The population of the city of Kalinov is in a thunderstorm. Essay “The city of Kalinov and its inhabitants in the “Thunderstorm”. Ostrovsky - Columbus of merchant life

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was a master of precise descriptions. The playwright in his works managed to show all the dark sides of the human soul. Perhaps unsightly and negative, but without which it is impossible to create a complete picture. Criticizing Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov pointed to his “folk” worldview, seeing the writer’s main merit in the fact that Ostrovsky was able to notice those qualities in Russian people and society that can hinder natural progress. The theme of the “dark kingdom” is raised in many of Ostrovsky’s dramas. In the play “The Thunderstorm” the city of Kalinov and its inhabitants are shown as limited, “dark” people.

The city of Kalinov in “The Thunderstorm” is a fictional space. The author wanted to emphasize that the vices that exist in this city are characteristic of all Russian cities at the end of the 19th century. And all the problems that are raised in the work existed everywhere at that time. Dobrolyubov calls Kalinov a “dark kingdom.” The definition of a critic fully characterizes the atmosphere described in Kalinov.
Residents of Kalinov should be considered inextricably linked with the city. All the inhabitants of the city of Kalinov deceive each other, steal, and terrorize other family members. Power in the city belongs to those who have money, and the mayor’s power is only nominal. This becomes clear from Kuligin’s conversation. The mayor comes to Dikiy with a complaint: the men complained about Savl Prokofievich, because he cheated them. Dikoy does not try to justify himself at all; on the contrary, he confirms the words of the mayor, saying that if merchants steal from each other, then there is nothing wrong with the merchant stealing from ordinary residents. Dikoy himself is greedy and rude. He constantly swears and grumbles. We can say that due to greed, Savl Prokofievich’s character deteriorated. There was nothing human left in him. The reader even sympathizes with Gobsek from the story of the same name by O. Balzac more than with Dikiy. There are no feelings towards this character other than disgust. But in the city of Kalinov, its inhabitants themselves indulge the Dikiy: they ask him for money, they are humiliated, they know that they will be insulted and, most likely, they will not give the required amount, but they ask anyway. Most of all, the merchant is annoyed by his nephew Boris, because he also needs money. Dikoy is openly rude to him, curses him and demands that he leave. Culture is alien to Savl Prokofievich. He doesn't know either Derzhavin or Lomonosov. He is only interested in the accumulation and increase of material wealth.

Kabanikha is different from Wild. “Under the guise of piety,” she tries to subordinate everything to her will. She raised an ungrateful and deceitful daughter and a spineless, weak son. Through the prism of blind maternal love, Kabanikha does not seem to notice Varvara’s hypocrisy, but Marfa Ignatievna perfectly understands what she has made her son. Kabanikha treats her daughter-in-law worse than the others.
In her relationship with Katerina, Kabanikha’s desire to control everyone and instill fear in people is manifested. After all, the ruler is either loved or feared, but there is nothing to love Kabanikha for.

It is necessary to note the telling surname of Dikiy and the nickname Kabanikha, which refer readers and viewers to wild, animal life.

Glasha and Feklusha are the lowest link in the hierarchy. They are ordinary residents who are happy to serve such gentlemen. There is an opinion that every nation deserves its own ruler. In the city of Kalinov this is confirmed many times. Glasha and Feklusha are having dialogues about how there is “sodom” in Moscow now, because people there are starting to live differently. Culture and education are alien to the residents of Kalinov. They praise Kabanikha for advocating for the preservation of the patriarchal system. Glasha agrees with Feklusha that only the Kabanov family has preserved the old order. Kabanikha’s house is heaven on earth, because in other places everything is mired in debauchery and bad manners.

The reaction to a thunderstorm in Kalinov is more similar to a reaction to a large-scale natural disaster. People are running to save themselves, trying to hide. This is because a thunderstorm becomes not just a natural phenomenon, but a symbol of God’s punishment. This is how Savl Prokofievich and Katerina perceive her. However, Kuligin is not at all afraid of thunderstorms. He urges people not to panic, tells Dikiy about the benefits of the lightning rod, but he is deaf to the requests of the inventor. Kuligin cannot actively resist the established order; he has adapted to life in such an environment. Boris understands that in Kalinov, Kuligin’s dreams will remain dreams. At the same time, Kuligin differs from other residents of the city. He is honest, modest, plans to earn money by his own labor, without asking the rich for help. The inventor studied in detail all the ways in which the city lives; knows what is happening behind closed doors, knows about the Wild One’s deceptions, but cannot do anything about it.

Ostrovsky in “The Thunderstorm” depicts the city of Kalinov and its inhabitants from a negative point of view. The playwright wanted to show how deplorable the situation is in the provincial cities of Russia, and emphasized that social problems require immediate solutions.

