The Cherry Orchard message brief analysis. Characteristics of the play “The Cherry Orchard”, analysis of the comedy
"The Cherry Orchard"represents one of the most striking and famous dramatic works of the twentieth century. Immediately after it was written by Anton Pavlovich, whom we will present to you, it was staged at the Moscow Art Theater. To this day, this play has not left Russian stages.
The plot of the play is based on the fact that Lyubov Ranevskaya, together with her daughter Anna, returns from Paris to sell the family estate. Moreover, the heroine and her brother, Gaev, grew up in this place and do not want to believe in the need to part with him.
Their friend, the merchant Lopakhin, is trying to offer a profitable enterprise to cut down the garden and rent out the area for summer cottages, which Ranevskaya and Gaev do not want to hear about. Lyubov Andreevna harbors illusory hopes that the estate can still be saved. While she has been wasting money all her life, the cherry orchard seems to her to be of higher value. But it is impossible to save him, since there is nothing to pay off his debts. Ranevskaya is broke, and Gaev “ate his estate on candy.” Therefore, at the auction, Lopakhin buys a cherry orchard and, intoxicated by his possibilities, shouts about it at family ball. But he feels sorry for Ranevskaya, who is brought to tears by the news of the sale of the estate.
After this, the cutting down of the cherry orchard begins and the heroes say goodbye to each other and to their old life.
We have given the main storyline here and main conflict of this play: the “old” generation, which does not want to say goodbye to the cherry orchard, but at the same time cannot give it anything, and the “new” generation, full of radical ideas. Moreover, the estate itself personifies Russia here, and it was to depict the contemporary country that Chekhov wrote “The Cherry Orchard.” The summary of this work should show that the time of landowner power is passing, and nothing can be done about it. But there is a replacement for it. A “new time” is coming - and it is unknown whether it will be better or worse than the previous one. The author leaves the ending open, and we do not know what fate awaits the estate.
The work also uses the author's moves to better understand the atmosphere of Russia at that time, as Chekhov saw it. which gives an idea of the main problems of the play, at first it is a pure comedy, but towards the end elements of tragedy appear in it.
Also in the play there is an atmosphere of “universal deafness”, which is even emphasized by the physical deafness of Gaev and Firs. The characters speak for themselves and for themselves, without listening to others. Therefore, remarks can often sound not like an answer to a question posed, but like a character thinking out loud, which most fully demonstrates the qualities that Chekhov endowed him with. “The Cherry Orchard,” the analysis of which has been undertaken several times, is also deeply symbolic, and each hero is not a specific person, but a generalized characteristic type of representatives of the era.
To understand this work, it is important to look at it deeper than just the sequence of actions. This is the only way to hear what Chekhov wanted to say. "The Cherry Orchard", summary it, plot and symbolism wonderfully illustrate the author’s view of the changes in Russia at that time.
The work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov “The Cherry Orchard” was created more than a century ago in 1903. But until now this play has not lost its relevance. It is read with pleasure and performed on the stages of the most famous theaters. It reflects the problems of the noble class of pre-revolutionary Russia and the aspirations ordinary people that time.
I must say that this is one of the last works of the great writer. A year after it was written, Chekhov died of illness.
Characters of the play
Supporting characters
The play takes place on the estate of Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. She returns home from France, where for a long time lived with her young daughter Anya. They are met by relatives and friends, including Gaev, the owner’s brother, and her adopted daughter Varya. They lived on the estate all this time, trying to maintain order in it.
Ranevskaya herself is not distinguished by her ability to ensure her comfortable existence. During travel and an idle life, the family’s fortune has melted like snow, and something needs to be decided in order to pay off debts and find money for later life.
The merchant Lopakhin understands this very well, who offers her to sell the estate in order to cut down the garden and build it up with houses for summer residents. This option could save the landowner and bring big profits to Lopakhin himself.
But Lyubov Andreevna is very attached to why home. After all, it was here that her childhood and early years, and her beloved Grisha, her son, died. The brother and adopted daughter are trying to save the situation by any means, but nothing comes of it.
In parallel with this action The play develops a philosophical and love line:
In the third act, Gaev and Lopakhin go to the auction, and dances are held on the estate. In the midst of the fun, Gaev returns and announces the sale of the estate to Lopakhin. The merchant, of course, is beside himself with happiness and demands from the musicians fun music. He doesn’t feel sorry for the ruined owners at all.
In the finale, Ranevskaya and her family leave the sold estate to start new life. Lopakhin triumphs, and only the old footman Firs pronounces his sad monologue to the sound of an ax - they are cutting down a cherry orchard.
Critics' reaction
After the publication of “The Cherry Orchard,” it was noted that the work reflected the state of the noble class at the beginning of the last century. Almost before our eyes, the death of an entire class is happening. This is exactly what it is, not economic question here is the main thing and worries readers. Ranevskaya understands that her life is over and is not trying to benefit from what is happening.
Artistic basis
The play was conceived as a comedy, but after reading it to the end, you begin to understand that it is more of a tragicomedy or even a drama.
The main feature of the work is symbolism, which is unique to Chekhov. Even the dialogue in the play is unusual, since the lines in most cases are not an answer to the questions that are asked. Chekhov tried to write and show that the characters simply do not try to understand each other. They don't hear anyone but themselves.
The garden itself is the central “hero” here, symbolizing the collapse of the noble life of Russia.
That's how brief retelling play "The Cherry Orchard", the plan of which consists of four acts. The full version of the work can be read online or by ordering a printed version of the book.
The play “The Cherry Orchard” is the last dramatic work in which Anton Pavlovich Chekhov pays tribute to his time, nobles and such a broad concept as “estate”, so valued by the author at all times.
Genre "The Cherry Orchard" has always served as a reason for controversy and gossip. Chekhov himself wished to classify the play as a comedy genre, thereby going against the critics and connoisseurs of literature, who loudly convinced everyone that the work belonged to tragicomedy and drama. Thus, Anton Pavlovich gave readers the opportunity to judge his creation for themselves, to observe and experience the variety of genres presented on the pages of the book.
The leitmotif of all scenes The cherry orchard serves in the play, because it is not just a backdrop against which it happens whole line events, but also a symbol of the course of life in the estate. Throughout his career, the author gravitated toward symbolism, and did not sacrifice it in this play. It is against the backdrop of the cherry orchard that both external and internal conflicts develop.
The reader (or viewer) sees successive owners of the house, as well as the sale of the estate for debts. Upon a quick reading, it is noticeable that all the opposing forces are represented in the play: youth, noble Russia and aspiring entrepreneurs. Of course, social confrontation, often taken as the main line of conflict, is obvious. However, more attentive readers may notice that the key reason for the clash is not social confrontation at all, but the conflict of key characters with their environment and reality.
