Characteristics of the minor characters and their role. Ostrovsky A

A. N. Ostrovsky is rightfully considered the father of Russian everyday drama and Russian theater. He opened up new horizons for the Russian theater, new heroes, a new type of human relations. He is the author of about 60 plays, of which the most famous are “The Dowry”, “Late Love”, “The Forest”, “Simplicity is Enough for Every Wise Man”, “We Are Our Own People” and, of course, “The Thunderstorm”.
The play “The Thunderstorm” was called by A. N. Dobrolyubov the most decisive work, since “the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought to tragic consequences in it...”. Indeed, the play takes us to the small Volga town of Kalinov, which would not be anything remarkable if, in the depths of its patriarchy, problems had not arisen that can be attributed to a number of universal human problems. Stuffiness is the main thing that determines the atmosphere of the city. And the playwright very accurately conveys to us the state of mind of people forced to spend their lives in this atmosphere.
The secondary characters in the play not only form the background against which the personal drama of Katerina, the main character of the work, unfolds. They show us different types of people’s attitudes towards their lack of freedom. The system of images in the play is such that all the minor characters form conditional pairs, and only Katerina is alone in her true desire to escape from the yoke of the “tyrants.”
Dikoy and Kabanov are people who keep those who are somehow dependent on them in constant fear. Dobrolyubov very aptly called them “tyrants,” since the main law for everyone is their will. It is no coincidence that they treat each other very respectfully: they are the same, only the sphere of influence is different. Dikoy rules in the city, Kabanikha rules over her family.
Katerina's constant companion is Varvara, the sister of her husband Tikhon. She is the main opponent of the heroine. Her main rule: “Do whatever you want, as long as everything is sewn and covered.” Varvara cannot be denied intelligence and cunning; Before marriage, she wants to be everywhere, to try everything, because she knows that “the girls go out as they please, and father and mother don’t care. Only women are locked up.” Varvara perfectly understands the essence of the relationship between people in their house, but does not consider it necessary to fight her mother’s “thunderstorm”. Lying is the norm for her. In a conversation with Katerina, she speaks directly about this: “Well, you can’t do without it... Our whole house rests on this. And I wasn’t a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.” Varvara adapted to the dark kingdom, learned its laws and rules. She feels authority, strength, and a desire to deceive. She is, in fact, the future Kabanikha, because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Varvara's friend, Ivan Kudryash, is a match for her. He is the only one in the city of Kalinov who can answer Dikiy. “I am considered a rude person; Why is he holding me? Therefore, he needs me. Well, that means I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me...” says Kudryash. In conversation, he behaves cheekily, smartly, boldly, boasts of his prowess, red tape, and knowledge of the “merchant establishment.” He also adapted to the tyranny of the Wild. Moreover, one can even assume that Kudryash could become the second Wild.
At the end of the play, Varvara and Kudryash leave the “dark kingdom,” but does this escape mean that they have completely freed themselves from old traditions and laws and will become the source of new laws of life and honest rules? Hardly. They will most likely try to become masters of life themselves.
The couple also consists of two men with whom Katerina’s fate was connected. They can be confidently called the true victims of the “dark kingdom.” So Katerina’s husband Tikhon is a weak-willed, spineless creature. He obeys his mother in everything and obeys her. He does not have a clear position in life, courage, courage. His image fully corresponds to the name given to him - Tikhon (quiet). Young Kabanov not only does not respect himself, but also allows his mother to shamelessly treat his wife. This is especially evident in the farewell scene before leaving for the fair. Tikhon repeats all his mother’s instructions and moral teachings word for word. Kabanov could not resist his mother in anything, he only sought solace in wine and on those short trips when, at least for a while, he could escape from his mother’s oppression.
Of course, Katerina cannot love and respect such a husband, but her soul yearns for love. She falls in love with Dikiy's nephew, Boris. But Katerina fell in love with him, in the apt expression of A. N. Dobrolyubov, “in the wilderness,” because in essence Boris is not much different from Tikhon. Perhaps more educated, like Katerina, he did not spend his entire life in Kalinov. Boris's lack of will, his desire to receive his part of his grandmother's inheritance (and he will receive it only if he is respectful to his uncle) turned out to be stronger than love. Katerina bitterly says that Boris, unlike her, is free. But his freedom is only in the absence of his wife.
Kuligin and Feklusha also form a couple, but here it is appropriate to talk about an antithesis. The wanderer Feklusha can be called an “ideologist” of the “dark kingdom.” With her stories about lands where people with dog heads live, about thunderstorms, which are perceived as irrefutable information about the world, she helps “tyrants” keep people in constant fear. Kalinov for her is a land blessed by God. The self-taught mechanic Kuligin, who is looking for a perpetual motion machine, is the complete opposite of Feklusha. He is active, obsessed with a constant desire to do something useful for people. In his mouth is a condemnation of the “dark kingdom”: “Cruel, sir, the morals in our city are cruel... Whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors...” But that’s all. his good intentions run into a thick wall of misunderstanding, indifference, and ignorance. So, when he tries to install steel lightning rods on houses, he receives a furious rebuff from the Wild: “A thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment, so that we can feel it, but you want to defend yourself, God forgive me, with poles and some kind of rods.”
Kuligin is perhaps the only one who understands the main character; it is no coincidence that it is he who utters accusatory words at the end of the play, holding the body of the dead Katerina in his arms. But he is also incapable of fighting, since he too has adapted to the “dark kingdom” and has come to terms with such a life.
And finally, the last character is a half-crazed lady who, at the very beginning of the play, predicts the death of Katerina. She becomes the personification of those ideas about sin that live in the soul of the religious Katerina, raised in a patriarchal family. True, in the finale of the play, Katerina manages to overcome her fear, for she understands that lying and humbling herself all her life is a greater sin than suicide.
The secondary characters, as already mentioned, are the background against which the tragedy of a desperate woman unfolds. Every character in the play, every image is a detail that allows the author to convey as accurately as possible the situation of the “dark kingdom” and the unpreparedness of most people to fight.