The given description of the city of Kalinov and its inhabitants will be useful to 10th grade students when preparing an essay on the topic “The city of Kalinov and its inhabitants in the play “The Thunderstorm”.”

“Thunderstorm” the city of Kalinov and its inhabitants in Piecha - an essay on the topic |

Ural State Pedagogical University

Test

on Russian literature of the 19th (2nd) century

IV year correspondence students

IFC and MK

Agapova Anastasia Anatolyevna

Ekaterinburg

2011

Subject: The image of the city of Kalinov in “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky.

Plan:

Brief biography of the writer
Image of the city of Kalinova
Conclusion
Bibliography

Brief biography of the writer

Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky was born on September 29 in the village of Viliya, Volyn province, into a working-class family. He worked as an assistant electrician, and from 1923 - in a leading Komsomol job. In 1927, progressive paralysis confined Ostrovsky to bed, and a year later the future writer became blind, but, “continuing to fight for the ideas of communism,” he decided to take up literature. At the beginning of the 30s, the autobiographical novel “How the Steel Was Tempered” (1935) was written - one of the textbook works of Soviet literature. In 1936, the novel “Born of the Storm” was published, which the author did not have time to finish. Nikolai Ostrovsky died on December 22, 1936.

The history of the creation of the story "The Thunderstorm"

The play was begun by Alexander Ostrovsky in July and completed on October 9, 1859. The manuscript is kept inRussian State Library.

The writing of the play “The Thunderstorm” is also associated with the writer’s personal drama. In the manuscript of the play, next to Katerina’s famous monologue: “And what dreams I had, Varenka, what dreams! Or golden temples, or some extraordinary gardens, and everyone is singing invisible voices...” (5), there is Ostrovsky’s entry: “I heard from L.P. about the same dream...”. L.P. is an actressLyubov Pavlovna Kositskaya, with whom the young playwright had a very difficult personal relationship: both had families. The actress's husband was an artist of the Maly TheaterI. M. Nikulin. And Alexander Nikolaevich also had a family: he lived in a civil marriage with the commoner Agafya Ivanovna, with whom he had common children - they all died as children. Ostrovsky lived with Agafya Ivanovna for almost twenty years.

It was Lyubov Pavlovna Kositskaya who served as the prototype for the image of the heroine of the play, Katerina, and she also became the first performer of the role.

In 1848, Alexander Ostrovsky went with his family to Kostroma, to the Shchelykovo estate. The natural beauty of the Volga region struck the playwright, and then he thought about the play. For a long time it was believed that the plot of the drama “The Thunderstorm” was taken by Ostrovsky from the life of the Kostroma merchants. At the beginning of the 20th century, Kostroma residents could accurately indicate the place of Katerina’s suicide.

In his play, Ostrovsky raises the problem of the turning point in social life that occurred in the 1850s, the problem of changing social foundations.

5 Ostrovsky A. N. Thunderstorm. State Publishing House of Fiction. Moscow, 1959.

3. Image of the city of Kalinov

“The Thunderstorm” is rightfully considered one of the masterpieces of Ostrovsky and all Russian drama. “The Thunderstorm” is, without a doubt, Ostrovsky’s most decisive work.

Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" shows the ordinary provincial life of the provincial merchant town of Kalinov. It is located on the high bank of the Russian Volga River. The Volga is a great Russian river, a natural parallel to Russian destiny, Russian soul, Russian character, which means that everything that happens on its banks is understandable and easily recognizable to every Russian person. The view from the shore is divine. The Volga appears here in all its glory. The town itself is no different from others: merchant houses in abundance, a church, a boulevard.

Residents lead their own special way of life. Life in the capital is changing quickly, but here everything is the same as before. Monotonous and slow passage of time. The elders teach the younger ones in everything, but the younger ones are afraid to stick their nose out. There are few visitors to the city, so everyone is mistaken for a stranger, like an overseas curiosity.

The heroes of "The Thunderstorm" live without even suspecting how ugly and dark their existence is. For some, their city is “paradise”, and if it is not ideal, then at least it represents the traditional structure of society of that time. Others do not accept either the situation or the city itself that gave birth to this situation. And yet they constitute an unenviable minority, while others maintain complete neutrality.

Residents of the city, without realizing it, fear that just a story about another city, about other people, can dispel the illusion of prosperity in their “promised land.” In the remark preceding the text, the author determines the place and time of the drama. This is no longer Zamoskvorechye, so characteristic of many of Ostrovsky’s plays, but the city of Kalinov on the banks of the Volga. The city is fictional, in it you can see the features of a variety of Russian cities. The landscape background of “Thunderstorms” also gives a certain emotional mood, allowing, by contrast, to more acutely feel the stuffy atmosphere of life in Kalinovsky.

