Turgenev fathers and sons theme of love. The theme of love in the prose of I.S.
In "Fathers and Sons" Turgenev decided eternal problems: the problem of relationships between different generations, the problem of happiness, the problem of love. Love theme very widely deployed in the novel. This feeling tests them “for strength” and reveals the true essence of a person. According to Turgenev, love plays a colossal role in life. This feeling is the meaning of life, without it life is meaningless. The ability of the heroes to experience love is for the writer one of the main qualities in a person and in his heroes. The main love line of the novel is connected with the images of Evgeny Bazarov and Anna Sergeevna Odintsova. The nihilist Bazarov denied love as a relationship of souls. He sincerely believed that love was an invention of romantics. Between people there is only habit, mutual sympathy and relationships between bodies. In my opinion, this attitude of the protagonist towards love is connected with his attitude towards women. All his life, Evgeniy Vasilyevich believed that a woman is a being of the second order. It is created for the entertainment of men. And although the hero preached, along with others, the ideas of female feminism, it seems to me that he still did not take women seriously.
Thus, Bazarov’s life was subordinated to reason and rationalism. But everything in his life changed in an instant. To test his hero and show the absurdity of his beliefs, Turgenev bets life path the hero's obstacle is love. Bazarov, convinced of the strength of his nature, of his difference from others, suddenly... fell in love. He fell in love passionately and furiously, just as his nature was passionate and furious. As we see, Bazarov’s love is contradictory. She is mixed with anger at herself: she fell in love like a fool, like a simple little man! But the hero can’t help himself. He will carry his feelings for Odintsova to the end of his life and before his deathbed he will want to see Anna Sergeevna, dear to him. I wonder how he behaves when last meeting with Bazarov his beloved is Anna Sergeevna Odintsova. She is afraid of getting infected from Evgeniy Vasilyevich, and only a sense of decency forces her to come closer to him. Well, this woman didn’t love Bazarov? But it might seem that it was she who first began to show signs of attention to the hero. Yes, indeed, this is so. But first Odintsova became interested in Bazarov as an interesting and smart person. Then, feeling more than just sympathy for him, Anna Sergeevna got scared. She did not want to exchange her calmness and authority in society for strong, but unknown to her feelings. In her heart, Odintsova understands that she wants love, but her cold and dispassionate mind stops the heroine. That's why Odintsova is so unhappy. In the epilogue we learn that this heroine married again, but again out of convenience, and not out of love. Well, Odintsova made her choice in life.
Unhappy in love is the antipode, and in many ways, Bazarov's double - Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. His whole life went to pieces because of an unhappy, fatal love, which Kirsanov cannot forget. Unrequited passion dried up the hero, turned him into a dead man, filling his life with “principles” and dogmas. Turgenev depicts in his novel not only men who are unhappy in love, but also women. If a man without love “dries up” and goes into social activities or science, then the woman becomes unhappy and funny. She lives her life in vain, not fulfilling her natural destiny.
The theme of love is one of the leading themes of the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". All the writer’s characters experience this feeling to one degree or another, in the way they can or are able to. It is love that becomes for them the criterion that reveals the true essence of the heroes, gives them the meaning of life or makes them unhappy.
The problem of love in the novel “Fathers and Sons”
Turgenev's novel nihilism bazaars Kirsanov
“Only love holds and moves life.”
I.S. Turgenev
I.S. Turgenev in his works subjected heroes to two tests: the test of love and the test of death. Why did he choose these particular tests?
I think because love is the purest, highest and most beautiful feeling, the soul and personality of a person are revealed to it, showing their true qualities, and death is a great equalizer, one must be prepared for it as inevitable and be able to die with dignity .
In this work I want to show whether Evgeny Bazarov survived, main character novel by I.S. Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons”, the first test is a test of love.
At the beginning of the novel, the author introduces us to his hero as a nihilist, a man “who does not bow to any authority, who does not accept a single principle on faith,” for whom romanticism is nonsense and whim: “Bazarov recognizes only what can be felt hands, see with the eyes, put on the tongue, in a word, only what can be witnessed by one of the five senses.” Therefore, he considers mental suffering unworthy of a real man, high aspirations - far-fetched and absurd. Thus, “...disgust for everything detached from life and evaporating in sounds is the fundamental property” of Bazarov. And this man, who denies everything and everyone, falls in love with Anna Sergeevna Odintsova, a rich widow, an intelligent and mysterious woman. At first, the main character drives away this romantic feeling, hiding behind crude cynicism. In a conversation with Arkady, he asks about Odintsova: “What kind of figure is this? She’s not like other women.” From the statement it is clear that she interested Bazarov, but he is trying in every possible way to discredit her in his eyes, comparing her with Kukshina, a vulgar person.