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The role of minor characters in A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”

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A. N. Ostrovsky is rightfully considered the father of Russian everyday drama and Russian theater. He opened up new horizons for the Russian theater, new heroes, a new type of human relations. He is the author of about 60 plays, of which the most famous are “The Dowry”, “Late Love”, “The Forest”, “Simplicity is Enough for Every Wise Man”, “We Are Our Own People” and, of course, “The Thunderstorm”.

The play “The Thunderstorm” was called by A. N. Dobrolyubov the most decisive work, since “the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought to tragic consequences in it...”. Indeed, the play takes us to the small Volga town of Kalinov, which would not be anything remarkable if, in the depths of its patriarchy, problems had not arisen that can be attributed to a number of universal human problems. Stuffiness is the main thing that determines the atmosphere of the city. And the playwright very accurately conveys to us the state of mind of people forced to spend their lives in this atmosphere. The secondary characters in the play not only form the background against which the personal drama of Katerina, the main character of the work, unfolds.

They show us different types of people’s attitudes towards their lack of freedom. The system of images in the play is such that all the minor characters form conditional pairs, and only Katerina is alone in her true desire to escape from the yoke of the “tyrants.” Dikoy and Kabanov are people who keep those who are somehow dependent on them in constant fear. Dobrolyubov very aptly called them “tyrants,” since the main law for everyone is their will. It is no coincidence that they treat each other very respectfully: they are the same, only the sphere of influence is different.

Dikoy rules in the city, Kabanikha rules over her family. Katerina's constant companion is Varvara, the sister of her husband Tikhon. She is the main opponent of the heroine.

Her main rule: “Do whatever you want, as long as everything is sewn and covered.” Varvara cannot be denied intelligence and cunning; Before marriage, she wants to be everywhere, to try everything, because she knows that “the girls go out as they please, and father and mother don’t care. Only women are locked up.” Varvara perfectly understands the essence of the relationship between people in their house, but does not consider it necessary to fight her mother’s “thunderstorm”. Lying is the norm for her. In a conversation with Katerina, she speaks directly about this: “Well, you can’t do without it... Our whole house rests on this.

And I wasn’t a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.” Varvara adapted to the dark kingdom, learned its laws and rules. She feels authority, strength, and a desire to deceive.

