliberately “faceless”, conditional, which emphasizes the ubiquity of life depicted in the drama.
In contrast to the "Muscovite" traditions, the "Thunderstorm" depicts a patriarchal family - but in a completely different way. Here, the traditional way of life has no positive aspects. Cruelty reigns here, servile obedience to the elders - first of all, to the Kabanikhe, who "... clothes the poor, but ate the household completely." There is no place for freedom, love.
However, there is a way to get it: to lie and sin. The main thing is that everything should be “sewn-covered” - this is exactly what the young Barbara teaches her older daughter-in-law. “A ray of light”, as the critic N. Dobrolyubov later called this heroine, who grew up in an atmosphere of piety, freedom, integrity, is sickened by such a life. When she realizes that she has tender feelings not for her husband Tikhon (his speaking name vividly describes the hero's servile attitude towards his mother-Boar), but for the visiting Boris, she is horrified.
It's not in her rules to go on secret dates when her husband leaves home! That is why she seeks salvation in religion - she prays for a long time at the images and sincerely does not want to fall into sin. However, under the yoke of the morals surrounding her (Varvara, for example, does not disdain to secretly see her lover until her mother finds out about this, like other townspeople), she gives up.
But life in constant fear, sincere repentance, regret about the impossibility of being free and happy interfere with Katerina. This is the conflict: she opposes the way of life and mores of the "dark kingdom" with her own honor, good nature, the desire to be free.
This leads to an unconscious, but vivid challenge, which she throws to the entire Kalinovsky society, when she sincerely, publicly admits to her husband of treason. The inability to live away from her beloved, to endure the oppression of her mother-in-law Kabanikh, Katerina rushes into the waters of the Volga to save herself from suffering.
But could the drama have a different ending, a happier one? Katerina could succumb to the influence of society, continue secret meetings with Boris, as, however, was quite customary in the provinces (moreover, this was reflected not only in Russian, but also in foreign literature- in particular, Madame Bovary leads a similar lifestyle from the novel by G. Flaubert) and even in the capital of the Empire.
Perhaps the answer to the question can only be negative: no, there could be no other ending. The patriarchal way of life would not allow Katerina to go with Boris, to leave Kalinov. The heroine herself is completely alien to the merciless and cruel "dark kingdom". Even as a child, she dreamed of being free - this is described in one of the most lyrical monologues in Russian literature, “why people don’t fly like birds.” Living within a rigid framework is completely disgusting to her.
Her sincerity, moral purity, repentance for her own sin did not allow her to live on. Of the two evils, they choose the lesser - the evil that, according to Katerina, she committed - and society with her - is much more than the worst Christian sin - suicide. No wonder Kuligin, who brought her body ashore, drops the phrase: “... she is now in front of a judge who is more merciful than you!”
It can be unequivocally answered that the very image of the main character of the drama "Thunderstorm" completely contradicts the idea of Katerina's possibility to enter the "dark kingdom", to become its link. This is a sincere, pure, bright character, whose image did not overshadow even the chosen outcome of life. An unconscious protest made it possible to awaken sincerity in other characters: silent and obedient, Tikhon, despite the threat of a mother’s curse, blames his mother for the death of Katerina (“Mother, you ruined her!”), rushes to the deceased wife, whom he sincerely loved, and mourns about the loss and cries that he will have to "live and suffer."
A tragic, sad, sinful outcome is Katerina's only way out, the only opportunity to become free. However, it was her act that became a kind of impetus for changing the patriarchal "dark" way of provincial life.
Did Katerina Kabanova have a way out
The play by Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" was released in 1860, during a period of public upsurge. The story itself, told in the play, reflects the typical conflicts of the era of the 60s: the struggle between the obsolete morality of petty tyrants and their unrequited victims and the new morality of people in whose soul a feeling human dignity. A special place among the characters of the play is occupied by the image of Katerina. According to Dobrolyubov, from him "breathes at us new life which is revealed to us in her very death.
Katerina is a poetic and dreamy nature. Remembering her childhood and girlish years, she herself tells Varvara about how the world of her feelings and moods was formed. She lived happily and easily in her parents' house, but she did not receive an education. Stories of wanderers and praying women replaced books for her. Impressive by nature, Katerina eagerly listened to their every word, taking everything on faith. This is how most women were educated in the 19th century. Today the wanderers have replaced the TV. Katerina speaks in a language that only a poetically inclined and gifted woman could speak in the merchant environment of that time. It contains elements of poetic folk speech, and the influence of church and book literature, as well as church services, which Katerina loved to attend "until death". She is distinguished by a special soft lyricism, emotionality and sincerity, which correspond to the general character of Katerina. The play repeatedly repeats an image that helps to understand the main thing in Katerina's character - the image of a bird. IN folk poetry the bird is a symbol of will. Hence the constant epithet "free bird". “I lived, I didn’t grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild,” Katerina recalls about how she lived before marriage, “... Why do people do not fly like birds? she says to Barbara. “You know, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird.” But the free bird got into an iron cage. And she struggles and yearns in captivity.
