Literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries. The artistic originality of the play “The Cherry Orchard”

Features of Chekhov's dramaturgy

Before Anton Chekhov, Russian theater was going through a crisis; it was he who made an invaluable contribution to its development, breathing new life into it. The playwright snatched small sketches from the everyday life of his characters, bringing drama closer to reality. His plays made the viewer think, although they did not contain intrigues or open conflicts, but they reflected the internal anxiety of a turning point in history, when society froze in anticipation of imminent changes, and all social strata became heroes. The apparent simplicity of the plot introduced the stories of the characters before the events described, making it possible to speculate what would happen to them after. In this way, the past, present, and future were mixed in an amazing way in the play “The Cherry Orchard,” by connecting people not so much from different generations as from different eras. And one of the “undercurrents” characteristic of Chekhov’s plays was the author’s reflection on the fate of Russia, and the theme of the future took center stage in “The Cherry Orchard.”

Past, present and future on the pages of the play “The Cherry Orchard”

So how did the past, present and future meet on the pages of the play “The Cherry Orchard”? Chekhov seemed to divide all the heroes into these three categories, depicting them very vividly.

The past in the play “The Cherry Orchard” is represented by Ranevskaya, Gaev and Firs - the oldest character in the entire performance. They are the ones who talk most about what happened; for them, the past is a time in which everything was easy and wonderful. There were masters and servants, each had their own place and purpose. For Firs, the abolition of serfdom became the greatest grief; he did not want freedom, remaining on the estate. He sincerely loved the family of Ranevskaya and Gaev, remaining devoted to them until the very end. For aristocrats Lyubov Andreevna and her brother, the past is a time when they did not need to think about such base things as money. They enjoyed life, doing what brings pleasure, knowing how to appreciate the beauty of intangible things - it is difficult for them to adapt to the new order, in which highly moral values ​​are replaced by material values. For them, it is humiliating to talk about money, about ways to earn it, and Lopakhin’s real proposal to rent out land occupied by an essentially worthless garden is perceived as vulgarity. Unable to make decisions about the future of the cherry orchard, they succumb to the flow of life and simply float along it. Ranevskaya, with her aunt’s money sent for Anya, leaves for Paris, and Gaev goes to work in a bank. The death of Firs at the end of the play is very symbolic, as if saying that the aristocracy as a social class has outlived its usefulness, and there is no place for it, in the form in which it was before the abolition of serfdom.

Lopakhin became a representative of the present in the play “The Cherry Orchard”. “A man is a man,” as he says about himself, thinking in a new way, able to make money using his mind and instincts. Petya Trofimov even compares him to a predator, but a predator with a subtle artistic nature. And this brings Lopakhin a lot of emotional experiences. He is well aware of the beauty of the old cherry orchard, which will be cut down according to his will, but he cannot do otherwise. His ancestors were serfs, his father owned a shop, and he became a “white farmer”, amassing a considerable fortune. Chekhov placed special emphasis on the character of Lopakhin, because he was not a typical merchant, whom many treated with disdain. He made himself, paving the way with his work and desire to be better than his ancestors, not only in terms of financial independence, but also in education. In many ways, Chekhov identified himself with Lopakhin, because their pedigrees are similar.

Anya and Petya Trofimov personify the future. They are young, full of strength and energy. And most importantly, they have a desire to change their lives. But, it’s just that Petya is a master at talking and reasoning about a wonderful and fair future, but he doesn’t know how to turn his speeches into action. This is what prevents him from graduating from university or at least somehow organizing his life. Petya denies all attachments - be it to a place or another person. He captivates the naive Anya with his ideas, but she already has a plan for how to arrange her life. She is inspired and ready to “plant a new garden, even more beautiful than the previous one.” However, the future in Chekhov's play “The Cherry Orchard” is very uncertain and vague. In addition to the educated Anya and Petya, there are also Yasha and Dunyasha, and they, too, are the future. Moreover, if Dunyasha is just a stupid peasant girl, then Yasha is a completely different type. The Gaevs and Ranevskys are being replaced by the Lopakhins, but someone will also have to replace the Lopakhins. If you remember history, then 13 years after this play was written, it was precisely these Yashas who came to power - unprincipled, empty and cruel, not attached to anyone or anything.

In the play “The Cherry Orchard,” the heroes of the past, present and future were gathered in one place, but they were not united by an internal desire to be together and exchange their dreams, desires, and experiences. The old garden and house hold them together, and as soon as they disappear, the connection between the characters and the time they reflect is severed.

Connection of times today

Only the greatest creations are able to reflect reality even many years after their creation. This happened with the play “The Cherry Orchard”. History is cyclical, society develops and changes, moral and ethical standards are also subject to rethinking. Human life is not possible without memory of the past, inaction in the present, and without faith in the future. One generation is replaced by another, some build, others destroy. This is how it was in Chekhov’s time, and this is how it is now. The playwright was right when he said that “All of Russia is our garden,” and it depends only on us whether it will bloom and bear fruit, or whether it will be cut down at the very root.

The author's discussions about the past, present and future in comedy, about people and generations, about Russia make us think even today. These thoughts will be useful for 10th graders when writing an essay on the topic “Past, present, future in the play “The Cherry Orchard”.”

Work test

“All Russia is our garden” (the image of Russia in A.P. Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard”)

The play "The Cherry Orchard" is a kind of poem about the past, present and future of Russia. The theme of the Motherland is the internal cross-cutting theme of this, by the author’s definition, comedy. We can say that this work is one of the most complex in the dramatic heritage of A.P. Chekhov. In this play, elements of parody, drama and even tragedy are intertwined and organically merged. The author needed all this in order to recreate the image of Russia as completely as possible. The heroes of The Cherry Orchard embody a certain hypostasis of this image. Ranevskaya, Gaev are the past, Lopakhin is one of the most controversial characters - both the past and, to a certain extent, the present, Anya is the future.

The owners of the cherry orchard see neither the beauty of the past nor the beauty of the future. Lopakhin and people like him are also far from this beauty. Chekhov believed that new people would come who would plant new, immeasurably more beautiful gardens and turn the entire earth into a magical garden.

There is also a constant Chekhovian sadness in the play, sadness about beauty dying in vain. We can say that it contains variations on A.P.’s favorite theme. Chekhov. This is the motive of beauty that contradicts itself, beauty in which there is a lie, hidden ugliness. It seems to me that in this play the author to a certain extent develops the thought of L. Tolstoy that “there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.” For A.P. For Chekhov, it is important that beauty must merge with truth, only then will it be true. And that magical garden that Anya talks about is a symbol of beauty merging with truth. The author is convinced of the inevitability of this, which is why the sadness in “The Cherry Orchard” is light. Many critics believe that the play is permeated with a feeling of farewell to a passing life, with everything good and disgusting that was in it, but also a joyful greeting to the new, young.

