Loyalty. What is it? This is the moral foundation on which the human world rests. This is devotion to one’s principles, duty, one’s Motherland, one’s land, parents, friends and loved ones. The opposite concept is treason. A person cheats first of all on himself, failing to pass the test of moral strength. People are tested for loyalty and betrayal not only in relation to their duty, to the Fatherland, but also by how they show themselves in love and in family relationships. Only fidelity in love and in the family brings happiness and joy, fills life with meaning. And betrayal, no matter what the reasons for it, is always a betrayal of feelings, trust, love. This is exactly what the classics wrote about in their works, as if emphasizing the idea that a person’s happiness always needs fidelity.

Let's look at examples from fiction.
Many Pushkin heroines are tested for moral strength. Let us remember Masha Troekurova from the story “Dubrovsky”. Yes, she loves Vladimir Dubrovsky, she is ready to run away with him from her father’s house, but fate decreed otherwise: Masha becomes the wife of Prince Vereisky. When Dubrovsky stopped the carriage in which the newlyweds were traveling after the wedding, Masha refused to follow the one she loved. Why? I think because she is true to her moral principles, she is a wife, her marriage to the prince is sanctified by the church, and she cannot break her oath to God.

Pushkin’s favorite heroine Tatyana Larina from the novel “Eugene Onegin” is the same. “I love you, why lie,” she says to Onegin, meeting him after a long separation. But Tatyana is now the prince’s wife, her moral qualities do not allow her to cheat on her husband. She will forever remain faithful to the one with whom she connected her life. This reveals all the integrity and depth of her nature. “But I was given to someone else and I will be faithful to him forever,” these words of Pushkin’s heroine indicate that she has passed the test of moral strength. Not everyone knows how to remain faithful to their family duty. But it is precisely this that is the basis of family happiness and love. Unfortunately, many understand this only after living life. I would like to say: “Contact Pushkin, learn from his heroes to be faithful to those closest to you.”

In the novel L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" also talks about fidelity and betrayal in love. Reading this work, we always follow with interest the fate of the writer’s beloved heroine Natasha Rostova. Here are the pages dedicated to her first love - to Boris Drubetsky. Here is Natasha at the first adult ball in her life. It is here that she meets Andrei Bolkonsky. Then matchmaking, a wedding is scheduled for a year later. But Anatol Kuragin appears in Natasha’s life. Can her relationship with Anatole be called betrayal of Prince Andrei? After all, a little more - and she would have run away with him, would have disgraced herself and her family, would have been unhappy: after all, we know that young Kuragin is a stupid and worthless person, and is also married. Yes, Natasha really cheated on Bolkonsky, but we don’t blame her for that. Tolstoy's heroine is still very young, she still lives with her heart and not with her mind, so readers always forgive Natasha and worry about her. But she will never cheat on her husband, Pierre Bezukhov. Loyalty to her duty, children, family lives in her heart. And if necessary, love and loyalty will lead her along the most difficult road together with her husband.

Another heroine of Tolstoy from the novel “War and Peace” has a different morality. For the beautiful Helen Kuragina, the main thing is brilliance, wealth, and social life. She does not have high moral qualities. She gets married not because she loves, but because Pierre is very rich. Helen easily cheats on her husband. For her, cheating is normal. There is no love, no loyalty and no happiness in such a family. Tolstoy’s heroine can be compared with modern beauties from numerous television series who marry not a man, but for his money, cheat on their husbands, betray their families, and make their children unhappy. Books by the best Russian writers teach us to think about the main thing in human life, make us think about ourselves and our future.

Reading the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "The Thunderstorm", we worry about Katerina. In her parents' house she was loved and pampered. Having got married, she ends up in the house of Kabanikha, a hypocrite and a hypocrite. The play says that Katerina cheated on her husband Tikhon, fell in love with another, and committed a great sin. Let's figure out the reasons for her betrayal. Tikhon is a weak-willed, spineless person. He loves his wife, but is completely subservient to his mother. Glad to get out of the house at least for a little while, he refuses his wife’s request to take her with him. For Katerina, Kabanikha’s house is like a prison. Her bright and free soul yearns for freedom, which she tries to find in love for Boris. Dobrolyubov calls Katerina a ray of light in the dark kingdom. And this bright ray illuminated for a moment all the horror of life in such a kingdom. Our heroine does not find a way out of it, she dies by throwing herself into the Volga. We do not approve of the heroine for her betrayal of her husband, but we also do not condemn her, because her betrayal is an attempt to escape from a hopeless life in the “dark kingdom.”

