Confession of Katerina. The end of the drama. The betrayal of Boris on the last date in the drama "The Thunderstorm" The betrayal of Katerina in the play The Thunderstorm
We quite often hear these antonyms in life: fidelity and betrayal. And everyone understands these words in their own way. Why? Loyalty is defined as constancy in feelings, affections, and beliefs. But rarely does anyone remember the meaning of the root word - faith. Faith is a belief in something that is unshakable in your ideas and understanding. But betrayal is nothing more than a violation of fidelity to someone or something. According to Christian ethics, adultery is a particularly serious sin. But betrayal does not have to be in the area of faith. There is such a thing as adultery, betrayal of the Motherland, betrayal of convictions. All these are variations of this all-encompassing concept.
I want to address the understanding of adultery and fidelity. And in this regard, remember the works of our literature. In A.N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” this problem is raised. The main character of the drama, Katerina Kabanova, cheated on her husband with a young man who came from the capital. Unusual, unlike the residents of the city of Kalinov, Boris in his particular dress seems so bright and unique to Katerina. She falls in love with him literally at first sight. His delicacy and tact do not at all fit with the darkness, lack of education, rudeness and rudeness of the local residents. However, Katerina, who has never loved anyone before, chooses Boris as her betrothed, a man sent by God. She, once taking a step towards her chosen one, decides that he is her destiny. Cheating on her husband, in her understanding, is not cheating at all. She never loved Boris, although she tried to be faithful to him. In fact, he changed it because he left her alone in this evil world. But she is tormented by the fact of the oath during the wedding ceremony. However, Tikhon does not accept Katerina’s betrayal, she is his beloved wife, the main thing is that no one knows anything. He beats his wife at the insistence of his mother. So Katerina’s betrayal becomes a symbol of her faith in God, in his blessing. She decides to commit suicide only so as not to change her convictions, her faith.
In N.A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” Matryona Korchagina remains faithful to her husband in the most difficult life situations. When her husband Philip is recruited, and she remains pregnant, expecting a child, without a husband, she decides to go to the governor for help, in an effort to find protection. She was lucky: labor began, and the governor’s wife became godmother to her child. She helped in releasing her husband from conscription duty. A rare woman is capable of such self-sacrifice in the name of her beloved husband, of such fidelity to her wedding vow.
Cheating and fidelity are mutually exclusive concepts, but lately no one attaches much importance to them. No one particularly tries to be faithful, no one considers betrayal a terrible sin. The boundaries have been erased. It’s all about human morality, about how to evaluate your own and other people’s actions.
The play “The Thunderstorm” is so ambiguous that it still causes conflicting opinions and controversy among critics. Some call her “a ray of light in a dark kingdom,” “a determined person.” Others, on the contrary, reproach the heroine for her weakness and inability to stand up for her own happiness. Who Katerina really is is difficult and impossible to answer unequivocally. Everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages, and the main character had them too.
The desire to create a happy family
Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” tells about the confrontation between light and darkness, good and evil, new and old. Katerina’s characterization allows the reader to understand how difficult it is for a girl raised in a loving family, where warmth and mutual understanding always reigned, to be in a house where everyone lives in fear. The main character wanted with all her heart to love her husband, create a happy family, have children and live a long life, but, unfortunately, all her hopes went to waste.
Katerina’s mother-in-law kept the whole city in fear, let alone her relatives, who were afraid to take a step without her knowledge. Kabanikha constantly humiliated and insulted her daughter-in-law and turned her son against her. Tikhon treated his wife well, but could not protect her from the tyranny of his mother, to whom he unconditionally obeyed. The characterization of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” shows how disgusted she is with performing certain “rituals” in public, meaningless and no longer relevant.
Search for happiness
It is absolutely clear that the main character could not live for long in such an environment that Kabanikha created, so the tragic ending was obvious from the very beginning. The description of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” creates the image of a pure and bright girl, very kind and sensitive to religion. She cannot bear the oppression, and when her husband goes on a trip, she decides to find happiness on the side. Katerina starts an affair with Boris Grigorievich, but going on a date with him she already understands that she does not have long to live.