Ranevskaya and Gaev, the owners of a beautiful cherry orchard, do not know how to preserve it or take care of it. For the author, the garden is a symbol of Russia, a beautiful and tragic country. Both Lyubov Andreevna and her brother are kind, sweet in their own way, absolutely impractical people. They feel the beauty, the magical charm of the cherry orchard, but they, according to the author, are empty people, people without a homeland. All their reasoning that the estate needs to be saved, that they cannot live without the cherry orchard, the house with which so many joyful and tragic memories are associated, lead nowhere. It seems that they have already internally become accustomed to the loss of their property. Ranevskaya is thinking about the possibility of returning to Paris, Gaev seems to be trying on the position of a bank employee.

They even experience some relief when a “catastrophe” occurs; they no longer have to worry, no longer “bother.” Gaev’s words are indicative: “Indeed, now everything is fine. Before the sale of the cherry orchard, we were all worried, suffering, and then, when copying was prohibited, the issue was resolved finally, irrevocably, everyone calmed down, even became cheerful.” Lyubov Andreevna confirms this: “My nerves are better, it’s true,” although when the first news of the sale of the cherry orchard arrives, she declares: “I’m going to die.” In our opinion, Chekhov's remark is extremely important. Hearing Yasha’s laughter in response to her words, Ranevskaya asks him with slight annoyance: “Well, why are you laughing? Why are you happy?” But, it would seem, the footman’s laughter should have shaken her in the same way as laughter over the grave of a loved one would have shaken her, because she “is going to die.” But there is no horror, no shock, there is only “mild annoyance.” The author emphasizes that neither Gaev nor Ranevskaya are capable of not only serious actions, but even deep feelings. The new owner of the cherry orchard, Lopakhin, is too closely connected with the past to personify the future. But, it seems to me, he by no means fully represents the present of Russia in the play. Lopakhin is a complex and contradictory nature. He is not only “a beast of prey that eats everything that gets in his way,” as Petya Trofimov says about him. He tries to improve life in his own way, thinks about the future, Lopakhin proposes his own program. As an intelligent and observant person, he strives to benefit from them not only for himself. So, for example, this hero believes that “until now there were only gentlemen and peasants in the village, and now there are also summer residents, it may happen that on his one tithe he will start farming, and then your cherry orchard will become happy, rich, luxurious ...".

Chekhov wrote about him this way: “Lopakhin, it’s true, is a merchant, but a decent person in every sense.” Of course, Lopakhin is by no means an attractive character; with his passion for work, it would be necessary to do a real and great job, he has truly creative scope. It is this character who says: “...Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and living here, we ourselves should truly be giants...”. And Lopakhin has to do not at all beautiful things, for example, buy a cherry orchard from bankrupt owners. However, this character is not devoid of an understanding of beauty, he is able to understand that he has acquired “an estate, the most beautiful of which there is nothing in the world,” to realize what his action means for others. He experiences simultaneously delight, drunken prowess, and sadness.

Seeing Ranevskaya’s tears, Lopakhin angrily says: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” If he were a “beast of prey,” something “necessary for metabolism,” would he be able to utter such words, experience such feelings. The image of Lopakhin, therefore, contains a certain duality. He simultaneously feels sadness about the past, tries to change the present, and thinks about the future of Russia.

In our opinion, the present is also reflected in the play by the image of Petya Trofimov, although it would seem to be directed to the future. Yes, behind this hero you can feel a certain social movement, you can clearly feel that he is not at all alone. But his role, apparently, is to show others the ugliness of life, to help others realize the need for change, to say “goodbye, old life!” It is no coincidence that it is not Petya Trofimov, but Anya who says: “Hello, new life!” It seems that in the play there is only one image that could harmoniously merge with the beauty of the cherry orchard. Namely, Anya is the personification of spring, the future. This heroine was able to understand the essence of all Petya’s speeches, to realize that, as Chekhov wrote, everything has long since become old, outdated, and everything is just waiting for either the end or the beginning of something young, fresh." She goes forward to change her life, turn all of Russia into a blooming garden.

A.P. Chekhov dreamed of the rapid prosperity of Russia, and reflected this dream in the play “The Cherry Orchard.” However, in this work, in our opinion, there is no clear ending. On the one hand, there is the joyful music of the affirmation of a new life, on the other, the tragic sound of a broken string, “fading and sad,” and then, “silence sets in, and you can only hear how far away in the garden an ax is knocking on a tree.”

In this work A.P. Chekhov contains both subtle lyricism and sharp satire. “The Cherry Orchard” is both cheerful and sad, an eternal play about the author’s passionately beloved homeland, about its future prosperity. That is why more and more generations of readers will turn to it.

Introduction
1. Problems of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"
2. The embodiment of the past - Ranevskaya and Gaev
3. Exponent of the ideas of the present - Lopakhin
4. Heroes of the future - Petya and Anya
Conclusion
List of used literature

Introduction

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a writer of powerful creative talent and unique subtle skill, manifested with equal brilliance both in his stories and in novels and plays.
Chekhov's plays constituted an entire era in Russian drama and theater and had an immeasurable influence on all their subsequent development.
Continuing and deepening the best traditions of the dramaturgy of critical realism, Chekhov strove to ensure that his plays were dominated by the truth of life, unvarnished, in all its commonness and everyday life.
Showing the natural course of everyday life of ordinary people, Chekhov bases his plots not on one, but on several organically related, intertwined conflicts.

At the same time, the leading and unifying conflict is predominantly the conflict of the characters not with each other, but with the entire social environment surrounding them.

The play “The Cherry Orchard” occupies a special place in Chekhov’s work.
Before her, he awakened the idea of ​​​​the need to change reality, showing the hostility of people's living conditions, highlighting those features of his characters that doomed them to the position of a victim. In The Cherry Orchard, reality is depicted in its historical development. The topic of changing social structures is being widely developed. The noble estates with their parks and cherry orchards, with their unreasonable owners, are becoming a thing of the past. They are being replaced by business-like and practical people; they are the present of Russia, but not its future. Only the younger generation has the right to cleanse and change life. Hence the main idea of ​​the play: the establishment of a new social force, opposing not only the nobility, but also the bourgeoisie and called upon to rebuild life on the principles of true humanity and justice.
The very name of Chekhov's play sets one in a lyrical mood.

In our minds, a bright and unique image of a blooming garden appears, personifying beauty and the desire for a better life. The main plot of the comedy is related to the sale of this ancient noble estate. This event largely determines the fate of its owners and inhabitants. Thinking about the fate of the heroes, you involuntarily think about more, about the ways of development of Russia: its past, present and future.

