Characteristics of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm”, with quotes. The image of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” General characteristics of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm”

The main characters of Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm"

The events in A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” take place on the Volga coast, in the fictional city of Kalinov. The work provides a list of characters and their brief characteristics, but they are still not enough to better understand the world of each character and reveal the conflict of the play as a whole. There are not many main characters in Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm”.

Katerina, a girl, the main character of the play. She is quite young, she was married off early. Katya was brought up exactly according to the traditions of house-building: the main qualities of a wife were respect and submission to her husband. At first, Katya tried to love Tikhon, but she could not feel anything but pity for him. At the same time, the girl tried to support her husband, help him and not reproach him. Katerina can be called the most modest, but at the same time the most powerful character in “The Thunderstorm”. Indeed, Katya’s strength of character does not appear outwardly. At first glance, this girl is weak and silent, it seems as if she is easy to break. But this is not true at all. Katerina is the only one in the family who resists Kabanikha’s attacks. She resists, and does not ignore them, like Varvara. The conflict is rather internal in nature. After all, Kabanikha is afraid that Katya might influence her son, after which Tikhon will stop obeying his mother’s will.

Katya wants to fly and often compares herself to a bird. She is literally suffocating in Kalinov’s “dark kingdom”. Having fallen in love with a visiting young man, Katya created for herself an ideal image of love and possible liberation. Unfortunately, her ideas had little to do with reality. The girl's life ended tragically.

Ostrovsky in “The Thunderstorm” makes not only Katerina the main character. The image of Katya is contrasted with the image of Marfa Ignatievna. A woman who keeps her entire family in fear and tension does not command respect. Kabanikha is strong and despotic. Most likely, she took over the “reins of power” after the death of her husband. Although it is more likely that in her marriage Kabanikha was not distinguished by submissiveness. Katya, her daughter-in-law, got the most from her. It is Kabanikha who is indirectly responsible for the death of Katerina.

Varvara is the daughter of Kabanikha. Despite the fact that over so many years she has learned to be cunning and lie, the reader still sympathizes with her. Varvara is a good girl. Surprisingly, deception and cunning do not make her like other residents of the city. She does as she pleases and lives as she pleases. Varvara is not afraid of her mother’s anger, since she is not an authority for her.

Tikhon Kabanov fully lives up to his name. He is quiet, weak, unnoticeable. Tikhon cannot protect his wife from his mother, since he himself is under the strong influence of Kabanikha. His rebellion ultimately proves to be the most significant. After all, it is the words, and not Varvara’s escape, that make readers think about the whole tragedy of the situation.

The author characterizes Kuligin as a self-taught mechanic. This character is a kind of tour guide. In the first act, he seems to be taking us around Kalinov, talking about its morals, about the families that live here, about the social situation. Kuligin seems to know everything about everyone. His assessments of others are very accurate. Kuligin himself is a kind person who is used to living by established rules. He constantly dreams of the common good, of a perpetu mobile, of a lightning rod, of honest work. Unfortunately, his dreams are not destined to come true.

The Wild One has a clerk, Kudryash. This character is interesting because he is not afraid of the merchant and can tell him what he thinks about him. At the same time, Kudryash, just like Dikoy, tries to find benefit in everything. He can be described as a simple person.

Boris comes to Kalinov on business: he urgently needs to establish relations with Dikiy, because only in this case will he be able to receive the money legally bequeathed to him. However, neither Boris nor Dikoy even want to see each other. Initially, Boris seems to readers like Katya, honest and fair. In the last scenes this is refuted: Boris is unable to decide to take a serious step, to take responsibility, he simply runs away, leaving Katya alone.

One of the heroes of “The Thunderstorm” is a wanderer and a maid. Feklusha and Glasha are shown as typical inhabitants of the city of Kalinov. Their darkness and lack of education is truly amazing. Their judgments are absurd and their horizons are very narrow. Women judge morality and ethics according to some perverted, distorted concepts. “Moscow is now full of carnivals and games, but through the streets there is an indo roar and groan. Why, Mother Marfa Ignatievna, they started harnessing a fiery serpent: everything, you see, for the sake of speed” - this is how Feklusha speaks about progress and reforms, and the woman calls a car a “fiery serpent”. The concept of progress and culture is alien to such people, because it is convenient for them to live in an invented limited world of calm and regularity.

