The dark kingdom in the play is a thunderstorm who enters. Dark Kingdom
Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" caused a strong reaction in the field of literary scholars and critics. A. Grigoriev, D. Pisarev, F. Dostoevsky dedicated their articles to this work. N. Dobrolyubov, some time after the publication of “The Thunderstorm,” wrote the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.” Being good critic, Dobrolyubov emphasized good style author, praising Ostrovsky for his deep knowledge of the Russian soul, and reproached other critics for the lack direct gaze for the work. In general, Dobrolyubov’s view is interesting from several points of view. For example, the critic believed that dramas should show the harmful influence of passion on a person’s life, which is why he calls Katerina a criminal. But Nikolai Alexandrovich nevertheless says that Katerina is also a martyr, because her suffering evokes a response in the soul of the viewer or reader. Dobrolyubov gives very accurate characteristics. It was he who called the merchants the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm”.
If we trace how the merchant class and adjacent social strata were displayed over the decades, we see full picture degradation and decline. In "The Minor" the Prostakovs are shown limited people, in “Woe from Wit” the Famusovs are frozen statues who refuse to live honestly. All these images are the predecessors of Kabanikha and Wild. It is these two characters that support the “dark kingdom” in the drama “The Thunderstorm”. The author introduces us to the morals and customs of the city from the very first lines of the play: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!” In one of the dialogues between residents, the topic of violence is raised: “Whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor... And among themselves, sir, how they live!... They quarrel with each other.” No matter how much people hide what is happening inside families, others already know everything. Kuligin says that no one has prayed to God here for a long time. All the doors are locked, “so that people don’t see how... they eat their family and tyrannize their family.” Behind the locks there is debauchery and drunkenness. Kabanov goes to drink with Dikoy, Dikoy appears drunk in almost all scenes, Kabanikha is also not averse to having a glass - another in the company of Savl Prokofievich.
The entire world in which the inhabitants of the fictional city of Kalinov live is thoroughly saturated with lies and fraud. Power over the “dark kingdom” belongs to tyrants and deceivers. The residents are so accustomed to dispassionately fawning over wealthier people that this lifestyle is the norm for them. People often come to Dikiy to ask for money, knowing that he will humiliate them and not give them the required amount. Most negative emotions The merchant is called by his own nephew. Not even because Boris flatters Dikoy in order to get money, but because Dikoy himself does not want to part with the inheritance he received. His main traits are rudeness and greed. Dikoy believes that since he has a large number of money, which means others must obey him, fear him and at the same time respect him.
Kabanikha advocates for the preservation of the patriarchal system. She is a real tyrant, capable of driving anyone she doesn't like crazy. Marfa Ignatievna, hiding behind the fact that she reveres the old order, essentially destroys the family. Her son, Tikhon, is glad to go as far as possible, just not to hear his mother’s orders, her daughter does not value Kabanikha’s opinion, lies to her, and at the end of the play she simply runs away with Kudryash. Katerina suffered the most. The mother-in-law openly hated her daughter-in-law, controlled her every action, and was dissatisfied with every little thing. The most revealing scene seems to be the farewell scene to Tikhon. Kabanikha was offended by the fact that Katya hugged her husband goodbye. After all, she is a woman, which means she should always be inferior to a man. A wife’s destiny is to throw herself at her husband’s feet and sob, begging for a quick return. Katya does not like this point of view, but she is forced to submit to the will of her mother-in-law.
Dobrolyubov calls Katya “a ray of light in a dark kingdom,” which is also very symbolic. Firstly, Katya is different from the residents of the city. Although she was brought up according to the old laws, the preservation of which Kabanikha often talks about, she has a different idea of life. Katya is kind and pure. She wants to help the poor, she wants to go to church, do household chores, raise children. But in such a situation, all this seems impossible because of one thing simple fact: in the “dark kingdom” in “The Thunderstorm” it is impossible to find inner peace. People constantly walk in fear, drink, lie, cheat on each other, trying to hide the unsightly sides of life. In such an atmosphere it is impossible to be honest with others, honest with oneself. Secondly, one ray is not enough to illuminate the “kingdom”. Light, according to the laws of physics, must be reflected from some surface. It is also known that black has the ability to absorb other colors. Similar laws apply to the situation with the main character of the play. Katerina does not see in others what is in her. Neither the city residents nor Boris, “decently educated person", could not understand the reason internal conflict Kati. After all, even Boris is afraid of public opinion, he is dependent on Diky and the possibility of receiving an inheritance. He is also bound by a chain of deception and lies, because Boris supports Varvara’s idea to deceive Tikhon in order to save secret relationship with Katya. Let's apply the second law here. In Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm,” the “dark kingdom” is so all-consuming that it is impossible to find a way out of it. It eats Katerina, forcing her to take on one of the most terrible sins from the point of view of Christianity - suicide. "The Dark Kingdom" leaves no other choice. It would find her anywhere, even if Katya ran away with Boris, even if she left her husband. No wonder Ostrovsky transfers the action to fictional city. The author wanted to show the typicality of the situation: such a situation was typical of all Russian cities. But is it only Russia?
