Old and new owners of the cherry orchard

In Chekhov's comedy “The Cherry Orchard” we see a combination of dramatic and comic, which is connected with the problems of the work.
The play shows the passage of time: past, present and future.
The central characters are Ranevskaya and Gaev. But can they be called the main characters? Of course not. They live in the past, they have neither present nor future. Everything is illusory in their minds.
They are the owners of the cherry orchard, the estate where the heroes were born, grew up, and seemed to be happy. But can they be called the real owners of the cherry orchard? No, you can’t, although they sometimes evoke sympathy for themselves.
Ranevskaya is a kind, generous, charming, emotional woman. But she is careless, impractical, and her words do not match her deeds. She is indecisive; cannot control not only his estate, but also his own destiny.
She loves the cherry orchard as her past, as a symbol of the beautiful and good in her heart. But she cannot do anything to save the estate. She hopes that Lopakhin, the Yaroslavl grandmother, and even Gaev will help her.
Her fate is dramatic, she herself feels it, that she has “a stone around her neck.” But the heroine wastes money when the servants have nothing to eat, and organizes a ball with an orchestra when the fate of the cherry orchard is decided.
Ranevskaya says that she loves her homeland. But can one trust her when she lives almost all the time in Paris?
I feel sorry for her when, having learned that the cherry orchard has been sold, she cries, hugging her brother. But Ranevskaya will go to Paris again, forgetting about old Firs.
Gaev is shown even more impractically in the play. This is truly a “klutz” who does not know how to live, make decisions, or serve. This is a phrase-monger giving a speech in front of a closet. How can he decide the fate of the cherry orchard when he cannot dress himself?
He is comical, pronounces some words, reminiscent of Epikhodov. So Ranevskaya and Gaev cannot be the real owners of the cherry orchard. Moreover, by the image of the cherry orchard, Chekhov means the image of the Motherland.
But then comes the “new owner” of the cherry orchard - Lopakhin. Energetic, active, decisive. He has many positive qualities: he is kind, generous, respectful towards Ranevskaya and Petya Trofimov. He is ready to help Ranevskaya and Gaev, but they are different people and do not understand each other.
Lopakhin “makes money” from everything. Time for him is money. Blooming poppy - money. And he looks at the cherry orchard as an owner, an acquirer.
Buying a cherry orchard, he says: “Come everyone and watch Ermalai Lopakhin take an ax to the cherry orchard.”
He does not notice the beauty of the blooming poppy, the charm of the cherry orchard. He doesn’t even really feel sorry for Ranevskaya, since they haven’t left yet, and the sound of an ax can already be heard in the cherry orchard.
Can he be called the real owner of the cherry orchard, a representative of the present time in the play? No. He, of course, is the owner, but he is the acquirer; you cannot trust him with the beauty of the cherry orchard, which he destroys. He couldn’t even marry Vara. He has no time. With him, time is money. He is rather a “beast of prey”, but not a “tender soul”, according to Trofimov’s definition.
The play gives images of the younger generation. This is Anya and Petya Trofimov. They are focused on the future, Petya calls Anya to throw away the keys to the farm and follow him into a bright future. Petya's monologues are optimistic, inviting, even pathetic. “All of Russia is our garden.” He's right about that. The future of Russia seems bright and wonderful to Chekhov. He loves Anya. These scenes are lyrical, emotional, and feature wonderful landscapes.
But Petya is sometimes comical. Calling on Anya to work, he hardly knows what this work, this future, will be like. And most importantly, what is his role in this.
Will Petya reach a bright future? “I’ll get there or show others how to get there.”
Rather, he will show the way to others. Just like Anya.
Anya is morally superior to Petya. This is the personification of purity, beauty, tenderness. But she believes Petya’s monologues, she is more decisive. I want to believe that she will find the right path in life and reach a bright future.
Chekhov wanted to see a beautiful Russia and believed in its future. And the real owners of the cherry orchard are people who go forward for happiness. People like Anya. Anya says goodbye to the cherry orchard, her past. “Goodbye old life! Hello, new life!
“We will plant a garden more luxurious than this...”
Chekhov believed in the future of Russia.