The embodiment of the past - Ranevskaya and Gaev

Exponent of the ideas of the present - Lopakhin

Heroes of the future - Petya and Anya
All this involuntarily leads us to the idea that the country needs completely different people who will accomplish different great things. And these other people are Petya and Anya.
Trofimov is a democrat by origin, habits and beliefs.
Creating images of Trofimov, Chekhov expresses in this image such leading features as devotion to public causes, desire for a better future and propaganda of the fight for it, patriotism, integrity, courage, and hard work. Trofimov, despite his 26 or 27 years, has a lot of difficult life experience behind him. He has already been expelled from the university twice. He has no confidence that he will not be expelled a third time and that he will not remain an “eternal student.”
Some treat Petya with slight irony, others with undisguised love. In his speeches one can hear a direct condemnation of a dying life, a call for a new one: “I’ll get there. I’ll get there or show others the way to get there.”
And he points. He points it out to Anya, whom he loves dearly, although he skillfully hides it, realizing that he is destined for a different path.
He tells her: “If you have the keys to the farm, then throw them into the well and leave. Be free like the wind."
The klutz and “shabby gentleman” (as Varya ironically calls Trofimova) lacks Lopakhin’s strength and business acumen. He submits to life, stoically enduring its blows, but is not able to master it and become the master of his destiny. True, he captivated Anya with his democratic ideas, who expresses her readiness to follow him, firmly believing in the wonderful dream of a new blooming garden. But this young seventeen-year-old girl, who gained information about life mainly from books, is pure, naive and spontaneous, has not yet encountered reality.

Anya is full of hope and vitality, but she still has so much inexperience and childhood. In terms of character, she is in many ways close to her mother: she has a love for beautiful words and sensitive intonations. At the beginning of the play, Anya is carefree, quickly moving from concern to animation. She is practically helpless, she is used to living carefree, not thinking about her daily bread or tomorrow. But all this does not prevent Anya from breaking with her usual views and way of life. Its evolution is taking place before our eyes.

Anya’s new views are still naive, but she says goodbye to the old home and the old world forever.
It is unknown whether she will have enough spiritual strength, perseverance and courage to complete the path of suffering, labor and hardship. Will she be able to maintain that ardent faith in the best, which makes her say goodbye to her old life without regret? Chekhov does not answer these questions. And this is natural. After all, we can only talk about the future speculatively.
Chekhov's dramaturgy, responding to pressing issues of his time, addressing the everyday interests, experiences and worries of ordinary people, awakened the spirit of protest against inertia and routine, and called for social activity to improve life. Therefore, she has always had a huge influence on readers and viewers.
The significance of Chekhov's drama has long gone beyond the borders of our homeland; it has become global. Chekhov's dramatic innovation is widely recognized outside the borders of our great homeland. I am proud that Anton Pavlovich is a Russian writer, and no matter how different the masters of culture may be, they probably all agree that Chekhov, with his works, prepared the world for a better life, more beautiful, more just, more reasonable.

If Chekhov looked with hope into the 20th century, which was just beginning, then we live in the new 21st century, still dreaming about our cherry orchard and about those who will grow it. Flowering trees cannot grow without roots. And the roots are the past and the present. Therefore, for a wonderful dream to come true, the younger generation must combine high culture, education with practical knowledge of reality, will, perseverance, hard work, humane goals, that is, embody the best features of Chekhov's heroes.

Bibliography
1. History of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century / ed. prof. N.I. Kravtsova. Publisher: Prosveshchenie - Moscow 1966.
2. Exam questions and answers. Literature. 9th and 11th grades. Tutorial. – M.: AST – PRESS, 2000.
3. A. A. Egorova. How to write an essay with a "5". Tutorial. Rostov-on-Don, "Phoenix", 2001.

4. Chekhov A.P. Stories. Plays. – M.: Olimp; LLC "Firm" Publishing house AST, 1998.

PAST AND FUTURE IN THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

It’s scary to live in “fateful moments.” It’s scary, because people are lost in understanding why everything that has stood for centuries suddenly collapses, why strong walls that protected grandfathers and great-grandfathers suddenly turn out to be cardboard decorations. In such an unpleasant world, blown by all the winds of history, a person is looking for support: some in the past, some in the future. They do not look for support in their loved ones. Those around you are just as confused and stunned. And another person is looking for those to blame for who arranged all this. The culprits most often turn out to be those who are nearby: parents, children, acquaintances.

In “The Cherry Orchard,” Chekhov not only created images of people whose lives occurred at a turning point, but captured time itself in its movement. The heroes of “The Cherry Orchard” are people caught in a tectonic rift formed in time, forced to live, that is, to love and rejoice, in this cleft of the circumstances of a big story. This destructive moment is the time of their only life, which has its own special private laws and goals. And they live above the abyss, doomed to live. And the content of their life is the destruction of what was the life of previous generations.

“An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” is how Chekhov characterized Ranevskaya in his letters to Stanislavsky. What's in her past? Her youth, family life, blooming and fruit-bearing cherry orchard - all this ended several years ago, ended tragically. Ranevskaya runs from home, runs from the cherry orchard, from her daughters, from her brother, from the river where her son drowned, from her entire previous life, from her past, which turned into an irreparable disaster. He runs so as never to return, he runs in order to end his sinful and absurd life somewhere after the death of his son. But Ranevskaya returns to the house where everyone loves her, where everyone is waiting for her and where everyone reproaches her for something: for depravity, for frivolity. Ranevskaya feels this acutely, accepts the justice of the reproaches, and constantly feels guilty. But along with the feeling of guilt, alienation grows in her. And the further we go, the clearer it becomes that she is a stranger here.

In the list of characters, Ranevskaya is designated by one word: “landowner.” But this is a landowner who never knew how to manage her estate, who loved it passionately and was unable to keep it. Her flight from the estate after the death of her son, mortgaging and remortgaging this estate... Nominally, she is a landowner, in fact, she is a child of this cherry orchard, unable to save it from ruin and death. Returning to stay forever, Ranevskaya only completes her previous life and becomes convinced that it is impossible to enter the same river twice. All her hopes turned into a memorial service for her former life. The past is dead, gone forever. The homeland did not accept the prodigal daughter. The return did not take place. The ghostly Parisian life turns out to be the only reality. Ranevskaya leaves for France, and in Russia, in her cherry orchard, the ax is already knocking.

The future in the play belongs to Petya Trofimov and Anya. Lonely and restless, Petya wanders around Russia. Homeless, shabby, practically destitute. Petya lives in a different world from the other heroes of the comedy. He lives in a world of ideas that exists in parallel with the real world. Ideas, grandiose plans, social and philosophical systems - this is Petya’s world, his element. Petya's relationship with the real world is very tense. He does not know how to live in it, for those around him he is absurd and strange, ridiculous and pitiful: “a shabby gentleman,” “an eternal student.” He cannot complete his course at any university; he is expelled from everywhere. He is not in harmony with things, everything always breaks, gets lost, falls. But in the world of ideas he soars. There everything turns out deftly and smoothly, there he subtly grasps all the patterns, deeply understands the hidden essence of phenomena, and is ready and able to explain everything. And after all, all of Petya’s arguments about the life of modern Russia are correct.

