A. Ostrovsky's dramatic works have a number of features: they are “ plays of life ” that reveal national problems and immortal socio-psychological types . In addition, Ostrovsky’s works are humanistic: the author stands for the defense of universal human values and man as the main value. His plays recreate the national flavor - at the level of everyday life and human relationships. Another difference is the aphorism of Ostrovsky’s plays: how many of his apt titles have become independent aphorisms! The peculiarity of the playwright’s heroes is their “warm heart” : kindness, spiritual generosity, ability to selflessly love and help others.
The drama “The Thunderstorm” (1859) can be called a tragedy of a “warm heart”: there are many conflicts and dramatic contrasts. The entire action of the play takes place in a pre-storm, and after a thunderstorm, atmosphere.
, the “warm heart” of the play becomes Katerina - a poetic, pure, open nature, a creator in the essence of her strong character. The heroine is confronted by the life and customs of the city of Kalinov, where despotism and tyranny of the Wild and Boars reign. The essence of the conflict between Katerina and her mother-in-law is the incompatibility of the freedom of a “warm heart” with tyranny, obedience and humility. The conflict is aggravated by an awakened feeling for Boris - a man from another world, as it seems to Katerina; its result is the death of the heroine as a verdict on the world of Wild and Kabanovs, conformists and slaves.
Dobrolyubov saw a revolutionary sound in the image of Katerina: opposition to the “ray of light” against the “dark kingdom.” Ostrovsky, as he admitted, had in mind a broader and deeper plan - to contrast the poetic world of nature and the human soul with their beauty and power with the poverty of the spirit, when everything bright is doomed to destruction.
Larisa from “The Dowry” (1879) is also a “warm heart” - a tragic image, covered in the sad poetry of unfulfilled love and disappointed hopes.
The play covers a different sphere - the sphere of emerging capitalism, where the Wild and Boars are replaced by predators with a stranglehold, cynical and calculating businessmen - the Knurovs, the Paratovs. For them, a person’s dignity and a girl’s reputation have no value, so they, without looking, “trample” Larisa for the sake of petty pleasure and fun.
Larisa’s tragedy lies not in the fact that she is homeless, but in the fact that, due to her purity and nobility, she is able to discern the immorality and unscrupulousness of the masters of life. Hence the evolution of the conflict - from the incompatibility of poverty and wealth to the confrontation of a morally perfect individual with the world of calculation and profit. Larisa understands her doom and thanks her killer: “What a good deed you have done for me... It’s me myself... It’s no one’s fault...”.
Everyday and social realities of the era, heroes who reveal the theme of the “warm heart” are also presented in the plays “Guilty Without Guilt”, “Dowry”, “Talents and Admirers”, etc.
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- The image and characterization of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky with quotes
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The key characters in these plays are young girls, Katerina (in “The Thunderstorm”) and Larisa (in “Dowry”), who have a sensitive and tender spiritual constitution. But by the will of fate, they are destined to confront people of another world, where selfishness, money, self-interest and sycophancy rule. The warm hearts of these unfortunate girls slowly burn out in an alien environment and eventually tragedy occurs.
The theme of the female type of “hot hearts” is opened by A.N. Ostrovsky masterfully and multifacetedly.
His heroines consider the main aspects in life to be love for another person and love in the person himself. Their hearts yearn for this love. But, unfortunately for them, the opposite happens to them. Katerina is married against her will to an unloved man who is much older than her. They are going to extradite Larisa, humiliating her with an open search for a richer and more “respectable” groom, but a combination of circumstances leads to an engagement to an employee, Karandyshev.
It is important to note that both girls really sincerely try to love their chosen spouses, but this does not lead them to happiness. In both plays the drama of a “warm heart” unfolds.
Both Katerina and Larisa give themselves over to the passions raging in their hearts and thoughts, pushing themselves to destruction.
In the final scene of the play “The Dowry,” young Ogudalova, in despair, pours out her dying soul to Karandyshev: “I was looking for love and didn’t find it... I didn’t see sympathy from anyone, I didn’t hear a warm, heartfelt word...” This is the last cry of her “warm heart.”