"Underwater" current of the play no less interesting than its main plot. Chekhov builds his narrative on halftones, where, among unambiguous and indisputable events, perceived as fact and for granted, existential questions appear from time to time, emerging throughout the play. “Who am I and what do I want?” Firs, Epikhodov, Charlotte Ivanovna and many other heroes ask themselves. Thus, it becomes obvious that the leading motive of “The Cherry Orchard” is not at all the confrontation of social strata, but the loneliness that haunts each hero throughout his life.
Teffi described “The Cherry Orchard” with only one saying: “Laughter through tears,” analyzing it immortal work. It’s both funny and sad to read it, realizing that both conflicts raised by the author are relevant to this day.
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the sub-topic can be divided into the past - these are Gaev and Ranevskaya, who do not know how to navigate life at all, the present is Ermolai Lopakhin, a merchant, he knows what is needed, does everything prudently, and the future is Anya and Petya Trofimov, “humanity is moving towards the highest truth and I am in front row" his quote. Russia is our garden.. and in the end “all you can hear is an ax hitting the trees..” that is, the garden was destroyed and no one could manage it properly.
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The Cherry Orchard 1903 Brief summary of the comedy
The estate of landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. Spring, cherry trees are blooming. But the beautiful garden will soon have to be sold for debts. For the last five years, Ranevskaya and her seventeen-year-old daughter Anya have lived abroad. Ranevskaya’s brother Leonid Andreevich Gaev and her adopted daughter, twenty-four-year-old Varya, remained on the estate. Things are bad for Ranevskaya, there are almost no funds left. Lyubov Andreevna always squandered money. Six years ago, her husband died from drunkenness. Ranevskaya fell in love with another person and got along with him. But soon her little son Grisha died tragically, drowning in the river. Lyubov Andreevna, unable to bear the grief, fled abroad. The lover followed her. When he fell ill, Ranevskaya had to settle him at her dacha near Menton and look after him for three years. And then, when he had to sell his dacha for debts and move to Paris, he robbed and abandoned Ranevskaya.
Gaev and Varya meet Lyubov Andreevna and Anya at the station. The maid Dunyasha and the merchant Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin are waiting for them at home. Lopakhin's father was a serf of the Ranevskys, he himself became rich, but says of himself that he remained a “man a man.” The clerk Epikhodov comes, a man with whom something constantly happens and who is nicknamed “twenty-two misfortunes.”
Finally the carriages arrive. The house is filled with people, everyone is in pleasant excitement. Everyone talks about their own things. Lyubov Andreevna looks at the rooms and through tears of joy remembers the past. The maid Dunyasha can’t wait to tell the young lady that Epikhodov proposed to her. Anya herself advises Varya to marry Lopakhin, and Varya dreams of marrying Anya to a rich man. The governess Charlotte Ivanovna, a strange and eccentric person, boasts about her amazing dog; the neighbor, the landowner Simeonov-Pishchik, asks for a loan of money. The old faithful servant Firs hears almost nothing and mutters something all the time.
Lopakhin reminds Ranevskaya that the estate should soon be sold at auction, the only way out is to divide the land into plots and rent them out to summer residents. Ranevskaya is surprised by Lopakhin’s proposal: how can her beloved wonderful cherry orchard be cut down! Lopakhin wants to stay longer with Ranevskaya, whom he loves “more than his own,” but it’s time for him to leave. Gaev addresses welcoming speech to the hundred-year-old “respected” cabinet, but then, embarrassed, again begins to meaninglessly utter his favorite billiard words.
Ranevskaya does not immediately recognize Petya Trofimov: so he has changed, turned ugly, the “dear student” has turned into an “eternal student.” Lyubov Andreevna cries, remembering her little drowned son Grisha, whose teacher was Trofimov.
Gaev, left alone with Varya, tries to talk about business. There is a rich aunt in Yaroslavl, who, however, does not love them: after all, Lyubov Andreevna did not marry a nobleman, and she did not behave “very virtuously.” Gaev loves his sister, but still calls her “vicious,” which displeases Anya. Gaev continues to build projects: his sister will ask Lopakhin for money, Anya will go to Yaroslavl - in a word, they will not allow the estate to be sold, Gaev even swears by it. The grumpy Firs finally takes the master, like a child, to bed. Anya is calm and happy: her uncle will arrange everything.
Lopakhin never ceases to persuade Ranevskaya and Gaev to accept his plan. The three of them had breakfast in the city and, on their way back, stopped in a field near the chapel. Just now, here, on the same bench, Epikhodov tried to explain himself to Dunyasha, but she had already preferred the young cynical lackey Yasha to him. Ranevskaya and Gaev don’t seem to hear Lopakhin and are talking about completely different things. Without convincing the “frivolous, unbusinesslike, strange” people of anything, Lopakhin wants to leave. Ranevskaya asks him to stay: “it’s still more fun” with him.
Anya, Varya and Petya Trofimov arrive. Ranevskaya starts a conversation about a “proud man.” According to Trofimov, there is no point in pride: a rude, unhappy person should not admire himself, but work. Petya condemns the intelligentsia, who are incapable of work, those people who philosophize importantly, and treat men like animals. Lopakhin enters the conversation: he works “from morning to evening,” dealing with large capitals, but he is becoming more and more convinced how few decent people there are around. Lopakhin doesn’t finish speaking, Ranevskaya interrupts him. In general, everyone here does not want and does not know how to listen to each other. There is silence, in which the distant sad sound of a broken string can be heard.
Soon everyone disperses. Left alone, Anya and Trofimov are glad to have the opportunity to talk together, without Varya. Trofimov convinces Anya that one must be “above love”, that the main thing is freedom: “all of Russia is our garden,” but in order to live in the present, one must first atone for the past through suffering and labor. Happiness is close: if not they, then others will definitely see it.
The twenty-second of August arrives, trading day. It was on this evening, completely inappropriately, that a ball was being held at the estate, and a Jewish orchestra was invited. Once upon a time, generals and barons danced here, but now, as Firs complains, both the postal official and the station master “don’t like to go.” Charlotte Ivanovna entertains guests with her tricks. Ranevskaya anxiously awaits her brother's return. The Yaroslavl aunt nevertheless sent fifteen thousand, but it was not enough to redeem the estate.