Characteristics of Katerina from the play “The Thunderstorm”

Using the example of the life of a single family from the fictional city of Kalinov, Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” shows the whole essence of the outdated patriarchal structure of Russia in the 19th century. Katerina is the main character of the work. She is contrasted with all the other characters in the tragedy, even from Kuligin, who also stands out among the residents of Kalinov, Katya is distinguished by her strength of protest. The description of Katerina from “The Thunderstorm”, the characteristics of other characters, the description of the life of the city - all this adds up to a revealing tragic picture, conveyed photographically accurately. The characterization of Katerina from the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky is not limited to just the author’s commentary in the list of characters. The playwright does not evaluate the actions of the heroine, relieving himself of the responsibilities of an all-knowing author. Thanks to this position, each perceiving subject, be it a reader or a viewer, can himself evaluate the heroine based on his own moral convictions.

Katya was married to Tikhon Kabanov, the son of a merchant's wife. It was given out, because then, according to the domostroy, marriage was more likely the will of the parents than the decision of the young people. Katya's husband is a pitiful sight. The child's irresponsibility and immaturity, bordering on idiocy, led to the fact that Tikhon is incapable of anything other than drunkenness. In Marfa Kabanova, the ideas of tyranny and hypocrisy inherent in the entire “dark kingdom” were fully embodied. Katya strives for freedom, comparing herself to a bird. It is difficult for her to survive in conditions of stagnation and slavish worship of false idols. Katerina is truly religious, every trip to church seems like a holiday for her, and as a child, Katya more than once fancied that she heard angels singing. It happened that Katya prayed in the garden, because she believed that the Lord would hear her prayers anywhere, not just in church. But in Kalinov, the Christian faith was deprived of any internal content.

Katerina's dreams allow her to briefly escape from the real world. There she is free, like a bird, free to fly wherever she wants, not subject to any laws. “And what dreams I had, Varenka,” continues Katerina, “what dreams! Either the temples are golden, or the gardens are extraordinary, and everyone is singing invisible voices, and there is a smell of cypress, and the mountains and trees seem not to be the same as usual, but as if depicted in images. And it’s like I’m flying, and I’m flying through the air.” However, recently Katerina has become characterized by a certain mysticism. Everywhere she begins to see imminent death, and in her dreams she sees the evil one who warmly embraces her and then destroys her. These dreams were prophetic.

Katya is dreamy and tender, but along with her fragility, Katerina’s monologues from “The Thunderstorm” reveal perseverance and strength. For example, a girl decides to go out to meet Boris. She was overcome by doubts, she wanted to throw the key to the gate into the Volga, thought about the consequences, but still took an important step for herself: “Throw the key! No, not for anything in the world! He’s mine now... Whatever happens, I’ll see Boris!” Katya is disgusted with Kabanikha’s house; the girl doesn’t like Tikhon. She thought about leaving her husband and, having received a divorce, living honestly with Boris. But there was nowhere to hide from the tyranny of the mother-in-law. With her hysterics, Kabanikha turned the house into hell, stopping any opportunity for escape.

Katerina is surprisingly insightful towards herself. The girl knows about her character traits, about her decisive disposition: “I was born this way, hot! I was only six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, and it was late in the evening, it was already dark; I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore. The next morning they found it, about ten miles away! Such a person will not submit to tyranny, will not be subject to dirty manipulations by Kabanikha. It’s not Katerina’s fault that she was born at a time when a wife had to unquestioningly obey her husband and was an almost powerless appendage whose function was childbearing. By the way, Katya herself says that children could be her joy. But Katya doesn’t have children.

The motif of freedom is repeated many times in the work. The parallel between Katerina and Varvara seems interesting. Sister Tikhon also strives to be free, but this freedom must be physical, freedom from despotism and mother’s prohibitions. At the end of the play, the girl runs away from home, finding what she dreamed of. Katerina understands freedom differently. For her, this is an opportunity to do as she wants, take responsibility for her life, and not obey stupid orders. This is freedom of the soul. Katerina, like Varvara, gains freedom. But such freedom is achievable only through suicide.

