"Dark Kingdom" in the play Thunderstorm. 'Dark Kingdom' in the drama by A.N.

“The Dark Kingdom” in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”

It has gone to the extreme, to the denial of all common sense; It is more than ever hostile to the natural demands of humanity and is trying more fiercely than ever to stop their development, because in their triumph it sees the approach of its inevitable destruction.

N. A. Dobrolyubov

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, for the first time in Russian literature, deeply and realistically depicted the world of the “dark kingdom”, painted colorful images of tyrants, their life and customs. He dared to look behind the iron merchant gates and was not afraid to openly show the conservative power of “inertia”, “numbness”. Analyzing Ostrovsky’s “plays of life”, Dobrolyubov wrote: “Nothing holy, nothing pure, nothing right in this dark world: the tyranny dominating him, wild, insane, wrong, drove out from him all consciousness of honor and right... And it cannot be them where human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the sanctity of honest labor have been crushed into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants.” And yet, many of Ostrovsky’s plays depict “the precariousness and the near end of tyranny.”

The dramatic conflict in “The Thunderstorm” lies in the clash of the obsolete morality of tyrants with the new morality of people in whose souls a sense of human dignity is awakening. In the play, the background of life itself, the setting itself, is important. The world of the “dark kingdom” is based on fear and monetary calculation. Self-taught watchmaker Kuligin tells Boris: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! Whoever has money tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors.” Direct financial dependence forces Boris to be respectful with the “scold” Dikiy. Tikhon is obediently obedient to his mother, although at the end of the play even he rises to a kind of rebellion. Wild Curly's clerk and Tikhon's sister Varvara are cunning and dodgy. Katerina’s discerning heart senses the falseness and inhumanity of the life around her. “Yes, everything here seems to be out of captivity,” she thinks.

The images of tyrants in “The Thunderstorm” are artistically authentic, complex, and lack psychological certainty. Dikoy is a rich merchant, a significant person in the city of Kalinov. At first glance, nothing threatens his power. Savel Prokofievich, according to Kudryash’s apt definition, “feels like he’s broken free from a chain”: he feels like the master of life, the arbiter of the destinies of the people under his control. Isn’t this what Dikiy’s attitude towards Boris speaks about? Those around him are afraid to anger Savel Prokofievich with something, his wife is in awe of him.

Dikoy feels the power of money and the support of state power on his side. The requests to restore justice made by the “peasants” deceived by the merchant to the mayor turn out to be futile. Savel Prokofievich patted the mayor on the shoulder and said: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles!”

At the same time, as already mentioned, the image of the Wild is quite complex. The harsh disposition of a “significant person in the city” encounters not some kind of external protest, not the manifestation of discontent of others, but internal self-condemnation. Savel Prokofievich himself is not happy with his “heart”: “I was fasting about fasting, about great things, but now it’s not easy and slip a little man in; He came for money, carried firewood... He did sin: he scolded him, he scolded him so much that he couldn’t ask for anything better, he almost beat him to death. This is the kind of heart I have! After asking for forgiveness, he bowed at his feet. This is what my heart brings me to: here in the yard, in the dirt, I bowed; I bowed to him in front of everyone.” This recognition of the Wild contains a terrible meaning for the foundations of the “dark kingdom”: tyranny is so unnatural and inhuman that it becomes obsolete and loses any moral justification for its existence.

The rich merchant Kabanova can also be called a “tyrant in a skirt.” Kuligin put into his mouth an exact description of Marfa Ignatievna: “Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” In a conversation with her son and daughter-in-law, Kabanikha hypocritically sighs: “Oh, a grave sin! How long will it take to sin!”

Behind this feigned exclamation lies a domineering, despotic character. Marfa Ignatievna actively defends the foundations of the “dark kingdom” and tries to conquer Tikhon and Katerina. Relations between people in the family should, according to Kabanova, be regulated by the law of fear, the Domostroevsky principle “let the wife fear her husband.” Marfa Ignatievna’s desire to follow previous traditions in everything is manifested in the scene of Tikhon’s farewell to Katerina.