The events take place in the summer, with 10 days passing between acts 3 and 4. The playwright does not say in what year the events take place; any year can be staged - so typical is what is described in the play for Russian life in the provinces. Ostrovsky especially stipulates that everyone is dressed in Russian, only Boris’s costume corresponds to European standards, which have already penetrated into the life of the Russian capital. This is how new touches appear in depicting the way of life in the city of Kalinov. Time seemed to have stopped here, and life turned out to be closed, impenetrable to new trends.

The main people of the city are tyrant merchants who try to “enslave the poor in order to make even more money from his free labor.” They keep in complete subordination not only the employees, but also the household, who are entirely dependent on them and therefore unresponsive. Considering themselves to be right in everything, they are sure that it is on them that the light rests, and therefore they force all households to strictly follow house-building orders and rituals. Their religiosity is distinguished by the same ritualism: they go to church, observe fasts, receive strangers, generously give them gifts and at the same time tyrannize their family “And what tears flow behind these constipations, invisible and inaudible!.” The internal, moral side of religion is completely alien to Wild and Kabanova, representatives of the “Dark Kingdom” of the City of Kalinov.

The playwright creates a closed patriarchal world: the Kalinovites do not know about the existence of other lands and simply believe the stories of the townspeople:

What is Lithuania? – So it is Lithuania. - And they say, my brother, it fell on us from the sky... I don’t know how to tell you, from the sky, from the sky...

Feklushi:

I...haven’t walked far, but I’ve heard – I’ve heard a lot...

And then there is also a land where all the people have dog heads...For infidelity.

That there are distant countries where “Saltan Maxnut the Turkish” and “Saltan Makhnut the Persian” rule.

Here you have...rarely does anyone come out of the gate to sit...but in Moscow there are festivals and games along the streets, sometimes there is a groan... Why, they began to harness a fiery serpent...

The world of the city is motionless and closed: its inhabitants have a vague idea of their past and know nothing about what is happening outside Kalinov. The absurd stories of Feklushi and the townspeople create distorted ideas about the world among the Kalinovites and instill fear in their souls. She brings darkness and ignorance into society, mourns the end of the good old days, and condemns the new order. The new is powerfully entering life, undermining the foundations of the Domostroev order. Feklusha’s words about “the last times” sound symbolic. She strives to win over those around her, so the tone of her speech is insinuating and flattering.

The life of the city of Kalinov is reproduced in volume, with detailed details. The city appears on the stage, with its streets, houses, beautiful nature, and citizens. The reader seems to see with his own eyes the beauty of Russian nature. Here, on the banks of the free river, glorified by the people, the tragedy that shocked Kalinov will occur. And the first words in “The Thunderstorm” are the words of a familiar song of freedom, sung by Kuligin, a man who deeply feels beauty:

Among the flat valley, at a smooth height, a tall oak blossoms and grows. In mighty beauty.

Silence, excellent air, the smell of flowers from the meadows from across the Volga, the sky is clear... An abyss of stars has opened up and is full...
Miracles, truly it must be said, miracles!... For fifty years I have been looking across the Volga every day and I can’t get enough of it!
The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices! Delight! Either you look closely or you don’t understand what beauty is spilled out in nature. -he says (5). However, next to poetry there is a completely different, unsightly, repulsive side of Kalinov’s reality. It is revealed in Kuligin’s assessments, felt in the characters’ conversations, and sounds in the prophecies of the half-crazy lady.

The only enlightened person in the play, Kuligin, looks like an eccentric in the eyes of the townspeople. Naive, kind, honest, he does not oppose Kalinov’s world, humbly endures not only ridicule, but also rudeness and insult. However, it is he who the author instructs to characterize the “dark kingdom”.

It seems as if Kalinov is fenced off from the whole world and lives some kind of special, closed life. But can we really say that life is completely different in other places? No, this is a typical picture of the Russian province and the wild customs of patriarchal life. Stagnation.

There is no clear description of the city of Kalinov in the play.But as you read it, you can vividly imagine the outlines of the town and its inner life.