The prototypes of Ranevskaya, according to the author, were Russian ladies who lived idly in Monte Carlo, whom Chekhov observed abroad in 1900 and early 1901: “And what insignificant women... [about a certain lady. - V.K.] “she lives here with nothing to do, just eats and drinks...” How many Russian women die here” (from a letter from O.L. Knipper).

At first, Ranevskaya’s image seems sweet and attractive to us. But then it acquires stereoscopicity and complexity: the lightness of her stormy experiences is revealed, exaggeration in the expression of feelings: “I can’t sit still, I’m not able to. (Jumps up and walks around in great excitement.) I won’t survive this joy... Laugh at me, I’m stupid... The closet is my dear. (Kisses the closet.) My table...” At one time, the literary critic D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky even asserted, referring to the behavior of Ranevskaya and Gaev: “The terms “frivolity” and “emptiness” are no longer used here in a common and general way , and in a closer - psychopathological - sense, the behavior of these characters in the play “is incompatible with the concept of a normal, healthy psyche.” But the fact of the matter is that all the characters in Chekhov’s play are normal, ordinary people, only their ordinary life and everyday life are viewed by the author as if through a magnifying glass.

Ranevskaya, despite the fact that her brother (Leonid Andreevich Gaev) calls her a “vicious woman,” oddly enough, evokes respect and love from all the characters in the play. Even the footman Yasha, as a witness to her Parisian secrets and quite capable of familiar treatment, does not occur to him to be cheeky with her. Culture and intelligence gave Ranevskaya the charm of harmony, sobriety of mind, and subtlety of feelings. She is smart, capable of telling the bitter truth about herself and about others, for example, about Pete Trofimov, to whom she says: “You have to be a man, at your age you have to understand those who love. And you have to love yourself... “I am above love!” You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz.”

And yet, there is much that evokes sympathy in Ranevskaya. Despite all her lack of will and sentimentality, she is characterized by a breadth of nature and a capacity for selfless kindness. This attracts Petya Trofimov. And Lopakhin says about her: “She is a good person. An easy, simple person."

Ranevskaya’s double, but a less significant personality, is Gaev in the play; it is no coincidence that in the list of characters he is presented by belonging to his sister: “Ranevskaya’s brother.” And he is sometimes able to say smart things, sometimes be sincere, self-critical. But the sister’s shortcomings - frivolity, impracticality, lack of will - become caricatures in Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna only kisses the closet in a fit of emotion, while Gaev makes a speech in front of him in “high style.” In his own eyes, he is an aristocrat of the highest circle, Lopakhina does not seem to notice and tries to put “this boor” in his place. But his contempt—the contempt of an aristocrat who ate his fortune “on candy”—is ridiculous.

Gaev is infantile and absurd, for example, in the following scene:

“Firs. Leonid Andreevich, you are not afraid of God! When should you sleep?

Gaev (swatting away Firs). So be it, I’ll undress myself.”

Gaev is another version of spiritual degradation, emptiness and vulgarity.

It has been noted more than once in the history of literature, the unwritten “history” of the reader’s perception of Chekhov’s works, that he allegedly experienced a special prejudice towards the high society - towards noble, aristocratic Russia. These characters - landowners, princes, generals - appear in Chekhov's stories and plays not only empty, colorless, but sometimes stupid and poorly mannered. (A.A. Akhmatova, for example, reproached Chekhov: “And how he described representatives of the upper classes... He didn’t know these people! He didn’t know anyone higher than the assistant station manager... Everything is wrong, wrong!”)

However, it is hardly worth seeing in this fact a certain tendentiousness of Chekhov or his incompetence; the writer had a lot of knowledge of life. This is not the point, not the social “registration” of Chekhov’s characters. Chekhov did not idealize representatives of any class, any social group; he was, as we know, outside of politics and ideology, outside of social preferences. All classes “got it” from the writer, and the intelligentsia too: “I don’t believe in our intelligentsia, hypocritical, false, hysterical, ill-mannered, lazy, I don’t believe even when it suffers and complains, because its oppressors come from its own depths.” .