But now he undertakes to talk not about ideas, but about their real embodiment. And immediately his speech begins to sound pompous and absurd: “All of Russia is our garden... Humanity is moving towards the highest truth, towards the highest happiness that is possible on earth, and I am in the forefront!”

Petya also talks pettyly about human relationships, about what is not subject to logic, what contradicts the harmonious system of the world of ideas. How funny and vulgar his words sound: “We are above love!” For him, love - for the past, for a person, for a home, love in general, this very feeling - is inaccessible. And therefore Petya’s spiritual world is flawed for Chekhov. And Petya, no matter how correctly he reasoned about the horror of serfdom and the need to atone for the past through labor and suffering, is just as far from a true understanding of life as Gaev or Varya. It is no coincidence that Anya, a young girl who still has no opinion about anything, is placed next to Petya. Of all the inhabitants and guests of the estate, only Anya managed to captivate Petya Trofimov with his ideas; she is the only one who takes him absolutely seriously. So they walk together: Petya, hostile to the world of things, and Anya, young and ignorant of life. And Petya’s goal is clear and definite: “forward - to the star.”

Chekhov's comedy amazingly captured all the absurdity of Russian life at the end of the century, when the old had already ended and the new had not yet begun. Some heroes confidently move forward, leaving the cherry orchard without regret. Other heroes painfully experience the loss of the garden. For them, this is a loss of connection with their own past, with their roots, without which they can only somehow live out their allotted years. The salvation of the garden lies in its radical reconstruction, but new life means, first of all, the death of the former.

Now, close to the new turn of the century, in the modern turmoil of the end of an era, the destruction of the old and convulsive attempts to create the new, “The Cherry Orchard” sounds to us completely differently than it sounded ten years ago. It turned out that the time of Chekhov's comedy is not only the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. It is written about timelessness in general, about that vague pre-dawn hour that came to our lives and determined our destinies.

A. P. CHEKHOV’S DEPICTION OF NEW LIFE IN THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

The play “The Cherry Orchard” was created by Chekhov in 1903. Its problems were relevant for that time; it answered questions that worried Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century.

Chekhov showed in the play the death of the noble class as a result of the collapse of the economic foundations of noble society and its spiritual crisis, a death that was historically natural. The remnants of the feudal-noble system and way of life had to collapse and inevitably collapsed under the pressure of capitalism. The Ranevskys and Gaevs were replaced by a new social force - the bourgeoisie, embodied in the image of the enterprising merchant-industrialist Lopakhin.

Lopakhin is a smart, energetic businessman, a man of a new formation, who emerged from the ranks of the serf peasantry. Enormous energy, enterprise, a wide scope of work - all these traits are characteristic of him. He is generally a kind, warm-hearted person, which is clear from his attitude towards Ranevskaya. He proposes the correct plan to save Ranevskaya’s estate, but she rejects this plan, considering it unworthy. Lopakhin is not devoid of aesthetic sense and admires the picture of a blooming poppy, but his sober practical mind is always directed towards business transactions. He immediately says that he received forty thousand in income from this poppy. Trofimov notes that Lopakhin has “thin, gentle fingers, like an artist... a subtle, gentle soul.”

Lopakhin becomes the owner of the estate created by the labor of his ancestors. And here he triumphs, here the features of Lopakhin the money-grubber, Lopakhin the predator appear: “Let everything be as I wish! A new landowner is coming, the owner of the cherry orchard! I can pay for everything!”

Chekhov is concerned with the question of who is able to inherit the wealth of Russian life, symbolized in the play by the luxurious cherry orchard and Ranevskaya’s estate. Lopakhin is not able to rise to the level of understanding national interests. This buyer of the landowners' estates is barbarously destroying a cherry orchard, which has no equal in Russia. Without knowing it, he plays the role of a “beast of prey”, eating “everything that gets in his way.”

But Anya’s path to a new life is difficult. In terms of character, she is in many ways similar to her mother. At the beginning of the play, Anya is careless, as she is used to living carefree, without thinking about tomorrow. But all this does not prevent Anya from breaking with her usual views and way of life. Her new views are still naive, but she says goodbye to the old home and the old world forever. Turning to her mother, Anya says: “Come with me, let’s go, dear, from here, let’s go!” We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this one, you will see it, you will understand it, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul, like the sun in the evening hour, and you will smile, mom!”

In this enthusiastic exclamation of Anya, full of deep feeling and poetry, we are talking about a blooming, luxurious garden into which all of Russia should turn.

“Hello, new life!” - these words at the end of the play prove even more convincingly the proximity of happiness, “the steps of which are already heard.”

Trofimov and Anya are young Russia, the Russia of the future, which is replacing the Russia of the Ranevskys and Lopakhins.

This is how the trends of the liberation movement and Chekhov’s passionate dream of a free man and a wonderful life were expressed in “The Cherry Orchard.”

The social significance of “The Cherry Orchard” lies in the fact that in this play Chekhov expressed confidence in the proximity of events that will turn Russia into a “new blooming garden.”

Chekhov's misconceptions were that he, not having lived until 1905, did not see the main revolutionary force - the proletariat, and saw the future of Russia in the intelligentsia of the various ranks.

TIME AND MEMORY IN THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

The play “The Cherry Orchard” was written in 1903, shortly before the death of A.P. Chekhov. Like any play, it is populated by various characters: among them the main, secondary, episodic. They all talk, suffer, rejoice. Each hero has his own face, clothes, habits, age, social status. But there is one hero on whom a lot depends, almost everything, and he is not even on the list of characters. The poet and playwright V.V. Kurdyumov, a contemporary of A.P. Chekhov, wrote about this hero: “...The main invisible character in Chekhov’s plays, like | in many of his other works, - the mercilessly passing time.”

On stage, the play “The Cherry Orchard” lasts about three hours. The characters live five months of their lives during this time. And the action of the play covers a more significant period of time, which includes the past, present and future of Russia.

“Time does not wait,” the words are heard repeatedly in the mouths of various characters, as well as in the subtext of the play. The heroes of the play constantly feel a lack of time. Ranevskaya, Gaev, Lopakhin, each in their own way, are worried about the approaching deadline for the sale of the estate. Lyubov Andreevna's neighbor, the landowner Simeonov-Pishchik, is worried that he has nothing to pay his mortgage tomorrow and, experiencing an acute lack of time, tries to borrow money. There are many lines in the play related to time: “What time is it?”, “Forty-seven minutes left before the train!”, “In twenty minutes to go to the station,” “In ten minutes, let’s get into the carriages.”

The main characters, the owners of the cherry orchard, having created for themselves the illusion of the immobility of time, live in the current day, the current hour, the current minute, but, constantly being late, they are hopelessly behind the present, stuck somewhere in the past.