The theme of fidelity and betrayal in love is also heard in the novel “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov. Margarita’s husband is a kind, smart and good person. But there is no love for him in her heart. She is faithful to her husband until she meets the Master. Fate gave them true love, which they maintained despite difficult trials. We do not condemn Margarita for cheating on her husband. She is ready to confess everything to him before leaving for the Master forever. Bulgakov's heroine sells her soul to the devil for the sake of her loved one. Loyalty and love living in her heart help Margarita and the Master find each other again after difficult trials. At the end of the novel, the author rewards his heroes with peace - now they are together forever.

Thinking about fidelity and betrayal, I thought about my future, about how to live in order to cultivate and preserve in myself those moral qualities that will help me find happiness in life, in family, in love.

Katerina’s emotional drama was and remains the central part of A. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”. The classic work, included in the school curriculum, has not lost its relevance today. Let's consider the main elements of Katerina's emotional drama, which is the most important thing in the play.

The main content of the play "The Thunderstorm"

Katerina's emotional drama is the central tragedy of the play. The work itself tells about the life of people who represented the old merchant class. Unhappy Katerina (the girl’s emotional drama is noticeable from the very beginning of the work) is in constant nervous tension from what her life is like. Having married at the behest of her parents, the young girl is forced to endure her husband, whom she cannot contradict her mother, and her mother-in-law, who endlessly humiliates the quiet and modest Katerina.

One fine day, the girl realizes that she does not love her husband at all. Katerina realizes that a completely different man owns her heart. The girl decides on a very risky meeting, to which her husband’s sister persuades her.

Having learned that her feelings are mutual, Katerina continues to meet with her lover at night. After some time, the beautiful and kind-hearted Katerina feels guilty before her husband for her deception and infidelity to him.

Soon the affair will be revealed to the public. Katerina is crushed by her personal experiences. In addition, the girl is under constant pressure from her relatives and all her acquaintances, who know very little about what is happening. All the people around do not understand Katerina’s spiritual drama, her torment and doubts. In the end, all this pressure from different sides pushes the young girl to commit suicide - jumping from a cliff into the water.

The heartache of the main character

If we talk about the emotional drama of Katerina (all schoolchildren write essays about the girl’s experiences), who is the central character, then it is important to understand that the girl’s suicide was not a sign of weakness. Although many are ready to argue here. Despite various arguments, Ostrovsky nevertheless described Katerina’s emotional drama in such a way that the girl’s suicide is a kind of challenge posed by Katya to the entire society around her.

School essay

Speaking about Katerina’s emotional drama in a student’s essay, we can give some advice that can help the work become better and give the most detailed answers to the questions posed.

So, the essay should begin with the fact that the work is relevant and popular today. Since the writing of the play about the mental anguish of Katerina, who was an ordinary girl from a good family, the work has been regularly staged in various theaters around the world. A. Ostrovsky’s creation is known throughout the world because it touches on important public issues.

The cause of heartbreak and tragedy

The next step towards this goal will be to explain what place Katerina occupies (the emotional drama in “The Thunderstorm” is the main theme) in the work. It is important to say that Katerina is the ray of the entire society that surrounds the girl. She is the only bright thing left of all humanity, which is obsessed with everything exclusively material. The girl could not find her place in the world because of her worldview, which was Katerina’s main spiritual drama.

A person's moral qualities have no value. An essay about the emotional drama of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” must necessarily contain this aspect. The merchants themselves represented that segment of the population that could solve any problem with money. This is important, because it was not for nothing that Ostrovsky chose this particular period of Russian history for the events of his play.

Katerina's image

The image of a girl in the work is the central image around which all events unfold. Katerina symbolizes the purity of the Russian soul, religiosity, honesty and beauty. All this contributed to the development of emotional drama in Katerina. The sister of the girl’s husband pushed Katerina to meet her lover, saying that you can, even when married, do whatever your heart desires, as long as no one knows about it. Tormented by doubts for a long time, Katerina decides to meet, saying that if she was not ashamed to do this to her husband, then she does not care what people say. Despite such a clear manifestation of spiritual strength, the girl still experiences great torment because of her action: she is ashamed not only in front of her husband, but also in front of herself.