Petya Trofimov “calms” Ranevskaya: it’s not about the garden, it’s over long ago, we need to face the truth. Lyubov Andreevna asks not to judge her, to have pity: after all, without cherry orchard her life loses meaning. Every day Ranevskaya receives telegrams from Paris. At first she tore them right away, then - after reading them first, now she no longer tears them. "This wild man", whom she still loves, begs her to come. Petya condemns Ranevskaya for her love for “a petty scoundrel, a nonentity.” Angry Ranevskaya, unable to restrain herself, takes revenge on Trofimov, calling him a “funny eccentric”, “freak”, “neat”: “You have to love yourself... you have to fall in love!” Petya tries to leave in horror, but then stays and dances with Ranevskaya, who asked him for forgiveness.
Finally, a confused, joyful Lopakhin and a tired Gaev appear, who, without saying anything, immediately goes home. The Cherry Orchard was sold, and Lopakhin bought it. The “new landowner” is happy: he managed to outbid the rich man Deriganov at the auction, giving ninety thousand on top of his debt. Lopakhin picks up the keys thrown on the floor by the proud Varya. Let the music play, let everyone see how Ermolai Lopakhin “takes an ax to the cherry orchard”!
Anya consoles her crying mother: the garden is sold, but there is more to come whole life. Will new garden, more luxurious than this, “quiet, deep joy” awaits them...
The house is empty. Its inhabitants, having said goodbye to each other, leave. Lopakhin is going to Kharkov for the winter, Trofimov is returning to Moscow, to the university. Lopakhin and Petya exchange barbs. Although Trofimov calls Lopakhin “ a beast of prey”, necessary “in the sense of metabolism,” he still loves his “tender, subtle soul.” Lopakhin offers Trofimov money for the trip. He refuses: no one should have power over the “free man”, “in the forefront of moving” to the “highest happiness”.
Ranevskaya and Gaev even became happier after selling the cherry orchard. Previously they were worried and suffered, but now they have calmed down. Ranevskaya is going to live in Paris for now with money sent by her aunt. Anya is inspired: a new life is beginning - she will graduate from high school, work, read books, and a “new wonderful world” will open up before her. Suddenly, out of breath, Simeonov-Pishchik appears and instead of asking for money, on the contrary, he gives away debts. It turned out that the British found white clay on his land.
Everyone settled down differently. Gaev says that now he is a bank employee. Lopakhin promises to find a new place for Charlotte, Varya got a job as a housekeeper for the Ragulins, Epikhodov, hired by Lopakhin, remains on the estate, Firs should be sent to the hospital. But still Gaev sadly says: “Everyone is abandoning us... we suddenly became unnecessary.”
There must finally be an explanation between Varya and Lopakhin. Varya has been teased as “Madame Lopakhina” for a long time. Varya likes Ermolai Alekseevich, but she herself cannot propose. Lopakhin, who also speaks highly of Varya, agrees to “end this matter right away.” But when Ranevskaya arranges their meeting, Lopakhin, having never made up his mind, leaves Varya, taking advantage of the first pretext.
“It's time to go! On the road! - With these words they leave the house, locking all the doors. All that remains is old Firs, whom everyone seemed to care about, but whom they forgot to send to the hospital. Firs, sighing that Leonid Andreevich went in a coat and not a fur coat, lies down to rest and lies motionless. The same sound of a broken string is heard. “Silence falls, and you can only hear how far away in the garden an ax is knocking on a tree.”
Retold . Source: All the masterpieces of world literature in summary. Plots and characters. Russian literature XIX century / Ed. and comp. V. I. Novikov. - M.: Olympus: ACT, 1996. - 832 p. On the cover:
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"The Cherry Orchard" - last piece A.P. Chekhov. The writer was terminally ill when he wrote this play. He realized that he would soon pass away, and this is probably why the whole play is filled with some kind of quiet sadness and tenderness. This is the great writer’s farewell to everything that was dear to him: to the people, to Russia, whose fate worried him until last minute. Probably, at such a moment, a person thinks about everything: about the past - he remembers all the most important things and takes stock - as well as about the present and future of those whom he leaves on this earth. In the play “The Cherry Orchard” it is as if a meeting of the past, present and future took place. It seems that the heroes of the play belong to three different eras: some live in yesterday and are absorbed in memories of bygone times, others are busy with momentary affairs and strive to benefit from everything they have. this moment, and still others turn their gaze far ahead, not taking into account real events.
Thus, the past, present and future do not merge into one whole: they exist according to piecework and sort out their relationships with each other.
Prominent representatives of the past are Gaev and Ranevskaya. Chekhov pays tribute to the education and sophistication of the Russian nobility. Both Gaev and Ranevskaya know how to appreciate beauty. They find the most poetic words to express their feelings towards everything that surrounds them - be it an old house, a favorite garden, in a word, everything that is dear to them
since childhood. They even address the closet as if they were an old friend: “Dear, dear closet! I greet your existence, which for more than a hundred years has been directed towards the bright ideals of goodness and justice...” Ranevskaya, finding herself at home after a five-year separation, is ready to kiss every thing that reminds her of her childhood and youth. For her, home is a living person, a witness to all her joys and sorrows. Ranevskaya has a very special attitude towards the garden - it seems to personify all the best and brightest things that happened in her life, it is part of her soul. Looking at the garden through the window, she exclaims: “Oh my childhood, my purity! I slept in this nursery, looked at the garden from here, happiness woke up with me every morning, and then he was exactly the same, nothing has changed.” Ranevskaya's life was not easy: she lost her husband early, and soon after that her seven-year-old son died. The man with whom she tried to connect her life turned out to be unworthy - he cheated on her and squandered her money. But returning home for her is like falling into a life-giving spring: she feels young and happy again. All the pain boiling in her soul and the joy of the meeting are expressed in her address to the garden: “Oh my garden! After a dark stormy autumn and cold winter again you are young, full of happiness, the angels have not abandoned you...” For Ranevskaya, the garden is closely connected with the image of her late mother - she directly sees her mother in a white dress walking through the garden.