Odintsova invites both friends to visit her, they agree. Bazarov notices that Arkady likes Anna Sergeevna, but tries to be indifferent. He behaves very cheekily in her presence, then he becomes embarrassed, blushes, and Odintsova notices this. Throughout his entire stay as a guest, Arkady is surprised by Bazarov’s unnatural behavior, because he does not talk to Anna Sergeevna “about his beliefs and views,” but talks about medicine, botany, etc.
On his second visit to Odintsova’s estate, Bazarov is very worried, but tries to restrain himself. He increasingly understands that he has some kind of feeling for Anna Sergeevna, but this does not agree with his beliefs, because love for him is “nonsense, unforgivable nonsense,” a disease. Doubts and anger rage in Bazarov’s soul, his feelings for Odintsova torment and infuriate him, but still he dreams of reciprocal love. The hero indignantly recognizes the romance in himself. Anna Sergeevna tries to get him to talk about feelings, and he speaks about everything romantic with even greater contempt and indifference.
Before leaving, Odintsova invites Bazarov to her room, says that she has no purpose or meaning in life, and cunningly extracts a confession from him. The main character says that he loves her “stupidly, madly,” and from his appearance it is clear that he is ready to do anything for her and is not afraid of anything. But for Odintsova this is just a game, she likes Bazarov, but she does not love him. The main character in a hurry leaves Odintsova's estate and goes to his parents. There, while helping his father with medical research, Bazarov becomes infected with a serious illness. Realizing that he will soon die, he casts aside all doubts and beliefs and sends for Odintsova. Before his death, Bazarov forgives Anna Sergeevna and asks to take care of his parents.
In the novel “Fathers and Sons,” the main character passes the test of love, unlike the heroes of other works by I.S. Turgenev. Bazarov sacrifices everything for the sake of love: his beliefs and views - he is ready for this feeling and is not afraid of responsibility. But here nothing depends on him: he completely surrenders to the feeling that has gripped him, but receives nothing in return - Odintsova is not ready for love, so she pushes Bazarov away.
And here it's hot and passionate nature Bazarova swept away all his theories. He fell in love, like a boy, with a woman whom he valued highly. “In conversations with Anna Sergeevna, he expressed his indifferent contempt for everything romantic even more than before, and when left alone, he was indignantly aware of the romanticism in himself.” The hero is experiencing severe mental discord. “... Something... took possession of him, which he never allowed, which he always mocked, which outraged all his pride.” Anna Sergeevna Odintsova rejected him. But Bazarov found the strength to accept defeat with honor, without losing his dignity.
And Pavel Petrovich, who also loved deeply, could not leave with dignity when he became convinced of the woman’s indifference to him: “.. he spent four years in foreign lands, now chasing after her, now with the intention of losing sight of her... and I could no longer get into the right rut.” And in general the fact that he seriously fell in love with a frivolous and empty society lady, says a lot.
Bazarov is a strong character, this new person in Russian society. And the writer carefully considers this type of character. The last test he offers his hero is death.
Anyone can pretend to be whoever they want. Some people do this their whole lives. But in any case, before death a person becomes what he really is. Everything pretentious disappears, and the time comes to think, perhaps for the first time and last time, about the meaning of life, about what good he did, whether they will remember or forget as soon as they are buried. And this is natural, because in the face of the unknown, a person discovers something that he may not have seen during his lifetime.
In the novel “Fathers and Sons” by I.S. Turgenev finds the hero he has been looking for for so long, a hero who has stood the test of love and death.
The problems formulated by Turgenev in the novel are relevant today.
It is known that I.S. Turgenev dedicated the novel to Belinsky and argued: “If the reader does not fall in love with Bazarov with all his rudeness, heartlessness, ruthless dryness and harshness, it is my fault that I did not achieve my goal. Bazarov is my favorite child.”
Turgenev wrote the novel “Fathers and Sons” in the last century, but the problems raised in it are still relevant in our time. What to choose: contemplation or action? How to relate to art, to love? Is the generation of fathers right? These issues have to be addressed by each new generation. And perhaps it is precisely the impossibility of solving them once and for all that drives life.