The reason for the girl's suicide

The main character was unable to cope with her emotional distress regarding her action. Living exclusively according to the laws of conscience, Katerina every minute reproached herself for her love not for her husband, but for a completely different man. This played an important role in making the decision to commit suicide. Katerina cheated not only on her husband, but also on herself, dooming herself to long and painful torment and suffering. In addition, she did not have a single friend who could support the girl, and the whole society learned about the secret meetings of the girl and her lover. People around her condemn this, not realizing that Katerina was only trying to find her happiness in this world. In addition, Katerina was already very lonely; the girl’s only friend was her husband’s sister, who knew about the secret evenings of lovers. She was the only one who did not condemn the poor girl, who knew nothing about true love and was struggling with her desires.

General conclusion about the work

Katerina became an example of those human qualities that have ceased to be valued in the modern world. Not finding understanding among her friends and those around her, the girl challenged the entire society, showing that the laws of conscience are much more important than all material wealth. Position in society does not have the same value as honesty and kindness. Katerina herself, whose spiritual drama evokes empathy and compassion in any reader, never wished harm to anyone, treated people loyally until the public began to condemn her for trying to finally become happy.

Ostrovsky managed to show the essence of merchant society in all its glory, the vestiges of which have survived to this day. Since those very years, people have been very much influenced by public opinion, which is often too biased and erroneous. Katerina, who became the main character of the play, only acts as a victim who is unable to withstand and resist such pressure around her. This can be explained by the fact that the girl does not have any moral and psychological support. The girl, despite the fact that she is the personification of light in the work, is completely alone. Katerina’s emotional drama in the play is that she has never been able to find her place in this world, where any moral qualities of a person have ceased to be valued.

2. The image of Katerina in the play “The Thunderstorm”

Katerina is a lonely young woman who lacks human participation, sympathy, and love. The need for this draws her to Boris. She sees that outwardly he is not like other residents of the city of Kalinov, and, not being able to recognize his inner essence, considers him a person from another world. In her imagination, Boris seems to be a handsome prince who will take her from the “dark kingdom” to the fairy-tale world that exists in her dreams.

In terms of character and interests, Katerina stands out sharply from her environment. The fate of Katerina, unfortunately, is a vivid and typical example of the fate of thousands of Russian women of that time. Katerina is a young woman, the wife of the merchant son Tikhon Kabanov. She recently left her home and moved into her husband’s house, where she lives with her mother-in-law Kabanova, who is the sovereign mistress. Katerina has no rights in the family; she is not even free to control herself. With warmth and love, she remembers her parents' home and her girlhood life. There she lived at ease, surrounded by the affection and care of her mother. The religious upbringing she received in the family developed in her impressionability, daydreaming, belief in the afterlife and retribution for man's sins.

Katerina found herself in completely different conditions in her husband’s house. At every step she felt dependent on her mother-in-law, endured humiliation and insults. From Tikhon she does not meet any support, much less understanding, since he himself is under the power of Kabanikha. Out of her kindness, Katerina is ready to treat Kabanikha as her own mother. "But Katerina's sincere feelings do not meet with support from either Kabanikha or Tikhon.

Life in such an environment changed Katerina's character. Katerina’s sincerity and truthfulness collide in Kabanikha’s house with lies, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and rudeness. When love for Boris is born in Katerina, it seems like a crime to her, and she struggles with the feeling that washes over her. Katerina's truthfulness and sincerity make her suffer so much that she finally has to repent to her husband. Katerina's sincerity and truthfulness are incompatible with the life of the “dark kingdom”. All this was the cause of Katerina’s tragedy.

"Katerina's public repentance shows the depth of her suffering, moral greatness, and determination. But after repentance, her situation became unbearable. Her husband does not understand her, Boris is weak-willed and does not come to her aid. The situation has become hopeless - Katerina is dying. It is not Katerina's fault one specific person. Her death is the result of the incompatibility of morality and the way of life in which she was forced to exist. The image of Katerina had great educational significance for Ostrovsky’s contemporaries and for subsequent generations. He called for the fight against all forms of despotism and oppression of the human personality. expression of the growing protest of the masses against all types of slavery.

Katerina, sad and cheerful, compliant and obstinate, dreamy, depressed and proud. Such different mental states are explained by the naturalness of each mental movement of this simultaneously restrained and impetuous nature, the strength of which lies in the ability to always be itself. Katerina remained true to herself, that is, she could not change the very essence of her character.

I think that the most important character trait of Katerina is honesty with herself, her husband, and the world around her; it is her unwillingness to live a lie. She does not want and cannot be cunning, pretend, lie, hide. This is confirmed by the scene of Katerina’s confession of treason. It was not the thunderstorm, not the frightening prophecy of the crazy old woman, not the fear of hell that prompted the heroine to tell the truth. “My whole heart was exploding! I can’t stand it anymore!” - this is how she began her confession. For her honest and integral nature, the false position in which she found herself is unbearable. Living just to live is not for her. To live means to be yourself. Its most precious value is personal freedom, freedom of the soul.

