The scene of Katerina's farewell to Tikhon plays an important role in the plot of the work.

Main characters in the episode - Kabanov and Katerina. The latter terribly does not want to be left without a husband for two reasons: firstly, the girl is afraid to be left alone with her mother-in-law and her tyranny; secondly, Katerina is afraid that in the absence of her husband she will do something unacceptable to her. This is proven by the oath that Tikhon never took from his wife. Kabanov feels sorry for Katerina and sincerely asks for her forgiveness, but he does not give in to persuasion not to leave or to take his wife with him, and does not even try to hide his desire to escape from his family, captivity, and his wife will only be a hindrance to him.

Also, Kabanov does not understand Katerina’s fear, as evidenced by the many interrogative sentences at the end of the episode. Katerina’s speech, on the contrary, contains a plea expressed in exclamations.

The author's remarks indicate Kabanov's equanimity and inflexibility to requests and Katerina's ardent rejection of her husband's departure. The girl either hugs Tikhon, then falls to her knees, then cries - she is in despair. He is indifferent to his wife’s entreaties and only dreams of escaping from the house that has become hated.

Overall, this episode plays great importance in the work, as it influences key events that unfold later, such as Katerina’s meeting with Boris.

Updated: 2016-08-17

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Tikhon asks Katerina for forgiveness for the humiliating scene when he parroted everything that his mother demanded. With this forgiveness, he seems to restore hope to Katerina. It is in the hope of seeing Tikhon in a different environment, away from his mother, and if not falling in love, then at least respecting her husband, that Katerina so persistently persuades Tikhon to take her with him. But by the end of the scene, Katerina is finally convinced that Tikhon is focused only on himself and there is nothing to love, or even respect, him for.

Scene with the gate key

The heroine’s internal monologue is evidence of mental struggle. At first, Katerina decides to distract herself with sewing and humbly wait for Tikhon, drowning out her feelings. But the key to the gate (a symbolic detail!), proposed by Varvara, can turn into the key to the cage in which the free bird is fighting. It is no coincidence that the motive of will and bondage becomes the main one in the internal monologue. The desire of will ultimately becomes more important than the patience of captivity.

Some of Katerina’s thoughts show Varvara’s influence: “Yes, maybe such a thing will never happen again in my entire life. Then cry to yourself: there was an opportunity, but I didn’t know how to take advantage.” These words smack of practicality. But, of course, it is not this motive that wins in Katerina. “What am I saying, that I’m deceiving myself?” The desire of a free person not to betray his soul, to follow his nature, wins.

3rd act

The development of the conflict seems to slow down for a while. The scenes of Katerina's dates with Boris and Varvara with Kudryash, depicted in contrast between poetry and everyday life, precede the wanderer Feklusha's thoughts about the “last times” and Kuligin's monologue about “invisible and inaudible constipation.” All this strengthens the motive of bondage.

The conversation between Boris and Kudryash before the date is interesting. For all the simplicity of Kudryash’s nature, his moral superiority over Boris is felt: he asks his friend to think about Katerina, but he is only concerned with his own joy.

Let us pay attention to Katerina’s flawedness in the first part of the scene of her date with Boris (scene 2, scene 3). Being captive of her fears, she does not notice how she begins to reproach her lover, transferring responsibility for what happened only to him. But is Boris ready for any responsibility? At first, he easily shifts it back onto her shoulders, not at all like a man (“you yourself told me to come... It was your will...”), and then self-satisfaction and the same philosophy of “shield-covered” wins in him. (“Why die when we can live so well?.. Fortunately, we feel good now... How long has my husband been gone?”)

    General characteristics of the hero.

    The volume of the hero’s speech (does he speak a lot or little and in what situations and why).

    The predominant structure of speech (logically structured, confused, melodious, expressive, rude, etc.).

    Lexical features.

    Syntactic structures, punctuation that shapes the hero’s speech.

    Manifestation of the hero’s character and actions in speech.

The culmination of the development of the conflict. Katerina's confession scene. Episode analysis.

The scene of Katerina's confession of sin occurs at the end of Act 4. Her compositional role is the culmination of Katerina’s conflict with Kabanikha and one of the culminations of the development of the internal conflict in Katerina’s soul, when the desire for a living and free feeling fights with religious fears of punishment for sins and the moral duty of the heroine.

The aggravation of conflicts is caused and prepared by a number of previous circumstances:

    in the 3rd appearance, the sensitive and quick-witted Varvara warns Boris that Katerina is suffering very much and can confess, but Boris was only afraid for himself;

    It is no coincidence that it is at the end of their conversation that the first clap of thunder is heard and a thunderstorm begins;

    secondary characters passing by, with their remarks about the inevitability of punishment and that “this storm will not pass in vain,” increase the fear of the storm and prepare and predict trouble;

    Katerina also foresees this misfortune;

    Kuligin’s “blasphemous” speeches about electricity and that “a thunderstorm is grace” contrast with these remarks, and this also aggravates what is happening;

Finally, the words of the half-mad lady are heard, addressed directly to Katerina, and the thunderstorm intensifies.