But let us remember that the most important law - the birth and death of all living things - was given to nature by the most important Father - God. In the light of the Orthodox tradition, the meaning of the title of the novel is enriched.
The problem of “fathers” and “children”, so clearly and boldly indicated by the writer in the title of the novel, is a problem for all times - because, first of all, it is connected with the most important issue of all earthly existence: with the question of the meaning of human life. It's a problem of rethinking life values generation preceding the generation coming to replace it, the problem of breaking established concepts and stereotypes. Not every generational change is accompanied by such rethinking and such disruption. But as soon as doubt arises in some of the deep fundamental principles, the problem of “fathers” and “sons” appears before society, sometimes taking on a more or less serious aspect, sometimes turning into a tragic side, leading to confrontation between generations.
An ideological conflict that arises in those rare moments when “children” develop a clear conscious program for themselves, outline a certain serious goal on the path of life, such a conflict, such a clash of generations cannot be resolved by reconciliation. Ideological confrontation leads to a complete break, to a disruption of the connection of times. Turgenev revealed the tragic nature of such a conflict in his novel and reflected it in its title.
Such a conflict is always tragic, because, first of all, it involves, either explicitly or implicitly, the rejection of the fatherland.
In the consciousness of the Russian person, the concepts of “Fatherland”, “father”, “son” are closely connected with the foundations of Christian doctrine. It follows that the problem of the relationship between generations, indicated in the title of the novel, needs religious understanding.
The lessons of love led to grave consequences in the fate of Bazarov. They led to a crisis in his one-sided, vulgar materialistic views on life. Two abysses opened before the hero: one is the mystery of his own soul, the other is the mystery of the world that surrounds him. From the microscope the hero was drawn to the telescope, from the ciliates - to the starry sky above his head.
The love story of Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov is much more ambiguous. For the sake of love, Pavel Petrovich gave up everything, crossed out his entire career, which led him to spiritual death. His love for Princess R. is a painful and humiliating feeling. The story of Pavel Petrovich's love for Princess R. It is not introduced as parenthesis. He appears in the novel as a warning to the arrogant Bazarov.
Love for Odintsova is the beginning of tragic retribution for the arrogant Bazarov, who considers love to be romantic nonsense: it splits his soul into two halves. From now on, two people live and act in it. One of them is a convinced opponent of romantic feelings, a denier of the spiritual nature of love. Another - passionately and spiritually loving person, faced with the true mystery of this high feeling. The “natural scientific” beliefs dear to his mind turn into a principle, which he, a denier of all kinds of principles, now serves, secretly feeling that his service is blind, that life turned out to be more complicated than what “physiologists” know about it. Refuting the hero of the novel’s views on love, the writer makes him experience what Bazarov himself rejected. Difficult internal process knowledge true love makes Bazarov feel nature in a new way.
In his feelings for Odintsova, he reveals himself as a strong, passionate and deep nature. And here his superiority over the people around him is manifested: his feeling is unlike love relationship other characters. Bazarov saw in Odintsova an intelligent, outstanding person, singling her out from the circle of provincial ladies: “She’s not like other women.” Odintsova is worthy of him in many ways, and this circumstance also elevates Bazarov. If he fell in love with an empty woman, his feeling would not evoke respect.
Bazarov's cheeky behavior is his own embarrassment and timidity. Odintsova understood this and was flattered. She is regally beautiful, restrained and majestic, requiring special attention and respect. Bazarov wants to love Odintsova, but cannot do this, so he runs away from his love due to nihilism. Usually, the origins of the tragedy of Bazarov's love are sought in the character of Odintsova, a pampered lady, an aristocrat, unable to respond to Bazarov's feelings, timid and giving in to him. But Odintsova wants and cannot love Bazarov, not only because this democrat, having fallen in love, does not want love and runs away from it. “An incomprehensible fear” that separates Bazarov’s declaration of love from hatred towards the woman he loves? The element of a cruelly suppressed feeling finally broke through in him, but with a destructive force in relation to this feeling. Bazarov willingly shares his thoughts with Odintsova, and from their conversations she understands that for the sake of nihilism he will not make concessions.