Neither Gaev nor Ranevskaya can allow their estate to be rented out to summer residents. They consider this very idea vulgar, but at the same time they do not want to face reality: the day of the auction is approaching, and the estate will be sold under the hammer. Gaev shows complete immaturity in this matter (the remark “Puts a lollipop in his mouth” seems to confirm this): “We will pay the interest, I am convinced...” Where does he get such conviction from? Who is he counting on? Obviously not on myself. Without any reason, he swears to Varya: “I swear on my honor, whatever you want, I swear, the estate will not be sold! ... I swear on my happiness! Here's my hand, call me trashy then dishonest person, if I make it to the auction! I swear with all my being!” Beautiful but empty words. Lopakhin is a different matter. This man does not waste words. He sincerely tries to explain to Ranevskaya and Gaeva that there is a real way out of this situation: “Every day I say the same thing. Both the cherry orchard and the land must be rented out for dachas, this must be done now, as quickly as possible - the auction is just around the corner! Understand! Once you finally decide to have dachas, they will give you as much money as you want, and then you are saved.” With such a call, the “present” turns to the “past,” but the “past” does not heed. “Finally deciding” is an impossible task for people of this type. It is easier for them to stay in the world of illusions. But Lopakhin does not waste time. He simply buys this estate and rejoices in the presence of the unfortunate and destitute Ranevskaya. The purchase of an estate has a special meaning for him: “I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen.” This is the pride of a plebeian who has “rubbed his nose” with the aristocrats. He is only sorry that his father and grandfather do not see his triumph. Knowing what the cherry orchard meant in Ranevskaya’s life, he literally dances on her bones: “Hey, musicians, play, I want to listen to you! Come and watch how Ermolai Lopakhin takes an ax to the cherry orchard and how the trees fall to the ground!” And he immediately sympathizes with the sobbing Ranevskaya: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” But this is a momentary weakness, because he is experiencing his finest hour. Lopakhin is a man of the present, the master of life, but is he the future?
Maybe the man of the future is Petya Trofimov? He is a truth-teller (“You don’t have to deceive yourself, you have to look the truth straight in the eye at least once in your life”). He is not interested in his own appearance (“I don’t want to be handsome”). He apparently considers love to be a relic of the past (“We are above love”). Everything material does not attract him either. He is ready to destroy both the past and the present “to the ground, and then...” And then what? Is it possible to grow a garden without knowing how to appreciate beauty? Petya gives the impression of a frivolous and superficial person. Chekhov, apparently, is not at all happy with the prospect of such a future for Russia.
The rest of the characters in the play are also representatives of the three different eras. For example, the old servant Firs is all from the past. All his ideals are connected with distant times. He considers the reform of 1861 to be the beginning of all troubles. He does not need “will”, since his whole life is devoted to the masters. Firs is a very integral person; he is the only hero of the play endowed with such a quality as devotion.
Lackey Yasha is akin to Lopakhin - no less enterprising, but even more soulless. Who knows, maybe he will soon become the master of life?
Read last page plays, but there is no answer to the question: “So with whom does the writer pin his hopes for a new life?” There is a feeling of some confusion and anxiety: who will decide the fate of Russia? Who can save beauty?
A.P. Chekhov. "The Cherry Orchard". General characteristics of the play. Analysis of the third act.
Chekhov brings everyday life to the stage - without effects, beautiful poses, or unusual situations. He believed that in the theater everything should be as simple and at the same time complex as it is in life. In everyday life he sees both beauty and significance. This explains the unique composition of his dramas, the simplicity of the plot, the calm development of the action, the lack of stage effects, and the “undercurrent.”
“The Cherry Orchard” is the only play by Chekhov, in the basis of which one can see, although not quite clearly, social conflict. The bourgeoisie is replacing the doomed nobility. Is it good or bad? An incorrect question, says Chekhov. It is a fact. “What I came out with was not a drama, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce,” wrote Chekhov. According to Belinsky, comedy reveals how real life deviated from the ideal. Wasn't this Chekhov's task in The Cherry Orchard? Life, beautiful in its possibilities, poetic, like a blooming cherry orchard - and the powerlessness of the “klutzes” who are unable to either preserve this poetry, or break through to it, to see it.
The peculiarity of the genre is lyrical comedy. The characters are drawn by the author with slight mockery, but without sarcasm, without hatred. Chekhov's heroes are already looking for their place, but haven't found it yet, everyone stage time they are going somewhere. But they can never get it together. The tragedy of Chekhov's heroes comes from their lack of rootedness in the present, which they hate, which they fear. Authentic life, real, seems alien to them, wrong. They see a way out of the melancholy of everyday life (and the reason for it still lies in themselves, so there is no way out) in the future, in the life that should be, but which never comes. Yes, they don’t do anything to make it happen.
One of the main motives of the play is time. It starts with a late train, ends with a missed train. And the heroes don’t feel that time has changed. She entered the house, where (as it seems to Ranevskaya) nothing changes, and devastated and destroyed it. The heroes are behind the times.
The image of the garden in the play “The Cherry Orchard”
Composition of “The Cherry Orchard”: Act 1 - exposition, Ranevskaya’s arrival, the threat of loss of the estate, the exit offered by Lopakhin. Act 2 - senseless waiting for the owners of the garden, Act 3 - sale of the garden, Act 4 - departure of the previous owners, new owners taking possession, cutting down the garden. That is, Act 3 is the climax of the play.
The garden must be sold. He is destined to die, Chekhov insists on this, no matter how he feels about it. Why this will happen is shown quite clearly in Acts 1 and 2. The task of Act 3 is to show how.
The action takes place in the house, the stage directions introduce the viewer to the party that was discussed in Act 2. Ranevskaya calls it a ball and very accurately defines that “we started the ball at the wrong time” - from Petya’s words the viewer learns that it was at this time that auctions take place at which the fate of the estate is decided. Therefore, the mood of this scene is a contrast between external well-being (dancing, magic tricks, optional “ballroom” conversations) and the atmosphere of melancholy, bad feeling and about-to-ready hysteria.
How does Chekhov create this atmosphere? The idiotic speeches of Simeonov-Pishchik, to which no one reacts, as if this is how it should be, every now and then the conversations of the owners of the house about their sad things break through, as if they have no time for guests.
When the unnecessary ball fizzles out, Gaev and Lopakhin appear with a message about the sale of the estate. “Speech” by Lopakhin in new role leaves a complex, rather heavy impression, but the act ends on an optimistic note - with Anya’s remark addressed to Ranevskaya: “Mom, you have life left...” There is a meaning in this optimism - the most unbearable for the characters of the play (choice, the need to decide and take on responsibility) behind.
What new do we learn about the heroes in Act 3?
Ranevskaya.
It turns out that she is not only capable of infuriating with her impracticality, she is also not stupid. It seems that at this ball she woke up - sensible remarks about the Yaroslavl grandmother, about what the cherry orchard is for her. In a conversation with Petya, she is even wise, very accurately determines the essence of this person, and without pretense or playing with herself, she talks about herself and her life. Although, of course, she remains herself - she speaks truthful words to Petya in order to hurt someone else, because she herself is hurt. But in general, this is the peak of her reflection of life; already at the very beginning of Act 4 she will continue to play like an actress for whom only her own role is important and the entire play is inaccessible. And now she accepts the news of the sale of the estate not courageously, but with dignity, without play; her grief is genuine and therefore ugly: “She shrank all over and cried bitterly.”
Gaev.
He is almost absent from this act, and we learn nothing new about him. All he can say is: “How much I have suffered!” - in general, again “I”. It is very simple to console him in grief - with the sound of billiard balls.