Katerina exclaims in a fit of fear and shame: “I am a sinner before God and before you!” The reason for her confession is not only religious fear, but also moral torment, torment of conscience, and a feeling of guilt. Indeed, in the fifth act, at the moment of farewell to life, she will conquer religious fears, her moral sense will triumph (“Whoever loves will pray”), and the decisive factor for her will no longer be the fear of punishment, but the fear of losing freedom again (“and they will catch you and send you home.” ...").

The motif of the bird and flight, outlined in the monologues of the first act, reaches its apogee, developing the conflict of Pushkin’s “Prisoner”: captivity is impossible for a free being.

Katerina’s death is the only way for her to regain freedom.

    The reaction of other characters to Katerina’s confession is interesting and important:

    Varvara, like a true friend, tries to prevent trouble, calm Katerina, protect her (“She’s lying...”);

    Tikhon suffers not so much from the betrayal, but from the fact that this happened under his mother: he does not want shocks, he does not need this truth, and especially in its public version, which destroys the usual principle of “shield is covered”; besides, he himself is not without sin;

    for Kabanova, the moment of triumph of her rules comes (“I said...”);

The recognition itself occurs when everything comes together for the heroine: pangs of conscience, fear of a thunderstorm as a punishment for sins, predictions of passers-by and her own premonitions, Kabanikha’s speeches about beauty and the pool, Boris’s betrayal and, finally, the thunderstorm itself.

Katerina confesses her sin publicly, in church, as is customary in the Orthodox world, which confirms her closeness with the people and shows the truly Russian soul of the heroine.

Plan in photo

Attached images

composition: Cruel morals the city of Kalinov 6250 "Cruel morals" of the city of Kalinov Sample text essays on the drama “The Thunderstorm” by NOSTrovsky The talented self-taught mechanic Kuligin calls his morals “cruel.” How does he see this manifested? First of all, in the poverty and rudeness that reigns in the middle class. The reason is very clear - the dependence of the working population on the power of money concentrated in the hands of the rich merchants of the city. But, continuing the story about Kalinov’s morals, Kuligin by no means idealizes the relationship between the merchant class, which, according to him, undermines each other’s trade, writes “malicious slander.” The only educated person, Kalinova, draws attention to one important detail, which clearly appears in the funny story about how Dikoy explained to the mayor about the peasants’ complaint against him. Let us remember Gogol's "The Inspector General", in which the merchants did not dare to say a word in front of the mayor, but meekly put up with his tyranny and endless extortions. And in “The Thunderstorm”, in response to the remark of the city’s main official about his dishonest act, Dikoy only condescendingly pats the government representative on the shoulder, not even considering it necessary to justify himself. This means that money and power have become synonymous here. Therefore, there is no justice for the Wild One, who insults the entire city. No one can please him, no one is immune from his frantic abuse. Dikoy is self-willed and tyrannical because he does not meet resistance and is confident in his impunity. This hero, with his rudeness, greed and ignorance, personifies the main features of Kalinov’s “dark kingdom”. Moreover, his anger and irritation especially increase in cases when it comes either to money that needs to be returned, or to something inaccessible to his understanding. That is why he scolds his nephew Boris so much, because his very appearance reminds him of the inheritance that, according to the will, must be divided with him. That’s why he attacks Kuligin, who is trying to explain to him the principle of the lightning rod’s operation. Wild is outraged by the idea of ​​a thunderstorm as an electrical discharge. He, like all Kalinovites, is convinced that a thunderstorm is sent to people as a reminder of responsibility for their actions. This is not just ignorance and superstition, it is folk mythology passed down from generation to generation, before which the language of logical reason falls silent. This means that even in the violent, uncontrollable tyrant Dikiy this moral truth lives, forcing him to publicly bow at the feet of the peasant whom he scolded during Lent. Even if Dikiy has bouts of repentance, at first the rich merchant widow Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova seems even more religious and pious. Unlike the Wild One, she will never raise her voice or rush at people like a chained dog. But the despotism of her nature is not at all a secret for the Kalinovites. Even before this heroine appears on stage, we hear biting and apt remarks from the townspeople addressed to her. “A hypocrite, sir. She favors the poor, but completely eats up her family,” Kuligin says about her to Boris. And the very first meeting with Kabanikha convinces us of the correctness of this characterization. Her tyranny is limited to the sphere of the family, which she mercilessly tyrannizes. Kabanikha crippled her own son, turning him into a pathetic, weak-willed man who does nothing but justify himself to her for non-existent sins. The cruel, despotic Kabanikha turned the life of her children and daughter-in-law into hell, constantly torturing them, tormenting them with reproaches, complaints and suspicions. Therefore, her daughter Varvara, a brave, strong-willed girl, is forced to live by the principle: “... do whatever you want, as long as it’s sewn and covered.” Therefore, Tikhon and Katerina cannot be happy. For Katerina, such a feeling as love is incompatible with the hateful walls of the Kabanovsky house, with its oppressive, stuffy atmosphere. silent extra.