She is, in fact, the future Kabanikha, because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Varvara's friend, Ivan Kudryash, is a match for her. He is the only one in the city of Kalinov who can answer Dikiy. “I am considered a rude person; Why is he holding me? Therefore, he needs me. Well, that means I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me...

“- says Kudryash. In conversation, he behaves cheekily, smartly, boldly, boasts of his prowess, red tape, and knowledge of the “merchant establishment.” He also adapted to the tyranny of the Wild. Moreover, one can even assume that Kudryash could become the second Wild. At the end of the play, Varvara and Kudryash leave the “dark kingdom,” but does this escape mean that they have completely freed themselves from old traditions and laws and will become the source of new laws of life and honest rules? Hardly.

They will most likely try to become masters of life themselves. The couple also consists of two men with whom Katerina’s fate was connected. They can be confidently called the true victims of the “dark kingdom.” So Katerina’s husband Tikhon is a weak-willed, spineless creature. He obeys his mother in everything and obeys her. He does not have a clear position in life, courage, courage. His image fully corresponds to the name given to him - Tikhon (quiet).

Young Kabanov not only does not respect himself, but also allows his mother to shamelessly treat his wife. This is especially evident in the farewell scene before leaving for the fair. Tikhon repeats all his mother’s instructions and moral teachings word for word. Kabanov could not resist his mother in anything, he only sought solace in wine and on those short trips when, at least for a while, he could escape from his mother’s oppression.

Of course, Katerina cannot love and respect such a husband, but her soul yearns for love. She falls in love with Dikiy's nephew, Boris. But Katerina fell in love with him, in the apt expression of A. N. Dobrolyubov, “in the wilderness,” because in essence Boris is not much different from Tikhon.

Perhaps more educated, like Katerina, he did not spend his entire life in Kalinov. Boris's lack of will, his desire to receive his part of his grandmother's inheritance (and he will receive it only if he is respectful to his uncle) turned out to be stronger than love. Katerina bitterly says that Boris, unlike her, is free.

But his freedom is only in the absence of his wife. Kuligin and Feklusha also form a couple, but here it is appropriate to talk about an antithesis. The wanderer Feklusha can be called an “ideologist” of the “dark kingdom.” With her stories about lands where people with dog heads live, about thunderstorms, which are perceived as irrefutable information about the world, she helps “tyrants” keep people in constant fear. Kalinov for her is a land blessed by God. The self-taught mechanic Kuligin, who is looking for a perpetual motion machine, is the complete opposite of Feklusha.

He is active, obsessed with a constant desire to do something useful for people. In his mouth is a condemnation of the “dark kingdom”: “Cruel, sir, the morals in our city are cruel... Whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors...” But that’s all. his good intentions run into a thick wall of misunderstanding, indifference, and ignorance.

So, when he tries to install steel lightning rods on houses, he receives a furious rebuff from the Wild: “A thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment, so that we can feel it, but you want to defend yourself, God forgive me, with poles and some kind of rods.” Kuligin is perhaps the only one who understands the main character; it is no coincidence that it is he who utters accusatory words at the end of the play, holding the body of the dead Katerina in his arms. But he is also incapable of fighting, since he too has adapted to the “dark kingdom” and has come to terms with such a life. And finally, the last character is a half-crazed lady who, at the very beginning of the play, predicts the death of Katerina. She becomes the personification of those ideas about sin that live in the soul of the religious Katerina, raised in a patriarchal family. True, in the finale of the play, Katerina manages to overcome her fear, for she understands that lying and humbling herself all her life is a greater sin than suicide.

The secondary characters, as already mentioned, are the background against which the tragedy of a desperate woman unfolds. Every character in the play, every image is a detail that allows the author to convey as accurately as possible the situation of the “dark kingdom” and the unpreparedness of most people to fight.

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There are two types of people: some are people who are used to fighting for a better life, people who are determined and strong, while others prefer to submit and adapt to the surrounding conditions. In the play by A. N. Ostrovsky, Katerina is the main character of A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm.” N.A. Dobrolyubov defined her as the embodiment of a “strong Russian character” and called her “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” But despite her, Katerina and the boar are two opposite people from the same family. Kabanikha is the mistress of the “dark kingdom”. All the characters in this play are either victims of this kingdom, like Tikhon and Boris,
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Why don't people fly? I say, why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. Here

Ostrovsky A. N.

