Businessmen of a new formation in the play by A. N.

18.10.2020

The tragedy of a suffering soul in the world of businessmen (based on the drama by A. N. Ostrovsky "Dowry")

Tragedy... This word suggests death. At the end of the play, a wonderful, gifted, fragile girl, Larisa Ogudalova, dies. Her death is not accidental. The playwright consistently takes his heroine through suffering and shock, forcing her to experience all the bitterness of deceived love and the collapse of hopes for happiness.

What is the reason for this tragedy? A young girl from an impoverished noble family has a sensitive, loving soul, musical talent, and beauty. But this wealth cannot replace what is most valued in the world of businessmen - money, a dowry that would provide her with a worthy position in society. Discussing Larisa's upcoming marriage, Vozhevatov openly says that nowadays there are as many suitors as there are dowries, that is, every person is looking primarily for profit. Therefore, Larisa’s life turns, as Karandyshev puts it, into a gypsy camp. She is forced, by order of her enterprising mother, to be nice to rich bachelors, entertain numerous guests, attracting them with singing and beauty.

Larisa’s very first dialogue with her groom convinces us that she doesn’t like such a noisy, chaotic life. Her pure and honest nature strives for quiet family happiness with her loved one. Vozhevatov calls Larisa simple-minded, meaning by this definition not stupidity, but sincerity, lack of cunning, flattery and pretense. This girl has created her own world with her poetic imagination, into which music takes her. She sings beautifully, plays the guitar and piano, expressing her innermost feelings and experiences in the sounds of an ancient romance. Possessing a sublime poetic soul, Larisa perceives the people around her as heroes of a Russian romance, not seeing their vulgarity, cynicism, and greed. Paratov in her eyes is the ideal man, Karandyshev is an honest, humane person who is not understood by others, Vozhevatov is a close childhood friend. But all these heroes turn out to be different; they reveal their true nature in their relationship to Larisa. The brilliant Paratov turns out to be an ordinary seducer who destroys a loving girl for the sake of fleeting pleasure. He, without hesitation, leaves her to marry the owner of the gold mines. With cynical frankness, he admits to Knurov that there is nothing cherished for him, that he is ready to sell anything for profit. And he really proves this with action: he sells “Swallow” and abandons his beloved girl. This means that all of Paratov’s actions are driven by the desire for wealth and profit. This is the life position of the other characters in the play, because all their relationships are determined by their tight wallets. The conversations of the characters constantly come down to money, to buying and selling. Let us recall the remarkable dialogue between Kharita Ignatievna Ogudalova and the wealthy merchant Knurov on the eve of Karandyshev’s dinner party. Mokei Permenych quite unequivocally offers Ogudalova to take care of her daughter. And his own mother listens to him with understanding and gratitude, actually accepting this proposal.

Perhaps the only person in the play for whom money does not play any role is Larisa. She values in people not wealth, but kindness, honesty, and decency. That is why she decides to marry a poor official Karandyshev and go to the village with him. Having lost all hope of happiness with her loved one, she wants at least understanding and respect, an honest, worthy life. Unable to pretend, Larisa admits to her groom that she only wants to love him, because she is attracted by a modest family life, which expects sympathy, tenderness and affection from him. She wants to believe that such an attitude from her future husband will cause her to reciprocate over time. But many of Karandyshev’s tactless remarks and his behavior convince us that this is not the person with a kind and sensitive soul who can make the heroine happy. This includes reproaches of the “gypsy camp”, and jealous quibbles about free conversation with Vasya Vozhevatov, and malicious envy of successful businessmen. The very ridiculous idea of a dinner party is the result of painful wounded pride, envy, jealousy and vanity, which, in general, form the basis of his character. Karandyshev lacks sensitivity and love for the bride. Neither he nor Kharita Ignatievna pays attention to Larisa’s persistent requests for a modest and simple wedding. They are overcome by vanity thoughts about a magnificent celebration where the bride will shine with beauty and rich attire. And Larisa utters almost prophetic words here: “I see that I am a doll for you; if you play with me, you will break me and throw me away.” In the finale of the drama, Karandyshev will find a more precise and cruel word that will hit Larisa like a slap in the face. This word is "thing". It is this that helps to understand the reason for the tragic fate of the heroine. She lives in a world where everything is bought and sold, including beauty, love, honor. All this is a product that has its own buyer. After all, Knurov and Vozhevatov are busily concluding a trade deal, playing Larisa toss. Bound by an “honest merchant word,” Vasily Vozhevatov, an old childhood friend, refuses her even pity and consolation in order to make way for the winning Knurov.