The scene of Tikhon's departure is one of the most important in the play both in the sense of revealing the psychology and characters of the characters and in its function in the development of intrigue: on the ONE hand, Tikhon's departure removes the insurmountable external obstacle to meeting Boris, and on the other, all Katerina's hopes are destroyed find inner support in your husband’s love. In terms of depth and subtlety of psychological development, this scene is not only the first of its kind in Ostrovsky, but generally one of the best in Russian classical drama.

Essentially speaking, in this scene Tikhon, refusing to take an oath from his wife, behaves humanely. And his whole attitude towards Katerina is not at all Domostroevsky, it has a personal, even humane connotation. After all, it is he who says to Kabanikha in response to her threat that his wife will not be afraid of him: “Why should she be afraid? It’s enough for me that she loves me.” Paradoxically, it is Tikhon’s gentleness (combined, however, with a general weakness of character), in Katerina’s eyes, that is not so much an advantage as a disadvantage. He does not meet her moral ideal, her ideas about what a husband should be. And indeed, he cannot help her and protect her either when she is struggling with “sinful passion” or after her public repentance. Tikhon’s reaction to Katerina’s “crime” is also completely different from what would be dictated by authoritarian morality in such a situation. She is individual, personal: he “is sometimes affectionate, sometimes angry, and drinks everything,” according to Katerina.

The fact is that the youth of Kalinov no longer want to adhere to patriarchal orders in everyday life. However, Varvara, Tikhon, and Kudryash are alien to the moral maximalism of Katerina, for whom both the collapse of traditional moral norms in the world around her and her own violation of these covenants are a terrible tragedy. Unlike Katerina, it is true tragic heroine, they all stand on the position of everyday compromises and do not see any drama in this. Of course, the oppression of their elders is hard for them, but they have learned to get around it, each to the best of their character. Ostrovsky paints them objectively and clearly not without sympathy. The scale of their personalities in the play is clearly established: these are ordinary, ordinary people, not too picky about their means, who no longer want to live in the old way. Formally recognizing the power of their elders and the power of customs over themselves, they constantly go against them in practice and thus they also undermine and little by little destroy Kalinov’s world. But it is precisely against the background of their unconscious and compromising position that the suffering heroine of “The Thunderstorm” looks large and significant, morally high.

“The Thunderstorm” is not a tragedy of love, but a tragedy of conscience. When Katerina’s “fall” has taken place, caught in a whirlwind of liberated passion, merging for her with the concept of will, she becomes bold to the point of insolence, having decided - she does not retreat, does not feel sorry for herself, does not want to hide anything, “I wasn’t afraid of sin for you, am I afraid?” human court! - she says to Boris, But this “wasn’t afraid of sin/, just foreshadows further development tragedy, the death of Katerina. The consciousness of sin persists even in the rapture of happiness and takes possession of it with enormous power as soon as this short-lived happiness, this life in freedom, ends. It is all the more painful because... Katerina’s faith somehow excludes the concepts of forgiveness and mercy.

She sees no outcome to her torment other than death, and it is the complete lack of hope for forgiveness that pushes her to suicide - a sin even more serious from the point of view of Christian morality. “I’ve already ruined my soul anyway,” Katerina says when the thought of the possibility of living her life with Boris occurs to her. How different this is from a dream of happiness! Katerina’s death is predetermined and inevitable, no matter how the people on whom she depends behave. It is inevitable because neither her self-awareness nor the entire way of life in which she exists allows the personal feeling that has awakened in her to be embodied in everyday forms.
“Mama, you ruined her! You, you, you...” Tikhon shouts in despair and in response to her menacing cry he repeats again: “You ruined her! You! You!" But this is a measure of understanding of Tikhon, who loves and suffers, over the corpse of his wife, who decided to fight against his mother. But it would be a mistake to think that this is “a certain conclusion of the play and that Tikhon is entrusted with expressing the author’s point of view, the author’s assessment of events and the share of guilt of the characters.
In The Thunderstorm, in general, all cause-and-effect relationships are extremely complicated, and this distinguishes it from Ostrovsky’s previous plays. Degree of generalization of analyzed life phenomena outgrows what was achieved in Muscovite comedies with their clear moralistic tendency. There, the connection between an act and its inevitable consequences was always drawn very clearly, and therefore the immediate, direct guilt of the negative characters in all the troubles and misadventures of the heroes was clear. In "The Thunderstorm" everything is much more complicated.