5 Ostrovsky A. N. Thunderstorm. State Publishing House of Fiction. Moscow, 1959.

The central position in the play is occupied by the image of the main character Katerina Kabanova. For her, the city is a cage from which she is not destined to escape. The main reason for Katerina’s attitude towards the city is that she has learned the contrast. Her happy childhood and serene youth passed, above all, under the sign of freedom. Having gotten married and finding herself in Kalinov, Katerina felt like she was in prison. The city and the prevailing situation in it (traditionality and patriarchy) only aggravate the situation of the heroine. Her suicide - a challenge given to the city - was committed on the basis of Katerina’s internal state and the surrounding reality.
Boris, a hero who also came “from outside,” develops a similar point of view. Probably, their love was due precisely to this. In addition, for him, like Katerina, the main role in the family is played by the “domestic tyrant” Dikoy, who is a direct product of the city and is a direct part of it.
The above can be fully applied to Kabanikha. But for her the city is not ideal; before her eyes, old traditions and foundations are crumbling. Kabanikha is one of those who is trying to preserve them, but only “Chinese ceremonies” remain.
It is on the basis of the differences between the heroes that the main conflict arises - the struggle between the old, the patriarchal and the new, reason and ignorance. The city gave birth to people like Dikoy and Kabanikha, they (and wealthy merchants like them) rule the roost. And all the city’s shortcomings are fueled by morals and environment, which in turn support Kabanikh and Dikoy with all their might.
The artistic space of the play is closed, it is confined exclusively to the city of Kalinov, the more difficult it is to find a way for those who are trying to escape from the city. In addition, the city is static, like its main inhabitants. That is why the stormy Volga contrasts so sharply with the stillness of the city. The river embodies movement. The city perceives any movement as extremely painful.
At the very beginning of the play, Kuligin, who is in some respects similar to Katerina, talks about the surrounding landscape. He sincerely admires the beauty of the natural world, although Kuligin has a very good idea of the internal structure of the city of Kalinov. Not many characters are given the ability to see and admire the world around them, especially in the setting of the “dark kingdom.” For example, Kudryash does not notice anything, just as he tries not to notice the cruel morals reigning around him. The natural phenomenon shown in Ostrovsky's work - a thunderstorm - is also viewed differently by city residents (by the way, according to one of the heroes, thunderstorms are a frequent occurrence in Kalinov, this makes it possible to classify it as part of the city's landscape). For Wild, a thunderstorm is an event given to people as a test by God; for Katerina, it is a symbol of the near end of her drama, a symbol of fear. Only Kuligin perceives a thunderstorm as an ordinary natural phenomenon, which one can even rejoice at.

The town is small, so from a high point on the shore where the public garden is located, the fields of nearby villages are visible. The houses in the city are wooden, and there is a flower garden near each house. This was the case almost everywhere in Russia. This is the house Katerina used to live in. She recalls: “I used to get up early; If it’s summer, I’ll go to the spring, wash myself, bring some water with me, and that’s it, I’ll water all the flowers in the house. I had many, many flowers. Then we’ll go to church with mommy...”
The church is the main place in any village in Russia. The people were very pious, and the church was given the most beautiful part of the city. It was built on a hill and should have been visible from everywhere in the city. Kalinov was no exception, and the church there was a meeting place for all residents, the source of all conversations and gossip. Walking near the church, Kuligin tells Boris about the order of life here: “Cruel morals in our city,” he says, “In the philistinism, sir, you will not see anything except rudeness and basic poverty” (4). Money makes everything happen - that’s the motto of that life. And yet, the writer’s love for cities like Kalinov is felt in the discreet but warm descriptions of local landscapes.

"It's quiet, the air is great, because...

The Volga of servants smells of flowers, unclean..."

I just want to find myself in that place, to walk along the boulevard with the residents. After all, the boulevard is also one of the main places in small and large cities. The whole class goes out to the boulevard for a walk in the evening.
Previously, when there were no museums, cinemas, or television, the boulevard was the main place of entertainment. Mothers took their daughters there as if to a bridesmaid, married couples proved the strength of their union, and young men looked for future wives. But nevertheless, the life of ordinary people is boring and monotonous. For people with a lively and sensitive nature, such as Katerina, this life is a burden. It sucks you in like a quagmire, and there is no way to get out of it or change anything. On this high note of tragedy, the life of the main character of the play, Katerina, ends. “It’s better in the grave,” she says. She was able to get out of monotony and boredom only in this way. Concluding her “protest, driven to despair,” Katerina draws attention to the same despair of other residents of the city of Kalinov. This despair is expressed in different ways. It is, according to

Dobrolyubov’s designation fits into various types of social clashes: younger with older, unrequited with self-willed, poor with rich. After all, Ostrovsky, bringing the residents of Kalinov onto the stage, draws a panorama of the morals of not just one city, but the entire society, where a person depends only on wealth, which gives strength, whether he is a fool or a smart one, a nobleman or a commoner.

The title of the play itself has a symbolic meaning. A thunderstorm in nature is perceived differently by the characters in the play: for Kuligin it is “grace,” with which “every... grass, every flower rejoices,” while the Kalinovites hide from it as if from “some misfortune.” The thunderstorm intensifies Katerina's spiritual drama, her tension, influencing the very outcome of this drama. The thunderstorm gives the play not only emotional tension, but also a pronounced tragic flavor. At the same time, N.A. Dobrolyubov saw something “refreshing and encouraging” in the ending of the drama. It is known that Ostrovsky himself, who attached great importance to the title of the play, wrote to the playwright N. Ya. Solovyov that if he cannot find a title for the work, it means that “the idea of the play is not clear to him.”