The drama of the “warm heart” raised by the playwright is still relevant today. There will always be people with a sincere and open soul.
Short essay
In his works, Ostrovsky always told the story he had invented in such a way that the reader immediately became motivated to go and do something, no matter what exactly, but to go and do it. All those characters whom the author has endowed with the most courageous and decisive character traits seem to motivate the reader to such a lifestyle. These characters, with warm hearts and unprecedented courage, are described in many of Ostrovsky’s works, but the most accurate example is the works “The Thunderstorm” and “Dowry.”
- The image and characteristics of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm”: a description of the character, life and death of Katerina Kabanova
In these works, the author describes the fates of people who, against their will, found themselves in one or another environment, which they often do not like, and describes their struggle with it, describes what they feel while being there. So, for example, Katerina, a character in the work “The Thunderstorm,” attracts the reader from the very first pages, and the author specifically focuses on her character and image. Katerina is a rather sweet, kind girl who has the best traits of a human personality. She has established concepts of honor and dignity, and therefore behaves honorably. However, as the story progresses, she ends up in a place that is quite unpleasant for her. It lacks any concepts of honor and dignity; self-interest and greed are rather extolled. However, Katerina is not at all going to put up with this state of affairs. She begins to actively fight for her right to remain with her ideals, passionately defending her beliefs.
The next excellent example of a warm heart and ardor is Larisa Ogudalova, the main character of the work “Dowry.” In the work, the author presents Larisa in an image almost like Katerina’s, but with one difference. If Katerina struggles with human dishonor and anger towards other people, then Larisa confronts the material component of human life, confronts people who have chosen a material situation instead of personal spiritual happiness. She finds herself in a society where the first place is not human virtues, but the number of coins in your wallet, and no matter how they were earned. Therefore, Larisa begins the unequal battle that she wages, bravely and selflessly, because she, like Katerina, is not going to put up with this situation. That’s why the two of them can be called the warm hearts that Ostrovsky so clearly described in his plays.
Other topics:← Female characters in the play The Dowry↑ OstrovskyCriticism of Dobrolyubov and Pisarev in the assessment of the play The Thunderstorm → `
The drama of the “warm heart” in Ostrovsky’s play “Dowry”
About A. N. Ostrovsky there is an image of the great Russian river Volga as a symbol of the beauty, strength and power of his native land.
As if in a nightmare, the terrible faces of the “dark kingdom” surround us in Ostrovsky’s plays, and only the Volga freely carries its waters, absorbing both the beauty “which is poured out in nature” and the beauty of the “hot heart”, exhausted by captivity, thirsting for light, air, liberation. In the waves of the Volga, Katerina found her only possible liberation; almost two decades later, on the banks of the same fabulously beautiful river, Larisa, a man of “warm heart” from the play “Dowry,” found her death. In Ostrovsky’s poetics, two elements merged with remarkable skill: the cruel realistic element of the “dark kingdom” and the romantic, enlightened emotion of the “warm heart.” The world of wild animals and boars in “Dowry” has undergone significant changes. Here the “significant persons in the city” are the Europeanized businessmen Mokiy Parmenych Knurov and Vasily Danilych Vozhevatov; the ignorant Kabanikha was replaced by the calculating Kharita Ignatievna, the mother of Larisa Ogudalova, who cleverly trades on her daughter’s beauty. Here the master shines - shipowner Sergei Sergeevich Paratov (there has been a rapprochement between the trading class and the nobility, who once eschewed entrepreneurship). But behind the external gloss of these masters of life is the heavy breathing of the heartless world of buying and selling, cynical bargaining, and merciless acquisition. Both Knurov and Vozhevatov are indifferent to what is happening in Larisa’s soul, the dowry girl is only a commodity for them, they are simply playing with her beauty. Before the fatal shot, Karandyshev tells Larisa: “They don’t look at you as a woman, as a person. they look at you as if you were a thing.” And the heroine agrees, she finally begins to see the light and understands her place in this society: “A thing. yes, a thing! They are right, I am a thing, I am not a person." A mortally wounded woman thanks the killer; she does not want to live in a world in which “from no one. I didn’t see sympathy, I didn’t hear a warm, heartfelt word. But it’s cold to live like this.” A woman of an ardent heart, Larisa is looking for love, there is no calculation or vulgarity in her: “After all, in Larisa Dmitrievna there is no earthly, this worldly thing,” notes Knurov. But her love is desecrated; for Paratov it is only entertainment, a sport: “I was looking for love and did not find it. They looked at me and still look at me like I was funny.” Karandyshev’s shot brings her deliverance from the terrible trap of life: after all, she was already ready to accept the conditions of the rich man Knurov: “Now gold glittered before my eyes, diamonds sparkled. I haven’t found love, so I’ll look for gold.” Gold is the same whirlpool, and Larisa was already ready to rush into it. Thus, the cynical and cruel power of the merchant world kills the “warm heart” of a woman who has not found a man worthy of high feelings. In this “dark kingdom” beauty is a curse, beauty is death, either physical or spiritual.