The scene of Tikhon's departure is one of the most important in the play both in the sense of revealing the psychology and characters of the characters and in its function in the development of intrigue: on the ONE hand, Tikhon's departure removes the insurmountable external obstacle to meeting Boris, and on the other, all Katerina's hopes are destroyed find inner support in your husband’s love. In terms of depth and subtlety of psychological development, this scene is not only the first of its kind in Ostrovsky, but generally one of the best in Russian classical drama.

Essentially speaking, in this scene Tikhon, refusing to take an oath from his wife, behaves humanely. And his whole attitude towards Katerina is not at all Domostroevsky, it has a personal, even humane connotation. After all, it is he who says to Kabanikha in response to her threat that his wife will not be afraid of him: “Why should she be afraid? It’s enough for me that she loves me.” Paradoxically, it is Tikhon’s gentleness (combined, however, with a general weakness of character), in Katerina’s eyes, that is not so much an advantage as a disadvantage. He does not meet her moral ideal, her ideas about what a husband should be. And indeed, he cannot help her and protect her either when she is struggling with “sinful passion” or after her public repentance. Tikhon’s reaction to Katerina’s “crime” is also completely different from what would be dictated by authoritarian morality in such a situation. She is individual, personal: he “is sometimes affectionate, sometimes angry, and drinks everything,” according to Katerina.

The fact is that the youth of Kalinov no longer want to adhere to patriarchal orders in everyday life. However, Varvara, Tikhon, and Kudryash are alien to the moral maximalism of Katerina, for whom both the collapse of traditional moral norms in the world around her and her own violation of these covenants are a terrible tragedy. Unlike Katerina, a truly tragic heroine, they all stand on the position of everyday compromises and do not see any drama in it. Of course, the oppression of their elders is hard for them, but they have learned to get around it, each to the best of their character. Ostrovsky paints them objectively and clearly not without sympathy. The scale of their personalities in the play is clearly established: these are ordinary, ordinary people, not too picky about their means, who no longer want to live in the old way. Formally recognizing the power of their elders and the power of customs over themselves, they constantly go against them in practice and thus they also undermine and little by little destroy Kalinov’s world. But it is precisely against the background of their unconscious and compromising position that the suffering heroine of “The Thunderstorm” looks large and significant, morally high.

“The Thunderstorm” is not a tragedy of love, but a tragedy of conscience. When Katerina’s “fall” has taken place, caught in a whirlwind of liberated passion, merging for her with the concept of will, she becomes bold to the point of insolence, having decided - she does not retreat, does not feel sorry for herself, does not want to hide anything, “I wasn’t afraid of sin for you, am I afraid?” human court! - she says to Boris, “But she was not afraid of sin /, which just foreshadows the further development of the tragedy, the death of Katerina. The consciousness of sin persists even in the rapture of happiness and takes possession of it with enormous power as soon as this short-lived happiness, this life in freedom, ends. It is all the more painful because... Katerina’s faith somehow excludes the concepts of forgiveness and mercy.

She sees no outcome to her torment other than death, and it is the complete lack of hope for forgiveness that pushes her to suicide - a sin even more serious from the point of view of Christian morality. “I’ve already ruined my soul anyway,” Katerina says when the thought of the possibility of living her life with Boris occurs to her. How different this is from a dream of happiness! Katerina’s death is predetermined and inevitable, no matter how the people on whom she depends behave. It is inevitable because neither her self-awareness nor the entire way of life in which she exists allows the personal feeling that has awakened in her to be embodied in everyday forms.
“Mama, you ruined her! You, you, you...” Tikhon shouts in despair and in response to her menacing cry he repeats again: “You ruined her! You! You!" But this is a measure of understanding of Tikhon, who loves and suffers, over the corpse of his wife, who decided to fight against his mother. But it would be a mistake to think that this is “a certain conclusion of the play and that Tikhon is entrusted with expressing the author’s point of view, the author’s assessment of events and the share of guilt of the characters.
In The Thunderstorm, in general, all cause-and-effect relationships are extremely complicated, and this distinguishes it from Ostrovsky’s previous plays. The degree of generalization of the analyzed life phenomena outgrows that which was achieved in Muscovite comedies with their clear moralistic tendency. There, the connection between an act and its inevitable consequences was always drawn very clearly, and therefore the immediate, direct guilt of the negative characters in all the troubles and misadventures of the heroes was clear. In "The Thunderstorm" everything is much more complicated.