In “The Thunderstorm,” the playwright often uses the techniques of parallelism and antithesis in the system of images and directly in the plot itself, in the depiction of pictures of nature. The technique of antithesis is especially clearly manifested: in the contrast between the two main characters - Katerina and Kabanikha; in the composition of the third act, the first scene (at the gates of Kabanova’s house) and the second (night meeting in the ravine) differ sharply from each other; in the depiction of scenes of nature and, in particular, the approach of a thunderstorm in the first and fourth acts.

Conclusion

Ostrovsky in his play showed a fictional city, but it looks extremely authentic. The author saw with pain how backward Russia was politically, economically, and culturally, how dark the population of the country was, especially in the provinces.

Ostrovsky not only recreates the panorama of city life in detail, specifically and in many ways, but also, using various dramatic means and techniques, introduces elements of the natural world and the world of distant cities and countries into the artistic world of the play. The peculiarity of vision of the environment inherent in the townspeople creates the effect of a fantastic, incredible “lostness” of Kalinovsky life.

A special role in the play is played by the landscape, described not only in the stage directions, but also in the dialogues of the characters. Some people can understand its beauty, others have taken a closer look at it and are completely indifferent. The Kalinovites not only “fenced off, isolated” themselves from other cities, countries, lands, they made their souls, their consciousness immune to the influence of the natural world, a world full of life, harmony, and higher meaning.

People who perceive their surroundings in this way are ready to believe in anything, even the most incredible, as long as it does not threaten to destroy their “quiet, heavenly life.” This position is based on fear, psychological unwillingness to change something in one’s life. Thus, the playwright creates not only an external, but also an internal, psychological background for the tragic story of Katerina.

“The Thunderstorm” is a drama with a tragic ending; the author uses satirical techniques, on the basis of which readers develop a negative attitude towards Kalinov and his typical representatives. He especially introduces satire to show the ignorance and lack of education of the Kalinovites.

Thus, Ostrovsky creates an image of a city traditional for the first half of the 19th century. The author shows through the eyes of his heroes. The image of Kalinov is collective; the author knew the merchants well and the environment in which they developed. Thus, with the help of different points of view of the characters in the play “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky creates a complete picture of the district merchant town of Kalinov.

Bibliography

Anastasyev A. “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky. “Fiction” Moscow, 1975.
Kachurin M. G., Motolskaya D. K. Russian literature. Moscow, Education, 1986.
Lobanov P. P. Ostrovsky. Moscow, 1989.
Ostrovsky A. N. Selected works. Moscow, Children's literature, 1965.

5. Ostrovsky A. N. Thunderstorm. State Publishing House of Fiction. Moscow, 1959.

6. http://referati.vladbazar.com

7. http://www.litra.ru/com

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was a master of precise descriptions. The playwright in his works managed to show all the dark sides of the human soul. Perhaps unsightly and negative, but without which it is impossible to create a complete picture. Criticizing Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov pointed to his “folk” worldview, seeing the writer’s main merit in the fact that Ostrovsky was able to notice those qualities in Russian people and society that can hinder natural progress. The theme of the “dark kingdom” is raised in many of Ostrovsky’s dramas. In the play “The Thunderstorm,” the city of Kalinov and its inhabitants are shown as limited, “dark” people.

The city of Kalinov in “The Thunderstorm” is a fictional space. The author wanted to emphasize that the vices that exist in this city are characteristic of all Russian cities at the end of the 19th century. And all the problems that are raised in the work existed everywhere at that time. Dobrolyubov calls Kalinov a “dark kingdom.” The definition of a critic fully characterizes the atmosphere described in Kalinov. Residents of Kalinov should be considered inextricably linked with the city. All the inhabitants of the city of Kalinov deceive each other, steal, and terrorize other family members. Power in the city belongs to those who have money, and the mayor’s power is only nominal. This becomes clear from Kuligin’s conversation. The mayor comes to Dikiy with a complaint: the men complained about Savl Prokofievich, because he cheated them. Dikoy does not try to justify himself at all; on the contrary, he confirms the words of the mayor, saying that if merchants steal from each other, then there is nothing wrong with the merchant stealing from ordinary residents. Dikoy himself is greedy and rude. He constantly swears and grumbles. We can say that due to greed, Savl Prokofievich’s character deteriorated. There was nothing human left in him. The reader even sympathizes with Gobsek from the story of the same name by O. Balzac more than with Dikiy. There are no feelings towards this character other than disgust. But in the city of Kalinov, its inhabitants themselves indulge the Dikiy: they ask him for money, they are humiliated, they know that they will be insulted and, most likely, they will not give the required amount, but they ask anyway. Most of all, the merchant is annoyed by his nephew Boris, because he also needs money. Dikoy is openly rude to him, curses him and demands that he leave. Culture is alien to Savl Prokofievich. He doesn't know either Derzhavin or Lomonosov. He is only interested in the accumulation and increase of material wealth.