The twenty-second of August is inexorably approaching - the day of the sale of the estate. This date is causing ever-increasing concern, but things do not go further than concern, people are inactive, trying to deceive time, to forget themselves. Even on the day of the auction, a party is held on the estate: “...a Jewish orchestra is playing in the hall... They are dancing in the hall...”

And there is no doubt that nothing will happen except what needs to happen. Life will move on beyond this date.

But the twenty-second of August is not only the day of sale of the estate, it is also the starting point in relation to which time is divided into past, present and future. Along with the life of the characters, the play also included the movement of historical life: from the pre-reform era to the end of the 19th century.

Firs recalls the abolition of serfdom as a “misfortune,” Trofimov speaks about the remnants of serfdom in a monologue about the cherry orchard, Gaev makes a speech about the hundred-year service of the bookcase in the field of education. There are three generations in the play: Firs is eighty-seven years old, Gaev is fifty-one years old, Anya is seventeen years old.

The continuity of time is personified by the poetic image of the cherry orchard; it remembers everything. According to Petya, “...from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk... human beings are looking at you...” The garden is a symbol not only of historical memory, but also of the eternal renewal of life. The future in the play is unclear and full of secrets.

The lyrical and tragic realism of A.P. Chekhov revealed to his contemporaries the time in which they live, and introduced heroes - true children of a turning point. They do not accept ideals that have lost their vitality, but they also cannot live without ideals; they painfully search for them in the memory of the past or in passionate dreams of the future.

The work of A.P. Chekhov responded to the highest degree to his era, to the very need of people to comprehend life, to be involved in the course of history, to seek a reasonable purpose for existence, means of changing the “awkward” life and paths to the future. This makes him especially close to our contemporaries.

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW MASTERS OF LIFE (Based on the play “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a master of the short story, a brilliant short story writer and a great playwright. His plays “The Seagull”, “Three Sisters”, “Uncle Vanya”, “The Cherry Orchard” do not leave the theater stages to this day. Their popularity here and in the West is great.

The work of A.P. Chekhov dates back to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when the feudal system was replaced by a capitalist formation, which made it possible to introduce new forms of economy.

However, representatives of the local nobility reluctantly entered into a new life. The conservatism of most of them, the inability to abandon feudal methods of farming, and the inability to take advantage of the current situation led the landowners' estates to ruin.

Against the backdrop of the impoverishment of the nobility, a new layer of society enters the economic life of Russia, new people - entrepreneurs, “masters of life.”

In the play “The Cherry Orchard” this new master of life is Lopakhin, an intelligent, energetic businessman, industrialist. Compared to the impractical, weak-willed nobles Ranevsky and Gaev, who live more in the past than in the present, he is distinguished by his enormous energy, wide scope of work, and thirst for education. He knows his place both in life and in society and does not lose his dignity anywhere.

While Lopakhin realizes the hopeless situation of the owners of the cherry orchard and gives them practical advice, they compose pathetic hymns to the house and garden, talk to things - to the closet, to the table, kiss them and are carried away with their thoughts into a sweet, carefree past, so irretrievably gone. In ecstasy, they do not hear and do not want to hear Lopakhin; none of them wants to talk about the inevitability of a catastrophe.

Lopakhin directly and simply calls a spade a spade (“...your cherry orchard is being sold for debts...”), is ready to help in trouble, but he does not have a common language with the Gaevs. His sober, realistic approach to reality seems to them “rudeness,” an insult to their honor, a misunderstanding of beauty.

Lopakhin has his own understanding of beauty: “We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here.”

The old world - the Gaevs and Ranevskys, the Simeonov-Pishchikis, the Firsas, the keepers of past traditions, and the Charlottes, the indispensable governesses, and lackeys, servants - is leaving the stage of life. He leaves because he is insolvent, already absurd and ridiculous. “On my honor, I swear whatever you want, the estate will not be sold! (Excitedly.) I swear on my happiness!” - says Gaev. But he does nothing, hoping either for the Yaroslavl aunt’s money or for Anya’s marriage. They do not understand the seriousness of their situation and continue to lead a careless lifestyle, causing Lopakhin to justly reproach: “...I have never met such frivolous people like you, gentlemen, such unbusinesslike, strange people.”

Lack of will, inability to live, and carelessness characterize these gentlemen. They are behind the times and must give up their home and their garden, their place to the new masters of life, sober, practical, intelligent and businesslike. “...Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and living here, we ourselves should truly be giants...” Lopakhin’s philosophy: work is the basis of life. “When I work for a long time, tirelessly, then my thoughts are lighter, and it seems as if I also know why I exist. And how many people, brother, are there in Russia who exist for no one knows why.” He is able to feel beauty, admires the picture of a blooming poppy. According to Trofimov, he has “thin, gentle fingers, like an artist... a subtle, gentle soul.” He understands that “with a pig’s snout in the Kalash row...” he is climbing. But with what triumph he says: “The cherry orchard is now mine!” My! (Laughs.) My God, gentlemen, my cherry orchard!..”

The new owner of the garden, the house, and all such gardens and houses, and all this life, has come. “If only my father and grandfather would get up from their graves and look at the whole incident, like their Ermolai, the beaten, illiterate Ermolai, who ran barefoot in the winter, how this same Ermolai bought an estate, which is not more beautiful in the world! I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I’m dreaming, it’s only imagining it, it’s only seeming...”

What is the future for Lopakhin? Probably, having become even more rich in the years remaining before the revolution, he will contribute to the economic prosperity of Russia and become a philanthropist. Maybe he will build schools and hospitals for the poor with his own money. There were many such people in Russian life: Morozovs, Mamontovs, Ryabushinskys, Alekseevs, Soldatenkovs, Tretyakovs, Bakhrushins. And today, entrepreneurs and business people could play a significant role in the country’s economy. But their behavior, disregard for spirituality, culture, desire only for personal enrichment can lead to a decline in the spiritual forces of society, to the decline of the state, their ability to destroy, without thinking about the future, a beautiful cherry orchard - a symbol of Russia in Chekhov - can lead to sad consequences .

DEPICTION OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE NOBILITY IN THE PLAY BY A.I. CHEKHOV “CHERRY ORCHARD”

The theme of “The Cherry Orchard” is the theme of the death of old noble estates, their transfer into the hands of the bourgeoisie and the fate of the latter in connection with the emergence of a new social force in the arena of public life in Russia - the advanced intelligentsia. The play shows the inevitability of the departure from the historical stage of the nobility - an already strengthened, unadapted class. The central place in the play is occupied by the images of landowners-nobles Ranevskaya and Gaev. They are descendants of wealthy owners of a magnificent estate with a beautiful cherry orchard. In the old days, their estate generated income on which its idle owners lived. The habit of living through the labors of others, without caring about anything, made Ranevskaya and Gaev people unsuited to any serious activity, weak-willed and helpless.