The nature is dreamy, impressionable, with a predominantly “loving, ideal” character, according to Dobrolyubov’s definition, Katerina at the same time has an ardent and passionate soul. Katerina suffers only for the time being. “And if I get cold here,” she says, “they won’t hold me back by any force. I'll throw myself out the window, I'll throw myself into the Volga. I don’t want to live here, so I won’t, even if you cut me!” Among the victims of the "dark kingdom" Katerina stands out for her open character, courage, and directness. “Deceive - I don’t know how; I can’t hide anything, ”she answers Varvara, who says that you won’t live in their house without deceit. And such an impressionable, poetically minded and at the same time resolute woman finds herself in the Kabanova family, in a musty atmosphere of hypocrisy and importunate, petty guardianship, from which it breathes deathly cold and heartlessness. Naturally, the conflict between this atmosphere of the "dark kingdom" and the bright spiritual world of Katerina ended tragically.
I would like to ask the question: “Could it have been different?” The tragedy of Katerina's situation was further complicated by the fact that she was given in marriage to a man whom she did not know and could not love, no matter how hard she tried to be a faithful and loving wife. Katerina's attempts to find a response in her husband's heart are shattered by Tikhon's slavish humiliation and narrow-mindedness and the rudeness of his interests. Tikhon thinks only about how to run to the Wild for a drink, a spree. He, like Katerina, wants to escape from the house, but, unlike his wife, this sometimes succeeds. It is easy to understand with what force her feelings flare up when she meets a person who is not like everyone around her. Katerina loves differently than the women around her. She is ready for anything for a loved one, transgressing even those concepts of sin and virtue that were sacred to her. Katerina's religiosity is not Kabanikh's hypocrisy, but a deep sincere conviction. “Ah, Varya,” she complains, “I have a sin on my mind! How much I, poor thing, wept, no matter what I did to myself! I can't get away from this sin. Nowhere to go. After all, this is not good, because this is a terrible sin, Varenka, that I love another. The catastrophe comes precisely because Katerina cannot and does not want to hide her sin.
In the fourth act of the drama in the scene of repentance comes the denouement. A terrible thunderstorm, which she perceives as a “thunderstorm of the Lord”, “a terrible lady with her curses and an ancient picture on a dilapidated wall depicting“ a fiery Gehenna ”- all this almost drives Katerina crazy. She publicly, on the city boulevard, repents before her husband. If the drama ended with this scene, the invincibility of the foundations of the "dark kingdom" would be shown. This would give Kabanikha the right to triumph: “Where does it lead!” But the drama ends with Katerina's suicide, which should be taken as her moral victory over the "dark forces", which she did not want to submit to. By this, she showed her desperate, albeit powerless protest against the "dark kingdom". Today you can ask the question: “Why did she do it?” After all, she could leave home, like Varvara, which would have annoyed Kabanikha even more. But Katerina was ready to do it. She was not afraid of distant Siberia, where her beloved Boris Grigorievich was sent. But he was too weak, he did not have enough character to escape from the power of the Kabanovs and the Wilds. He is the only one among all who truly understands Katerina, but he is unable to help her: he does not have the determination to fight for his love. The path to a free life for Katerina is closed, and she does not want to go home, because "what is home, what is in the grave."
She sees no other way than suicide. Yes, it would probably be difficult to find a way out in the conditions of the mores that reigned in society in the middle of the 19th century. After all, another heroine of Russian literature later comes to the same decision - Anna Karenina. Dobrolyubov called Katerina "a ray of light in a dark kingdom," which for a moment illuminated its deep darkness.
In 1864, A. I. Herzen wrote about The Thunderstorm: “In this drama, the author penetrated into the deepest recesses<…>Russian life and threw a sudden ray of light into the unknown soul of a Russian woman who is suffocating in the grip of the inexorable and semi-savage life of the patriarchal family.
The image of Katerina rightly belongs to the best images women not only in the work of Ostrovsky, which today is acquiring a new significance, but also in all Russian fiction.
Katerina dies because she has no other way out in solving the current problem. She is placed in such conditions that if she had stayed to live, she would, firstly, suffer from her thoughts and feelings, would reproach herself. After all, it was she who spoke about her sin, if she had kept silent, no one would have known about it, but this does not mean that Katerina would have lived calmly and for her own pleasure. Scolding herself, regretting the sin she had committed, she would have driven herself crazy, she would have slowly melted and faded away, in time she would have driven herself into the grave. I think that Katerina would be afraid every day that they would find out about her sin, would think about it and mental anguish would not leave her. It seems to me that if Varvara was in Katerina's place, then she would be silent about what she had done and live in peace. But Katerina, unlike Varvara, is religious, she just experienced love for the first time in her life, and could not drown it out, went on her occasion.