Lopakhin.
This is a surprise. Until now we knew him good friend this family that didn't deserve such a friend. He was more worried about saving the cherry orchard than all these fools combined. And the thought did not arise that he himself wanted to buy the garden, that for him this was not just another transaction, but an act of triumph of justice. Therefore, now his honesty is worth more. We also didn’t know about him that he was capable of getting carried away, forgetting himself, rejoicing to the point of madness, he was so even and calm until now. And what a “genetic” hatred he has for his former masters - not personally for Gaev and Ranevskaya, but for the class: “...Grandfather and father were slaves,... they weren’t even allowed into the kitchen...” And he is also weak because he thinks about life: “If only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change...”, and what to think about is not enough: “Let everything be as I wish!”
Chekhov's last play was outstanding work world dramaturgy of the XX century.
Actors, directors, readers, and spectators from all countries have turned and are turning to comprehend its meaning. Therefore, as in the case of Chekhov’s stories, when we try to understand the play, we need to keep in mind not only what it excited Chekhov’s contemporaries, and not only what makes it understandable and interesting to us, the playwright’s compatriots, but also this universal , its all-human and all-time content.
The author of “The Cherry Orchard” (1903) sees life and people’s relationships differently and speaks about it differently than his predecessors. And we will understand the meaning of the play if we do not reduce it to sociological or historical explanations, but try to understand this method of depicting life in a dramatic work developed by Chekhov.
If you do not take into account the novelty of Chekhov's dramatic language, much in his play will seem strange, incomprehensible, overloaded with unnecessary things (from the point of view of previous theatrical aesthetics).
But the main thing - let's not forget: behind Chekhov's special form there is a special concept of life and man. “Let everything on stage be as complicated and at the same time as simple as in life,” said Chekhov. “People have lunch, they just have lunch, and at this time their happiness is formed and their lives are broken.”
FEATURES OF DRAMATURGIC CONFLICT. Let's start with something that catches your eye: how are the dialogues constructed in “The Cherry Orchard”? It is unconventional when a replica is a response to the previous one and requires a response in the next replica. Most often, the writer reproduces a disordered conversation (take, for example, the disorderly chorus of remarks and exclamations immediately after Ranevskaya’s arrival from the station). The characters don’t seem to hear each other, and if they listen, they respond at random (Anya to Dunyasha, Ranevskaya and Gaev to Lopakhin, everyone else except Anya to Petya, and even she clearly reacts not to the meaning, but to the sound of Petya’s monologues: “ How well you speak!.. (Delighted.) How well you said it!”).
What is behind this structure of dialogues? The desire for greater verisimilitude (to show how it happens in life)? Yes, but not only that. Disunity, self-absorption, inability to take the point of view of another - Chekhov sees and shows this in the communication of people.
Again, arguing with his predecessors, Chekhov the playwright completely abandons external intrigue, the struggle of a group of characters around something (for example, an inheritance, transferring money to someone, permission or prohibition for marriage, etc.).
The nature of the conflict and the arrangement of characters in her play are completely different, which will be discussed further. Each episode is not a stepping stone in the unfolding of intrigue; the episodes are filled with lunchtime, seemingly incoherent conversations, trifles of everyday life, insignificant details, but at the same time they are colored with a single mood, which then turns into another. The play unfolds not from intrigue to intrigue, but rather from mood to mood, and here an analogy with a plotless piece of music is appropriate.
There is no intrigue, but what then does the event consist of - something without which there cannot be a dramatic work? The event that is most talked about - the sale of an estate at auction - does not take place on stage. Beginning with “The Seagull” and even earlier, with “Ivanov,” Chekhov consistently carries out this technique - to take the main “incident” off stage, leaving only reflections of it, echoes in the speeches of the characters. Invisible (by the viewer), off-stage events and characters (in “The Cherry Orchard” this is the Yaroslavl aunt, the Parisian lover, Pishchik’s daughter Dashenka, etc.) are important in their own way in the play. But their absence on stage emphasizes that for the author they are only a background, an occasion, an accompanying circumstance of what is main. Despite the apparent absence of traditional external “action,” Chekhov, as always, has a rich, continuous and intense internal action.
The main events take place, as it were, in the minds of the characters: the discovery of something new or clinging to familiar stereotypes, understanding or misunderstanding - “movement and displacement of ideas,” to use Osip Mandelstam’s formula. As a result of this movement and displacement of ideas (events invisible, but very real), someone’s destinies are broken or changed, hopes are lost or arisen, love succeeds or fails...
These significant events in the life of every person are revealed not in spectacular gestures and actions (Chekhov consistently presents everything that has an effect in an ironic light), but in modest, everyday, everyday manifestations. There is no emphasis on them, no artificial drawing of attention to them; much of the text goes into subtext. “Undercurrent” - that’s what the Art Theater called this characteristic of Chekhov's plays development of action. For example, in the first act, Anya and Varya first talk about whether the estate has been paid for, then whether Lopakhin is going to propose to Varya, then about a brooch in the shape of a bee. Anya answers sadly: “Mom bought this.” It’s sad - because both felt the hopelessness of that fundamental thing on which their fate depended.
The line of behavior of each character and especially the relationship between the characters is not built in deliberate clarity. Rather, it is outlined in a dotted line (actors and directors must draw a solid line - this is the difficulty and at the same time tempting of staging Chekhov's plays on stage). The playwright leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination, giving the text basic guidelines for correct understanding.
So, the main line of the play is connected with Lopakhin. His relationship with Varya results in his antics that are incomprehensible to her and others. But everything falls into place if the actors play the absolute incompatibility of these characters and at the same time Lopakhin’s special feeling towards Lyubov Andreevna.
The famous scene of a failed explanation between Lopakhin and Varya in the last act: the characters talk about the weather, about the broken thermometer - and not a word about what is obviously important at that moment. Why does the relationship between Lopakhin and Varya end in nothing, when the explanation did not take place, love did not take place, happiness did not take place? The point, of course, is not that Lopakhin is a businessman incapable of showing feelings. Varya explains their relationship to herself approximately this way: “He has a lot to do, he has no time for me”; “He is either silent or joking. I understand, he’s getting rich, he’s busy with business, he has no time for me.” But the actors will come much closer to the Chekhovian subtext, to the Chekhovian “undercurrent” technique, if by the time of the explanation between these characters they clearly make it clear to the viewer that Varya is really not a match for Lopakhin, she is not worth him. Lopakhin is a man of great scope, capable of mentally looking around, like an eagle, “huge forests, vast fields, deepest horizons.” Varya, if we continue this comparison, is a gray jackdaw, whose horizons are limited to housekeeping, economy, keys on her belt... A gray jackdaw and an eagle - of course, an unconscious feeling of this prevents Lopakhin from taking the initiative where any merchant in his place would have seen would be the opportunity for a “decent” marriage for myself.