The deadline for selling the mortgaged estate is approaching. Gaev and Ranevskaya are confusedly looking for ways of salvation, counting either on the help of a rich Yaroslavl aunt, or on a loan against a bill, but they decisively reject the solution proposed by Lopakhin: to divide the cherry orchard into plots and rent them out to summer residents. This means seems unacceptable to them, offensive to their honor and family traditions, and contrary to their class ethics. The poetry of the cherry orchard, everything that was connected with it, overshadow life and the demands of practical calculation. “The dacha and summer residents are so vulgar, sorry,” Ranevskaya says to Lopakhin. These words can be interpreted as disgustingly arrogant. However, on the other hand, what the cherry orchard and summer residents were for Ranevskaya are truly incompatible and vulgar. And this, unfortunately, cannot be understood by Lopakhin, a representative of the emerging bourgeoisie (“frivolous, unbusinesslike, strange people,” he calls Ranevskaya and Gaev). Lopakhin is an energetic, corpse-loving person, kind and intelligent in his own way, not even devoid of some aesthetic sense. However, he, the new owner of the cherry orchard and the former serf of the Gaevs, is a predator... And Chekhov sees that the “nests of the nobility” are being replaced by people like Lopakhin. And if the representatives of the nobility in the play lack a sense of reality and practicality, then those like Lopakhin lack an intelligent and sensitive soul. And therefore the author does not “give” the future of Russia into their hands. Their role, according to Chekhov, should be unambiguous: “Just as in the sense of metabolism we need a predatory beast that eats everything that gets in its way, so we need you,” Trofimov tells Lopakhin.

Russia of the future in the play is represented in the images of Petya Trofimov and Anya. Petya Trofimov is a representative of the so-called working, progressive intelligentsia, thinking, feeling and at the same time not devoid of common sense and practicality. He believes in the future of Russia, won through labor, and infects Anya, Ranevskaya’s seventeen-year-old daughter, with his faith. “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this one, you will see it, you will understand...” - Anya says to her mother. According to Chekhov, Anya and Petya Trofimov are a young Russia, the Russia of the future, which will replace the Russia of the Gaevs and Lopakhins.

Surprisingly, Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” is very in tune with our time. And now everyone is “expecting” the arrival of some “third” force that would combine intelligence, intelligence, decency and the ability for active transformation, while denying the spiritual rudeness of the Lopakhins and the silence and confusion of people like Gaev and Ranevskaya.

RUSSIA IN A. P. CHEKHOV’S PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a great citizen of Russia. In many of his works we see our Motherland through his eyes! Before moving on to the topic of my essay, I would like to talk about what kind of person Anton Pavlovich was. He called lies, hypocrisy and arbitrariness his main enemies. The entire writer's life was filled with persistent, systematic work. Having lived for forty-four years, he wrote more than two hundred works of prose and drama, built schools, participated in the creation of hospitals and libraries. He worked as a doctor during the cholera epidemic, treating up to a thousand sick peasants in villages every year. I am very attracted to the traits inherent in Chekhov: decency, humanity, intelligence and love of life. Anton Pavlovich elevated inspired work and healthy human relationships to absolutes. Reading Chekhov's works is easy and interesting. One of my favorite books by the writer is the play “The Cherry Orchard.” “The Cherry Orchard” is considered Chekhov’s pinnacle work. The play reflects such a socio-historical phenomenon of the country as the degradation of the “nest of the nobility”, the moral impoverishment of the nobility, the development of feudal relations into capitalist ones, and behind this - the emergence of a new, dominant class of the bourgeoisie. The theme of the play is the fate of the homeland, its future. “All of Russia is our garden.” The past, present and future of Russia seem to emerge from the pages of the play “The Cherry Orchard”. The representative of the present in Chekhov's comedy is Lopakhin, the past - Ranevskaya and Gaev, the future - Trofimov and Anya.

Starting from the first act of the play, the rot and worthlessness of the owners of the estate - Ranevskaya and Gaev - are exposed.

Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, in my opinion, is a rather empty woman. She sees nothing around her except love interests, strives to live beautifully, carefree. She is simple, charming, kind. But her kindness turns out to be purely external. The essence of her nature is selfishness and frivolity: Ranevskaya gives out gold, while poor Varya, out of “savings, feeds everyone milk soup, in the kitchen the old people are given one pea”; throws an unnecessary ball when there is nothing to pay off debts with. He remembers his deceased son, talks about maternal feelings and love. And she leaves her daughter in the care of a careless uncle, without worrying about her daughters’ future. She resolutely tears up telegrams from Paris, at first without even reading them, and then goes to Paris. She is saddened by the sale of the estate, but rejoices at the opportunity to go abroad. And when he talks about love for his homeland, he interrupts himself with the remark: “However, you need to drink coffee.” For all her weakness and lack of will, she has the ability for self-criticism, for disinterested kindness, for sincere, ardent feeling.

Gaev, Ranevskaya’s brother, is also helpless and lethargic. In his own eyes, he is an aristocrat of the highest circle; “coarse” smells bother him. He doesn’t seem to notice Lopakhin and tries to put “this boor” in his place. In Gaev’s language, colloquialism is combined with lofty words: after all, he loves liberal rantings. His favorite word is “whom”; he is partial to billiard terms.

The present of Russia in Chekhov's play “The Cherry Orchard” is represented by Lopakhin. In general, his image is complex and contradictory. He is decisive and compliant, calculating and poetic, truly kind and unconsciously cruel. These are the many facets of his nature and character. Throughout the entire play, the hero constantly repeats about his origin, saying that he is a man: “My father, it’s true, was a man, but here I am in a white vest and yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a row of Kalash... Just now he's rich, there's a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, then he's a man..." Although, it seems to me, he still exaggerates his common people, because he already came from a village family kulak-shopkeeper. Lopakhin himself says: “...my deceased father - he was trading in a shop here in the village then...” And he himself is currently a very successful businessman. According to him, one can judge that things are going very well for him and there is no need to complain to him about life and his fate in relation to money. In his image one can see all the features of an entrepreneur, a businessman who personifies the real state of Russia and its structure. Lopakhin is a man of his time, who saw the real chain of development of the country, its structure and became involved in the life of society. He lives for today.

Chekhov notes the merchant's kindness and his desire to become a better person. Ermolai Alekseevich remembers how Ranevskaya stood up for him when his father offended him as a child. Lopakhin recalls this with a smile: “Don’t cry, he says, little man, he’ll live until the wedding... (Pause.) Little man...” He sincerely loves her, willingly lends Lyubov Andreevna money, not expecting to ever receive it. For her sake, he tolerates Gaev, who despises and ignores him. The merchant strives to improve his education and learn something new. At the beginning of the play, he is shown with a book in front of the readers. Regarding this, Ermolai Alekseevich says: “I read the book and didn’t understand anything. I read and fell asleep.”