With such a character, Katerina, after betraying her husband, could not stay in his house, return to a monotonous and dreary life, endure constant reproaches and “moral teachings” from Kabanikha, or lose freedom. But all patience comes to an end. It is difficult for Katerina to be in a place where she is not understood, her human dignity is humiliated and insulted, her feelings and desires are ignored. Before her death, she says: “It’s all the same whether you go home or go to the grave... It’s better in the grave...” It’s not death that she desires, but life that is unbearable.

Katerina is a deeply religious and God-fearing person. Since, according to the Christian religion, suicide is a great sin, by deliberately committing it, she showed not weakness, but strength of character. Her death is a challenge to the “dark power”, the desire to live in the “light kingdom” of love, joy and happiness.

The death of Katerina is the result of a collision of two historical eras. With her death, Katerina protests against despotism and tyranny, her death indicates the approaching end of the “dark kingdom.” The image of Katerina belongs to the best images of Russian fiction. Katerina is a new type of people in Russian reality in the 60s of the 19th century.

The scene of Katerina's confession of sin occurs at the end of Act 4. Her compositional role is the culmination of Katerina’s conflict with Kabanikha and one of the culminations of the development of the internal conflict in Katerina’s soul, when the desire for a living and free feeling fights with religious fears of punishment for sins and the moral duty of the heroine.

The escalation of conflicts is caused and prepared by a number of previous circumstances:

· in the 3rd scene, the sensitive and quick-witted Varvara warns Boris that Katerina is suffering very much and can confess, but Boris was only afraid for himself;

· it is no coincidence that it is at the end of their conversation that the first clap of thunder is heard and a thunderstorm begins;

· secondary characters passing by, with their remarks about the inevitability of punishment and that “this storm will not pass in vain,” increase the fear of the storm and prepare and predict trouble; Katerina also foresees this misfortune;

· Kuligin’s “blasphemous” speeches about electricity and that “a thunderstorm is grace” contrast with these remarks, and this also aggravates what is happening;

· finally, the words of the half-mad lady are heard, addressed directly to Katerina, and the thunderstorm intensifies.

Katerina exclaims in a fit of fear and shame: “I am a sinner before God and before you!” The reason for her confession is not only religious fear, but also moral torment, torment of conscience, and a feeling of guilt. Indeed, in the fifth act, at the moment of farewell to life, she will conquer religious fears, her moral sense will triumph (“Whoever loves will pray”), and the decisive factor for her will no longer be the fear of punishment, but the fear of losing freedom again (“and they will catch you and send you home.” ...").

The motif of a bird and flight, outlined in the monologues of the first act, reaches its apogee, developing the conflict of Pushkin’s “Prisoner”: captivity is impossible for a free being.

Katerina’s death is the only way for her to regain freedom.

The reaction of other characters to Katerina’s confession is interesting and important:

· Varvara, as a true friend, tries to prevent trouble, calm Katerina, protect her (“She’s lying...”);

· Tikhon suffers not so much from betrayal, but from the fact that this happened under his mother: he does not want shocks, he does not need this truth, and especially in its public version, which destroys the usual principle of “shield-covered”; besides, he himself is not without sin;

· for Kabanova, the moment of triumph of her rules comes (“I said...”);

· where is Boris? At the decisive moment, he cowardly withdrew.

The recognition itself occurs when everything comes together for the heroine: pangs of conscience, fear of a thunderstorm as a punishment for sins, predictions of passers-by and her own premonitions, Kabanikha’s speeches about beauty and the pool, Boris’s betrayal and, finally, the thunderstorm itself.

Katerina confesses her sin publicly, in church, as is customary in the Orthodox world, which confirms her closeness with the people and shows the truly Russian soul of the heroine.