Due to his position, Lopakhin can count on best case scenario only on Varya. And in the play another line is clearly, although dottedly, outlined: Lopakhin, “like his own, more than his own,” loves Ranevskaya. This would seem absurd, unthinkable to Ranevskaya and everyone around him, and he himself, apparently, is not fully aware of his feelings. But it is enough to observe how Lopakhin behaves, say, in the second act, after Ranevskaya tells him to propose to Varya. It was after this that he spoke with irritation about how good it was before, when men could be beaten, and began tactlessly teasing Petya. All this is the result of a decline in his mood after he clearly sees that it does not even occur to Ranevskaya to take his feelings seriously. And later in the play this unrequited tenderness of Lopakhin will break through several more times. During the monologues of the characters in “The Cherry Orchard” about a failed life, Lopakhin’s unspoken feeling can sound like one of the most painful notes of the play (by the way, this is exactly how Lopakhin was played the best performers this family in performances recent years- Vladimir Vysotsky and Andrei Mironov).
So, all these already external techniques Chekhov persistently repeats and plays out the organization of the material (the nature of the dialogue, the event, the unfolding of the action) - and his idea of \u200b\u200blife is manifested in them.
But what distinguishes Chekhov’s plays even more from previous dramaturgy is the nature of the conflict.
Thus, in Ostrovsky’s plays, the conflict stems primarily from differences in the class position of the heroes - rich and poor, tyrants and their victims, those with power and dependents: the first, initial driver of action in Ostrovsky is the difference between the characters (class, money, family), from from which their conflicts and clashes arise. Instead of death, in other plays there may be, on the contrary, triumph over a tyrant, oppressor, intriguer, etc. The outcomes can be as different as you like, but the opposition within the conflict between the victim and the oppressor, the side suffering and the side causing suffering, is invariable.
Not so with Chekhov. His plays are built not on opposition, but on unity, the commonality of all characters.
Let us take a closer look at the text of “The Cherry Orchard”, at the persistent and clear indications placed in it by the author about the meaning of what is happening. Chekhov consistently moves away from the traditional formulation of the author’s thought “through the mouth of a character.” Indications of the author's meaning of the work, as usual in Chekhov, are expressed primarily in repetitions.
In the first act there is a repeated phrase that is applied in different ways to almost every character.
Lyubov Andreevna, who had not seen her adopted daughter for five years, heard how she was managing the house and said: “You are still the same, Varya.” And even before this he notes: “But Varya is still the same, she looks like a nun.” Varya, in turn, sadly states: “Mommy is the same as she was, she hasn’t changed at all. If she had her way, she would give everything away.” At the very beginning of the action, Lopakhin asks the question: “Lyubov Andreevna lived abroad for five years, I don’t know what she has become now.” And after about two hours he is convinced: “You are still just as magnificent.” Ranevskaya herself, upon entering the nursery, defines her constant trait differently: “I slept here when I was little... And now I’m like a little girl...” - but this is the same confession: I’m the same.
“You are still the same, Lenya”; “And you, Leonid Andreich, are still the same as you were”; “You again, uncle!” - this is Lyubov Andreevna, Yasha, Anya talking about Gaev’s constant eloquence. And Firs laments, pointing out a constant feature of his master’s behavior: “They put on the wrong trousers again. And what should I do with you!”
“You (you, she) are still the same (the same).” This is a constant indicated by the author at the very beginning of the play. This is a property of all characters; they vying with each other to assure themselves of this.
“And this one is all his,” says Gaev about Pishchik, when he once again asks for a loan of money. “You’re all about one thing...” - half-asleep Anya responds to Dunyashino’s news about her next suitor. “He’s been mumbling for three years now. We’re used to it” - this is about Firs. “Charlotte talks all the way, performs tricks...”, “Every day some misfortune happens to me” - this is Epikhodov.
Each character develops his own theme (sometimes with variations): Epikhodov talks about his misfortunes, Pishchik talks about debts, Varya talks about her household, Gaev inappropriately becomes pathetic, Petya talks about denunciations, etc. The constancy and immutability of some characters are enshrined in their nicknames: “twenty-two misfortunes”, “ eternal student" And the most general thing, Firsovo: “klutz.”
When repetition (giving everyone the same attribute) is so repeated as in the first act of “The Cherry Orchard” that it cannot help but be striking, it is the strongest means of expressing the author’s thought.
In parallel with this recurring motif, inseparably from it, persistently and just as applied to everyone, another, seemingly opposite, is repeated. As if frozen in their immutability, the characters constantly talk about how much has changed, how time flies.
“When you left here, I was like this...” - Dunyasha gestures to indicate the distance between the past and the present. She seems to echo Ranevskaya’s memory of when she “was little.” In his first monologue, Lopakhin compares what happened (“I remember when I was a boy of about fifteen... Lyubov Andreevna, as I remember now, is still young...”) and what has become now (“I’ve just become rich, there’s a lot of money , but if you think about it and figure it out...”). “Once upon a time...” - Gaev begins to remember, also about childhood, and concludes: “... and now I’m already fifty-one years old, strange as it may seem...” The theme of childhood (irretrievably gone) or parents (dead) or forgotten) is repeated in different ways by Charlotte, and Yasha, and Pischik, and Trofimov, and Firs. Ancient Firs, as if alive historical calendar, every now and then from what is, returns to what “happened,” what was done “once upon a time,” “before.”
Retrospective - from the present to the past - is opened by almost everyone actor, although to different depths. Firs has been mumbling for three years now. Six years ago, Lyubov Andreevna’s husband died and Lyubov Andreevna’s son drowned. About forty to fifty years ago they still remembered the methods of processing cherries. The cabinet was made exactly one hundred years ago. And the stones that were once gravestones remind us of a completely hoary antiquity... In the other direction, from the present to the future, a perspective opens up, but also at a different distance for different characters: for Yasha, for Anya, for Varya, for Lopakhin, for Petya, for Ranevskaya, even for Firs, boarded up and forgotten in the house.
"Yes, time is running”, notes Lopakhin. And this feeling is familiar to everyone in the play; this is also a constant, a constant circumstance on which each of the characters depends, no matter what he thinks and says about himself and others, no matter how he defines himself and his path. Everyone is destined to be grains of sand, chips in the stream of time.
And one more recurring motif that covers all the characters. This is a theme of confusion, misunderstanding in the face of relentlessly passing time.