Are the findings really that disappointing? The power of the tyrants is gradually beginning to weaken. Kabanikha and Dikoy feel this. They feel that soon other people, new ones, will take their place. People like Katya. Honest and open. And, perhaps, it is in them that those old customs that Marfa Ignatievna zealously defended will be revived. Dobrolyubov wrote that the ending of the play should be viewed in a positive way. “We are glad to see Katerina’s deliverance - even through death, if it is impossible otherwise. Living in the “dark kingdom” worse than death" This is confirmed by the words of Tikhon, who for the first time openly opposes not only his mother, but also the entire order of the city. “The play ends with this exclamation, and it seems to us that nothing could have been invented stronger and more truthful than such an ending. Tikhon's words make the viewer think not about love affair, but about this whole life, where the living envy the dead.”
Definition " dark kingdom"and a description of the images of its representatives will be useful to 10th grade students when writing an essay on the topic "The Dark Kingdom in the play "The Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky."
Work test
“DARK KINGDOM” IN A.N. OSTROVSKY’S PLAY “GRO3A”
1.Introduction.
"A ray of light in a dark kingdom."
2. Main part.
2.1 The world of the city of Kalinov.
2.2 Image of nature.
2.3 Inhabitants of Kalinov:
a) Dikoya and Kabanikha;
b) Tikhon, Boris and Varvara.
2.4 The collapse of the old world.
3. Conclusion.
A turning point in the popular consciousness. Yes, everything here seems to be out of captivity.
A. N. Ostrovsky
The play “The Thunderstorm” by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, published in 1859, was enthusiastically received by advanced critics thanks, first of all, to the image of the main character, Katerina Kabanova. However, this beautiful female image, “a ray of light in the dark kingdom” (in the words of N.A. Dobrolyubov), was formed precisely in the atmosphere of patriarchal merchant relations, oppressing and killing everything new.
The play opens with a calm, unhurried exposition. Ostrovsky depicts the idyllic world in which the heroes live. This is the provincial town of Kalinov, which is described in great detail. The action takes place against the backdrop of the beautiful nature of central Russia. Kuligin, walking along the river bank, exclaims: “Miracles, truly it must be said that miracles!”< … >For fifty years I’ve been looking at the Volga every day and I can’t get enough of it.” Beautiful nature contrasts with cruel morals the city, with the poverty and lack of rights of its inhabitants, with their lack of education and limitations. The heroes seem to be closed in this world; they don’t want to know anything new and don’t see other lands and countries. Merchant Dikoy and Marfa Kabanova, nicknamed Kabanikha, are true representatives of the “dark kingdom”. These are individuals with a strong character, who have power over other heroes and manipulate their relatives with the help of Money. They adhere to the old, patriarchal order, which completely suits them. Kabanova tyranns all members of her family, constantly finding fault with her son and daughter-in-law, teaching and criticizing them. However, she no longer has absolute confidence in the inviolability of patriarchal foundations, so she defends her world with her last strength. Tikhon, Boris and Varvara - representatives younger generation. But they too were influenced by the old world and its orders. Tikhon, completely subordinate to his mother’s authority, gradually becomes an alcoholic. And only the death of his wife makes him cry out: “Mama, you ruined her! You, you, you...” Boris is also under the yoke of his uncle Dikiy. He hopes to receive his grandmother's inheritance, so he endures his uncle's bullying in public. At the request of the Dikiy, he leaves Katerina, pushing her to suicide with this act. Varvara, daughter of Kabanikha, is bright and strong personality. By creating visible humility and obedience to her mother, she lives in her own way. When meeting with Kudryash, Varvara is not at all worried about the moral side of her behavior. For her, the first place is the observance of external decency, which drowns out the voice of conscience. However patriarchal world, so strong and powerful, destroying main character plays, dies. All the heroes feel this. Katerina's public declaration of love for Boris was a terrible blow for Kabanikha, a sign that the old was leaving forever. Through a love-domestic conflict, Ostrovsky showed the turning point taking place in people's minds. A new attitude to the world, an individual perception of reality are replacing the patriarchal, communal way of life. In the play "The Thunderstorm" these processes are depicted especially vividly and realistically.