Now the capital scene of the fourth act, about which so much has been discussed and is still being discussed, is also completely clear. Remorse overwhelmed her [ Katerina] soul as soon as her husband arrived and her nightly meetings with Boris stopped. The consciousness of sin did not give her peace. All that was missing was a drop to fill the full cup. But as soon as this drop fell, her execution began. She confesses everything to her husband. There is no need that this happened in broad daylight, during a walk, in the presence of strangers. For a character like Katerina, the situation means nothing. Pretending, being a hypocrite, harboring a feeling until a convenient moment arises is not in her blood. She's too pure for that. In the matter of repentance, she would always prefer to do it publicly, if she had decided to repent in advance. The more shame, the more shame, the lighter her soul will become. But the fact of the matter is that she did not at all intend and did not dare to repent when she went out for a walk, although, without any doubt, this confession to her husband would not happen today, but tomorrow, not tomorrow, but in a few days, but it would have happened because that sin weighed unbearably on her. It was immediately caused by a thunderstorm, and she has been afraid of thunderstorms since childhood, and the appearance of an ominous lady, and, finally, a scene from hell on one wall of the ruins, where the rain had driven everyone. She confesses everything to her husband.

It's a wonderful scene. It’s just a pity that she’s not well prepared for drama. From the time of her husband's arrival, the development of Katerina's character occurs behind the scenes, and we learn about him from a short conversation between Varvara and Boris. That is why this scene puzzled many.<…>

Let’s say right here, by the way, that in general the last two acts of the drama, in our opinion, are lower than the first three, lower, perhaps, because they are not higher than them.<…>

In this case, in the entire fourth act of Mr. Ostrovsky, only one scene belongs to the action. All others, with the exception of Varvara’s small conversation with Boris, are completely foreign to the play. Not to mention the fact that in the fourth act of a five-act play, any deviation from the essence of the matter only cools the action, Katerina’s very confession, suddenly, unexpectedly, before the viewer himself has become an eyewitness to her torment and suffering, it comes out somehow unprepared. We completely understand this moment in Katerina’s life and, probably, a considerable part of the audience understood it just as correctly; but we were still sorry that such an important process in her character took place as if without the knowledge of the audience. This only cooled them down. Instead of trembling with delight and trying not to utter a single word, they should have thought about the legality of such a phenomenon, about whether it was in the order of things or not. However, this is an excellent scene in itself. It follows directly from the character of Katerina; it is a necessary consequence of her situation. We especially like the fact that this scene happened in the square, in the presence of strangers, in a place where, it seems, such phenomena could not be expected; in a word, it happened under the most hostile and inconvenient circumstances for her. This alone already paints the character of Katerina.

The farewell scene in the fifth act is also surprisingly good. She fully and clearly expressed one sweet feature of a Russian woman. Katerina herself breaks off her connection with Boris, she herself, without outside coercion, makes a terrible confession to her husband and mother-in-law. With blood and meat, she tears sin out of her heart, and meanwhile runs to say goodbye to Boris, and hugs and cries on his chest. Their conversation doesn’t go well, she wants to say something to him and has nothing to say: her heart is full. He wants to leave her as quickly as possible, but he cannot leave: he is ashamed. The only thing we don’t like is Katerina’s dying monologue.<…>

If to complete the impression it was absolutely necessary to drown Katerina, then she could throw herself into the Volga without her monologue, and not (almost) in view of the audience. They could, for example, have caught her on a farewell date with Boris, they could have chased her - then she would have drowned herself even more quickly. The character development ended in the fourth act. In the fifth he is already completely created. Not one iota can be added to it to further explain it: it is already clear. You can only strengthen some of his features, which is what the author did in the farewell scene. Suicide does not add anything here, does not express anything. It is only needed to complete the impression. Katerina's life is broken even without suicide. Whether she will live, whether she will become a nun, whether she will commit suicide - the result is the same regarding her state of mind, but completely different regarding the impression. G. Ostrovsky wanted her to perform this last act of her life with full consciousness and reach it through reflection. A beautiful thought, further enhancing the colors so poetically generously spent on this character. But, many will say and are already saying, doesn’t such suicide contradict her religious beliefs? Of course it contradicts, completely contradicts, but this trait is essential in Katerina’s character. The fact is that, due to her highly lively temperament, she cannot get along in the narrow sphere of her beliefs. She fell in love, fully aware of the whole sin of her love, and yet she still fell in love, come what may; she later repented of seeing Boris, but she still ran to say goodbye to him. This is exactly how she decides to commit suicide, because she does not have the strength to endure despair. She is a woman of high poetic impulses, but at the same time weak. This inflexibility of beliefs and frequent betrayal of them constitutes the entire tragedy of the character we are examining.

But all this could have been expressed without the last monologue, in a more dramatic form.

Dostoevsky M.M. ""Storm". Drama in five acts by A.N. Ostrovsky"

Read also other topics of analysis of the drama "The Thunderstorm":

Dobrolyubov N.A. "A ray of light in a dark kingdom"