Kabanikha is different from Wild. “Under the guise of piety,” she tries to subordinate everything to her will. She raised an ungrateful and deceitful daughter and a spineless, weak son. Through the prism of blind maternal love, Kabanikha does not seem to notice Varvara’s hypocrisy, but Marfa Ignatievna perfectly understands what she has made her son. Kabanikha treats her daughter-in-law worse than the others. In her relationship with Katerina, Kabanikha’s desire to control everyone and instill fear in people is manifested. After all, the ruler is either loved or feared, but there is nothing to love Kabanikha for.
It is necessary to note the telling surname of Dikiy and the nickname Kabanikha, which refer readers and viewers to wild, animal life.

Work test

Dramatic events of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm" takes place in the city of Kalinov. This town is located on the picturesque bank of the Volga, from the high cliff of which the vast Russian expanses and boundless distances open up to the eye. “The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices,” enthuses local self-taught mechanic Kuligin.
Pictures of endless distances, echoed in a lyrical song. Among the flat valleys,” which he sings, are of great importance for conveying the feeling of the immense possibilities of Russian life, on the one hand, and the limitations of life in a small merchant town, on the other.

Magnificent paintings of the Volga landscape are organically woven into the structure of the play. At first glance, they contradict its dramatic nature, but in fact they introduce new colors into the depiction of the scene of action, thereby performing an important artistic function: the play begins with a picture of a steep bank, and it ends with it. Only in the first case does it give rise to a feeling of something majestically beautiful and bright, and in the second - catharsis. The landscape also serves to more vividly depict the characters - Kuligin and Katerina, who subtly sense its beauty, on the one hand, and everyone who is indifferent to it, on the other. The brilliant playwright so carefully recreated the scene of action that we can visually imagine the city Kalinov, immersed in greenery, as he is depicted in the play. We see its high fences, and gates with strong locks, and wooden houses with patterned shutters and colored window curtains filled with geraniums and balsams. We also see taverns where people like Dikoy and Tikhon are carousing in a drunken stupor. We see the dusty streets of Kalinovsky, where ordinary people, merchants and wanderers talk on benches in front of the houses, and where sometimes a song can be heard from afar to the accompaniment of a guitar, and behind the gates of the houses the descent begins to the ravine, where young people have fun at night. A gallery with vaults of dilapidated buildings opens to our eyes; a public garden with gazebos, pink bell towers and ancient gilded churches, where “noble families” walk decorously and where the social life of this small merchant town unfolds. Finally, we see the Volga pool, in the abyss of which Katerina is destined to find her final refuge.

Residents of Kalinov lead a sleepy, measured existence: “They go to bed very early, so it’s difficult for an unaccustomed person to endure such a sleepy night.” On holidays, they walk decorously along the boulevard, but “they only pretend to be walking, but they themselves go there to show off their outfits.” The inhabitants are superstitious and submissive, they have no desire for culture, science, they are not interested in new ideas and thoughts. The sources of news and rumors are pilgrims, pilgrims, and “walking kaliki.” The basis of relationships between people in Kalinov is material dependence. Here money is everything. “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! - says Kuligin, addressing a new person in the city, Boris. “In philistinism, sir, you will see nothing but rudeness and stark poverty.” And we, sir, will never get out of this crust. Because honest work will never earn us more than our daily bread. And whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor in order to make even more money from his free labors. He testifies: “And among themselves, sir, how they live! They undermine each other's trade, and not so much out of self-interest as out of envy. They are at enmity with each other; they get drunken clerks into their high mansions... And they... write malicious clauses about their neighbors. And for them, sir, a trial and a case will begin, and there will be no end to the torment.”

A vivid figurative expression of the manifestation of rudeness and hostility that reigns in Kalinov is the ignorant tyrant Savel Prokofich Dikoy, a “scold man” and a “shrill man,” as its residents characterize it. Endowed with an unbridled temper, he intimidated his family (dispersed “to attics and closets”), terrorizes his nephew Boris, who “got to him as a sacrifice” and which, according to Kudryash, he constantly “rides.” He also mocks other townspeople, cheats, “shows off” over them, “as his heart desires,” rightly believing that there is no one to “calm him down” anyway. Swearing and swearing for any reason is not only the usual way of treating people, it is his nature, his character, the content of his entire life.