The time spent with her lover is the best in the heroine’s life; it’s as if she is on a holiday. The characterization of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” shows that Boris Grigorievich becomes for a woman a dream and an outlet that she has been dreaming about all the time. The heroine understood that she would never be forgiven for her betrayal, and that her mother-in-law would die altogether, and she herself could not live with such a grave sin.
Confession
The characterization of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” makes it possible to understand that the heroine cannot live in a lie and constantly deceive others. A woman confesses to cheating on her husband and mother-in-law “in front of all honest people.” Kabanikha could not endure such shame. If Katerina had not died, she would have had to live under eternal arrest; her mother-in-law would not have allowed her to breathe freely.
There was no point in hoping that Boris would save his beloved and take her away from the city. This man chose money, thereby abandoning Katerina to death. Suicide does not justify a woman, but this step was taken out of despair. The heroine is a bright person; she could not take root in the kingdom of darkness.
Many works of A.S. are devoted to the problem of fidelity and betrayal. Pushkin. Thus, it tells about the betrayal of Hetman of Ukraine Mazepa. He rebels against the power of Russia and Peter personallyIand enters into an alliance with the King of Sweden - CharlesXII. The reason for betrayal of the Fatherland and Mazepa’s hatred of the Russian Tsar is the insult once inflicted by Peter Mazepa. The tsar grabbed the hetman by the mustache for saying a bold word. After the defeat of the Swedish troops near Poltava, the traitor had to flee shamefully.
The problem of fidelity and betrayal is also raised, which is closely related to the main problem of the work - honor and dishonor. Loyalty here can be considered both in the personal aspect and in the social one. Thus, the main character of the work, Pyotr Grinev, refuses to swear allegiance to the rebel Emelyan Pugachev and is ready to accept death, saying that he has already sworn allegiance to Mother Empress. Not so his opponent and former comrade in service in the Belogorsk fortress - Alexey Shvabrin. This hero easily gives up the officer’s sword and becomes subordinate to Pugachev.
Pyotr Grinev is faithful to his love for Masha Mironova: having promised the girl to marry her, he does not resign himself to the prohibition of his parents, who refused to bless the lovers. The hero is also not stopped by the capture of Masha by Shvabrin, who now commands the Belogorsk fortress and holds the daughter of his former boss, forcibly persuading her to marry him. Grinev does not give up on his decision to rescue Masha from Shvabrin’s hands and goes to the fortress, despite the fact that the head of the Orenburg garrison denies the hero military support. Peter goes to Pugachev for help, telling him about the arbitrariness of his former comrade.
Masha Mironova is also faithful to her love; she directly states that it is better for her to die than to marry someone she doesn’t love.
The hero also turned out to be a traitor to the oath
Taras’s youngest son, Andriy, betrays his comrades and his homeland because of his love for the Polish lady:
he says to the lady when he secretly comes to her in a city besieged by the Cossacks. Taras Bulba is unable to endure such humiliation. He cannot forgive his son for betrayal and in one of the battles, where Andriy fights on the side of the Poles, he lures him into the forest and kills him. Unlike Andriy, Taras’s eldest son, Ostap, having been captured by the Poles, does not bow his head to the enemy. He is being tortured, but not a single groan escapes his chest; After terrible torture, Ostap is executed.
the problem of fidelity and betrayal is also the most important. Frightened by the “opinion of the world,” afraid of losing his reputation, Onegin does not reconcile with Lensky and betrays their friendly relations. Although it was so easy to avoid a duel. The main character himself understood that Vladimir’s little lie that at Tatyana’s name day there would only be a close family circle in order to force him, Onegin, to accept the invitation, and further flirting “in revenge” with Lensky’s fiancée, Olga, was an insignificant reason for the fight. And Vladimir, the very next morning after the name day, having stopped by to see Olga before the duel and seeing her joy and happiness from meeting him, realizes that for her yesterday’s dancing and conversations with Onegin were nothing more than entertainment.