At the end of the drama, the shocked Larisa has an epiphany. She recognizes herself as a thing that the people around her can dispose of at their own discretion. The cruelty of this discovery evokes a desperate protest in the heroine, which is expressed in thoughts of suicide. But Larisa does not have the determination and will of Katerina, the strength and integrity of her character. She lacks the strength to give up her life. And she finds another way out - to challenge the painful world of self-interest and profit by accepting Knurov’s offer. In this case, it will at least become an expensive item for a rich owner. Such a decision means the moral death of the heroine, from which Karandyshev’s shot will save her. Larisa's last words are gratitude for the fact that she was spared humiliation and final fall. For her, like for Katerina Kabanova, there is no place in the cruel world of profit, profit, deception and betrayal. Thus, Ostrovsky’s wonderful drama “Dowry” reveals the conflict of a pure, honest, spiritualized personality with a society where everything is subordinated to the powerful power of money.

Gradually, the intonation of critical reviews of “The Thunderstorm” changed. The first positive response to Ostrovsky’s new play was the article A. Gieroglyfova, who assessed the drama as folk, highlighting the most typical phenomena of Russian life. “The nationality,” he wrote, “is felt in every word, in every scene, in every personality of the drama.” He especially noted the protesting beginning in Katerina, and called her main feature “the freshness and strength of instincts and feelings.” In Katerina’s face he saw “a bright ray in the dark sky.”

Critic of "Russian newspaper" M. Darachan, based on Dobrolyubov’s article “The Dark Kingdom”, he defined the idea of “The Thunderstorm” as follows: “Hatred of tyranny, the bitter protest of a free spirit against our lack of respect for our own dignity, for our personality, indignation at the slavery of our spirit...” Particularly significant, in the opinion of criticism, came out in the drama “awareness of the cause of evil, to which the downtrodden natures of the dark kingdom are already coming.” Polemicizing with Palkhovsky, Darachan asserted the high artistry of Ostrovsky's new play as a drama.

Sovremennik magazine greeted “The Thunderstorm” as a huge victory for the playwright. It was called an outstanding folk work of Russian literature, and its main character was called Ostrovsky's most poetic creation. “And finding poetry in the everyday life in which Katya was born is not an easy task,” wrote the New Poet (I. Panaev). The article noted, in addition to the playwright’s great talent, his deep knowledge of folk life and love for the Russian people.

P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky(Northern Bee magazine) revealed the connection between the customs of the “dark kingdom” of wild and wild boars and the principles of Domostroy, and noted that in “The Thunderstorm” “the protest against tyranny is heard from the lips of every victim... But Kuligin’s protest is strongest.”

According to the critic M. Dostoevsky,“The Thunderstorm” is one of Ostrovsky’s best works; in the drama “new aspects of Russian life” are given, “new motives” are heard, the gallery of Russian women created by the playwright was decorated with new characters, and his Katerina, the old woman Kabanova, Varvara, even Feklusha will occupy a prominent place in it.” However, M. Dostoevsky argued that Katerina does not carry the beginnings of activity and protest: “she is a woman of high poetic impulses, but at the same time weak. This inflexibility of beliefs and frequent betrayal of them constitutes its entire tragedy.” Katerina is a victim of “her own purity and her own beliefs,” she “would have died without despotism.”

Following the first publications, large critical articles appeared about the drama “The Thunderstorm” Ap. A. Grigoriev “After Ostrovsky’s “Thunderstorm”. Letters to Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev" (1860), N. A. Dobrolyubova “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”(1860) and four years later an article D. I. Pisarev “Motives of Russian drama.” The controversy surrounding "Groza" continued.

A. N. Ostrovsky and the Russian National Theater

An analysis of the playwright’s first plays allowed N.A. Dobrolyubov to recognize his extraordinary talent and note that Ostrovsky’s plays are “not comedies of intrigue and not comedies of character per se, but something new, to which we would give the name “plays of life.” The new genre of drama - “plays of life”, discovered by Ostrovsky in practice and theoretically substantiated by Dobrolyubov in his article “The Dark Kingdom”, contributed to an even closer approach of the stage to modernity. Critics N.A. Dobrolyubov and Ap. A. Grigoriev, who stood on opposite positions, saw in Ostrovsky’s works a holistic picture of the existence of the people. His dramas depicted all layers of Russian society and the life of Russia itself, from the 50s to the 80s of the 19th century. In historical chronicle plays, the playwright showed the distant past of his country, but the problems posed in them were relevant to modern times.

Comprehensive knowledge of folk life, way of life, customs, a deep organic connection with folk art represent the characteristic features of Ostrovsky the artist. His dramas became the basis of the theater repertoire and raised the performing arts to the highest level.

Ostrovsky was confident that the playwright’s work in creating a national theater was a high public service. He was “a knight of the theater, undividedly devoted to one passion and for the sake of it, ready for any tests, for ascetic work devoid of quick reward” (V. Lakshin).

