For the first time, the play The Storm was staged in St. Petersburg at the Alexandrinsky Theater on December 2, 1859. She immediately had great success, they talked about and argued about her. They argued mainly about the interpretation of the fate and character of the main character, Katerina Kabanova, as well as about the main idea of the play, outlining a new “hero of the time”. "Katerina's suicide - strength or weakness?" - This is the main question that numerous critics tried to give their answer to. Among them, N.A. Dobrolyubov.
Opinion N.A. Dobrolyubova
Nikolai Alexandrovich dedicated this article to his work "Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom," written in 1860. In the article, the critic of Sovremennik gives a detailed analysis of the play from the point of view of "real criticism", from a revolutionary democratic position. This was already the second article by Dobrolyubov about the Storm. The first, the Dark Kingdom, was written a year ago, in 1859.
The main theme of these and many other articles devoted to this work is the character of the main character. The fate of Katerina Kabanova really makes you think a lot, and in this article I would like to examine in detail the character of the main character and the reasons for her unhappy fate. Nikolai Alexandrovich used the images of the "dark kingdom" and "ray of light", which were often quoted in the analysis of this work. To the question: "Katerina's suicide - strength or weakness?" - he replies that this act testifies to the courage of the main character opposing the evil of the "dark kingdom".
Opinion D.I. Pisareva
However, not all critics agreed with Dobrolyubov’s point of view, a polemic often arose between them. For example, D.I. Pisarev, in his article “Motives of Russian Drama”, written in 1864, did not agree with the opinion of Nikolai Alexandrovich that Katerina is the new historical heroine that the era brought us. According to Dmitry Ivanovich, such a character is Yevgeny Bazarov, a democrat of the same class from Turgenev’s work “Fathers and Sons”.
Opinion A.A. Grigoryeva
An interesting point of view of another critic, Grigoriev. A few months before the publication of the article “Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”, he reproached its author for suggesting that he offers a one-sided approach to understanding Ostrovsky and his depiction of life. According to this critic, in the first article of Nikolai Alexandrovich, “The Dark Kingdom,” Ostrovsky appears as a punisher and denouncer of tyranny.
However, in the assessment of the main character, the opinions of these two writers coincide. They both say that Katerina is a heroic character that has emerged from the public, note the poetry of her soul and the tragedy of fate. Let's try to answer the question together: “Is Katerina's suicide a strength or a weakness?”, Dwelling in detail on the external and internal sides of the character of the main character.
Patriarchal merchants in the image of Ostrovsky
It should be said that with Ostrovsky this was not the first work depicting a patriarchal merchants. His life was described in other plays by the author of the late 1840s - early 1850s, for example, in the comedy "Our People - Let's Count!" However, in the early plays of Alexander Nikolayevich there was not yet such a vivid image similar to Katerina. The character of the heroine, who came from a merchant environment, is a real artistic discovery, which is created by Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich ("Thunderstorm").
At first glance, the appearance of a heroine who has a life outlook so uncharacteristic for the patriarchal environment of the city of Kalinov seems random. However, this was not so. Her fate, her desire for happiness at the behest of the heart, and not according to the "law", is the result of deep processes taking place in society at that time, gradually destroying the patriarchal system of the merchants. The play "The Storm" is full of dialogues about the "end of the world", "recent times", that young people have ceased to honor traditions and customs; and against this background, the plot of the work unfolds.
Thunderstorm Symbolism
Thunderstorm is a symbolic play, its symbolism is associated with folklore, and this differs from Ostrovsky’s early plays. In the work, much resembles a fairy-tale world, even the very image of the city of Kalinov evokes associations with the world of a fairy tale. Heroes seem to live in their own closed reality, limited by the narrow Kalinov’s worldview.
In reality, created by Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich ("Thunderstorm"), there are no actors, at least a little beyond these limits. Even Katerina, striving for a different life, has a very vague idea of what this other life is. She only realizes that the current existence is disgusting to her. Katerina’s beloved, Wild Boris’s nephew, looks like a stranger who came to this sleepy city from a foreign country in which there was a completely different life. However, he, too, turns into a subject of Kalinov’s “dark kingdom,” and does not at all resemble the image of Ivan the Tsarevich saving his beloved.
Katerina is like a "sleeping beauty." But her "awakening" was by no means joyful. Katerina Kabanova’s sweet dream — life in a house of loving parents — was rudely interrupted by marrying an unloved person. Tikhon is weak-willed, submits in everything to his mother, who is a true tyrant in the play.
