Characteristics of Katerina ("Thunderstorm", Ostrovsky)

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Among all types of work with the text of the play "Thunderstorm" (Ostrovsky), the composition causes particular difficulties. This is probably because the students do not fully understand the peculiarities of Katerina's character, the uniqueness of the time in which she lived.

Let's try together to understand the issue and, based on the text, interpret the image the way the author wanted to show it.

A. N Ostrovsky. "Thunderstorm". Characteristics of Katerina

The very beginning of the nineteenth century. The first acquaintance with Katerina helps to understand the difficult environment in which she lives. The weak-willed husband who is afraid of his mother, the tyrant Kabanikha, who loves to humiliate people, strangles and oppresses Katerina. She feels her loneliness, her defenselessness, but she remembers her parents' house with great love.

Katerina's characterization ("Thunderstorm") begins with a picture of urban customs, and continues with her memories of the house where she was loved and free, where she felt like a bird. But was it all good? After all, she was given awaymarried by the decision of the family, and the parents could not help but know how weak-willed her husband is, how cruel her mother-in-law is.

However, even in the stuffy atmosphere of the house-building, the girl managed to maintain the ability to love. He falls in love with the nephew of the merchant Wild. But Katerina's character is so strong, and she herself is so pure, that the girl is afraid to even think about cheating on her husband.

Characteristics of Katerina ("Thunderstorm") stands out as a bright spot against the background of other heroes. Weak, weak-willed, contented that Tikhon will escape from maternal control, lying by the will of circumstances, Varvara - each of them struggles in his own way with unbearable and inhuman morals.

And only Katerina is fighting.

First with you. At first she does not want to hear about a meeting with Boris. Trying to "observe himself", he begs Tikhon to take her with him. Then she rebels against the inhumane society.

Katerina's characterization ("Thunderstorm") is built on the fact that the girl is opposed to all characters. She does not secretly go to parties, as the cunning Varvara does, she is not afraid of the Kabanikhi, as her son does.

Katerina's strength of character is not that she fell in love, but that she dared to do it. And that, having failed to maintain her purity before God, she dared to accept death contrary to human and Divine laws.

The characterization of Katerina ("Thunderstorm") was created by Ostrovsky not by describing the features of her nature, but by the actions that the girl performed. Pure and honest butinfinitely lonely and infinitely loving Boris, she wanted to confess her love to the entire Kalinovsky society. He knew that she might be waiting, but she was not afraid of either the rumors or the bullying that would necessarily follow her confession.

But the tragedy of the heroine is that no one else has such a strong character. Boris abandons her, preferring an ephemeral legacy. Varvara does not understand why she confessed: she would walk herself slowly. The husband can only sob over the corpse, saying “you are happy, Katya.”

The image of Katerina, created by Ostrovsky, is an excellent example of an awakening personality who is trying to escape from the sticky networks of the patriarchal way of life.