The position of the mistress of the house cannot completely calm down Kabanikha. Marfa Ignatievna is frightened by the fact that young people want freedom, that the traditions of hoary antiquity are not respected. “What will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will remain, I don’t know. Well, at least it’s good that I won’t see anything,” Kabanikha sighs. In this case, her fear is completely sincere, and is not intended for any external effect (Marfa Ignatievna pronounces her words alone).

The image of the wanderer Feklusha plays a significant role in Ostrovsky’s play. At first glance, we have a minor character. In fact, Feklusha is not directly involved in the action, but she is a myth-maker and defender of the “dark kingdom”. Let’s listen to the wanderer’s reasoning about “Saltan Makhnute Persian” and “Saltan Makhnute Turkish”: “And they cannot... judge a single case righteously, such is the limit set for them. Our law is righteous, but theirs... unrighteous; that according to our law it turns out this way, but according to them everything is the opposite. And all their judges, in their countries, are also all unrighteous...” The main meaning of the above words is that “we have a righteous law..:”.

Feklusha, anticipating the death of the “dark kingdom,” shares with Kabanikha: “The last times, Mother Marfa Ignatievna, by all accounts, the last.” The wanderer sees an ominous sign of the end in the acceleration of the passage of time: “Time has already begun to diminish... smart people notice that our time is becoming shorter.” And indeed, time works against the “dark kingdom”.

Ostrovsky comes to large-scale artistic generalizations in the play and creates almost symbolic images (thunderstorm). The remark at the beginning of the fourth act of the play is noteworthy: “In the foreground is a narrow gallery with the arches of an ancient building that is beginning to collapse...” It is in this decaying, dilapidated world that Katerina’s sacrificial confession sounds from its very depths. The fate of the heroine is so tragic primarily because she rebelled against her own Domostroevsky ideas about good and evil. The ending of the play tells us that living “in the dark kingdom is worse than death” (Dobrolyubov). “This end seems joyful to us... - we read in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”, - ... it gives a terrible challenge to tyrant power, it tells it that it is no longer possible to go further, it is impossible to live any longer with its violent, deadening principles." The irresistibility of the awakening of man in man, the rehabilitation of living human feeling that replaces false asceticism, constitute, it seems to me, the enduring merit of Ostrovsky’s play. And today it helps to overcome the power of inertia, numbness, and social stagnation.

“DARK KINGDOM” IN A.N. OSTROVSKY’S PLAY “GRO3A”

1.Introduction.

"A ray of light in a dark kingdom."

2. Main part.

2.1 The world of the city of Kalinov.

2.2 Image of nature.

2.3 Inhabitants of Kalinov:

a) Dikoya and Kabanikha;

b) Tikhon, Boris and Varvara.

2.4 The collapse of the old world.

3. Conclusion.

A turning point in the popular consciousness. Yes, everything here seems to be out of captivity.

A. N. Ostrovsky

The play “The Thunderstorm” by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, published in 1859, was enthusiastically received by advanced critics thanks, first of all, to the image of the main character, Katerina Kabanova. However, this beautiful female image, “a ray of light in the dark kingdom” (in the words of N.A. Dobrolyubov), was formed precisely in the atmosphere of patriarchal merchant relations, oppressing and killing everything new.