Essay on the work on the topic: The role of minor characters in A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”

A. N. Ostrovsky is rightfully considered the father of Russian everyday drama and Russian theater. He opened up new horizons for the Russian theater, new heroes, a new type of human relations. He is the author of about 60 plays, of which the most famous are “The Dowry”, “Late Love”, “The Forest”, “Simplicity is Enough for Every Wise Man”, “We Are Our Own People” and, of course, “The Thunderstorm”.
The play “The Thunderstorm” was called by A. N. Dobrolyubov the most decisive work, since “the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought to tragic consequences in it.” Indeed, the play takes us to the small Volga town of Kalinov, which would not be anything remarkable if, in the depths of its patriarchy, problems had not arisen that can be attributed to a number of universal human problems. Stuffiness is the main thing that determines the atmosphere of the city. And the playwright very accurately conveys to us the state of mind of people forced to spend their lives in this atmosphere.
The secondary characters in the play not only form the background against which the personal drama of Katerina, the main character of the work, unfolds. They show us different types of people’s attitudes towards their lack of freedom. The system of images in the play is such that all the minor characters form conditional pairs, and only Katerina is alone in her true desire to escape from the yoke of the “tyrants.”
Dikoy and Kabanov are people who keep those who are somehow dependent on them in constant fear. Dobrolyubov very aptly called them “tyrants,” since the main law for everyone is their will. It is no coincidence that they treat each other very respectfully: they are the same, only the sphere of influence is different. Dikoy rules in the city, Kabanikha rules over her family.
Katerina's constant companion is Varvara, the sister of her husband Tikhon. She is the main opponent of the heroine. Her main rule: “Do whatever you want, as long as everything is sewn and covered.” Varvara cannot be denied intelligence and cunning; Before marriage, she wants to be everywhere, to try everything, because she knows that “the girls go out as they please, and father and mother don’t care. Only women are locked up.” Varvara perfectly understands the essence of the relationship between people in their house, but does not consider it necessary to fight her mother’s “thunderstorm”. Lying is the norm for her. In a conversation with Katerina, she directly talks about this: “Well, you can’t live without it. Our whole house rests on this. And I wasn’t a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.” Varvara adapted to the dark kingdom, learned its laws and rules. She feels authority, strength, and a desire to deceive. She is, in fact, the future Kabanikha, because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Varvara's friend, Ivan Kudryash, is a match for her. He is the only one in the city of Kalinov who can answer Dikiy. “I am considered a rude person; Why is he holding me? Therefore, he needs me. Well, that means I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me.” - says Kudryash. In conversation, he behaves cheekily, smartly, boldly, boasts of his prowess, red tape, and knowledge of the “merchant establishment.” He also adapted to the tyranny of the Wild. Moreover, one can even assume that Kudryash could become the second Wild.
At the end of the play, Varvara and Kudryash leave the “dark kingdom,” but does this escape mean that they have completely freed themselves from old traditions and laws and will become the source of new laws of life and honest rules? Hardly. They will most likely try to become masters of life themselves.
The couple also consists of two men with whom Katerina’s fate was connected. They can be confidently called the true victims of the “dark kingdom.” So Katerina’s husband Tikhon is a weak-willed, spineless creature. He obeys his mother in everything and obeys her. He does not have a clear position in life, courage, courage. His image fully corresponds to the name given to him - Tikhon (quiet). Young Kabanov not only does not respect himself, but also allows his mother to shamelessly treat his wife. This is especially evident in the farewell scene before leaving for the fair. Tikhon repeats all his mother’s instructions and moral teachings word for word. Kabanov could not resist his mother in anything, he only sought solace in wine and on those short trips when, at least for a while, he could escape from his mother’s oppression.
Of course, Katerina cannot love and respect such a husband, but her soul yearns for love. She falls in love with Dikiy's nephew, Boris. But Katerina fell in love with him, in the apt expression of A. N. Dobrolyubov, “in the wilderness,” because in essence Boris is not much different from Tikhon. Perhaps more educated, like Katerina, he did not spend his entire life in Kalinov. Boris's lack of will, his desire to receive his part of his grandmother's inheritance (and he will receive it only if he is respectful to his uncle) turned out to be stronger than love. Katerina bitterly says that Boris, unlike her, is free. But his freedom is only in the absence of his wife.
Kuligin and Feklusha also form a couple, but here it is appropriate to talk about an antithesis. The wanderer Feklusha can be called an “ideologist” of the “dark kingdom.” With her stories about lands where people with dog heads live, about thunderstorms, which are perceived as irrefutable information about the world, she helps “tyrants” keep people in constant fear. Kalinov for her is a land blessed by God. The self-taught mechanic Kuligin, who is looking for a perpetual motion machine, is the complete opposite of Feklusha. He is active, obsessed with a constant desire to do something useful for people. The condemnation of the “dark kingdom” is put into his mouth: “Cruel, sir, the morals in our city are cruel. Whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can earn even more money from his free labors.” But all his good intentions run into a thick wall of misunderstanding, indifference, and ignorance. So, when he tries to install steel lightning rods on houses, he receives a furious rebuff from the Wild: “A thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment, so that we can feel it, but you want to defend yourself, God forgive me, with poles and some kind of rods.”
Kuligin is perhaps the only one who understands the main character; it is no coincidence that it is he who utters accusatory words at the end of the play, holding the body of the dead Katerina in his arms. But he is also incapable of fighting, since he too has adapted to the “dark kingdom” and has come to terms with such a life.
And finally, the last character is a half-crazed lady who, at the very beginning of the play, predicts the death of Katerina. She becomes the personification of those ideas about sin that live in the soul of the religious Katerina, raised in a patriarchal family. True, in the finale of the play, Katerina manages to overcome her fear, for she understands that lying and humbling herself all her life is a greater sin than suicide.
The secondary characters, as already mentioned, are the background against which the tragedy of a desperate woman unfolds. Every character in the play, every image is a detail that allows the author to convey as accurately as possible the situation of the “dark kingdom” and the unpreparedness of most people to fight.
http://vsekratko.ru/ostrovskiy/groza152