A decade and a half before the creation of the first play by A. N. Ostrovsky, V. G. Belinsky wrote in the article “Literary Dreams”: “Oh, how good it would be if we had our own, Russian folk theater!.. In fact - to see all of Rus' on stage, with its good and evil, with its lofty and funny…” The repertoire of the Russian stage in the 40s of the 19th century was indeed very poor. Several wonderful plays (“Minor” by D. I. Fonvizin, “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov, “The Inspector General” by N. V. Gogol) were a brilliant exception against the background of works of little artistic merit, far from the real Russian reality. These were melodramas and vaudevilles, most often translated. The theatrical repertoire was enriched by plays by major Western European playwrights Shakespeare, Moliere and others.

The creation of the Russian national, folk theater, which Belinsky dreamed of, is associated with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky. In connection with the 35th anniversary of the playwright’s work, I. A. Goncharov wrote in his welcoming speech: “You have brought a whole library of works of art as a gift to literature, and created your own special world for the stage. You alone completed the building at the foundation of which Fonvizin, Griboedov, and Gogol laid the cornerstones. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say: “We have our own Russian national theater.” It, in fairness, should be called: “Ostrovsky Theater”.

The Ostrovsky Theater is not only the number of plays (over forty), not counting those written in co-authorship, it is a new quality of dramaturgy, the creation of “its own special world” for the stage.

Ostrovsky's dramas give a true, lively picture of Russian life in the 50s-80s of the 19th century. The plays feature hundreds of characters, including merchants and nobles, officials of various degrees and ranks, bourgeois businessmen and landowners, commoners, actors, historical figures, residents of the fabulous Berendey kingdom; morally ugly natures whose main passion is money, and spiritually rich ones who have a “warm heart” and are capable of deep feelings. And all these people do not live in the playwright’s plays on their own, but become “in certain relationships with each other - property, family, service, companionship, friendship, hostility, love - as in life itself.” (E. Kholodov).

Ostrovsky began by opening for literature and theater “a country hitherto unknown in detail and not yet described by any traveler,” as he himself notes in his “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” - this country, according to official news, lies directly opposite Kremlin, on the other side of the Moscow River, which is probably why it is called Zamoskvorechye.

Let's sum it up

Questions and tasks

1. Why, in your opinion, does I. A. Goncharov associate the birth of the Russian national theater with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky?

2. What “bitter truths, clothed in the form of art” were contained in the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky?

3. Which scenes in the drama “Dowry” made the strongest impression on you? How does Ostrovsky achieve such an impact on the reader? What is the tragedy of Larisa’s fate?

4. How does Ostrovsky depict the world of businessmen in “Dowry”? Using the text of the drama, trace Vozhevatov’s line of behavior, his actions and, based on them, make your own conclusion about the hero (if you wish, you can take other heroes - Knurov or Paratov).

5. “You will be superfluous,” Karandyshev says to Robinson. But is Robinson “superfluous” in Ostrovsky’s play? For what purpose is he introduced into the play? Why did the playwright need to bring together two alien figures - Larisa and Robinson - and place them side by side in the last act?

6. Why did Katerina choose death over life? Was strength or weakness of character demonstrated in this action?

7. Do you agree with N.A. Dobrolyubov’s statement that Boris is the same Tikhon, only educated?

8. Try to refute the judgments of critics who reacted negatively to A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm”.

Essay topics

2. Katerina’s monologues and their role in revealing the character of the heroine (based on “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky).

3. The role of antithesis in revealing the ideological content of the drama “The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky.

5. “The Powers of This World” in the plays “The Thunderstorm” and “Dowry” by A. N. Ostrovsky.

Topics of reports and abstracts

1. The role of the title of a drama in revealing its ideological meaning (based on one of the plays by A. N. Ostrovsky).

The work was added to the site website: 2015-06-27

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(*70) From the standpoint of the moral values discovered in The Snow Maiden, Ostrovsky assessed the life of the 70s, where money and bills began to dominate all human relationships, where people were divided into wolves and sheep. This parallel between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom appears in the comedy "Wolves and Sheep."

Drama "Dowry". The world of patriarchal merchants, to which Ostrovsky says goodbye, is replaced in his later work by the kingdom of predatory, tenacious and smart businessmen. Appeal to new social phenomena leads to great changes in the artistic essence of Ostrovsky's later dramas. The evolution of the writer’s dramatic talent is especially evident in his drama “The Dowry” (1879), which rightfully challenges the primacy of “The Thunderstorm”.

With the rapid and rapid development of capitalist relations in the 70s, great changes were taking place in the merchant world. It is becoming more and more complicated, breaking ties with both old folk morality and Domostroevsky traditions. Merchants from small traders become millionaires, establish international connections, and receive a European education. Patriarchal simplicity of morals is becoming a thing of the past. Folklore is replaced by classical literature, folk song is replaced by romance. Merchant characters become psychologically refined and complicated. They no longer fit into stable everyday life, and their depiction requires new dramatic techniques.