In the first act, these are Ranevskaya’s perplexed questions. What is death for? Why are we getting old? Why does everything disappear without a trace? Why is everything that happened forgotten? Why does time, with the burden of mistakes and misfortunes, fall like a stone on your chest and shoulders? Further on in the course of the play, everyone else echoes her. Gaev is confused in rare moments of thought, although he is incorrigibly careless. “Who I am, why I am, is unknown,” Charlotte says in bewilderment. Epikhodov expressed his own bewilderment: “... I just can’t understand the direction of what I actually want, should I live or shoot myself...” For Firs, the previous order was clear, “but now everything is fragmented, you won’t understand anything.” It would seem that for Lopakhin the course and state of things is clearer than for others, but he also admits that only sometimes “it seems” to him that he understands why he exists in the world. Ranevskaya, Gaev, Dunyasha turn a blind eye to their situation and do not want to understand it.
It seems that many characters still oppose each other and somewhat contrasting pairs can be distinguished. “I am below love” by Ranevskaya and “we are above love” by Petya Trofimov. Firs has all the best in the past, Anya is recklessly focused on the future. Varya has an old woman’s refusal of herself for the sake of her family, she holds on to her estate, Gaev has pure childish egoism, he “ate” his estate on candy.” Epikhodov has a complex of a loser and Yasha has a complex of an arrogant conqueror. The heroes of “The Cherry Orchard” often contrast themselves with each other.
Charlotte: “These smart guys are all so stupid, I have no one to talk to.” Gaev is arrogant towards Lopakhin and Yasha. Firs teaches Dunyasha. Yasha, in turn, imagines himself higher and more enlightened than the rest. And how much exorbitant pride there is in Petya’s words: “And everything that you all value so highly, rich and poor, does not have the slightest power over me...” Lopakhin correctly comments on this endlessly repeating situation: “We are pulling our noses at each other, and life, you know, passes.”
The characters are convinced of the absolute opposite of their “truths.” The author each time points out the commonality between them, the hidden similarities that they do not notice or reject with indignation.
Doesn’t Anya repeat Ranevskaya in many ways, and doesn’t Trofimov often resemble the klutz Epikhodov, and doesn’t Lopakhin’s confusion echo Charlotte’s bewilderment? In Chekhov's play, the principle of repetition and mutual reflection of characters is not selective, directed against one group, but total, all-encompassing. To stand unshakably on one’s own, to be absorbed in one’s “truth”, without noticing the similarities with others - in Chekhov this looks like a common destiny, an irreducible feature human existence. In itself this is neither good nor bad: it is natural. What results from the addition, the interaction of various truths, ideas, modes of action - this is what Chekhov studies.
All relationships between the characters are illuminated by the light of a single understanding. It's not just a matter of new, increasingly complex accents in an old conflict. The conflict itself is new: visible opposition with hidden similarity.
Unchanging people (each holding on to his own) against the backdrop of time absorbing everything and everyone, confused and not understanding the course of life... This misunderstanding is revealed in relation to the garden. Everyone contributes to his final destiny.
A beautiful garden, against the backdrop of which characters are shown who do not understand the course of things or have a limited understanding of it, is associated with the destinies of several of their generations - past, present and future. The situation in the lives of individual people is internally correlated in the play with the situation in the life of the country. The symbolic content of the image of the garden is multifaceted: beauty, past culture, and finally, all of Russia... Some see the garden as it was in the irretrievable past, for others, talking about the garden is just a reason for fanaberia, while others, thinking about saving the garden, in reality they are destroying it, the fourth are welcoming the death of this garden...
GENRE ORIGINALITY. THE COMIC IN THE PLAY. A dying garden and failed, even unnoticed love - two end-to-end, internally related topics- give the play a sad-poetic character. However, Chekhov insisted that he created not “a drama, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce.” Remaining true to his principle of endowing the heroes with an equally suffering position in relation to a life they do not understand, a hidden community (which does not exclude an amazing variety of external manifestations), Chekhov found in his last great play a completely special genre form that is adequate to this principle.
The play does not lend itself to an unambiguous genre reading - only sad or only comic. It is obvious that Chekhov implemented in his “comedy” special principles of combining the dramatic and the comic.
In “The Cherry Orchard” it is not individual characters who are comical, such as Charlotte, Epikhodov, Varya. Misunderstanding of each other, diversity of opinions, illogical conclusions, inappropriate remarks and answers - all heroes are endowed with similar imperfections of thinking and behavior that make it possible to perform comically.
The comic of similarity, the comic of repetition are the basis of the comic in “The Cherry Orchard.” Everyone is funny in their own way, and everyone participates in the sad event, accelerating its onset - this is what determines the relationship between the comic and the serious in Chekhov's play.
Chekhov puts all the heroes in a position of constant, continuous transition from drama to comedy, from tragedy to vaudeville, from pathos to farce. In this situation there is not one group of heroes as opposed to another. The principle of such a continuous genre transition is comprehensive in The Cherry Orchard. Every now and then in the play there is a deepening of the funny (limited and relative) to sympathy for it and back - a simplification of the serious to the funny.
The play, designed for a qualified, sophisticated viewer capable of grasping its lyrical, symbolic subtext, Chekhov filled the play with the techniques of the square theater, the booth: falling from the stairs, gluttony, hitting the head with a stick, magic tricks, etc. After the pathetic, excited monologues that almost every character in the play has - right up to Gaev, Pischik, Dunyasha, Firs - a farcical decline immediately follows, then a lyrical note appears again, allowing us to understand the subjective emotion of the hero, and again his self-absorption turns into mockery above it (this is how Lopakhin’s famous monologue in the third act is structured: “I bought it!..”).
What conclusions does Chekhov lead to in such unconventional ways?
A.P. Skaftymov in his works showed that the author makes the main object of the image in “The Cherry Orchard” not any of the characters, but the structure, the order of life. Unlike the works of previous drama, in Chekhov's play it is not the person himself who is to blame for his failures and it is not the evil will of another person that is to blame. There is no one to blame, “the source of sad ugliness and bitter dissatisfaction is the very composition of life.”
But does Chekhov remove responsibility from the heroes and shift it to the “composition of life” that exists outside of their ideas, actions, and relationships? Having taken a voluntary trip to the penal island of Sakhalin, he spoke about everyone’s responsibility for the existing order, for the general course of things: “We are all to blame.” Not “there is no one to blame,” but “we are all to blame.”
IMAGE OF LOPAKHIN. The persistence with which Chekhov pointed to the role of Lopakhin as central to the play is well known. He insisted that Lopakhin be played by Stanislavsky. He emphasized more than once that the role of Lopakhin is “central”, that “if it fails, then the whole play will fail”, that only a first-class actor, “only Konstantin Sergeevich”, can play this role, but simply talented actor she is beyond her strength, he will “either act very palely, or act out,” and make Lopakhin “a little kulak... After all, this is not a merchant in the vulgar sense of the word, you have to understand this.” Chekhov warned against a simplified, petty understanding of this image, which was obviously dear to him.