The drama of the “warm heart” in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “Dowry”
A. N. Ostrovsky’s drama “Dowry” was written in the late 70s of the 19th century.
It was a time of triumph for the nouveau riche - wealthy merchants. Money, having obscured true values, had an increasing influence on people. The fate of the main character, Larisa Ogudalova, is the embodiment of the tragic consequences of this harmful influence. Larisa is a young beautiful girl with a bright, unique character, a warm heart and a romantic soul. She is capable of feeling beauty, gifted with artistic talent - singing and music. She strives for sincerity, purity of relationships, values decency, dreams of genuine, sublime love and a quiet family life with her loved one. But all these dreams are shattered by prosaic reality - her mother “has a small fortune, there is nothing to give a dowry from.” Larisa Dmitrievna “is a pretty young lady,” explains the young merchant Vozhevatov, “she plays various instruments, sings, has a free address... Well, you have to think about getting married... now there are very few suitors; There are as many dowries as there are grooms; there are no extra ones - those without dowries are not enough.” Larisa’s trouble is that in the society in which she, by the will of her mother, is forced to move, money decides everything, and bourgeois ideas about the situation of a dowry are decisive in the assessment of the people around her. That’s why Larisa’s sincerity meets with condemnation and misunderstanding: “She’s not stupid, but she has no cunning,” Vozhevatov says about her, “to whomever she’s disposed, she doesn’t hide it at all... but dowry girls can’t do that... Sergei Sergeich Paratov appeared last year, you can’t look at him enough she could, but he traveled for two months, beat off all the suitors, and his trace disappeared, disappeared to God knows where.” Larisa thinks that Paratova has found her love in the person of the “brilliant master” and that he loves her as sincerely and recklessly as she loves him. But Larisa’s chosen one, not possessing the business acumen of “millionaire” merchants like Knurov and Vozhevatov, had already managed to fully assimilate their morality. It is no coincidence that he confesses to Knurov: “I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing cherished; If I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, anything.” And Larisa continues to believe that her lover is a man of a broad soul, capable of rising above narrow material interests. She directly declares to her fiancé, minor official Yuli Kapitonich Karandyshev: “You yourself mean something, you are a good, honest person; but from comparison with Sergei Sergeich you lose everything... Sergei Sergeich... is the ideal of a man.” Unfortunately, such sincerity and depth of Larisa’s feelings only evoke caustic ridicule from those around her. “And how much she loved him, she almost died of grief. How sensitive!” - laughs the same Vozhevatov, whom Larisa sincerely considers her friend. The position of a homeless woman, in his opinion, obliges her to flatter, deceive, pretend, lie, and accept compliments from “suitors who cannot be looked at without disgust.” “We are poor people, we have to humiliate ourselves all our lives. It’s better to humiliate yourself from a young age, so that later you can live like a human being,” Larisa’s mother supports him. But Larisa Dmitrievna “doesn’t follow those rules.” Having experienced her passion for Paratov and a difficult separation from him, having before her eyes the bitter example of sisters “sold” by her mother, tired of the “gypsy camp” in her house, Larisa gave Karandyshev consent to marriage. The Bryakhimov merchants are unable to understand that it is impossible for Larisa to smile “during terrible, mortal melancholy” and to be nice to them without caring too much about her morality. “This woman was created for luxury,” they reason, “in a beggarly environment, and even with a fool of a husband, she will either die or become vulgar.” In the finale, the heroine has a cruel epiphany. Paratov seduces Larisa, who has already decided to marry Karandyshev. He publicly consoles her fiance, and Larisa, completely disappointed in Yulia Kapitonich, says to Paratov: “I have one fiance: it’s you.” The bankrupt landowner-entrepreneur, although he loves