With that high cultural-moral, ethical-aesthetic demands, with that wise humor with which Chekhov approached man in general and his era in particular, social differences lost their meaning. This is the peculiarity of his “funny” and “sad” talent. In The Cherry Orchard itself there are not only idealized characters, but also absolutely positive heroes (this applies to Lopakhin (Chekhov’s “modern Russia”) and to Anya and Petya Trofimov (Russia of the future).

The play \\\"The Cherry Orchard\\\" was created during the years of revolutionary upsurge in Russia. The theme \\\"The Cherry Orchard\\\" is embodied in her
title. The image of the cherry orchard is present in every action, in every scene. The garden is at the center of the experience,
disputes, hopes, worries. The image of the garden moves and changes throughout the play, it is filled with new meanings. In hand
The landowner's cherry orchard is bondage for the peasants; in the hands of the bourgeoisie, it is a source of easy money.

She seems charming, kind, and sympathetic. Lopakhin says this about her: \\\"She is a good person. Easy, simple
person\\\". She has a developed sense of beauty. She loves nature, music; sometimes she is sentimental and enthusiastic. A.P. Chekhov -
master of speech characterization. Here is Lyubov Andreevna’s monologue: \\\"Oh, my childhood, my purity! I slept in this nursery,
I looked at the garden from here, happiness woke up with me every morning, and then it was exactly like this... All, all white! If
remove the heavy stone from my chest and shoulders, if only I could forget my past!\\\" Ranevskaya reproaches herself for
spends money senselessly, while Varya \\\"to save money feeds everyone milk soup, in the kitchen the old people are given one
peas\\\", and immediately continues to waste gold.

She resolutely tears up the telegram from Paris, but still leaves, abandoning
the arbitrariness of fate for Anya and Varya, taking away the last money. She goes to the man who ruined her. It would seem that love justifies it, but this love for a vile, dishonest person can hardly be called a high feeling. There is something funny and repulsive in this love. It seems that Raevskaya is really below love, as she herself says. Saying goodbye to
cherry orchard, she insincerely experiences this loss. Her kindness is external and ostentatious. She is not capable of truly humane
actions. Lyubov Andreevna returned to Russia only because she spent all her money and was leaving for Paris again,
having received a handout from a Yaroslavl aunt.

And yet, much about Ranevskaya evokes sympathy. For all her weaknesses, she has a breadth of nature, a capacity for kindness,
true, hot feeling.

Much smaller than Ranevskaya is her brother Gaev. And he is sometimes able to say simple, sincere words and with shame, even if
moment to understand your own naivety. In Ranevskaya you can feel the lady, but she is both simple and tolerant. Gaev in his own
eyes - an aristocrat of the highest circle. He doesn’t notice Lopakhin and tries to put “this boor” in his place. At the end of the first act, Gaev, it would seem, talks sensibly about the situation of the cherry orchard: \\\"If against some
a lot of remedies are offered to the disease, this means that the disease is incurable\\\".

But, having begun to speak and not having the strength to stop, he utters nasty words about his sister: \\\"She married a non-nobleman and behaved one cannot say very virtuously, ... I love her very much, but... I must admit, she vicious. You can feel it in the slightest movement."

Throughout the entire play, Ranevskaya and Gaev experience the collapse of their last hopes, mental turmoil, and are deprived of their family and home.
They, willingly or unwillingly, sell everything that seems dear to them: the garden, their relatives, and Firs.

The nobility, which has lost its economic power, is opposed in the person of Lopakhin to a new class - the bourgeoisie. Lopakhin -
primitively educated capitalist.

He wears, like the nobles, a white vest, yellow shoes, and is capable of reasoning and feeling beauty. Essentially Lopakhin is a rude person; his parents belonged to the owners of a cherry orchard. He himself is not
a slacker, but his work did not reward him because it was aimed only at satisfying his personal interests.