The main character, Tatyana Larina, becomes an example of true fidelity in this work. She falls in love with Onegin at first sight and retains this feeling even after she realizes that her lover is not at all the romantic hero that her imagination painted him as. Even after marrying Onegin’s distant relative, the famous general, in her heart she continues to remain faithful to her first love. Despite this, Tatiana denies Evgeny mutual feelings when he returns to Russia after several years of wandering and falls in love with the transformed Tatiana. She answers him with bitterness and pride:
True to your feelings and
Alexey Berestov falls in love with the peasant girl Akulina, whom Liza Muromskaya, the daughter of the Berestovs’ neighbor, the nobleman Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky, pretends to be. Because of the stupid enmity between Berestov and Muromsky, their children never saw each other. All this allowed the story that Pushkin tells so fascinatingly to happen. Alexey Berestov falls so in love with Lisa-Akulina that he intends to unite with her for life, educate her and, as they say, die on the same day. He understands that he will never receive his father’s blessing for this unequal marriage and, therefore, will most likely lose his inheritance, but this does not stop the young man, who is ready to go to the end in his feelings.
out of envy and jealousy, he betrays Pechorin, since he turned out to be happier than him in love. Princess Mary Ligovskaya, who previously sympathized with Grushnitsky, who had his own plans for the girl, falls in love with Pechorin. Devoid of generosity, Grushnitsky cannot forgive Pechorin for his defeat and decides to take a vile step - a dishonest duel. He slanderes Pechorin, accusing him of having a close relationship with Princess Mary, and during the duel he offers his former friend a pistol loaded with blank cartridges.
An example of true loyalty is the attitude of Dmitry Razumikhin, one of the heroes
to his friend - the main character of the work, Rodion Raskolnikov. It is Razumikhin who supports Raskolnikov when he rushes about in terrible agony, trying to avoid his planned murder of the old pawnbroker. Dmitry knows nothing about Raskolnikov’s plans, but sees that he is in distress, so, without hesitation, he offers him his students to give him the opportunity to earn extra money. It is Razumikhin who finds Raskolnikov after the crime has been committed, when he lies delirious in his room, which looks like a coffin. It is he who calls the doctor and then literally spoon-feeds the main character. Razumikhin takes care of Raskolnikov’s mother and sister when they come to St. Petersburg. Later, when Raskolnikov is sentenced to hard labor, Dmitry, who by that time had married Rodion’s sister Dunya, decides to accumulate initial capital in four years and go to Siberia, closer to Raskolnikov’s prison.
engaged to Andrei Bolkonsky, she succumbs to the passion that flared up in her upon meeting Anatoly Kuragin. She yearns for Bolkonsky, who left her to go abroad for treatment, but Kuragin’s vicious beauty makes the girl forget about her groom for a while. Natasha thinks that her feelings for Anatole are real, and most importantly, mutual, she refuses to believe persistent rumors about Kuragin’s dishonesty and debauchery. The girl even decides to run away with him. Fortunately, the escape did not take place. But Natasha had to be bitterly disappointed in Anatole. She understands how much she hurt both Andrei and her family, what shame she brought upon all of them. Realization of her wrongness forces the girl to turn to God, she repents and fervently prays for forgiveness. At the end of the novel, we see how the dying Bolkonsky forgives Natasha for her action, when the girl comes to him and says that she knows how “bad” she was, but now she has changed.
This is not the case with the other heroine of the novel, Helen Kuragina. Like her brother Anatole, she is vicious and selfish. Without particularly hiding from her husband, Pierre Bezukhov, she surrounds herself with favorites. Pierre finds out about this and leaves Helene, but the woman doesn’t care much about this. The main thing is that her husband does not stop paying her bills. Subsequently, she decides to divorce Pierre by any means. It was at this time that Helen meets two men and painfully tries to choose between them, dreaming of being able to marry two at once.
we see how the heroine Nadezhda remains faithful to her first and only love. Very young, she, who served under the gentlemen in the house, fell in love with a young master - Nikolai Alekseevich. According to Nadezhda, she gave him all “her youth, her passion,” and was left with nothing. The young master left her and married a girl from his circle. Having met by chance thirty years later at the inn that Nadezhda kept, Colonel Nikolai Alekseevich remembers how charming the girl was in her youth. He asks Nadezhda for forgiveness for his action thirty years ago, kisses her hands and admits that he has never been happy in his life. Leaving, he thinks that it was really Nadezhda who gave him not just the best, but truly magical moments of his life, but he immediately betrays his memories. "Nonsense!" - the hero thinks. “What would we have done if I hadn’t left her then?” Driven by social prejudices and his own egoism, Nikolai Alekseevich cannot imagine Nadezhda as the mother of his children and the mistress of his house.