In Ostrovsky’s work “The Thunderstorm,” Katerina and the characteristics of her image were perceived differently by critics. If Dobrolyubov saw in the girl a symbol of the Russian soul, tormented by the patriarchal house-building, then Pisarev saw a weak girl who had driven herself into such a situation.

Katya strives for freedom, comparing herself to a bird. It is difficult for her to survive in conditions of stagnation and slavish worship of false idols. Katerina is truly religious, every trip to church seems like a holiday for her, and as a child, Katya more than once fancied that she heard angels singing. It happened that Katya prayed in the garden, because she believed that the Lord would hear her prayers anywhere, not just in church. But in Kalinov, the Christian faith was deprived of any internal content.

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The story told by Ostrovsky is sad and tragic at the same time. The play depicts the fictional town of Kalinov and its inhabitants. The city of Kalinov, like its population, serves as a unique symbol of typical provincial towns and villages in Russia in the 60s of the 19th century.

At the center of the play is the merchant family of Kabanikha and Dikiy. Dikoy was cruel and the richest man in the city. An ignorant tyrant who could not live a day without swearing, and who believed that money gave him every right to mock weaker and defenseless people.

Kabanikha, who established order in the town, adhered to traditional patriarchal customs, was beneficent in public, but extremely cruel to her family. Kabanikha is a fan of house-building.

Her son Tikhon was calm and kind. Daughter Varvara is a lively girl who knows how to hide her feelings, her motto is: “Do what you want, but keep it hidden.” Feklusha in the service of Kabanikha.

Local - Kulibin, who accurately and vividly characterizes the local residents and mercilessly criticizes the cruel morals of the inhabitants. Next comes Dikiy’s nephew Boris, who came to his uncle from Moscow because he promised him part of the inheritance if he was respectful to him.

But the main place in the play is occupied by Tikhon’s wife, Katerina. It is her image that has attracted attention since the creation of the play.

Katerina was from a completely different world. Her family was the complete opposite of her husband's family. She loved to dream, loved freedom, justice, and, having found herself in the Kabanikha family, it was as if she found herself in a dungeon, where she always had to silently obey her mother-in-law’s orders and indulge all her whims.

Outwardly, Katerina is calm, balanced, follows almost all of Kabanikha’s instructions, but inside she has a growing and growing protest against cruelty, tyranny and injustice.

Katerina’s protest reached its finale when Tikhon left on business, and she agreed to live with Boris, whom she liked and was not like the rest of the inhabitants of Kalinov. In some ways he was akin to her.

Varvara, Kabanikha’s daughter, arranges a date between Katerina and Boris. Katerina agrees, but then, tormented by remorse, falls to her knees in front of her puzzled husband and confesses everything to him.

It is impossible to describe the contempt and indignation that fell on Katerina’s head after her confession. Unable to resist him, Katerina rushed into the Volga. Sad, tragic ending.

A ray of light in a dark kingdom

It would seem that what prevented Katerina from leading a calm, carefree life in a wealthy merchant family. Her character got in the way. Outwardly, Katerina seemed like a soft and friendly girl.

But in fact, this is a strong and decisive nature: being quite young, she, having quarreled with her parents, got into the boat and pushed off from the shore; they found her only the next day, ten miles from home.

Katerina's character is characterized by sincerity and strength of feelings. “Why don’t people fly like birds!” - she exclaimed dreamily.

The heroine lived in a completely different world, invented by her, and did not want to live in the world in which Kabanikha lived with her household. “I don’t want to live like this and I won’t! I’ll throw myself into the Volga!” - she often said.

Katerina was a stranger to everyone, and fate had nothing in store for her except oppression and insults in the world of wild boars. The great Russian critic Belinsky called her “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.”

Katerina’s character is also striking in its inconsistency, strength, energy and diversity. Throwing herself into the Volga was, in her opinion, the only salvation from that suffocating, unbearable, intolerable sanctimonious atmosphere in which she had to live.

This undoubtedly brave act was her highest protest against cruelty, bigotry and injustice. Katerina sacrificed in the name of her ideal the most precious thing she had - her life.

The main sources of Katerina's language are folk vernacular, folk oral poetry and church-everyday literature.

The deep connection of her language with popular vernacular is reflected in vocabulary, imagery, and syntax.