Another personification of the “cruel morals” of the city of Kalinov is Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, a “hypocrite,” as the same Kuligin characterizes her. “He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” Kabanikha firmly stands guard over the established order established in her home, jealously guarding this life from the fresh wind of change. She cannot come to terms with the fact that the young people do not like her way of life, that they want to live differently. She doesn't swear like Dikoy. She has her own methods of intimidation, she corrosively, “like rusting iron,” “sharpenes” her loved ones.

Dikoy and Kabanova (one - rudely and openly, the other - “under the guise of piety”) poison the lives of those around them, suppressing them, subordinating them to their orders, destroying bright feelings in them. For them, the loss of power is the loss of everything in which they see the meaning of existence. That’s why they hate new customs, honesty, sincerity in the expression of feelings, and the attraction of young people to “freedom.”

A special role in the “dark kingdom” belongs to the ignorant, deceitful and arrogant wanderer-beggar Feklusha. She “wanders” through cities and villages, collecting absurd tales and fantastic stories - about the depreciation of time, about people with dog heads, about scattering chaff, about a fiery serpent. One gets the impression that she deliberately misinterprets what she hears, that she takes pleasure in spreading all these gossip and ridiculous rumors - thanks to this, she is willingly accepted in the houses of Kalinov and towns like it. Feklusha does not fulfill her mission selflessly: she will be fed here, given something to drink here, and given gifts there. The image of Feklusha, personifying evil, hypocrisy and gross ignorance, was very typical of the environment depicted. Such feklushi, carriers of nonsense news that clouded the consciousness of ordinary people, and pilgrims were necessary for the owners of the city, as they supported the authority of their government.

Finally, another colorful exponent of the cruel morals of the “dark kingdom” is the half-crazed lady in the play. She rudely and cruelly threatens the death of someone else's beauty. These terrible prophecies, sounding like the voice of tragic fate, receive their bitter confirmation in the finale. In the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote: “In The Thunderstorm the need for the so-called “unnecessary faces” is especially visible: without them we cannot understand the heroine’s face and can easily distort the meaning of the entire play...”

Dikoy, Kabanova, Feklusha and the half-crazy lady - representatives of the older generation - are exponents of the worst sides of the old world, its darkness, mysticism and cruelty. These characters have nothing to do with the past, rich in its own unique culture and traditions. But in the city of Kalinov, in conditions that suppress, break and paralyze the will, representatives of the younger generation also live. Someone, like Katerina, closely bound by the way of the city and dependent on it, lives and suffers, strives to escape from it, and someone, like Varvara, Kudryash, Boris and Tikhon, humbles himself, accepts its laws or finds ways to reconcile with them .

Tikhon, the son of Marfa Kabanova and Katerina’s husband, is naturally endowed with a gentle, quiet disposition. He has kindness, responsiveness, the ability to make sound judgment, and the desire to break free from the clutches in which he finds himself, but weak-willedness and timidity outweigh his positive qualities. He is used to unquestioningly obeying his mother, doing everything she demands, and is not able to show disobedience. He is unable to truly appreciate the extent of Katerina’s suffering, unable to penetrate her spiritual world. Only in the finale does this weak-willed but internally contradictory person rise to open condemnation of his mother’s tyranny.

Boris, “a young man of decent education,” is the only one who does not belong to the Kalinovsky world by birth. This is a mentally soft and delicate, simple and modest person, and, moreover, his education, manners, and speech are noticeably different from most Kalinovites. He does not understand local customs, but is unable either to defend himself from the insults of the Wild One, or to “resist the dirty tricks that others do.” Katerina sympathizes with his dependent, humiliated position. But we can only sympathize with Katerina - she happened to meet on her way a weak-willed man, subordinate to the whims and whims of his uncle and doing nothing to change this situation. N.A. was right. Dobrolyubov, who claimed that “Boris is not a hero, he stands far from Katerina, and she fell in love with him in the desert.”

Cheerful and cheerful Varvara - the daughter of Kabanikha and the sister of Tikhon - is a vitally full-blooded image, but she emanates some kind of spiritual primitiveness, starting with her actions and everyday behavior and ending with her thoughts about life and rudely cheeky speech. She adapted, learned to be cunning so as not to obey her mother. She is too down to earth in everything. Such is her protest - escaping with Kudryash, who is well acquainted with the customs of the merchant environment, but lives easily” without hesitation. Varvara, who learned to live guided by the principle: “Do what you want, as long as it’s covered and covered,” expressed her protest at the everyday level, but on the whole she lives according to the laws of the “dark kingdom” and in her own way finds agreement with it.