From Turgenev's point of view, love is mysterious and omnipotent, and its denial leads to tragedy. Unhappy love leads Bazarov to a mental crisis and a terrible tragedy. There is something similar in the love of Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov. But Bazarov fights, he did not become limp and did not humiliate himself, like Pavel Petrovich. Turgenev showed that Bazarov was superior in love to the district aristocrats, including the intelligent, but cold and selfish Odintsova. “Both sides are right to a certain extent,” this is the principle of construction ancient tragedy runs through the entire novel, and in the love story ends with Turgenev bringing together the aristocrat Kirsanov and the democrat Bazarov in his heartfelt attraction to Fenechka and her simplicity, folk instinct, verifies both heroes.
Pavel Petrovich is attracted to Fenichka by simplicity and spontaneity, but his love for Fenichka is too transcendental and ethereal. Bazarov, on the contrary, instinctively seeks in Fenechka vital confirmation of his view of love as a simple and clear sensual attraction. But this simplicity turns out to be worse than theft: it deeply offends Fenechka, and a moral reproach, sincere, genuine, is heard from her lips. Bazarov explained the failure with Odintsova to himself by the lordly effeminacy of the heroine, but in relation to Fenechka, what kind of “lordship” can we talk about? Obviously, in the most feminine nature(it doesn’t matter whether peasant or noble) the spirituality and moral beauty rejected by the hero are laid down.
In the novel “Fathers and Sons,” Turgenev depicted several love lines, thanks to which the character traits of the main character are fully revealed, giving the reader the opportunity to look into the most hidden corners of his soul. At the same time, Bazarov’s love story becomes brighter the more ironically the relationships of the other characters in the novel are described. Let's take, for example, Nikolai Petrovich's love for Dunyasha. This is the calmest, most ordinary version of love, in which we do not observe either raging passions or any strong and passionate emotions. Or Arkady’s love for Odintsova: before us is an unrequited feeling, a slight youthful hobby, while for Katya he already feels a pure and tender feeling. However, both in friendship and in love, the younger Kirsanov is subject to the will of a stronger nature than himself.
I. S. Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” perfectly reveals the writer’s ability to guess “new needs, new ideas introduced into public consciousness" The bearer of these ideas in the novel is the commoner democrat Evgeny Bazarov. The hero’s opponent in the novel is the brilliant aristocrat Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. However, this novel is not only about the clash of two ideologies, but also about the relationship between “fathers” and “children”, about family ties, about respect, trust, love. In “Fathers and Sons” this theme is illustrated by the description of the Kirsanov and Bazarov families. In addition, Turgenev presents us with the love stories of the heroes - Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich, father and son of the Kirsanovs.
The most significant love stories in the novel are the two antagonistic heroes - Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. Story line Pavel Petrovich is his relationship with Princess R., his unsuccessful love. Moreover, Turgenev emphasizes that that period in Kirsanov’s life was the most vibrant, stormy, and eventful. Having settled on the estate, Pavel Petrovich leads a quiet, measured, monotonous life, having forgotten how to dream and love. He lives only with memories of long past events. In Kirsanov’s present, virtually nothing happens; he seems to freeze in his memories. And the author repeatedly emphasizes this vital immobility, the internal “fossilism” of Pavel Petrovich. His “beautiful, emaciated” head looks like a “dead man’s head”; life is “hard for Pavel Petrovich... harder than he himself suspects...”. Love “killed” Kirsanov, destroying his will to live, feelings, desires.
And, on the contrary, Bazarov appears to us as a “spiritual dead man” at the beginning of the novel. Pride, pride, heartlessness, dryness and harshness towards people, nature, the entire surrounding world - Turgenev immediately reveals these traits in the hero. Meanwhile, some kind of anxiety is noticeable in Bazarov’s behavior. What is behind the hero’s actions? “This anger is not an expression of damaged egoism or wounded pride, it is an expression of suffering, languor, produced by the absence of love. Despite all his views, Bazarov craves love for people. If this thirst manifests itself as malice, then such malice only constitutes reverse side love,” wrote N. Strakhov. Meanwhile, the hero himself does not allow natural human needs to manifest themselves in his soul, considering them nonsense and romanticism. Bazarov is deprived of the fullness of life, life in all its diversity of manifestations. The living current of this life seems to pass by the hero, passes him by. Therefore, Bazarov is a “spiritual dead man” at the beginning of the novel.