The play opens with a calm, unhurried exposition. Ostrovsky depicts the idyllic world in which the heroes live. This is the provincial town of Kalinov, which is described in great detail. The action takes place against the backdrop of the beautiful nature of central Russia. Kuligin, walking along the river bank, exclaims: “Miracles, truly it must be said that miracles!”< … >For fifty years I’ve been looking at the Volga every day and I can’t get enough of it.” Beautiful nature contrasts with the cruel morals of the city, with the poverty and lack of rights of its inhabitants, with their lack of education and limitations. The heroes seem to be closed in this world; they don’t want to know anything new and don’t see other lands and countries. Merchant Dikoy and Marfa Kabanova, nicknamed Kabanikha, are true representatives of the “dark kingdom”. These are individuals with a strong character, who have power over other heroes and manipulate their relatives with the help of money. They adhere to the old, patriarchal order, which completely suits them. Kabanova tyranns all members of her family, constantly finding fault with her son and daughter-in-law, teaching and criticizing them. However, she no longer has absolute confidence in the inviolability of patriarchal foundations, so she defends her world with her last strength. Tikhon, Boris and Varvara are representatives of the younger generation. But they too were influenced by the old world and its orders. Tikhon, completely subordinate to his mother’s authority, gradually becomes an alcoholic. And only the death of his wife makes him cry out: “Mama, you ruined her! You, you, you...” Boris is also under the yoke of his uncle Dikiy. He hopes to receive his grandmother's inheritance, so he endures his uncle's bullying in public. At the request of the Dikiy, he leaves Katerina, pushing her to suicide with this act. Varvara, Kabanikha’s daughter, is a bright and strong personality. By creating visible humility and obedience to her mother, she lives in her own way. When meeting with Kudryash, Varvara is not at all worried about the moral side of her behavior. For her, the first place is the observance of external decency, which drowns out the voice of conscience. However, the patriarchal world, so strong and powerful, which destroyed the main character of the play, is dying. All the heroes feel this. Katerina's public declaration of love for Boris was a terrible blow for Kabanikha, a sign that the old was leaving forever. Through a love-domestic conflict, Ostrovsky showed the turning point taking place in people's minds. A new attitude to the world, an individual perception of reality are replacing the patriarchal, communal way of life. In the play "The Thunderstorm" these processes are depicted especially vividly and realistically.

“The Thunderstorm” was published in 1859 (on the eve of the revolutionary situation in Russia, in the “pre-storm” era). Its historicism lies in the conflict itself, the irreconcilable contradictions reflected in the play. It responds to the spirit of the times.

"The Thunderstorm" represents the idyll of the "dark kingdom". Tyranny and silence are brought to the extreme in her. A real heroine from the people’s environment appears in the play, and it is the description of her character that receives the main attention, while the little world of the city of Kalinov and the conflict itself are described in a more general way.

“Their life flows smoothly and peacefully, no interests of the world disturb them, because they do not reach them; kingdoms can collapse, new countries open up, the face of the earth change... - the inhabitants of the town of Kalinov will continue to exist in complete ignorance of the rest of the world... The concepts and way of life they accept are the best in the world, everything new comes from evil spirits... they find it awkward and even the daring ones should persistently seek reasonable grounds... The information reported by the Feklushis is such that it is not capable of inspiring a great desire to exchange one’s life for another... A dark mass, terrible in its naivety and sincerity.” .

It is scary and difficult for anyone to try to go against the demands and beliefs of this dark mass. The absence of any law, any logic - this is the law and logic of this life. In their indisputable, irresponsible dark dominion, giving complete freedom to whims, not putting any laws and logic into anything, the “tyrants” of life begin to feel some kind of dissatisfaction and fear, without knowing what and why. They are fiercely looking for their enemy, ready to attack the most innocent, some Kuligin: but there is neither an enemy nor a culprit whom they could destroy: the law of time, the law of nature and history takes its toll, and the old Kabanovs breathe heavily, feeling that there is a power above them that they cannot overcome... They do not want to give in, they are only concerned about how things will turn out in their lifetime...

Kabanova is very seriously upset about the future of the old order, with which she has outlived the century, speaking about the collapse of the established world: “And it will be worse than this, dear,” and in response to the words of the wanderer: “We just wouldn’t live to see this.” Kabanikha says gravely: “Maybe we’ll live.” She is only consoled by the fact that somehow, with her help, the old order will survive until her death.

The Kabanovs and the wild ones are now busy only trying to continue what they were doing. They know that their willfulness will still have plenty of scope as long as everyone is timid in front of them; that's why they are so persistent.

The image of Katerina is Ostrovsky’s most important discovery - the discovery of a strong folk character born of a patriarchal world with an awakening sense of personality. The relationship between Katerina and Kabanikha in the play is not an everyday feud between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; their destinies expressed the collision of two historical eras, which determines the tragic nature of the conflict. In the soul of a woman who is quite “Kalinovsky” in terms of upbringing and moral ideas, a new attitude to the world is born, a feeling that is not yet clear to the heroine herself: “Something bad is happening to me, some kind of miracle!” I’m sure I’m starting to live again, or I don’t know.” Katerina perceives awakened love as a terrible, indelible sin, because love for a stranger for her, a married woman, is a violation of moral duty. She wants with all her soul to be pure and impeccable; her moral demands on herself do not allow compromise. Having already realized her love for Boris, she resists it with all her might, but finds no support in this struggle: “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me there, but I have nothing to hold on to.” Not only the external forms of household chores, but even prayer becomes inaccessible to her, since she felt the power of sinful passion over her. She feels fear of herself, of the desire for will that has grown in her, inseparably merging in her mind with love: “Of course, God forbid this to happen! And if I get really tired of it here, they won’t hold me back by any force. I’ll throw myself out the window, throw myself into the Volga. I don’t want to live here, I won’t do this, even if you cut me!”