Larisa in his own way, tries to assure her that his passion for her was only a momentary infatuation, and admits that he is forced to marry an unloved woman in order to receive an inheritance. The “ideal man” was perfectly aware of everything and accurately calculated his actions. He could not come to terms with the fact that some insignificant Karandyshev would take away a beautiful toy from him, the “brilliant gentleman,” and decided to put Yuliy Kapitonich in his place. Having enjoyed his revenge, Paratov did not even bother to take the shocked girl home. Larisa really was only a passing hobby for Paratov. And yet, it is not disappointment in her former lover that destroys the unfortunate dowry. We see that they talk about Larisa all the time and admire her; The four heroes of the play compete, hoping to gain her favor, but the feelings, desires, aspirations of the girl herself, her inner world, her experiences are of no interest to anyone. Larisa feels uncomfortable in this world from the very beginning. “They looked at me and still look at me as if I was a joke,” she bitterly admits. “No one ever tried to look into my soul, I didn’t see sympathy from anyone, I didn’t hear a warm, heartfelt word. But it’s cold to live like this... “; “I see that I am a doll for you, if you play with me, break me and throw me,” she says to Karandyshev, realizing that marriage with her is a way for him to rise in his own eyes and the eyes of those around him, a way to satisfy his vanity. Karandyshev himself understands perfectly well that he is “not a match for Larisa, but only that straw that a drowning man grabs at,” but he cannot overcome the desire to amuse his offended pride, his pride. “Everyone loves themselves! When will someone love me?” - Larisa laments, but Karandyshev does not hear her. Paratov's deception only aggravates the tragedy of the heroine's situation. “I was looking for love and didn’t find it... it doesn’t exist in the world... there’s nothing to look for... How pathetic and unhappy I am,” she says, reproaching herself for her weakness and inability to part with such a humiliating life. The tragic fate of the heroine also includes her own guilt. Larisa lacks integrity. Her human qualities - the desire for moral purity, truthfulness, openness - raise her high above those around her, but bourgeois ideas about life dominate over her and influence people’s understanding of her. She is dazzled by the capital's elegance, Paratov's chic, and his ability to spend money brilliantly. Larisa takes these qualities for “breadth of nature” and considers Paratov “the ideal man,” but her insight is all the more bitter. The heroine is disgusted by life in the world of profit, she wants to maintain purity, to leave without tainting her soul and body with debauchery, without making her own beauty and talent a commodity. It is this, and not unhappy love, that makes Larisa seek death. Larisa is finally brought to a tragic denouement by Karandyshev’s message that Knurov and Vozhevatov played her toss like an expensive thing: “They don’t look at you as a woman, like... per person - a person controls his own destiny; they look at you as a thing.” Larisa is no longer able to endure such humiliation, but she also cannot decide to commit suicide. “Leaving life is not at all as easy as I thought. So there is no strength! How unhappy I am! But there are people for whom this is easy... I just don’t have the determination. Pathetic weakness: to live, at least somehow, but to live... If only someone would kill me now... How good it would be to die... For now there is nothing to reproach myself for... “- Larisa thinks and therefore she accepts Karandyshev’s shot as deliverance. She has always been lonely, alone with her thoughts and dreams, and now she is happy that she has finally caused a flash of human feeling, she is calmed down, she forgives everyone, she even thanks Karandyshev, who freed her from even greater humiliation, from complete moral destruction . In a world where no one needs sincere feelings, love or the warmth of human souls, where cynicism, immorality reign and petty passions boil, “dowry girls” find themselves thrown overboard of life. Love and money are incompatible, and the tragic fate of Larisa Ogudalova is one of many examples of the drama of a “warm heart” in the world of profit and rude calculation.