Ermolai Lopakhin, the only one in the play, is busy with business, leaving for his merchant needs. In one of the conversations about this you can hear: “I have to go to Kharkov now, at five o’clock in the morning.” He differs from others in his vitality, hard work, optimism, assertiveness, and practicality. He alone offers a real plan to save the estate.

Lopakhin may seem like a clear contrast to the old owners of the cherry orchard. After all, he is a direct descendant of those whose faces “look out from every cherry tree in the garden.” And how can he triumph after buying a cherry orchard: “If only my father and grandfather had risen from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Ermolai, the beaten, illiterate Ermolai, who ran barefoot in the winter, how this same Ermolai bought the estate where his grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I’m dreaming, I’m only imagining this, it’s only seeming... 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! We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here... Music, play!” But this is not so, because in the place of something ruined it is impossible to build something beautiful, joyful and happy. And here Chekhov also reveals the negative qualities of the bourgeois Lopakhin: his desire to get rich, not to miss his profit. He nevertheless buys Ranevskaya’s estate himself and brings his idea of ​​organizing dachas to life. Anton Pavlovich showed how acquisition gradually cripples a person, becoming his second nature. “Just as, in terms of metabolism, a predatory beast is needed that eats everything that gets in its way, so you are needed,” this is how Petya Trofimov explains to the merchant about his role in society. And yet Ermolai Alekseevich is simple and kind, offering help to the “eternal student” from the bottom of his heart. It’s not for nothing that Petya likes Lopakhin - for his thin, delicate fingers, like an artist’s, for his “thin, gentle soul.” But it is he who advises him “not to wave his arms,” not to become arrogant, imagining that everything can be bought and sold. And Ermolai Lopakhin, the further he goes, the more he acquires the habit of “waving his arms.” At the beginning of the play this is not yet so pronounced, but at the end it becomes quite noticeable. His confidence that everything can be considered in terms of money increases and becomes more and more his peculiarity.

The story of Lopakhin’s relationship with Varya does not evoke sympathy. Varya loves him. And he seems to like her, Lopakhin understands that his proposal will be her salvation, otherwise she will have to become a housekeeper. Ermolai Alekseevich is about to take a decisive step and does not take it. It is not entirely clear what prevents him from proposing to Varya. Either it’s the lack of true love, or it’s his excessive practicality, or maybe something else, but in this situation he doesn’t evoke sympathy for himself.

He is characterized by delight and merchant arrogance after purchasing the Ranevskaya estate. Having acquired a cherry orchard, he solemnly and boastfully announces it, cannot resist praising it, but the tears of the former owner suddenly shake him. Lopakhin’s mood changes, and he bitterly says: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” The not yet extinguished triumph is combined with self-mockery, merchant daring with spiritual awkwardness.

Another feature of him does not make a good impression. First of all, this is his indelicacy, the desire for quick profit. He begins cutting down trees even before the former owners have left. It’s not for nothing that Petya Trofimov says to him: “Really, is there really a lack of tact...” They stop cutting down the cherry orchard. But as soon as the former owners left the estate, the axes began to sound again. The new owner is in a hurry to put his idea into action.

Representatives of the future of Russia are Trofimov and Anya. Pyotr Trofimov looks at many life phenomena correctly, is able to captivate with imaginative, deep thoughts, and under his influence Anya quickly grows spiritually. But Petya’s words about the future, his calls to work, to be free like the wind, to move forward are vague, they are too general, dreamy in nature. Petya believes in “highest happiness,” but he doesn’t know how to achieve it. It seems to me that Trofimov is the image of a future revolutionary.

“The Cherry Orchard” was written by Chekhov during the period of pre-revolutionary unrest. The writer confidently believed in the advent of a better future, in the inevitability of revolution. He considered the young generation of Russia to be the creators of a new, happy life. In the play “The Cherry Orchard” these people are Petya Trofimov and Anya. The revolution was accomplished, a “bright future” arrived, but it did not bring “the highest happiness” to the people.

The hero of the comedy Lopakhin is closer to me. With his work, perseverance and diligence, he achieved his goal - he bought an estate where “his grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen.” He became a rich, respected man. Of course, he also has negative character traits: the desire for profit, the habit of “waving his arms.” But Lopakhin strives to improve his education and learn something new. Unlike Petya Trofimov, Ermolai Alekseevich’s word does not diverge from deeds. Despite his thirst for enrichment, he still had compassion for his neighbor. What I like about Lopakhin is optimism, hard work, and a sober outlook on things.

All of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, in my opinion, was reflected in Chekhov’s play. And now you can meet such impractical, lost ground under their feet people as Ranevskaya and Gaev. Idealists like Petya Trofimov and Anya are still alive, but people like Chekhov’s Lopakhin are quite difficult to meet: modern entrepreneurs very often lack those attractive personality traits that I liked in this hero. Unfortunately, in our society, “Yasha’s lackeys” are coming to the forefront more and more confidently every day. There is not a word about this hero in my essay, since I am limited by the time of the exam work. I could say a lot about him and about other characters in Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard,” since this work provides inexhaustible material for thinking about the fate of Russia.

“FAMILY THOUGHT” IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE (Based on the play “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov)

According to N. Berdyaev, “the family is the source of life and a refuge for its members.” This is “a world with certain laws, a hierarchy, which for some can turn into a heavy burden, but at the same time ensures everyone’s well-being.” For centuries, the family has been the strongest link in society, the means by which traditions are preserved and the experience of generations is passed on. This is probably why in many works of Russian literature “family thought” is the leading one. These are “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy, “Fathers and Sons” by I. S. Turgenev, some dramas by A. Ostrovsky, stories and plays by A. P. Chekhov.

In A. S. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin,” references to the main character’s family help to understand the origins of his character. It is possible that the tragedy of the “extra person” has its roots in an unhappy childhood.

No one can live without their own home, without warm relationships with loved ones. The family is a unique model of society, so the future fate of the state depends on what happens to it in difficult and critical times. This was talentedly and accurately shown by A.P. Chekhov in the play “The Cherry Orchard.”

The difficult situation in the house reveals all the shortcomings and difficulties of communication hidden by time. The wasteful life of the owners of the estate leads to a crisis in relationships. But such a situation did not develop in the family right away. From the dialogues of the characters, you can guess that their previous life was happy: all relationships were built on respect and veneration for each other. And even a hundred-year-old wardrobe, a symbol of a bygone era, according to Gaev, “maintained vigor in generations, faith in a better future and fostered the ideals of goodness and social self-awareness.” The author himself emphasized that “in the past, family relationships were excellent.”

What changed in the lives of the heroes with the advent of new times? Why are Ranevskaya and Gaev, Petya and Anya so unhappy?