The consciousness of sin does not leave her at the moment of intoxication with happiness and takes possession of her with enormous power when the happiness ends. Katerina publicly repents without hope of forgiveness, and it is the complete lack of hope that pushes her to commit suicide, an even more serious sin: “I’ve already ruined my soul anyway.” The complete impossibility of reconciling her love with the demands of her conscience and physical disgust for the home prison and captivity kill Katerina.

Katerina is a victim not of anyone personally around her, but of the course of life. The world of patriarchal relations is dying, and the soul of this world passes away in torment and suffering, crushed by the form of everyday connections, and passes a moral verdict on itself, because it is in it that the patriarchal ideal lives.

It has gone to the extreme, to the denial of all common sense; It is more than ever hostile to the natural demands of humanity and is trying more fiercely than ever to stop their development, because in their triumph it sees the approach of its inevitable destruction.
N. A. Dobrolyubov
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, for the first time in Russian literature, deeply and realistically depicted the world of the “dark kingdom”, painted colorful images of tyrants, their life and customs. He dared to look behind the iron merchant gates and was not afraid to openly show the conservative power of “inertia”, “numbness”. Analyzing Ostrovsky’s “plays of life”, Dobrolyubov wrote: “Nothing holy, nothing pure, nothing right in this dark world: the tyranny dominating him, wild, insane, wrong, drove out of him all consciousness of honor and right... And they cannot be there , where human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the sanctity of honest labor have been crushed into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants.” And yet, many of Ostrovsky’s plays depict “the precariousness and the near end of tyranny.”
The dramatic conflict in “The Thunderstorm” lies in the clash of the obsolete morality of tyrants with the new morality of people in whose souls a sense of human dignity is awakening. In the play, the background of life itself, the setting itself, is important. The world of the “dark kingdom” is based on fear and monetary calculation. Self-taught watchmaker Kuligin tells Boris: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! He who has money tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors.” Direct financial dependence forces Boris to be respectful with the “scold” Dikiy. Tikhon is obediently obedient to his mother, although at the end of the play even he rises to a kind of rebellion. Wild Curly's clerk and Tikhon's sister Varvara are cunning and dodgy. Katerina’s discerning heart senses the falseness and inhumanity of the life around her. “Yes, everything here seems to be out of captivity,” she thinks.
The images of tyrants in “The Thunderstorm” are artistically authentic, complex, and lack psychological certainty. Dikoy is a rich merchant, a significant person in the city of Kalinov. At first glance, nothing threatens his power. Savel Prokofievich, according to Kudryash’s apt definition, “feels like he’s broken free from a chain”: he feels like the master of life, the arbiter of the destinies of the people under his control. Isn’t this what Dikiy’s attitude towards Boris speaks about? Those around him are afraid to anger Savel Prokofievich with something, his wife is in awe of him.
Dikoy feels the power of money and the support of state power on his side. The requests to restore justice made by the “peasants” deceived by the merchant to the mayor turn out to be futile. Savel Prokofievich patted the mayor on the shoulder and said: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles!”