The Dark Kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky - this allegorical statement is familiar to everyone light hand his contemporary, literary critic Dobrolyubova. This is exactly how Nikolai Ivanovich considered it necessary to characterize the difficult social and moral atmosphere in the cities of Russia in early XIX century.
Ostrovsky - a subtle connoisseur of Russian life
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky made a brilliant breakthrough in Russian drama, for which he received a worthy review article. He continued the traditions of Russian national theater, laid down by Fonvizin, Gogol, Griboyedov. In particular, Nikolai Dobrolyubov highly appreciated the playwright’s deep knowledge and truthful portrayal of the specifics of Russian life. The Volga city of Kalinov, shown in the play, became a kind of model for all of Russia.
The deep meaning of the allegory “dark kingdom”
The Dark Kingdom in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is a clear and succinct allegory created by the critic Dobrolyubov, which is based on both a broad socio-economic explanation and a narrower literary one. The latter is formulated regarding provincial town Kalinov, in which Ostrovsky depicted an average (as they now say - statistically average) Russian town of the late 18th century.
The broad meaning of the concept of “dark kingdom”
Let's first describe the broad meaning this concept: the dark kingdom in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” is a figurative description of the socio-political state of Russia at a certain stage of its development.
After all, a thoughtful reader interested in history clearly imagines what kind of Russia ( late XVIII century) we're talking about. The huge country, a fragment of which was shown by the playwright in the play, lived in the old fashioned way, at a time when industrialization was dynamically taking place in European countries. The people were socially paralyzed (which was abolished in 1861). Strategic ones have not yet been built railways. The people for the most part were illiterate, uneducated, and superstitious. In fact, the state social policy did little.
Everything in provincial Kalinov seems to be “cooked in own juice" That is, people are not involved in major projects- production, construction. Their judgments betray complete incompetence in the simplest concepts: for example, in the electrical origin of lightning.
The dark kingdom in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is a society devoid of a vector of development. The class of industrial bourgeoisie and proletariat had not yet taken shape... The financial flows of society were not formed insufficient for global socio-economic transformations.
The dark kingdom of the city of Kalinov
In a narrow sense, the dark kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm” is a way of life inherent in the philistinism and merchant class. According to the description given by Ostrovsky, this community is absolutely dominated by wealthy and arrogant merchants. They constantly exert psychological pressure on others, not paying attention to their interests. There is no control over these ghouls who “eat like crazy.” For these tyrants, money is equivalent social status, and human and Christian morality is not a decree in their actions. They practically do whatever they want. In particular, realistic, artistically complete images - the merchant Savel Prokopievich Dikoy and the merchant's wife Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova - initiate the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm”. What are these characters? Let's take a closer look at them.
The image of the merchant Saveliy Prokofich Dikiy
Merchant Dikoy is the richest man in Kalinov. However, his wealth does not border on breadth of soul and hospitality, but on “tough character.” And he understands his wolf nature, and wants to change somehow. “Once I fasted about fasting, about great things...” Yes, tyranny is his second nature. When a “little man” comes to him asking to borrow money, Dikoy rudely humiliates him, moreover, it almost comes to beating the unfortunate man.
Moreover, this psychotype of behavior is always characteristic of him. (“What can I do, my heart is like that!”) That is, he builds his relationships with others on the basis of fear and his dominance. This is his usual pattern of behavior towards people with inferior
This man was not always rich. However, he came to wealth through a primitive aggressive established social model of behavior. He builds relationships with others and relatives (in particular, with his nephew) on one principle only: to humiliate them, formally - to deprive them of social rights, and then to take advantage of them himself. However, having felt psychological rebuff from a person of equal status (for example, from the widow of the merchant Kabanikha), he begins to treat him more respectfully, without humiliating him. This is a primitive, two-variant behavior pattern.
Behind the rudeness and suspicion (“So you know that you are a worm!”) hidden greed and self-interest. For example, in the case of a nephew, he effectively disinherits him. Savel Prokofich harbors in his soul hatred for everything around him. His credo is to reflexively crush everyone, crush everyone, clearing a living space for himself. If we were living at this time, such an idiot (sorry for being blunt) could easily, just in the middle of the street, beat us up for no reason, just so that we would cross to the other side of the street, clearing the way for him! But such an image was familiar to serf Russia! It’s not for nothing that Dobrolyubov called the dark kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm” a sensitive and truthful reflection of Russian reality!
The image of the merchant's wife Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova
The second type of Kalinov’s wild morals is the rich merchant widow Kabanikha. Her social model of behavior is not as primitive as that of the merchant Dikiy. (For some reason, regarding this model, an analogy comes to mind: “ Poor eyesight rhinoceros is the problem of those around him, not the rhinoceros himself!) Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, unlike the merchant Dikiy, builds her social status gradually. The tool is also humiliation, but of a completely different kind. She influences mainly her family members: son Tikhon, daughter Varvara, daughter-in-law Katerina. She bases her dominance over others on both her material and moral superiority.