He acted tactlessly towards the former owners of the garden, starting to cut down trees before their eyes. Blooming poppy field
he admired not only how beautiful the spectacle was, but also the fact that this beauty brought him considerable income. It's the cherry orchard
considers it useless and is in a hurry to clear the site for summer cottages in order to make a profit. But Lopakhin also has attractive
properties: kindness, desire to help Ranevskaya. However, he, as an exploiter, is not the master of the future.

Representatives of the future are Petya Trofimov and Anya. At twenty-six years old, Petya experienced a lot. He condemns
the nobility and the bourgeoisie, calls for work for the common good. With his faith in a better future, he attracts Anya to this path,
daughter of Ranevskaya. Young heroes attract readers with their dreams. But, unfortunately, their dreams are vague, and the path to a new one
lives are uncertain. Anya strives for the future and dreams of work. She is not sad about the sold estate and happily says:
\\\"Goodbye, old life!\\\"

Her path will not be easy, but she is more self-possessed than her mother, so she will find her place in life.

I believe that the main idea of ​​the play is to criticize the economic and political system of Russia. This play is about
past, present and future of the Motherland. And its main character is a lyrical image of a beautiful, mysterious cherry orchard.
Chekhov dreams of gardens of the future, immeasurably more beautiful than all the gardens of the past, he dreams of beautiful people
future. He believes in Russia and the Russian people. It seems to me that A.P. Chekhov would like to see Russia as a blooming garden.

The characters created by Chekhov are complex, they contradictively mix good and evil, comic and tragic. Creating images of the inhabitants of the ruined noble nest of Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev, Chekhov emphasized that such “types” were already “outdated.” They show love for their estate, the cherry orchard, but do nothing to save the estate from destruction. Because of idleness and impracticality, their “sacredly beloved” “nests” are ruined and cherry orchards are destroyed.

Ranevskaya is shown in the play as very kind, affectionate, but frivolous, sometimes indifferent and careless towards people (he gives the last gold to a random passer-by, and at home the servants live from hand to mouth); she is affectionate towards the footman Firs, takes care of his health and leaves him sick in a boarded-up house. She is smart, warm-hearted. She is emotional, but her idle life has corrupted her, deprived her of her will, and turned her into a helpless creature.

We learn that she left Russia 5 years ago, that she was “drawn to Russia” from Paris only after a catastrophe in her personal life. At the end of the play, she nevertheless leaves her homeland and, no matter how much she regrets the cherry orchard and the estate, quite soon “she calmed down and became cheerful in anticipation of leaving for Paris.

Return of Ranevskaya to her homeland

Chekhov makes one feel throughout the course of the play that the narrow vital interests of Ranevskaya and Gaev indicate a complete oblivion of the interests of their homeland. One gets the impression that, despite all their qualities, they are useless and even harmful, since they do not contribute to creation, “not to increase the wealth and beauty” of the homeland, but to destruction

Leonid Andreevich Gaev.

Gaev is 51 years old, and he, like Ranevskaya, is helpless, inactive, careless. His tender treatment of his niece and sister is combined with disdain for the “grimy” Lopakhin, “a peasant and a boor,” with a contemptuous and disgusted attitude towards the servants. All his vital energy is spent on lofty unnecessary conversations and empty verbosity. Like Ranevskaya, he is used to living at “other people’s expense”; he does not count on his own strengths, but only outside help: “it would be nice to receive an inheritance, it would be nice to marry Anya to a rich man.”

So, throughout the entire play, Ranevskaya and Gaev experience the collapse of their last hopes, severe mental shock, they are deprived of their family, home, but they find themselves unable to understand anything, learn anything, or do anything useful. Their evolution throughout the play is ruin, collapse not only material, but also spiritual. They, willingly or unwillingly, betray everything that seems dear to them: the garden, their relatives, and their faithful servant Firs.

Lopakhin Ermolai Alekseevich

Lopakhin Ermolai Alekseevich - merchant. His father was a serf to Ranevskaya's ancestors. Ranevskaya herself did a lot for L. He is grateful to her for this, says that he loves her like his own. In the new conditions, L. became rich, but remained, in his own words, “a man a man.” L. sincerely wants to help Ranevskaya save their cherry orchard, which is being sold for debts. He proposes a plan - to divide the garden into plots and rent them out as summer cottages. To do this you need to cut down the garden. L. does not feel any nostalgic feelings for the cherry orchard, he only notices that the garden is “big.”