At the same time, as already mentioned, the image of the Wild is quite complex. The harsh disposition of a “significant person in the city” encounters not some kind of external protest, not the manifestation of discontent of others, but internal self-condemnation. Savel Prokofievich himself is not happy with his “heart”: “I was fasting about fasting, about great things, but now it’s not easy and slip a little man in; I came for money, carried firewood... I did sin: I scolded him, I scolded him so much that I couldn’t ask for anything better, I almost beat him to death. This is the kind of heart I have! After asking for forgiveness, he bowed at his feet. This is what my heart brings me to: here in the yard, in the dirt, I bowed; I bowed to him in front of everyone.” This recognition of the Wild contains a terrible meaning for the foundations of the “dark kingdom”: tyranny is so unnatural and inhuman that it becomes obsolete and loses any moral justification for its existence.
The rich merchant Kabanova can also be called a “tyrant in a skirt.” Kuligin put into his mouth an exact description of Marfa Ignatievna: “Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” In a conversation with her son and daughter-in-law, Kabanikha hypocritically sighs: “Oh, a grave sin! How long will it take to sin!”
Behind this feigned exclamation lies a domineering, despotic character. Marfa Ignatievna actively defends the foundations of the “dark kingdom” and tries to conquer Tikhon and Katerina. Relations between people in the family should, according to Kabanova, be regulated by the law of fear, the Domostroevsky principle “let the wife fear her husband.” Marfa Ignatievna’s desire to follow previous traditions in everything is manifested in the scene of Tikhon’s farewell to Katerina.
The position of the mistress of the house cannot completely calm down Kabanikha. Marfa Ignatievna is frightened by the fact that young people want freedom, that the traditions of hoary antiquity are not respected. “What will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will remain, I don’t know. Well, at least it’s good that I won’t see anything,” Kabanikha sighs. In this case, her fear is completely sincere, and is not intended for any external effect (Marfa Ignatievna pronounces her words alone).
The image of the wanderer Feklusha plays a significant role in Ostrovsky’s play. At first glance, we have a minor character. In fact, Feklusha is not directly involved in the action, but she is a myth-maker and defender of the “dark kingdom”. Let’s listen to the wanderer’s reasoning about “Persian sultan makhnute” and “Turkish sultan makhnute”: “And they cannot... judge a single case righteously, such is the limit set for them. Our law is righteous, but theirs is...unrighteous; that according to our law it turns out this way, but according to them everything is the opposite. And all their judges, in their countries, are also all unrighteous...” The main meaning of the above words is that “we have a righteous law.:”.
Feklusha, anticipating the death of the “dark kingdom,” shares with Kabanikha: “The last times, Mother Marfa Ignatievna, by all accounts, the last.” The wanderer sees an ominous sign of the end in the acceleration of the passage of time: “Time has already begun to diminish... smart people notice that our time is becoming shorter.” And indeed, time works against the “dark kingdom”.
Ostrovsky comes to large-scale artistic generalizations in the play and creates almost symbolic images (thunderstorm). The remark at the beginning of the fourth act of the play is noteworthy: “In the foreground is a narrow gallery with the arches of an ancient building that is beginning to collapse...” It is in this decaying, dilapidated world that Katerina’s sacrificial confession sounds from its very depths. The fate of the heroine is so tragic primarily because she rebelled against her own Domostroevsky ideas about good and evil. The ending of the play tells us that living “in the dark kingdom is worse than death” (Dobrolyubov). “This end seems joyful to us...” we read in the article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom”, “... it gives a terrible challenge to the tyrant power, it tells it that it is no longer possible to go further, it is impossible to live any longer with its violent, deadening principles.” The irresistibility of the awakening of man in man, the rehabilitation of living human feeling that replaces false asceticism, constitute, it seems to me, the enduring merit of Ostrovsky’s play. And today it helps to overcome the power of inertia, numbness, and social stagnation.

Essay on literature on the topic: “The Dark Kingdom” in Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm”

Other writings:

1. A. N. Ostrovsky finished his play in 1859, on the eve of the abolition of serfdom. Russia was awaiting reform, and the play became the first stage in the awareness of impending changes in society. In his work, Ostrovsky presents us with a merchant milieu that personifies the “dark kingdom.” Read More......
2. It is known that extremes are reflected by extremes, and that the strongest protest is not the one that finally rises from the mud of the weakest and most patient. N. A. Dobrolyubov Ostrovsky’s plays were not invented. These works were born from life itself, and the author only cited Read More......
3. “The Thunderstorm” was published in 1859 (on the eve of the revolutionary situation in Russia, in the “pre-storm” era). Its historicism lies in the conflict itself, the irreconcilable contradictions reflected in the play. It responds to the spirit of the times. “The Thunderstorm” represents the idyll of the “dark kingdom”. Tyranny and silence are brought to Read More ......
4. The name of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is one of the most famous in the history of Russian literature and Russian theater. In 1812, the great Russian writer A.I. Goncharov, greeting Ostrovsky on the day of the thirty-fifth anniversary of his literary activity, said: “You have done everything that befits a great Read More ......
5. “The Thunderstorm” is a most amazing work of Russian, powerful, completely self-mastered talent. I, S. Turgenev Autumn 1859. Premiere at the Moscow Maly Theater. Great actors play a play by a great playwright. Treatises will be written about this work, N. Dobrolyubov will come together in polemics about it Read More ......
6. A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” was written in 1859. At this time, Russian society was wondering about the further path of development of Russia. Slavophiles and Westerners argued fiercely about what was better: patriarchy (autocracy, nationality, Orthodoxy) or orientation to Western values ​​Read More ......
7. Each person is a one and only world, with his own actions, character, habits, honor, morality, self-esteem. It is precisely the problem of honor and self-esteem that Ostrovsky raises in his play “The Thunderstorm”. In order to show the contradictions between rudeness and honor, between Read More......
8. The drama “The Thunderstorm” was written by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky in 1859 after traveling along the Volga. It was believed that a certain Alexandra Klykova served as the prototype of Katerina. Her story is in many ways similar to the heroine’s story, but Ostrovsky finished work on the play a month before his suicide Read More ......

The drama “The Thunderstorm” was written by A.N. Ostrovsky on the eve of the peasant reform in 1859. The author reveals to the reader the features of the social structure of that time, the characteristics of a society standing on the threshold of significant changes.

Two camps

The play takes place in Kalinov, a merchant town on the banks of the Volga. Society was divided into two camps - the older generation and the younger generation. They involuntarily collide with each other, since the movement of life dictates its own rules, and it will not be possible to preserve the old system.

The “Dark Kingdom” is a world characterized by ignorance, lack of education, tyranny, house-building, and aversion to change. The main representatives are the merchant's wife Marfa Kabanova - Kabanikha and Dikoy.

Kabanikha's world

Kabanikha torments her family and friends with groundless reproaches, suspicions and humiliations. For her, it is important to adhere to the rules of the “old times,” even at the expense of ostentatious actions. She demands the same from her environment. Behind all these laws there is no need to talk about any feelings even towards one’s own children. She brutally rules over them, suppressing their personal interests and opinions. The entire way of life of the Kabanovs' house is based on fear. To intimidate and humiliate is the life position of a merchant’s wife.

Wild

Even more primitive is the merchant Dikoy, a true tyrant, humiliating those around him with loud shouts and abuse, insults and exaltation of his own personality. Why is he acting this way? It’s just that for him it’s a kind of way of self-realization. He brags to Kabanova about how he subtly scolded this or that, admiring his ability to come up with new abuse.

The heroes of the older generation understand that their time is coming to an end, that their usual way of life is being replaced by something different, fresh. This makes their anger become more and more uncontrollable, more violent.

The philosophy of the Wild and Kabanikha is supported by the wanderer Feklusha, a respected guest for both. She tells frightening stories about foreign countries, about Moscow, where instead of people there are certain creatures with dog heads. These legends are believed without realizing that they are thereby exposing their own ignorance.

Subjects of the "dark kingdom"

The younger generation, or rather its weaker representatives, succumb to the influence of the kingdom. For example, Tikhon, who since childhood has not dared to say a word against his mother. He himself suffers from her oppression, but he does not have enough strength to resist her character. Largely because of this, he loses Katerina, his wife. And only bending over the body of his deceased wife does he dare to blame his mother for her death.

Dikiy’s nephew, Boris, Katerina’s lover, also becomes a victim of the “dark kingdom.” He was unable to resist cruelty and humiliation and began to take them for granted. Having managed to seduce Katerina, he could not save her. He didn't have the courage to take her away and start a new life.

A ray of light in a dark kingdom

It turns out that only Katerina breaks out of the usual life of the “dark kingdom” with her inner light. She is pure and spontaneous, far from material desires and outdated life principles. Only she has the courage to go against the rules and admit it.