A.N. Ostrovsky was born and spent his childhood in Zamoskvorechye, where merchants, artisans, and the poor had long settled. Almost 50 plays were written by him during his long literary life, and many of them were rooted in his native Zamoskvorechye. The drama “The Thunderstorm” (1859), written at a time of social upsurge on the eve of the peasant reform, seemed to crown the first decade of the writer’s activity, a cycle of his plays about the “dark kingdom” of tyrants. The artist’s imagination takes us to the small Volga town of Kalinov - with merchant storehouses on the main street, with an old church where pious parishioners go to pray, with a public garden above the river, where ordinary people walk decorously on holidays, with gatherings on benches near the plank gates, behind which The chain dogs bark frantically. The rhythm of life is sleepy, boring, matching the languidly long summer day with which the play begins: "

The main conflict of the drama does not boil down to the love story of Katerina and Boris. The development of the dramatic conflict would have been impossible without Feklushi, without Varvara, without Kuligin and other minor characters. Feklusha, a wanderer and hanger-on, is similar to Kabanikha in her reasoning. She thinks like her mistress, she regrets what her mistress regrets - about the old times dear to their hearts: “The last times, Mother Marfa Ignatievna, the last, by all accounts the last.” The interlocutors lament the fact that in other cities life is in full swing. They are terrified by the “fiery serpent” that they began to harness. They expect all sorts of troubles ahead: “And it will be worse than this, dear.” But of the people close to Kabanikha, only Feklusha will not condemn her severity. In the atmosphere of the “dark kingdom”, under the yoke of tyrant power, living human feelings fade, wither, the will weakens, and the mind fades. If a person is endowed with energy and a thirst for life, then, getting used to circumstances, he begins to lie and dodge.