But the owners do not agree to do this with their dear garden. L. is surprised at the frivolity and idleness of Ranevskaya and her brother. He himself gets up at 5 am and works until night. At the end of the play, it is L. who acquires the cherry orchard. This is the moment of his highest triumph: the peasant’s son, “the illiterate Ermolai,” becomes the owner of a noble estate, where his “father and grandfather were slaves.” Here a rude, predatory beginning emerges in L., merchant prowess (“I can pay for everything!”) He no longer thinks about the feelings of the former owners of the estate. Joy bursts out of L., he laughs and stamps his feet. L is a very contradictory image. Hard work, practical intelligence, and ingenuity coexist in him with callousness, rudeness, and predation.

Anya is Ranevskaya’s daughter. A girl of 17 years old. A. is in love with Petya Trofimov and is under his influence. I am fascinated by his ideas that the nobility is guilty before the Russian people and must atone for their guilt. A. says that he no longer loves the cherry orchard as before. She wants to leave her home with Petya. Anya has faith in happiness, in her own strength, in another life. She tells her mother after the sale of the estate: “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this one” and sincerely rejoices at leaving her parental home. Anya blindly believes Trofimov and is ready to follow him anywhere. But perhaps she will be disappointed, because Petya talks more than he does.

Petya Trofimov is the former teacher of Ranevskaya’s deceased son, a commoner, 26 or 27 years old. Trofimov is an eternal student who never finishes his course. Fate throws him from place to place. This hero preaches faith in a better future. To do this, in his opinion, “we must work and help with all our might those who are seeking the truth.”

He scolds everything that slows down the development of Russia - “dirt, vulgarity, Asianism”, criticizes the Russian intelligentsia, which does not look for anything and does not work. But the hero does not notice that he himself is a bright representative of such an intelligentsia: he only speaks beautifully, without doing anything. A characteristic phrase for Trofimov: “I will reach or show others the way to reach” (to the “highest truth”). Trofimov denies love, considering it something “petty and illusory.” He only urges Anya to believe him, as he anticipates happiness. Ranevskaya reproaches Trofimov for his coldness when he says that it makes no difference whether the estate is sold or not. In general, Ranevskaya does not like the hero, calling him a klutz and a second-grade high school student. At the end of the play, Trofimov is looking for forgotten galoshes, which become a symbol of his worthless, albeit illuminated by beautiful words, life.