Love for Odintsova “resurrects” the hero, awakening his dormant feelings, thirst for life and love, revealing to him the beauty of the world. However love story Bazarova is also unsuccessful: Anna Sergeevna Odintsova rejects his love. At the beginning of the novel, Bazarov condemns Pavel Petrovich in a conversation with Arkady: “... a man who put his whole life on the line female love and when this card was killed for him, he became limp and sank to the point that he was incapable of anything, such a person is not a man, but a male. You say he is unhappy: you know better; but not all the crap came out of him.” At the end of the novel, Bazarov himself finds himself in a similar situation.
Using the example of Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich, Turgenev shows two different attitudes towards nature-fate. Turgenev associated the image of nature with the image of ancient fate, which is initially hostile to man: “the gaze of the eternal Isis is not warmed by maternal love for her brainchild, it freezes, compresses the heart with indifferent cold.” In the face of fate, according to Turgenev, three paths are open to man: “the despair of pessimism, stoicism, the consolation of religion.” In the novel, Pavel Petrovich shows us the “despair of pessimism,” which manifests itself both in his lifestyle and in his skepticism itself. At the beginning of the novel, Bazarov appears as a stoic, calm and imperturbable person who does not react in any way “to external and internal stimuli.” However, at the end of the novel, the hero comes to the same “desperation of pessimism” that possesses the soul of Pavel Petrovich.
Thus, both heroes (Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich) are simply unhappy. However, this is not the objective fault of the heroes. Turgenev’s happiness is capricious and whimsical; it does not depend on a person, but a person depends on him.
It is characteristic that Turgenev unites “ideological opponents” in their interest in Fenechka. A peculiar love triangle: Bazarov-Fenechka-Pavel Petrovich. Secretly, Pavel Petrovich is attracted to Fenechka, who reminds him of Princess R. Bazarova, but she likes her as a young woman, beautiful woman. In addition, in this “courtship” one can also vaguely discern a strong resentment towards Odintsova, who rejected his feelings.
However, neither Pavel Petrovich’s feelings nor Bazarov’s interest are reciprocated by Fenechka. Bazarov’s unexpected persecution offends her, but Pavel Petrovich’s attention is just as hard for her: “They all scare me. “They don’t talk, but they look at you like that,” she complains about Kirsanov’s gaze. Fenechka herself loves Nikolai Petrovich, who is a little embarrassed by this love, and by his age, and by his feelings for Fenechka.
The culmination of all these relationships is a duel, which, paradoxically, reveals the best that is hidden in both “rivals”: the chivalry of Pavel Petrovich, his repentance for his own arrogance, the ability to soberly assess the situation and the human vulnerability of Bazarov, his courage, nobility .
There is another parallel in the novel: Bazarov’s strong, all-consuming passion is shaded by Arkady’s innocent, poetically inspired feeling for Katya Odintsova. In contrast to Bazarov's failure, the story of young Kirsanov ends happily: he marries Katya Odintsova. However, this does not mean that it is fatal, tragic love Bazarova is contrasted with the “quiet, peaceful” feeling of Arkady. For Turgenev, the feelings of both heroes are equally valuable. Let us remember the scene of Arkady and Katya’s explanation. "He grabbed her big beautiful hands and, gasping with delight, pressed them to his heart. He could barely stand on his feet and just kept repeating: “Katya, Katya...”, and she somehow innocently began to cry, quietly laughing at her own tears. Anyone who has not seen such tears in the eyes of a beloved being has not yet experienced the extent to which ", freezing all over with gratitude and shame, a person can be happy on earth. " These words contain regret about the tragic, broken destinies of Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich.
Love, like beauty, like art, was a certain higher power in Turgenev's worldview. Through love, art, and beauty, the writer “comprehended immortality.” These were the forces that resisted doom human life, the frailty of human existence.
In his marriage to Fenechka, Nikolai Petrovich also finds family happiness. Wonderful picture family lunch in the Kirsanovs’ house, drawn by Turgenev warmly and with love: Nikolai Petrovich, Fenechka and Mitya, sitting next to him, Pavel Petrovich, Katya and Arkady... “Everyone was a little awkward, a little sad and, in essence, very good. Each served the other with amusing courtesy... Katya was the calmest of all: she looked around her trustingly, and one could notice that Nikolai Petrovich had already fallen in love with her.” With this scene, the writer once again reminds us that love, family, respect and trust are those Eternal values, for which it is worth living.
The novel ends with a description rural cemetery, where Evgeny Bazarov is buried. “No matter what passionate, sinful, rebellious heart hides in the grave, the flowers growing on it serenely look at us with their innocent eyes...” writes Turgenev. Man is mortal, but love, like nature, is eternal.