Under the pressure of this dark force, the characters of Tikhon and Varvara develop. This power disfigures them, each in their own way. Tikhon is pitiful and impersonal. But even Kabanikha’s oppression did not completely kill the living feelings in him. Somewhere in the depths of his timid soul there glimmers a flame - love for his wife. He does not dare to show this love, and he does not understand Katerina; he is glad to leave even her, just to escape from his home hell. But the fire in his soul does not go out. Confused and depressed, Tikhon speaks about his wife who cheated on him: “But I love her, I’m sorry to lay a finger on her...” His will is constrained, and he does not even dare to help his unfortunate Katya. However, in the last scene, love for his wife overcomes Tikhon’s fear of his mother. Over Katerina’s corpse, for the first time in his life he dares to blame his mother:

“Kabanov. Mama, you ruined her, you, you, you...

Kabanova. What you! You don’t remember yourself! I forgot who you're talking to!

Kabanov. You ruined her! You! You!"

How different these accusations are from Tikhon’s timid, humiliated words when he first appeared on stage: “Do we dare, Mama, to think!”, “Yes, I, Mama...” This means, indeed, the foundations of the “dark kingdom” are collapsing and Kabanikha’s power is wavering, even if Tikhon spoke like that.

The development of characters in The Thunderstorm is associated with the central conflict of the drama. Life in Kabanova’s house also crippled Varvara. She does not want to endure the power of her mother, she does not want to live in captivity. But Varvara easily adapts to the morality of the “dark kingdom” and takes the path of deception. This becomes habitual for her - she claims that there is no other way to live: their whole house rests on deception. “And I wasn’t a liar, but I learned when it became necessary,” says Varvara. Her everyday rules are very simple: “Do whatever you want, as long as it’s safe and covered.” However, Varvara was cunning while she could, and when they began to lock her up, she ran away from home. And again Kabanikha’s ideals are crumbling. The daughter “disgraced” her house and broke free from her power.

The most weak and pathetic of the characters is Dikiy’s nephew, Boris Grigorievich. He speaks about himself: “I’m walking around completely dead... Driven, beaten...” He is a kind, cultured person. He stood out sharply against the background of the merchant environment. But Boris is unable to protect either himself or the woman he loves. In misfortune, he only rushes about and cries: “Oh, if only these people knew how it feels for me to say goodbye to you! My God! May God grant that someday it will be as sweet for them as it is for me now. Goodbye Katya! You are the villains! Monsters! Oh, if only there was strength! In the scene of his last date with Katerina, Boris evokes contempt. The man she fell passionately in love with is afraid to run away with the woman she loves. He’s afraid to even talk to her: “They wouldn’t find us here.” But it is to this weak-willed person that Katerina’s last words before her death are addressed: “My friend! My joy! Goodbye!"

Katerina's husband Tikhon deserves more respect than Boris, since he dared to make accusations. Even the clerk Wild Curly, who is reputed to be a rude man, commands at least some respect because he was able to protect his love by running away with his beloved. Among the characters in the play, opposed to the Wild and Kabanikha, Kuligin boldly and sensibly judges the “dark kingdom”. This self-taught mechanic has a bright mind and a broad soul, like many talented people from the people. He condemns the greed of the merchants, the cruel attitude towards people, ignorance, and indifference to everything truly beautiful. Kuligin's opposition to the “dark kingdom” is especially expressive in the scene of his clash with Dikiy. Kuligin writes poetry, but his ordinary speech is also imbued with poetry. “It’s very good, sir, to go for a walk now,” he says to Boris. “It’s quiet, the air is excellent, the meadows smell of flowers from across the Volga, the sky is clear...” And then Lomonosov’s poems sound.

Kuligin condemns the “cruel morals” of the Dikikhs and Kabanovs, but he is too weak in his protest. Just like Tikhon, like Boris, he is afraid of tyrant power and bows before it. “There is nothing to do, we must submit!” - he says humbly. Kuligin teaches others to be obedient. He advises Curly: “It’s better to endure it.” He recommends the same to Boris: “What should we do, sir. We must try to please somehow.” And only at the end, shocked by the death of Katerina, Kuligin rises to open protest: “Here is your Katerina. Do whatever you want with her! Her body is here, take it; but the soul is now not yours: it is now before a judge who is more merciful than you!” With these words, Kuligin not only justifies Katerina, but also accuses the merciless judges who destroyed her. We see that the death of Katerina awakened a protest against the “dark kingdom” from the voiceless, downtrodden Tikhon, and provoked Kuligin, who was usually timid of tyrants, to open protest. The main conflict of the drama is the struggle between old and new morality. And as the author intended, not only the main character, Katerina, protests against the old world, but also the secondary characters, one way or another, raise their voices against the “dark kingdom.”