External conflict
What led to such a tragic ending? Katerina's suicide - strength or weakness? There are no specific culprits in the play. The whole Kalinovsky world is to blame. The main character was a victim of a way of life, which developed as if under the influence of evil spells that hold the entire city in submission. Residents of Kalinov are not able to resist them. At best, they only silently sympathize with Katerina or give her advice on how to trick Kabanikh and arrange a date with her lover. However, any proposal of Kalinovites provokes a protest in her soul, since they all suggest some compromise with the mores of the city, with her position as a merchant's wife.
Kalinovtsi used to obey fate, and Katerina challenges her, and the city rejects her. The main character represents dreams of change. They attract her, beckon her, unlike, for example, Kabanikh, which seems to be "the last times" and "the end of the world." Katerina realizes that she is doomed in her pursuit of new things, and making sure that this closed world is incapable of waiting for anyone and no one to wait for support, the heroine decides to die. However, when trying to answer the question: "Is Katerina's suicide a victory or a defeat?" it is worth considering also the internal conflict of the heroine.
Internal conflict
The tragedy of "Thunderstorm" Katerina's suicide defines not only as her external conflict with the "dark kingdom", but also as the internal conflict of the heroine. In her soul there is a struggle between the old and the new. The thought of violating moral duty haunts Katerina: she believes that she sinned, that she would never receive forgiveness. This religious consciousness of sin is especially difficult and painful for the main character. Consciousness of her own guilt and heroic despair alternately take hold of her. The main character perceives her every act as a step towards the abyss, believing that there is no turning back. Katerina does not see hope for salvation, the thought of the possibility of forgiveness of sins and salvation of the soul never comes to her.
Social, philosophical and psychological aspects of the tragedy
Thus, in understanding the tragic fate of the main character, several aspects can be distinguished.
The first aspect is social, because in order to become happy, Katerina must either leave Kalinov or destroy the entire social and everyday life of this city. Neither one nor the other is possible in this situation; the heroine is a captive of this enchanted world.
The reasons for Katerina's suicide include the philosophical aspect - this is the reluctance to obey, the opposition to her own fate. Here the heroine also cannot be the winner. She has two options: either to reconcile with fate, with her role as a victim of the "dark kingdom", or to die. In the play (Ostrovsky "The Storm") , Katerina's suicide is presented as a natural ending.
The psychological aspect of the tragedy is an internal contradiction between the recognition of one grievous sin and free will, prompting the heroine to step over internal moral prohibitions. It should be noted that the form that this prohibition takes in Katerina's - religious - does not have much significance. After all, suicide is even more difficult than adultery, a sin.
All three aspects are interrelated, and all of them are important for a complete understanding of the causes of the tragic death of the heroine and the answer to the question: "Is Katerina's suicide a victory or a defeat?" So, ordinary adultery turned into a “Thunderstorm” into a large-scale tragedy of personality, and in itself this infidelity is more likely not the cause, but only a consequence of its opposition to the Kalinin world.
Katerina’s love for Boris
Katerina’s love is not the supreme need of the soul, as the heroine of the "Bride" Larisa Ogudalova. This is only a form of protest against the life of the merchant environment, a symbol of freedom. Katerina does not relate to Boris as a lover, but as the embodiment of her dream of freedom.
These characters never find a common language: the main character was able to rise above the life of Kalinov’s society, and Boris was unable to do so. So why did Katerina decide to commit suicide?
The heroine decided not to drown herself from “unhappy love” or even from sinful, “impossible” —the Kalinovsky way of life pushed her to this, since such a desire could not be realized within the narrow framework of this city. Thus, for Ostrovsky, for the first time, life becomes a life form, a reflection of human aspirations, and the so-called "philosophy of life" appears.
Philosophy of life
In this work he is endowed with a special function: a reflection of the base, material in the life of people, under which everything that is sublime and spiritual is hidden. The destruction of life portends the imminent collapse of familiar social relations.
Even the plot-compositional elements of The Storm are subordinate to attention to it. The work emphasizes the static nature of the plot, skipping the love affair itself, as well as many scenes that are not related to the development of the plot, but are necessary to describe the everyday environment of the city. Unhurried development of events corresponds to the pace of life of Kalinovites, measured and unhurried. The vast background of the main character, as well as the background of the secondary characters create the feeling that the events begin long before the beginning of the story. The final scene does not completely exhaust its meaning, alluding to the possibility of a repetition of the events described in real life.