Let's try to understand what in the play itself confirms the playwright's conviction in the central position of Lopakhin's role among other roles.
The first, but not the only and not the most important thing, is the significance and extraordinary nature of Lopakhin’s personality itself.
It is clear that Chekhov created an image of a merchant that is unconventional for Russian literature. A businessman, and a very successful one, Lopakhin is at the same time a man “with the soul of an artist.” When he talks about Russia, it sounds like a declaration of love for his homeland. His words are reminiscent of Gogol's lyrical digressions V " Dead souls”, Chekhov’s lyrical digressions in the story “Steppe” about the heroic scope of the Russian steppe road, which would be suitable for “huge, widely walking people”. And the most heartfelt words about the cherry orchard in the play - this should not be lost sight of - belong precisely to Lopakhin: “an estate that is not more beautiful in the world.”
In the image of this hero - a merchant and at the same time an artist at heart - Chekhov introduced features characteristic of a certain part of Russian entrepreneurs who left a noticeable mark in the history of Russian culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This is Stanislavsky himself (the owner of the Alekseev factory), and the millionaire Savva Morozov, who gave money for the construction of the Art Theater, and the creators art galleries and the theaters Tretyakov, Shchukin, Mamontov, and the publisher Sytin... Artistic sensitivity, disinterested love for beauty were intricately combined in the natures of many of these merchants with characteristic features businessmen and money-grubbers. Without making Lopakhin similar to any of them individually, Chekhov introduces traits into the character of his hero that unite him with many of these entrepreneurs.
And the final assessment that Petya Trofimov gives to his seemingly antagonist (“After all, I still love you. You have thin, gentle fingers, like an artist, you have a thin, gentle soul...”), finds a well-known parallel in Gorky’s review of Savva Morozov: “And when I see Morozov behind the scenes of the theater, in dust and trepidation for the success of the play, I am ready to forgive him all his factories, which, however, he does not need, I love him, because he unselfishly loves art, which I can almost feel in his peasant, merchant, acquisitive soul.” K.S. Stanislavsky bequeathed Lopakhin’s future performers to give him “the scope of Chaliapin.”
Dividing the garden into summer cottages - the idea that Lopakhin is obsessed with - is not just the destruction of the cherry orchard, but its reconstruction, the creation, so to speak, of a publicly accessible cherry orchard. With that former, luxurious garden, which served only a few, this new, thinned out and accessible to anyone for a reasonable fee, the Lopakhinsky garden correlates as a democratic urban culture Chekhov's era from the marvelous estate culture of the past.
Chekhov proposed an image that was clearly unconventional, unexpected for the reader and viewer, breaking the established literary and theatrical canons.
The main story line“The Cherry Orchard”. Something expected and prepared in the first action (saving the garden), as a result of a number of circumstances, turns into something directly opposite in the last action (the garden is chopped down). Lopakhin at first sincerely strives to save the garden for Lyubov Andreevna, but in the end he “accidentally” takes possession of it himself.
But at the end of the play, Lopakhin, who achieved success, is not shown by Chekhov as a winner. The entire content of “The Cherry Orchard” reinforces the words of this hero about “awkward, unhappy life”, which “you know it’s passing.” In fact, the person who alone is able to truly appreciate what a cherry orchard is must destroy it with his own hands (after all, there are no other ways out of this situation). With merciless sobriety, Chekhov shows in “The Cherry Orchard” the fatal discrepancy between personal good qualities a person, his subjectively good intentions and the results of his social activities. And Lopakhin was not given personal happiness.
The play begins with Lopakhin obsessed with the thought of saving the cherry orchard, but in the end everything turns out wrong: he did not save the orchard for Ranevskaya as he wanted, and his luck turns into a mockery of his best hopes. The hero himself cannot understand why this is so, and none of those around him could explain it.
In a word, it is with Lopakhin that one of the long-standing and main themes of Chekhov’s work enters into the play - hostility, unbearable complexity, the incomprehensibility of life for an ordinary (“average”) Russian person, no matter who he is (remember Ionia). In the image of Lopakhin, Chekhov remained faithful to this theme to the end. This is one of the heroes standing on the main line of Chekhov's work, being related to many of the characters in the writer's previous works.
SYMBOLISM.“The distant, as if from the sky, sound of a broken string, fading, sad,” the sound of an ax announcing the death of the garden, as well as the image of the cherry orchard itself, were perceived by contemporaries as deep and meaningful symbols.
Chekhov's symbolism differs from the concept of symbol in works of art and theories of symbolism. He even has the most mysterious sound - not from the sky, but “as if from the sky.” The point is not only that Chekhov leaves the possibility of a real explanation (“... somewhere in the mines a tub fell off. But somewhere very far away”). The heroes explain the origin of sound, perhaps incorrectly, but the unreal, mystical is not required here. There is a mystery, but it is a mystery generated by an earthly reason, although unknown to the heroes or misunderstood by them, not fully realized.
The Cherry Orchard and its death are symbolically polysemantic and cannot be reduced to visible reality, but there is no mystical or surreal content here. Chekhov's symbols expand horizons, but do not lead away from the earthly. The very degree of mastery and comprehension of the everyday in Chekhov’s works is such that the existential, the general and the eternal shine through in them.
The mysterious sound, mentioned twice in “The Cherry Orchard,” was actually heard by Chekhov in childhood. But, in addition to the real predecessor, we can also recall one literary predecessor. This is the sound that the boys heard in Turgenev’s story “Bezhin Meadow”. This parallel is reminded by the similarity of the situation in which an incomprehensible sound is heard, and the mood that it evokes in the characters of the story and the play: someone shudders and gets scared, someone thinks, someone reacts calmly and judiciously.
Turgenev's sound in “The Cherry Orchard” acquired new shades and became like the sound of a broken string. In Chekhov's last play, it combined the symbolism of life and homeland, Russia: a reminder of its immensity and the time passing over it, of something familiar, eternally resounding over the Russian expanses, accompanying the countless comings and goings of ever new generations.
In his last play, Chekhov captured the state of Russian society when there was only a step left from general disunity, listening only to oneself to the final collapse and general hostility. He urged not to be deluded by one’s own idea of truth, not to absolutize many “truths” that actually turn into “false ideas”, to realize everyone’s guilt, everyone’s responsibility for the general course of things. In Chekhov's depiction of Russian historical problems humanity saw problems affecting all people at any time, in any society.