A. N. Ostrovsky is rightfully considered a singer of the merchant milieu, the father of Russian everyday drama, the Russian national theater. He is the author of about 60 plays, and one of the most famous is “The Thunderstorm”. A. N. Dobrolyubov called Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” the most decisive work, since “the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought to tragic consequences in it... There is something refreshing and encouraging in “The Thunderstorm”. This something is, in our opinion, the background of the play.”

The background of the play is made up of minor characters. This is the constant companion of Katerina, the main character of the play, Varvara, the sister of Katerina’s husband, Tikhon Kabanova. She is the opposite of Katerina. Her main rule: “Do whatever you want, as long as everything is sewn and covered.” You can’t deny Varvara her intelligence and cunning, before marriage she wants to be everywhere, to try everything, because she knows that “girls go out as they please, father and mother don’t care. Only women are locked up.” Lying is the norm for her. She directly tells Katerina that it is impossible without deception: “Our whole house rests on this. And I was not a liar, but I learned when it became necessary.”

Varvara adapted to the “dark kingdom” and studied its laws and rules. She feels authority, strength, readiness and even a desire to deceive. She is, in fact, the future Kabanikha, because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Varvara's friend, Kudryash, is a match for her. He is the only one in the city of Kalinov who can fight back against the Wild One. “I am considered a rude person; Why is he holding me? Therefore, he needs me. Well, that means I’m not afraid of him, but let him be afraid of me...” says Kudryash. He behaves cheekily, smartly, boldly, boasts of his prowess and knowledge of the “merchant establishment.” Kudryash is the second Wild, only still young.

In the end, Varvara and Kudryash leave the “dark kingdom,” but their escape does not mean at all that they have completely freed themselves from old traditions and laws and will accept new laws of life and honest rules. Once free, they will most likely try to become masters of life themselves.

The play also contains true victims of the “dark kingdom”. This is Katerina Kabanova’s husband, Tikhon, a weak-willed, spineless creature. He listens to his mother in everything and obeys her, does not have a clear position in life, courage, courage. His image fully corresponds to his name - Tikhon (quiet). Young Kabanov not only does not respect himself, but also allows his mother to shamelessly treat his wife. This is especially evident in the farewell scene before leaving for the fair. Tikhon repeats all his mother’s instructions and moral teachings word for word. Kabanov could not resist his mother in any way; he slowly drank himself to death, becoming even more weak-willed and quiet. Of course, Katerina cannot love and respect such a husband, but her soul yearns for love. She falls in love with Dikiy's nephew, Boris. But Katerina fell in love with him, in Dobrolyubov’s apt expression, “in the wilderness,” because in essence Boris is not much different from Tikhon. Maybe a little more educated. Boris's lack of will, his desire to receive his part of his grandmother's inheritance (and he will receive it only if he is respectful to his uncle) turned out to be stronger than love.

In the “dark kingdom” the wanderer Feklusha enjoys great reverence and respect. Feklushi's stories about the lands where people with dog heads live are perceived as irrefutable information about the world. But not everything in it is so gloomy: there are also living, sympathetic souls. This is a self-taught mechanic, Kuligin, who invents a perpetual motion machine. He is kind and active, literally obsessed with a constant desire to do something useful for people. But all his good intentions run into a thick wall of misunderstanding, indifference, and ignorance. So, in response to an attempt to install steel lightning rods on houses, he receives a furious rebuff from the Wild: “A thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment so that we can feel it, but you want to defend yourself, God forgive me, with poles and some kind of rods.”

Kuligin is essentially the reasoner in the play; the condemnation of the “dark kingdom” is put into his mouth: “Cruel, sir, the morals in our city are cruel... Whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can get even more free money for his labors.” make money..."

But Kuligin, like Tikhon, Boris, Varvara, Kudryash, adapted to the “dark kingdom” and came to terms with such a life.

The secondary characters, as already mentioned, are the background against which the tragedy of a desperate woman unfolds. Every face in the play, every image was a step on the ladder that led Katerina to the banks of the Volga, to death.