Secondly, the Kabanikha would “bite” her. She was already a tyrant in the family, and now she would become even worse. Her constant ridicule, mockery, indulgence, accusations could not endure Katerina, with her strong character and will. She would not be able to develop, she would withdraw into herself. Her husband would have forgiven her soon, but not daring to argue with her mother, Tikhon would not have defended her. It seems to me that Varvara could share her grief, she would listen to her, but she would not be able to help either, because she is very dependent on her mother. Thirdly, the society in which she lives would reject her. Maybe someone understood Katerina (she did not marry for love, no children, a bad mother-in-law), but no one would openly dare to defend and justify the girl. The boar had authority and power in her city, if the children could not say a word to her in opposition, then the inhabitants of the city even more so. It would be very difficult for Katerina to live in such conditions.
If you think about another option, for example, Katerina would leave with Boris, but this is unrealistic. Boris would not have dared to do this, he is not so bold and resolute, his love would not have been enough to induce such actions. He is dependent on the Wild, as he said, so he does. Even assuming that Katerina and Boris would run away, abandoning their families, they have nowhere to run, they have no means of subsistence. And if Boris is free, then Katerina married woman, at that time it was very difficult to get a divorce, because the young were married. Again inside Katerina there would be a struggle, contradictions. Still, no matter how scary it may sound, for Katerina, death was the best way out.
The action of Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm" takes place in the nineteenth century, in a small provincial town where patriarchal orders reign. Katerina, main character plays, lives in the wealthy house of the Kabanovs with her husband Tikhon and mother-in-law, nicknamed Kabanikha for her absurd character and tyranny. In his work, Ostrovsky shows the conflict between the "dark kingdom", which personifies the way in the Kabanovs' house, and Katerina, who would like to build her family on the principles mutual love and respect. Katerina, living in the Kabanov family, is forced to endure the oppression of the tyranny of the Kabanikh. The situation in the family requires her to lie and deceive. “It’s impossible without this, you remember where you live; our whole house rests on this,” says her husband’s sister Varvara. Everything that surrounds Katerina rebels against her natural aspirations and desires. In a conversation with Varvara, she simply and at the same time very accurately conveys her attitude to the current situation in five words. "Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity!" She is torn from this captivity to a free life, even if she has to die in this impulse. She does not consider life the existence that she leads in the Kabanov family. Katerina wants to live, not exist, she wants to live freely without any pressure on her. Her husband Tikhon cannot help her in her quest to live freely. He, like Katerina, suffers a lot from the old Kabanikh. He is simple-minded and not at all evil, but extremely weak-willed. He is not able to protect his wife from the attacks of his own mother. Katerina, realizing this, feels pity for him. This feeling in her is much stronger than her love for Tikhon. In her desire to escape from the dark kingdom, she is looking for a person who would understand her and share her views. It turns out to be the nephew of a wealthy landowner Boris. This is a well-educated person who arrived from the capital, he does not accept the customs prevailing in the city, and understands Katerina well. In addition, he is financially dependent on his uncle, just like a young woman from her husband and mother-in-law. She loved him more out of desperation than for his spiritual qualities. Katerina cannot decide, cannot find a way out of the current situation.
But there is always a way out of any situation and not one. One of the possible options is to leave everything as it is and continue to endure and try to come to terms in the hope that something will change in the future. If it were possible to change the people around her ... But this will not happen. Kabanova cannot leave what she was brought up with, and her spineless son cannot suddenly, for no apparent reason, acquire firmness and independence.
Another way seems less impossible. Katerina could have fled with Boris from the arbitrariness and oppression of her family. Secretly meeting with Boris, she asks him: "Take me with you from here." But this is also impossible, because Boris is Diky's nephew and financially dependent on him. In addition, Dikoy and Kabanov agreed to send him to Klyakhta, and, of course, they would not let him take Katerina with him. In essence, Boris is the same Tikhon, only "educated". Education took away from him the strength to do dirty tricks, but it did not give him the strength to resist them.
She also could not simply leave the Kabanovs' house and return to her parents or settle somewhere with relatives, since in those days women had a different position in society than now. This was not allowed by moral standards. According to the social norms of that time, the wife had to obey her husband and, as a rule, she was financially dependent on him.
In the end of "Thunderstorm" a terrible challenge is given to self-foolish power. Ostrovsky, at the end of his tragedy, shows the reader the impossibility of existence in an environment where tyranny reigns with its violent and deadly principles. His Katerina chooses the only worthy way out of that terrible situation. She carried her protest to the end. Throwing herself into the abyss, she gained freedom, showed everyone that life is in " dark kingdom"much worse than death. Although, from the point of view of Christian morality, Katerina did wrong (after all, the church condemns suicides), I believe that this was the only way out for her, since patience would destroy her personality, teach her to lie and dodge, kill in She is all good and positive.