Kuligin, a local self-taught mechanic who in the play acts as an “exposer of vices,” sympathizes with the poor, is concerned with improving people’s lives, having received a reward for the discovery of a perpetual motion machine. He is an opponent of superstitions, a champion of knowledge, science, creativity, enlightenment, but his own knowledge is not enough.
He doesn’t see an active way to resist tyrants, and therefore prefers to submit. It is clear that this is not the person who is able to bring novelty and fresh air into the life of the city of Kalinov.

Among the characters in the drama, there is no one, except Boris, who does not belong to the Kalinovsky world by birth or upbringing. All of them revolve in the sphere of concepts and ideas of a closed patriarchal environment. But life does not stand still, and tyrants feel that their power is being limited. “Besides them, without asking them,” says N.A. Dobrolyubov, - another life has grown, with different beginnings ... "

Of all the characters, only Katerina - a deeply poetic nature, filled with high lyricism - is focused on the future. Because, as noted by academician N.N. Skatov, “Katerina was brought up not only in the narrow world of a merchant family, she was born not only by the patriarchal world, but by the entire world of national, people’s life, already spilling over the boundaries of patriarchy.” Katerina embodies the spirit of this world, its dream, its impulse. She alone was able to express her protest, proving, albeit at the cost of her own life, that the end of the “dark kingdom” was approaching. By creating such an expressive image of A.N. Ostrovsky showed that even in the ossified world of a provincial town, a “folk character of amazing beauty and strength” can arise, whose pen is based on love, on a free dream of justice, beauty, some kind of higher truth.

Poetic and prosaic, sublime and mundane, human and animal - these principles are paradoxically united in the life of a provincial Russian town, but in this life, unfortunately, darkness and oppressive melancholy prevail, which N.A. could not better characterize. Dobrolyubov, calling this world a “dark kingdom.” This phraseological unit is of fairy-tale origin, but the merchant world of "The Thunderstorm", we are convinced of this, is devoid of that poetic, mysterious and captivating that is usually characteristic of a fairy tale. “Cruel morals” reign in this city, cruel...

Essay on the topic “Thunderstorm - The City of Kalinov and its inhabitants” 5.00 /5 (100.00%) 2 votes

The drama “The Thunderstorm” by A.N. Ostrovsky reflects many important and pressing problems of all times. The author reveals them not only through the heroes and their characters, but also with the help of auxiliary images. For example, the image of the City of Kalinov plays an important role in this work.
The city of Kalinov is a collective image. He is the personification of many provincial cities of the 19th century. A city living by its own ignorant and outdated laws. The city of Kalinov is located on the banks of the Volga and adheres to old foundations and traditions, while the city’s residents do not want to accept anything new. This so-called “dark kingdom” and its inhabitants protest against progress and all kinds of innovation.
Residents of the city of Kalinova are monotonous people with a monotonous life. All heroes can be divided into two parts: those who rule and those who obey.
The first group includes Kabanikha. Kabanova Marfa Ignatievna is a powerful woman who knows how to command the people around her. She wants to be obeyed. In fact, it is true. Her son, Tikhon, has neither the right to choose nor his own opinion. He is already accustomed to humiliation and agrees with his mother in everything.
Varvara is Kabanikha’s daughter, Tikhon’s sister. The girl says that all life in their house is based on fear and lies.
The above heroes also include the Wild. He, like Kabanikha, adheres to old customs and fights progress in every possible way. Dikoy is not stupid, but he is very stingy and ignorant. The hero admits that the most important thing for him is money, but he hides behind the desires of his heart.
Opposed to all this “dark kingdom” is the young and completely misunderstood Katerina. She is a free person who lives by her own moral and spiritual principles. The boar immediately disliked her daughter-in-law and tried in every possible way to humiliate her. The girl humbly and meekly followed all her mother-in-law’s orders and endured humiliation and insults. But in the end, she could not stand it and committed suicide.
All the ignorance in the city of Kalinov pushed her to this. Residents could live normally, but due to ignorance and unwillingness to know, they die in their fictional cruel world.
A thunderstorm over the city becomes a symbol of grief and a harbinger of trouble. This is like God's punishment for the religious Katerina. But on the other hand, according to Dobrolyubov, the thunderstorm is the liberation of the girl from this dark captivity.
Katerina's suicide. What is this? Awareness of one’s guilt or a challenge to the “dark kingdom” and its inhabitants. Katerina is a fighter for justice, for peace. She was against ignorance and vulgarity. Despite this, we see that the world of Kabanikha and Wild will soon collapse, because sooner or later the old goes away and the new comes in its place. Both the author and each of the readers understand that progress cannot be stopped by the imperious Kabanikha. Not to the Wild.