Bunin’s other heroine also remains faithful to her first love
Having seen off the groom to war, she soon learns of his death. And there was a lot more in her life after their last date: the hardships of revolutionary times, the death of her parents, marriage, leaving revolutionary Russia, wandering around Europe, earning her bread through hard work. But even after so many years, where there seemed to be so much and different everything left, the already aged heroine asks the question: “What happened in my life? And he answers to himself: “Only that cold autumn evening.” My whole life fit into one day - the day when I was young and in love.
Sergei Ivanovich Talberg betrays his wife Elena and abandons her in the city, which is about to be captured by Petliura’s troops, and he himself flees to Germany, where he will soon marry another woman.
Margarita remains faithful to the Master even when he disappears without a trace. She does everything to find her beloved and save him and his brainchild - a novel about Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Margarita even agrees to sell her soul to the devil. After all, for her, eternal bliss in heaven is nothing without the one for whom she has been waiting all her life, whom she once looked for with yellow flowers in her hands. And the woman’s loyalty is rewarded: the Master is found, and his romance is resurrected from the ashes. And even Margarita’s act - selling her own soul - is forgiven. After all, this was not done for the sake of ephemeral things like money, fame or eternal youth. She sacrificed her soul to save another person, and this is an important circumstance for forgiveness.
We see a traitor to the Motherland
Having been captured by the Nazis along with his partner Sotnikov, the partisan Rybak becomes a traitor. Seeing the bloody hands of his comrade, who was dragged into the basement after torture, Rybak thinks that he will not give in so easily... During the interrogation, he answers intelligently, cunningly and tries to please the policeman. The next day, Sotnikov, Rybak and several other peasants who were hiding them are led to execution. Sotnikov tries to save his comrade and shouts that it was he who killed the policeman, and Rybak had nothing to do with it, having happened to be nearby by accident. But this does not affect the fascists’ servants – the local policemen. Seeing that his life is doomed, Rybak falls at the feet of the Germans and agrees to cooperate. The Churbak had to be knocked out from under Sotnikov: the Germans needed to check Rybak “in action”, to “bind his hand” with the blood of a Russian partisan. After this, the hero still hopes to escape, but, looking into the hate-filled eyes of the peasant man who saw the execution, he understands that after what was done, he has nowhere to run...
The main character, Sanya Grigoriev, is the personification of fidelity - fidelity to the word, idea, love. So, he does not give up the idea of proving that he is right about the fact that the polar expedition of Captain Tatarinov was ruined by his brother, Nikolai Antonovich Tatarinov, and Captain Tatarinov himself made a great geographical discovery. While still just a boy, he is not afraid of Nikolai Antonovich’s anger. Sanka is also faithful to his love for Katya Tatarinova, carrying this feeling in his heart all his life. In turn, Katya is devoted to Sanya. So, she refuses to believe that her husband died during the bombing of a medical trip and rejects the help of Grigoriev’s eternal enemy - Mikhail Romashov, who brought terrible news to Katya. « Loyalty and betrayal»
Now the capital scene of the fourth act, about which so much has been discussed and is still being discussed, is also completely clear. Remorse overwhelmed her [ Katerina] soul as soon as her husband arrived and her nightly meetings with Boris stopped. The consciousness of sin did not give her peace. All that was missing was a drop to fill the full cup. But as soon as this drop fell, her execution began. She confesses everything to her husband. There is no need that this happened in broad daylight, during a walk, in the presence of strangers. For a character like Katerina, the situation means nothing. Pretending, being a hypocrite, harboring a feeling until a convenient moment arises is not in her blood. She's too pure for that. In the matter of repentance, she would always prefer to do it publicly, if she had decided to repent in advance. The more shame, the more shame, the lighter her soul will become. But the fact of the matter is that she did not at all intend and did not dare to repent when she went out for a walk, although, without any doubt, this confession to her husband would not happen today, but tomorrow, not tomorrow, but in a few days, but it would have happened because that sin weighed unbearably on her. It was immediately caused by a thunderstorm, and she has been afraid of thunderstorms since childhood, and the appearance of an ominous lady, and, finally, a scene from hell on one wall of the ruins, where the rain had driven everyone. She confesses everything to her husband.