Her speech is replete with verbal expressions, idioms of popular vernacular: “So that I don’t see either my father or my mother”; “doted on my soul”; “calm my soul”; “how long does it take to get into trouble”; “to be a sin”, in the sense of misfortune. But these and similar phraseological units are generally understandable, commonly used, and clear. Only as an exception are morphologically incorrect formations found in her speech: “you don’t know my character”; “After this we’ll talk.”

The imagery of her language is manifested in the abundance of verbal and visual means, in particular comparisons. So, in her speech there are more than twenty comparisons, and all the other characters in the play, taken together, have a little more than this number. At the same time, her comparisons are of a wide-spread, folk nature: “as if he were calling me blue,” “as if a dove was cooing,” “as if a mountain had been lifted from my shoulders,” “my hands were burning like coal.”

Katerina’s speech often contains words and phrases, motifs and echoes of folk poetry.

Addressing Varvara, Katerina says: “Why don’t people fly like birds?..” - etc.

Longing for Boris, Katerina says in her penultimate monologue: “Why should I live now, well, why? I don’t need anything, nothing is nice to me, and God’s light is not nice!”

Here there are phraseological turns of a folk-colloquial and folk-song nature. So, for example, in the collection of folk songs published by Sobolevsky, we read:

It’s absolutely impossible to live without a dear friend...

I’ll remember, I’ll remember about the dear one, the white light is not nice to the girl,

The white light is not nice, not nice... I’ll go from the mountain into the dark forest...

speech phraseological thunderstorm Ostrovsky

Going out on a date with Boris, Katerina exclaims: “Why did you come, my destroyer?” In a folk wedding ceremony, the bride greets the groom with the words: “Here comes my destroyer.”

In the final monologue, Katerina says: “It’s better in the grave... There’s a grave under the tree... how good... The sun warms it, the rain wets it... in the spring the grass grows on it, it’s so soft... birds will fly to the tree, they will sing, they will bring out children, the flowers will bloom: yellow , little red ones, little blue ones...”

Everything here comes from folk poetry: diminutive-suffixal vocabulary, phraseological units, images.

For this part of the monologue, direct textile correspondences are abundant in oral poetry. For example:

...They will cover it with an oak board

Yes, they will lower you into the grave

And they will cover it with damp earth.

Overgrow, my grave,

You're an ant in the grass,

More scarlet flowers!

Along with popular vernacular and folk poetry, the language of Katerina, as already noted, was greatly influenced by church literature.

“Our house,” she says, “was full of pilgrims and praying mantises. And we’ll come from church, sit down to do some work... and the wanderers will begin to tell where they have been, what they have seen, different lives, or sing poetry” (D. 1, Rev. 7).

Possessing a relatively rich vocabulary, Katerina speaks freely, drawing on diverse and psychologically very deep comparisons. Her speech flows. So, she is not alien to such words and expressions of literary language as: dreams, thoughts, of course, as if all this happened in one second, there is something so extraordinary in me.

In the first monologue, Katerina talks about her dreams: “And what dreams I had, Varenka, what dreams! Or golden temples, or some extraordinary gardens, and everyone is singing invisible voices, and there is a smell of cypress, and the mountains and trees, as if not the same as usual, but as if they were written in images.”

These dreams, both in content and in the form of verbal expression, are undoubtedly inspired by spiritual poems.

Katerina’s speech is unique not only lexico-phraseologically, but also syntactically. It consists mainly of simple and complex sentences, with predicates placed at the end of the phrase: “So time will pass until lunch. Here the old women fall asleep, and I walk in the garden... It was so good” (D. 1, Rev. 7).

Most often, as is typical for the syntax of folk speech, Katerina connects sentences through the conjunctions a and yes. “And we’ll come from church... and the wanderers will start telling... It’s like I’m flying... And what dreams did I have.”

Katerina’s floating speech sometimes takes on the character of a folk lament: “Oh, my misfortune, my misfortune! (Crying) Where can I, poor thing, go? Who should I grab hold of?

Katerina’s speech is deeply emotional, lyrically sincere, and poetic. To give her speech emotional and poetic expressiveness, diminutive suffixes are used, so inherent in folk speech (key, water, children, grave, rain, grass), and intensifying particles (“How did he feel sorry for me? What words did he say?” ), and interjections (“Oh, how I miss him!”).