Hypocrisy is her key to the merchant's wife - double standards. Formally and outwardly following the Christian cult, it is far from a truly merciful Christian consciousness. On the contrary, she interprets her ecclesiastical status as a kind of deal with God, believing that she is given the right not only to teach everyone around her everything, but also to indicate how they should act.
She does this constantly, completely destroying her son Tikhon as a person, and pushing her daughter-in-law Katerina to suicide.
If you can bypass the Dikiy merchant, having met him on the street, then with regard to Kabanikha the situation is completely different. If I can put it this way, then she continuously, constantly, and not episodically, like Dikoy, “generates” the dark kingdom in the play “The Thunderstorm”. Quotes from the work characterizing Kabanikha testify: she zombifies her loved ones, demanding that Katerina bow to her husband when he enters the house, instilling that “you can’t argue with mother,” so that the husband gives strict orders to his wife, and on occasion beats her...
Weak attempts to resist tyrants
What contrasts the community of the city of Kalinov with the expansion of the two aforementioned tyrants? Yes, practically nothing. They live in a society that is comfortable for them. As Pushkin wrote in “Boris Godunov”: “The people are silent...”. Someone, educated, tries to timidly express his opinion, like engineer Kuligin. Someone, like Varvara, crippled himself morally while living double life: giving in to tyrants and doing as you please. And someone will face an internal and tragic protest (like Katerina).
Conclusion
Is it found in our everyday life the word "tyranny"? We hope that for the majority of our readers - much less often than for the residents of the fortress town of Kalinov. Accept your sympathy if your boss or someone from your family circle is a tyrant. Nowadays, this phenomenon does not immediately spread to the entire city. However, it does exist in places. And we should look for a way out of it...
Let's return to Ostrovsky's play. Representatives create the “dark kingdom” in the play “The Thunderstorm”. Their common features- the presence of capital and the desire to dominate in society. However, it does not rely on spirituality, creativity, or enlightenment. Hence the conclusion: the tyrant should be isolated, depriving him of the opportunity to lead, as well as depriving him of communication (boycott). A tyrant is strong as long as he feels the indispensability of himself and the demand for his capital.
You should simply deprive him of such “happiness”. It was not possible to do this in Kalinov. Nowadays this is real.
Dark Kingdom. Kingdom of darkness (foreign language) ignorance, backwardness... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)
- (foreign language) ignorance, backwardness...
Dark kingdom (kingdom of darkness) (foreign) ignorance, backwardness... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary
KINGDOM- (1) kingdom; 2) reign) 1) a state headed by a king; 2) the time of the reign of some king, reign; 3) a certain area of reality, the focus of certain objects and phenomena (for example, nature, dark color, sleepy color) ... Power. Policy. Civil service. Dictionary
"Dark Kingdom"- DARK KINGDOM is an expression that has become widespread. after the appearance of articles by N. A. Dobrolyubov The Dark Kingdom and the Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom (1859 60), dedicated early creativity A. N. Ostrovsky. Began to be used as a designation. tyrant... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary
- (born January 17, 1836, died November 17, 1861) one of the most remarkable critics of Russian literature and one of characteristic representatives public excitement in the era of "great reforms". He was the son of a priest in Nizhny Novgorod. Father,… …
Dramatic writer, head of the repertoire of the Imperial Moscow Theater and director of the Moscow theater school. A. N. Ostrovsky was born in Moscow on January 31, 1823. His father, Nikolai Fedorovich, came from a clergy background, and... ... Large biographical encyclopedia
DARK, dark, dark; dark, dark, dark (dark, dark simple.). 1. Deprived of light, immersed in darkness, in darkness. “The flax was spread until dark in the dewy meadows.” Nekrasov. "IN dark room One candle is burning." A. Turgenev. "(Wolf) in the dark... ... Dictionary Ushakova
Dobrolyubov, Nikolai Alexandrovich, the most famous Russian critic after Belinsky, chief representative journalistic review method literary works. Things turned out sadly short life a highly talented young man, dazzling... ... Biographical Dictionary
- (Nikolai Alexandrovich) the most famous Russian critic after Belinsky, the main representative of the method of journalistic consideration of literary works. The short life of a highly gifted young man, dazzlingly brilliant in... ... encyclopedic Dictionary F. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron
Books
- Dark Kingdom. Stage versions, Potapov Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich Potapov - participant of the Great Patriotic War. After the war he graduated from navigation aviation school. Flew as a navigator different types airplanes. Later he worked in newspapers and...