It's a wonderful scene. It’s just a pity that she’s not well prepared for drama. From the time of her husband's arrival, the development of Katerina's character occurs behind the scenes, and we learn about him from a short conversation between Varvara and Boris. That is why this scene puzzled many.<…>
Let’s say right away, by the way, that in general the last two acts of the drama, in our opinion, are lower than the first three, lower, perhaps, because they are not higher than them.<…>
In this case, in the entire fourth act of Mr. Ostrovsky, only one scene belongs to the action. All others, with the exception of Varvara’s small conversation with Boris, are completely foreign to the play. Not to mention the fact that in the fourth act of a five-act play, any deviation from the essence of the matter only cools the action, Katerina’s very confession, suddenly, unexpectedly, before the viewer himself has become an eyewitness to her torment and suffering, it comes out somehow unprepared. We completely understand this moment in Katerina’s life and, probably, a considerable part of the audience understood it just as correctly; but we were still sorry that such an important process in her character took place as if without the knowledge of the audience. This only cooled them down. Instead of trembling with delight and trying not to utter a single word, they should have thought about the legality of such a phenomenon, about whether it was in the order of things or not. However, this is an excellent scene in itself. It follows directly from the character of Katerina; it is a necessary consequence of her situation. We especially like the fact that this scene happened in the square, in the presence of strangers, in a place where, it seems, such phenomena could not be expected; in a word, it happened under the most hostile and inconvenient circumstances for her. This alone already paints the character of Katerina.
The farewell scene in the fifth act is also surprisingly good. She fully and clearly expressed one sweet feature of a Russian woman. Katerina herself breaks off her connection with Boris, she herself, without outside coercion, makes a terrible confession to her husband and mother-in-law. With blood and meat, she tears sin out of her heart, and meanwhile runs to say goodbye to Boris, and hugs and cries on his chest. Their conversation doesn’t go well, she wants to say something to him and has nothing to say: her heart is full. He wants to leave her as quickly as possible, but he cannot leave: he is ashamed. The only thing we don’t like is Katerina’s dying monologue.<…>
If to complete the impression it was absolutely necessary to drown Katerina, then she could throw herself into the Volga without her monologue, and out of sight (almost) of the audience. They could, for example, have caught her on a farewell date with Boris, they could have chased her - then she would have drowned herself even more quickly. The character development ended in the fourth act. In the fifth he is already completely created. Not one iota can be added to it to further explain it: it is already clear. You can only strengthen some of his features, which is what the author did in the farewell scene. Suicide does not add anything here, does not express anything. It is only needed to complete the impression. Katerina's life is broken even without suicide. Whether she will live, whether she will become a nun, whether she will commit suicide - the result is the same regarding her state of mind, but completely different regarding the impression. G. Ostrovsky wanted her to perform this last act of her life with full consciousness and reach it through reflection. A beautiful thought, further enhancing the colors so poetically generously spent on this character. But, many will say and are already saying, doesn’t such suicide contradict her religious beliefs? Of course it contradicts, completely contradicts, but this trait is essential in Katerina’s character. The fact is that, due to her highly lively temperament, she cannot get along in the narrow sphere of her beliefs. She fell in love, fully aware of the whole sin of her love, and yet she still fell in love, come what may; she later repented of seeing Boris, but she still ran to say goodbye to him. This is exactly how she decides to commit suicide, because she does not have the strength to endure despair. She is a woman of high poetic impulses, but at the same time weak. This inflexibility of beliefs and frequent betrayal of them constitutes the entire tragedy of the character we are examining.
But all this could have been expressed without the last monologue, in a more dramatic form.
Dostoevsky M.M. ""Storm". Drama in five acts by A.N. Ostrovsky"
Read also other topics of analysis of the drama "The Thunderstorm":
Dobrolyubov N.A. "A ray of light in a dark kingdom"