The conflict "Dowry" is a variation on the theme "Thunderstorms". A young girl from a poor family, pure and loving life, artistically gifted, faces the world of businessmen, where her beauty is desecrated. But there are very big differences between Katerina Kabanova and the heroine of "Dowry" Larisa Ogudalova.

Katerina's soul grows from folk songs, fairy tales and legends. A centuries-old peasant culture lives in her worldview. Katerina's character is integral, stable and decisive. Larisa Ogudalova is a much more fragile and unprotected girl. In her musically sensitive soul, gypsy songs and Russian romances, poems by Lermontov and Boratynsky sound. Her nature is more refined and psychologically colorful. But precisely because of this, she is deprived of the inner strength and uncompromisingness characteristic of Katerina.

The drama is based on a social theme: Larisa is poor, she has no dowry, and this determines her tragic fate. She lives in a world where everything is bought and sold, including (*71) maiden honor, love and beauty. But Larisa’s poetic nature flies over the world on the wings of music: she sings beautifully, plays the piano, the guitar sounds in her hands. Larisa is a significant name: translated from Greek it means seagull. Dreamy and artistic, she does not notice the vulgar sides in people, sees them through the eyes of the heroine of a Russian romance and acts in accordance with it.

In the climax scene of the drama, Larisa sings to Paratov a romance based on Boratynsky’s poems “Do not tempt me unnecessarily.” In the spirit of this romance, Larisa perceives both Paratov’s character and her relationship with him. For her, there is only a world of pure passions, selfless love, and charm. In her eyes, the affair with Paratov is a story about how, shrouded in mystery and mystery, the fatal seducer, despite Larisa’s pleas, tempted her.

As the action progresses in the drama, the discrepancy between Larisa’s romantic ideas and the prosaic world of the people who surround her and worship her grows. These people are complex and contradictory in their own way. And Knurov, and Vozhevatov, and Karandyshev are able to appreciate beauty and sincerely admire talent. It is no coincidence that Paratov, a shipowner and a brilliant gentleman, seems to Larisa to be the ideal man. Paratov is a man of a broad soul, giving himself over to sincere hobbies, ready to put not only someone else’s life at stake, but also his own. “One Caucasian officer, an acquaintance of Sergei Sergeich, an excellent shooter, passed here; they were with us, Sergei Sergeich, and said: “I heard you shoot well.” “Yes, not bad,” says the officer. Sergei Sergeich gives him a pistol, puts the glass on his head and goes into another room, about twelve steps away. “Shoot,” he says.”

Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov will note the paradoxical breadth of modern man, in whom the highest ideal coexists with the greatest ugliness. Paratov's emotional upsurges culminate in the triumph of sober prose and business calculation. Turning to Knurov, he declares: “I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing treasured; if I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, whatever.” We are talking about the steamship "Swallow". But just as with “Swallow,” he does the same with Larisa: he leaves her for the sake of profit (marriage to a million), and destroys her for the sake of frivolous pleasure.

Challenging Paratov's inconstancy, Larisa is ready to marry Karandyshev. She also idealizes him as a person with a kind soul, poor and misunderstood (*72) by those around him. But the heroine does not feel the wounded, proud, envious basis in Karandyshev’s soul. After all, in his relationship with Larisa there is more selfish triumph than love. Marriage with her pleases his vain feelings.

At the end of the drama, Larisa has an epiphany. When she learns with horror that they want to make her a kept woman, that Knurov and Vozhevatov are playing a toss with her, the heroine utters the fatal words: “A thing... yes, a thing. They are right, I am a thing, not a person.” Larisa will try to throw herself into the Volga, but she lacks the strength to carry out this intention: “Parting with life is not at all as easy as I thought. So I don’t have the strength! That’s how unhappy I am! But there are people for whom it’s easy.” In a fit of despair, Larisa is only able to pose a painful challenge to the world of profit and self-interest: “If you are to be a thing, there is only one consolation - to be expensive, very expensive.”

And only Karandyshev’s shot brings Larisa back to herself: “My dear, what a good deed you have done for me! The pistol is here, here on the table! It’s me... myself... Oh, what a good deed!..” In Karandyshev’s thoughtless act she finds a manifestation of living feeling and dies with words of forgiveness on her lips.

In "The Dowry" Ostrovsky comes to reveal complex, psychologically polyphonic human characters and life conflicts. It is no coincidence that V. F. Komissarzhevskaya, an actress of refined spiritual insights, who was later destined to play Nina Zarechnaya in “The Seagull” by A. P. Chekhov, became famous in the role of Larisa. Late Ostrovsky creates a drama whose psychological depth already anticipates the emergence of a new theater - the theater of A.P. Chekhov.