The Dark Kingdom in the play "Thunderstorm" - what is it?

The dark kingdom in Ostrovsky's The Storm is an allegorical saying familiar to everyone from the light hand of his contemporary, the literary critic Dobrolyubov. This is how Nikolai Ivanovich found it necessary to characterize the heavy social and moral atmosphere in the cities of Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Ostrovsky is a subtle connoisseur of Russian life

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky made a bright breakthrough in Russian drama, and he received a worthy article-review. He continued the traditions of the Russian national theater, laid by Fonvizin, Gogol, Griboyedov. In particular, Nikolay Dobrolyubov highly appreciated the profound knowledge and truthful display by the playwright of the specifics of Russian life. The Kaliningrad Privolzhsky town shown in the play became a kind of model of the whole of Russia.

The deep meaning of the allegory is the "dark kingdom"

The dark kingdom in Ostrovsky's play "The Storm" - a clear and capacious allegory, created by the critic Dobrolyubov, has in its basis a broad socio-economic explanation and a narrower - literary. The latter is formulated with respect to the provincial city of Kalinov, in which Ostrovsky depicted the average (as they say - the average) Russian town of the late 18th century.

The broad meaning of the concept of "dark kingdom"

First, we characterize the broad meaning of this concept: the dark kingdom in Ostrovsky's play Groza is a figurative characteristic 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 (the end of the XVIII century) there is a speech. A huge country, the fragment of which was shown by the playwright in the play, lived in the old fashion, at a time when industrialization was dynamically taking place in the countries of Europe. The people were socially paralyzed by serfdom (which was abolished in 1861). The strategic railways have not yet been built. The people in their mass were illiterate, uneducated, superstitious. In fact, the state did not deal with social policy very much.

Everything in the provincial Kalinov seems to be "brewed in its own juice." That is, people are not involved in large projects - production, construction. Their judgments give complete incompetence in the simplest terms: for example, in the electrical origin of lightning.

The dark kingdom in Ostrovsky's play "Groza" is a society devoid of the vector of development. The class of the industrial bourgeoisie and the proletariat has not yet formed ... The financial flows of society were not formed insufficient for global socioeconomic transformations.

The Dark Kingdom of Kalinov

In a narrow sense, the dark kingdom in the play "Storm" is a way of life inherent in philistinism and merchants. According to the description given by Ostrovsky, prosperous and brazen merchants are absolutely dominant in this community. They constantly carry out psychological pressure on others, not paying attention to their interests. There are no administrations on these ghouls who "eat eaten". For these tyrants, money is equivalent to a social position, and human and Christian morality is not a decree in their actions. Practically they do what they want. In particular, realistic, artistically completed images - merchant Savel Prokopievich Dikoy and merchant Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova - initiate the "dark kingdom" in the play "Storm". What are these characters? Consider them similar.

The image of the merchant Saveliy Prokofich of the Wild

Merchant Dikoy is the richest man Kalinova. However, the consistency in it is not bordered by breadth of soul and hospitality, but with "cool temper." And he understands his wolf nature, and wants to somehow change. "About post somehow, about the great, I used to ..." But tyranny is his second nature. When a "muzhik" comes up to him with a request to borrow money, Wild rudely humiliates him, moreover, it almost comes to beating the unhappy man. And this psychotype of behavior is typical for him always. ("What can I do, my heart is like that!") That is, he builds his relationships with others on the basis of fear and his domination. This is his usual pattern of behavior in relation to people with lower social status.

This man was not always rich. However, he came to wealth through a primitive aggressive social model of behavior. Relations with others and relatives (in particular, with his nephew), he builds on only one principle: to humiliate them, formally - to deprive them of social rights, and then to use them himself. However, having felt a psychological rebuff from a person with an equal status (for example, from the widow of a merchant Kabanikhi, he begins to treat him more respectfully, not humiliating). This is a primitive, two-variant scheme of behavior.

For rudeness and suspicion ("So you know that you are a worm!"), Greed and greed are hidden. For example, in the case of a nephew, he actually deprives him of his inheritance. Savel Prokofich hatches in the soul hatred of everything around him. His credo is to reflexively pressure everyone to crush everyone, clearing the living space for himself. If we were to live at this time, such an idiot (excuse me for being frank) would have been able to, just in the middle of the street, for nothing to beat us, just for us to cross the street, clearing the way for him! But this image was familiar to serf Russia! No wonder the dark kingdom in the play "Storm" Dobrolyubov called a sensitive and truthful reflection of Russian reality!

The image of the merchant Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova

The second type of wild customs Kalinova is a rich merchant widow Kabaniha. Her social model of behavior is not as primitive as that of the merchant Wild. (For some reason, the analogy is recalled with reference to this model: "The poor vision of a rhino is a problem of others, not the rhinoceros itself!") Marfa Ignatyevna Kabanova, unlike the merchant Dikoy, builds up her social status gradually. The tool is also humiliation, however - a completely different kind. It affects, in the main, the members of his family: Tikhon's son, daughter Varvara, daughter-in-law Katerina. In the basis of its domination over others, it posits both its material superiority and moral.

Hanseaticity is her key to manipulating people. The merchant has a double morale. Formally and outwardly following the Christian cult, it is far from the present merciful Christian consciousness. On the contrary, she treats her status as an encirclement as a kind of deal with God, believing that she has the right not only to instruct everyone around them, but also to indicate how they should act.

This she is engaged in constantly, completely destroying her son Tikhon, as a person, and pushing his daughter-in-law Katerina to suicide.

If a merchant of the Wild, when meeting on the street, can be circumvented, then with respect to the Kabaniha the situation is quite different. If one can put it this way, she continuously, constantly, and not sporadically, like Dikoi, "generates" the dark kingdom in the play "Storm". Quotations of the work, characterizing Kabanikh, testify: she zombies her loved ones, demanding that Katerina bow to her husband when he enters the house, suggesting that "mother can not be mistreated" so that her husband gives strict instructions to his wife, and on occasion beat and beat her ...

Weak attempts to resist the tyrants

What contrasts the community of the city of Kalinov with the expansion of the two above mentioned tyrants? Yes, practically nothing. They are in a comfortable society for themselves. As Pushkin wrote in Boris Godunov: "The people are silent ...". Someone educated, trying to shyly express their views, as an engineer Kuligin. Someone, like Varvara, has mutilated himself morally, living a double life: assenting to the tyrants and doing whatever he pleases. And someone is waiting for an internal and tragic protest (like Catherine).

Conclusion

Does the word "tyranny" occur in our everyday life? We hope that for most of our readers - much less than for residents of the serf city of Kalinova. Accept sympathy if your boss is a tyrant, or someone from the family circle. In our time, this phenomenon does not apply immediately to the whole city. However, it exists in places. And from it it is necessary to search for an exit ...

Let's return to Ostrovsky's play. Create a "dark kingdom" in the play "Thunderstorm" representatives. Their common features are the availability of capital and the desire to dominate the society. However, domination does not rely on spirituality, creativity, or enlightenment. Hence the conclusion: one should isolate the tyrant, depriving him of the opportunity to lead, and also depriving him of communication (boycott). The tycoon is strong, while he feels the indispensability of his beloved and the demand for his capital.

You just have to deprive him of such "happiness". In Kalinov, this was not possible. In our time it's real.