The lyrical sincerity and poetry of Katerina’s speech are given by the epithets that come after the defined words (golden temples, extraordinary gardens, with evil thoughts), and repetitions, so characteristic of the oral poetry of the people.

Ostrovsky reveals in Katerina’s speech not only her passionate, tenderly poetic nature, but also her strong-willed strength. Katerina’s willpower and determination are shaded by syntactic constructions of a sharply affirming or negative nature.

According to one version, the drama "The Thunderstorm" was written by Ostrovsky when he was impressed by a married actress, Lyuba Kositskaya. The image of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” appeared precisely thanks to Kositskaya, and it is interesting that she later got this role on stage.

Katerina was born into a merchant family, their house was prosperous, and Katerina’s childhood was carefree and joyful. The heroine herself compared herself to a free bird, and admitted to Varvara that she did whatever she wanted until she got married. Yes, Katerina’s family was good, her upbringing was good, so the girl grew up pure and open. In the image of Katerina one can clearly see a kind, sincere, Russian soul that does not know how to deceive.

Let's continue to look at the image of Katerina in the drama "The Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky, and note that it was very difficult for the girl to live with her husband without pretense, given his family. If we remember Kabanikha, Katerina’s mother-in-law, who keeps everyone at home in fear, it becomes clear why these characters in the drama have a conflict. Of course, Kabanikha acted using methods of humiliation and intimidation, and some were able to adapt to this and come to terms with it. For example, it was easier for Varvara and Tikhon to create the impression that they were completely submissive to their mother, although outside the home both daughter and son indulged in revelry.

Features in the image of Katerina in the drama "The Thunderstorm"

What character traits did Katerina literally frighten Kabanikha? She was pure of soul, sincere and ardent, and did not tolerate hypocrisy and deception. For example, when her husband left, the mother-in-law wanted to see her daughter-in-law howling, but it was not in Katerina’s rules to pretend. If the custom is not accepted by the soul, then it is not worth following it, the girl believes.

When Katerina realized that she loved Boris, she did not hide her feelings by talking about them. Varvara, her mother-in-law, and the main character’s husband himself learned about Katerina’s love. We see depth, strength and passion in the girl's nature, and her words express these personality traits well. She talks about people and birds, why can't people fly the same way? As a result, Katerina says that she will not tolerate an unbearable and disgusting life, and as a last resort, she will decide to take the fatal step - throw herself out the window or drown herself in the river. Reflecting on these words, you can better understand the image of Katerina in Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”.

Finally, what effort it took for the girl to tell Boris about her feelings! After all, Katerina was a married woman, but the passion for freedom and the desire to be happy, as well as willpower, manifested themselves in this brave act. Ostrovsky contrasts these character traits of Katerina with the world of Kabanikha (Marfa Kabanova). How is it shown? For example, Kabanikha blindly worships the traditions of old times, and this is not an impulse of the soul, but an opportunity not to lose power over others. The same can be said about the religious attitude, because for Katerina going to church is natural and pleasant, in Kabanikha it is a formality, and everyday issues worry her more than thoughts about the spiritual.

What does Katerina strive for?

An important point that must be taken into account when talking about the image of Katerina in the drama “The Thunderstorm” is that she is full of religious fear. The girl thinks that punishment for sin from the Lord and the thunderstorm, which she identifies with these concepts, are terrible and severe. All this, together with a feeling of guilt, prompts her to tell everyone about the sin she committed. Katerina decides to run away from a family that she does not accept with her heart and soul. The husband feels pity for her, but beats her, because that’s what needs to be done.

Boris, Katerina's lover, cannot help her. And although he sympathizes with her, it is clear how powerless he is and shows weakness and lack of will. Left alone, Katerina decides to throw herself off a cliff. Some attribute this action to the girl’s weakness of will, but Ostrovsky wanted to show the strength of her personality, which, again, complements the image of Katerina.

In conclusion, we can say that Katerina embodied a beautiful Russian soul - pure and bright. Her soul is opposed to tyranny, rudeness, cruelty and ignorance - qualities that are inherent in many people not only at the time the drama was written, but also today.

We hope that consideration of the image of Katerina in the drama “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky turned out to be useful for you. Other articles