I. The special place of the theme of love in the novel.
II. The many faces of the great feeling of love.
1. Parental and filial love.
2. The struggle between love and cold rationality.
3. Love is torment and shock.
III. The uniqueness of the feeling of love reflected in the novel.
In one of, undoubtedly, the most significant works I. S. Turgenev - “Fathers and Sons” - along with the central theme of the clash of generations, the theme of love occupies a special place. It is written in Turgenev’s inimitable way: so unobtrusively and at the same time fully, in all its multifaceted manifestations.
The very first pages of the novel reveal to the reader the depth of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov’s parental love for his son Arkady. The scene of the meeting between father and son after a long separation is touching: joy, slight embarrassment, excitement and warmth shine through in every word and action of the elder Kirsanov. Arkady responds to his father with the same feeling, but demonstrates it more restrainedly, habitually looking up to his friend and mentor, the nihilist Bazarov. Moreover, he hides not only filial love, but also love and admiration for one’s small homeland, its nature: he begins to talk enthusiastically about wonderful smells, about the sky - and suddenly, casting an “indirect glance” in Bazarov’s direction, he stops short and turns the conversation from “romantic” to everyday life. After all, he despises all romanticism!
Parental love, which took the form of admiration and reverence, is shown by the author using the example of Bazarov’s parents. Arina Vlasevna and Vasily Ivanovich madly love their Enyushenka, but in fear of “boring him” they restrain their tenderness.
In my opinion, the images of Arkady and Bazarov successfully reveal the theme of love in the novel. The development of the novel’s action illustrates the struggle between love and cold rationality in their souls. Subtly sensitive, responsive by nature, Arkady, who rapes his poetic nature for the sake of Bazarov’s ideas, deep down in his soul initially stands on the side of love. He is simply embarrassed to admit it, youthfully surrendering himself to a daring new trend. But, even deeply admiring Bazarov, without questioning his authority, Arkady shuns his cynicism in statements about the most intimate.
The victory of love over Bazarov becomes for him not joy, but torment and painful shock: instead of opening up to the feeling, he diligently drives it away from himself, like an infection, like something worthless, capable of confusing his pure mind, his sobriety and composure. Perceiving the surging love for Anna Sergeevna Odintsova not as a blessing, but as an enemy, he throws all his spiritual strength into resisting this love - and himself. This tragic self-flagellation poisons and exhausts Bazarov, making every moment of his existence painful instead of joyful. Valuing his mind above all else, he diligently tramples on his feelings, thinking that this is right, and not realizing that he is trampling and disfiguring himself. And even when the words fall from his lips: “I love you, stupidly, madly,” addressed to Madame Odintsova, he is seized not by the “flutter of youthful timidity,” but by a trembling from restrained dark passion, angry, heavy, frightening! And only on his deathbed, Bazarov, although he says that his love for Odintsova had no meaning, nevertheless, he calls Anna Sergeevna to see him again, he himself asks for a farewell kiss, seeing in her a reflection of his life that never happened.
Love in the novel “Fathers and Sons” appears in many of its manifestations: endless parental and filial love; enthusiastic love for the homeland and nature; Fenechka’s meek and infallible love for Nikolai Petrovich; Pavel Petrovich's unrequited and all-consuming love for the princess; gentle and bright, growing out of friendship and sympathy, Arkady’s love for Katya. And all the uniqueness of each of these loves was depicted by I. S. Turgenev in his immortal novel.
Images of tyrant merchants in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”
Nothing sacred, nothing pure, nothing right about it dark world: the tyranny dominating him, wild, insane, wrong, drove out from him all consciousness of honor and right...
N. A. Dobrolyubov
I. Cognitive significance of A. N. Ostrovsky’s plays.
II. Denouncing the tyranny of the “dark kingdom.”
1. " Cruel morals» the city of Kalinov.
2. The image of the tyrant Wild.
3. Kabanikha’s hypocrisy.
4. The younger generation in the play “The Thunderstorm”.
III. Katerina's protest against the foundations of the “dark kingdom”.
Ostrovsky's role in the history of Russian literature is extremely important. His plays have the most important educational significance for us. Ostrovsky was not a calm, dispassionate writer of everyday life in Russian life. This was a public tribune, a democrat. Through his plays we get acquainted with the difficult, gloomy life of the “dark kingdom”, we follow with sympathy the struggle of a free, freedom-loving personality with the deadening foundations of the past, we learn to experience wealth mental strength man and hate the oppression that prevented the free development of personality in the past. Among the topics put forward by life, there was one that required urgent coverage. This is the tyranny of tyranny, money and ancient authority in merchant life, a tyranny under the yoke of which not only members of merchant families, especially women, but also the working poor suffocated. Ostrovsky set himself the task of exposing the economic and spiritual tyranny of the “dark kingdom” in the drama “The Thunderstorm”.