The connection of times has broken down...
W. Shakespeare

In one of the books dedicated to the work of A.P. Chekhov, I read that the image of Hamlet helped him understand a lot about the appearance of his contemporaries. Literary scholars have paid a lot of attention to this issue, but I will note what struck me in the play “The Cherry Orchard,” this “swan song” of the great playwright: like the Prince of Denmark, Chekhov’s characters feel lost in the world, bitter loneliness. In my opinion, this applies to all the characters in the play, but above all to Ranevskaya and Gaev, the former owners of the cherry orchard, who turned out to be “superfluous” people both in their own home and in life. What is the reason for this? It seems to me that every hero of the play “The Cherry Orchard” is looking for support in life. For Gaev and Ranevskaya, it is the past, which cannot be a support. Lyubov Andreevna will never understand her daughter, but Anya will never truly understand her mother’s drama. Lopakhin, who passionately loves Lyubov Andreevna, will never be able to understand her disdainful attitude towards the “practical side of life,” but Ranevskaya does not want to let him into the world of her feelings: “My dear, forgive me, you don’t understand anything.” All this brings a special drama to the play. “An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” is how Chekhov characterized Ranevskaya in his letter to Stanislavsky.
What's in the past? Youth, family life, a blooming cherry orchard - it was all over. The husband died, the estate fell into disrepair, and a new tormenting passion arose. And then the irreparable happened: son Grisha died. For Ranevskaya, the feeling of loss was combined with a feeling of guilt. She runs away from home, from memories, that is, she tries to abandon the past. However, there was no new happiness. And Ranevskaya takes a new step. She returns home, tears up a telegram from her lover: it’s over with Paris! However, this is just another return to the past: to your pain, to your melancholy, to your cherry orchard. But at home, where five “Parisian years” were faithfully waiting for her, she is a stranger. Everyone condemns her for something: for frivolity, for loving a scoundrel, for giving a coin to a beggar.
In the list of characters, Ranevskaya is designated by one word: “landowner.” But this landowner never knew how to manage her estate and could not save her beloved cherry orchard from destruction. The role of the landowner is “played out.”
But Ranevskaya is also a mother. However, this role is also in the past: Anya leaves for a new life, where there is no place for Lyubov Andreevna, even gray Varya managed to settle down in her own way.
By returning to stay forever, Ranevskaya is only completing her past life. All her hopes that she would be happy at home (“God knows, I love my homeland, I love dearly, I couldn’t watch from the carriage, I kept crying”), that she would be lifted “from my shoulders... a heavy stone,” are in vain. The return did not take place: in Russia she is superfluous. Neither the generation of modern “business people”, nor the romantic youth, all looking to the future, can understand it. Returning to Paris is, albeit imaginary, but still salvation, although it is a return to yet another past. And in Ranevskaya’s favorite cherry orchard the ax is knocking!
Gaev is another character who can be classified as “extra people”. Leonid Andreevich, an elderly man who has already lived most of his life, looks like an old boy. But all people dream of preserving their young soul! Why is Gaev sometimes annoying? The fact is that he is simply infantile. It was not his youth with its romance and rebellion that he retained, but his helplessness and superficiality.
The sound of billiard balls, like a favorite toy, can instantly heal his soul (“With a doublet... of yellow in the middle...”).
Who is the real master of life in this world?
Unlike the previous owners of the cherry orchard, whose feelings are directed to the past, Lopakhin is entirely in the present. “Boor,” Gaev unambiguously characterizes him. According to Petya, Lopakhin has a “subtle and gentle soul,” and “fingers like an artist.” Interestingly, both are right. And in this correctness lies the paradox of Lopakhin’s image.
“A man is a man,” despite all the wealth that he earned through sweat and blood, Lopakhin works continuously and is in constant business fever. The past (“My dad was a man..., he didn’t teach me, he only beat me when he was drunk...”) echoes in him with stupid words, inappropriate jokes, falling asleep over a book.
But Lopakhin is sincere and kind. He takes care of the Gaevs, offering them a project to save them from ruin.
But it is here that a dramatic conflict ensues, which lies not in class antagonism, but in a culture of feelings. When uttering the words “demolish”, “cut down”, “clean”, Lopakhin cannot even imagine the emotional shock he plunges his former benefactors into.
The more actively Lopakhin acts, the deeper the gap becomes between him and Ranevskaya, for whom selling the garden means death: “If you really need to sell, then sell me and the garden.” And in Lopakhin there is a growing feeling of some kind of deprivation, incomprehension.
Let us remember how clearly the former and new masters of life appear in the third act of the play. Lopakhin and Gaev left for the city for the auction. And there's fun in the house! A small orchestra plays, but there is nothing to pay the musicians. The fate of the heroes is decided, and Charlotte shows tricks. But then Lopakhin appears, and under the bitter cry of Ranevskaya, his words are heard: “I bought it!.. Let everything be as I wish!.. I can pay for everything!...”. The “master of life” instantly turns into a boor who boasts of his wealth.
Lopakhin did everything to save the owners of the cherry orchard, but he did not have enough basic emotional tact to preserve their dignity: after all, he was in such a hurry to clear the “past” from the site for the “present.”
But Lopakhin’s triumph is short-lived, and now something else is heard in his monologue: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.”
So the life of the cherry orchard ended to the “sound of a broken string, fading and sad,” and the immortality of the “sad comedy” of the great Russian playwright began, exciting the hearts of readers and spectators for a hundred years.