The action of the drama “The Thunderstorm” takes place in the provincial town of Kalinov, located on the banks of the Volga. Ignorance and complete mental stagnation are characteristic of life in the city of Kalinov. Behind the external calm of life here lie harsh, gloomy morals. “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel!” - says poor Kuligin, a self-taught mechanic, who has experienced the futility of trying to soften the morals of his city and bring people to reason. The play features two groups of inhabitants of the city of Kalinov. Some personify the oppressive power of the “dark kingdom” (Dikoy, Kabanikha), while others represent the victims of the “dark kingdom” (Katerina, Kuligin, Tikhon, Boris, Kudryash, Varvara). They equally feel the brute force of the “dark kingdom”, but express their protest against this force in different ways.
Despotism, unbridled arbitrariness, ignorance, rudeness - these are the features that characterize the image of the tyrant Wild, a typical representative of the “dark kingdom”. The meaning of life for the Wild is to acquire, increase wealth, and for this all means are good. He is the richest and most famous man in the city. Capital frees his hands, gives him the opportunity to freely swagger over the poor and financially dependent on him. This is how the characters in the play talk about the Wild. Shapkin: “We should look for another scolder like our Savel Prokofich! There’s no way he’ll cut off a person.”; Kudryash: “...his whole life is based on swearing... And most of all because of money; not a single calculation is complete without swearing... And the trouble is, someone will make him angry in the morning. He's been picking on everyone all day." Rude and unceremonious Dikoy shows off in front of his nephew Boris and his family. Boris notes: “Every morning my aunt begs everyone with tears: “Fathers, don’t make me angry! Darlings, don’t make me angry!”; “But the trouble is when he is offended by such a person whom he does not dare to scold; here, stay home!” Stinginess and unbridledness are not purely individual qualities of the Wild. This typical features patriarchal merchants.
The image of the stern and domineering Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova allows us to get acquainted with another type of representative of the “dark kingdom”, as typical as Wild, but even more sinister and gloomy. Kabanikha loves unquestioning obedience; in her speeches there are constant reproaches and complaints about disrespect. An atmosphere of cruelty and humiliation reigns in Kabanikha’s house. She tyrannizes her loved ones, “eats with food”, “sharpenes iron like rust”; “Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” Kabanikha takes into account what is accepted, what order requires, and honors the traditions and rituals that have developed in her class. In her deepest conviction, a wife must submit to her husband and live in fear of him, as “order requires.” She admonishes Tikhon, who does not understand why Katerina should be afraid of him: “Why be afraid? Are you crazy, or what? He won’t be afraid of you, and he won’t be afraid of me either. What kind of order will there be in the house?” Kabanova holds tightly to order and adherence to form. This was especially evident in the scene of farewell to Tikhon. The mother demands that the son give his wife instructions for order: not to be rude to the mother-in-law, not to sit idle, not to look at other people’s men. The wife must howl long and loudly to see her husband off. Kabanikha not only observes Domostroevsky standards, she fights for them. She appears to be pious and pious. But religion for her is only a means to keep others in obedience (“The whole house... rests on deception”).
Evil, hypocrisy, lies - these are the features of the moral character of the “dark kingdom”.
How do other characters in the play relate to the morality of the Wild and Kabanikha? Kuligin condemns the merchants for cruelty, dreams of “common benefit, general prosperity,” but these are just dreams. In relations with tyrants, he considers it best to endure and please. Life philosophy Barbarians - “do what you want, as long as everything is sewn and covered.” Curly gets along with the Wild, adapts to the situation and finds opportunities to live cheerfully among the Wild. Tikhon, a kind but weak-willed man, under pressure from his mother, lost all ability to think and live independently.
And only Katerina was able to protest the world of cruelty and despotism. Katerina’s protest, of course, is spontaneous. But in his own way he reflected dissatisfaction with social and family inequality, and the tyranny of the propertied. Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in dark kingdom" Her suicide seemed to momentarily illuminate the endless darkness of the “dark kingdom.”