We first meet Lyubov Andreevna at the moment when she arrives at her native estate from Paris. It seems that Ranevskaya is kind, loving her family, charming and affectionate. She speaks warmly to everyone in the household and is happy about every thing in the house. But is she sincere? Only towards the end of the play are the true qualities of her character fully recognized. In my opinion, this is an empty and completely worthless person. Yes, Lyubov Andreevna is kind, but always at the expense of others. He can give a gold coin to a tramp, while the household goes hungry. She forgets about the devoted Firs and abandons her daughters. Her family life did not take place due to frivolity and idleness. Apparently she has no remorse. Soon she will be drawn to Paris by “courier”. She will go with the money sent to the “dityuse” and squander it with the “Wild Man”. Family and home are not for her.

Maybe her brother is happy? No. Gaev is also lonely. Middle-aged, but helpless as a child, he cannot live without the supervision of Firs. “You go away, Firs. So be it, I’ll undress myself,” he says. Leonid Andreevich loves to play billiards, show off in front of his loved ones, and go to the city “twenty miles away.” Gaev talks about an imaginary service in a bank, but, having already reached the age of fifty-one, he did not start a family, he has no children. Only before saying goodbye to his sister does the hero suddenly realize the emptiness of life: “Everyone is abandoning us. Varya leaves... we no longer need each other.”

Maybe the future of the younger generation will turn out differently? Petya's purpose in life is vague. He only has a presentiment of “happiness.” And what purpose can we talk about if the “eternal student” has absolutely no knowledge of life and is afraid of it. Just like Gaev and Ranevskaya, this person hides behind beautiful words or closes his eyes “in horror.” Even Varya notices that he is not a match for his sister and does not want their union. Considering himself close to the Ranevsky family, Petya behaves rudely towards these people. He has no serious thoughts, because he cannot truly fall in love, create a family, or arrange his own home.

Perhaps the “educated” Yasha, who has seen Europe while traveling with Ranevskaya, is able to live happily? Doubtful. A person who does not have any higher values ​​in life cannot create a prosperous family.

The old foundations of life are disintegrating. Separation will certainly come, followed by death, which is probably why the sound of a “broken string” is heard. And the youngest, barely blossoming heroes also seem ready to disappear and die. Time is running out. But there is also something in “The Cherry Orchard” from Chekhov’s unconscious premonition of the impending fatal end: “I feel like I’m not living here, but falling asleep or leaving.” The motif of time slipping away runs through the entire play. Past family relationships cannot be returned. “Once upon a time, you and I, sister, slept in this room, and now I’m already fifty-one years old, oddly enough,” says Gaev. There will no longer be a room where in former times there was happiness, home comfort and well-being. These people are so disunited and fragmented that they are unable to protect their hearth. At the end of the play, there is a feeling that life is ending for everyone. And this is no coincidence. Chekhov judges strictly, he wants to be heard: “Yes, if you love your garden, beauty, do at least something to protect it from the ax, take responsibility for the family hearth, and don’t just shed tears of tenderness over them.” . Wake up from carelessness when trouble is on the doorstep!”

I think now the situation of Chekhov's play is easily recognizable. Modern “estates” have fallen into disrepair, are overgrown with debt, and auctions for them have already been announced. Family homes are destroyed, generations are separated and do not want to understand each other. What will happen to today's “cherry orchard”? We are again faced with the same questions as at the beginning of the century before Chekhov's heroes. Whether we will live better tomorrow depends on who will become the master of everything, who will preserve family traditions and roots...

“THE CHERRY ORCHARD” by A. P. CHEKHOV - A PLAY ABOUT UNHAPPY PEOPLE AND TREES

The reader, even a not very attentive one, will probably notice that there is practically not a single happy person in Chekhov’s play.

Ranevskaya comes from Paris to repent of her sins and find final peace in her native estate. She made her final plans based on the parable of the Prodigal Son. But, alas, she failed to do this: the estate is being sold under the hammer. Ranevskaya has to return to Paris to old sins and new problems.

The faithful servant Firs is buried alive in a boarded-up house. Charlotte awaits the arrival of a new day with fear, because she does not know how to continue to live in it. Varya, disappointed in Lopakhin, is hired by new owners. It is difficult to call even Gaev prosperous, although he gets a place in the bank, but, knowing his abilities and capabilities, one cannot be sure that he will become an efficient financier. Even the trees in the garden, according to Anya, are flawed because they are disgraced by a slave past and, therefore, doomed by the present, in which there is no place for beauty, in which practicality triumphs.

But, according to Chekhov, tomorrow should still be better, happier than today. The author pins his hopes in this regard on her and Petya Trofimov, but they are unlikely to come true, since Petya, even at thirty years old, is “an eternal student” and, as Ranevskaya sarcastically notes, does not “even have a mistress” and is hardly capable of any any real deed in life other than eloquence.

I want to emphasize that the characters in the play have absolutely no idea why they are unhappy. Gaev and Ranevskaya, for example, are inclined to think that the reasons for their misfortunes are hidden in evil fate, in unfavorable circumstances - in everything except themselves, although this would be a more accurate guess.

The most energetic figure - Lopakhin, a businessman, a clever entrepreneur, is also included in this mystical circle of unfortunate, flawed people. After all, his grandfather was once a serf on this estate. And no matter how much Lopakhin swaggers, showing his rise, the reader and viewer cannot get rid of the feeling that he swaggers more out of powerlessness to become separated from this slave garden, which, even if it no longer exists, will remind Lopakhin from what filth he came to riches . He advises cutting down the garden, dividing it into plots and renting out these plots for dachas. He advises doing this in search of a way out of the vicious circle of misfortune. “And then your garden will become happy, rich, luxurious,” he declares.

“What nonsense!” - Gaev interrupts Lopakhin, who is sure that there can be no talk of any happiness when there is neither a blooming garden nor a cozy old house.

Criticism of Lopakhin’s advice comes, as they say, automatically; the Gaevs don’t even take the trouble to think about the essence of the matter and understand Lopakhin’s project. Lopakhin responds by accusing them of frivolity.

Lyubov Andreevna is confused. She is ready to do anything: turn to her aunt, whom she can’t stand, for help, hire her brother through an acquaintance, even borrow money from her former serf Lopakhin. But she does not want and cannot give up her noble traditions. For the Gaevs, “dachas and summer residents are so vulgar...”. They are above this. They are noble, smart, well-mannered, educated. But due to reasons and circumstances beyond their control, they have fallen behind the times and now must give up their place, their garden and their home to the new masters of life.

The old world of the nobility leaving the stage of life, tinged with disappointment, is complemented by both the lackey - the boor Yasha, and the stupid clerk Epikhodov.

“So life in this house has ended,” says Lopakhin, hinting that the future is still his. But he is wrong. Of all the characters in the play, only Anya can be sure of the future. She tells Ranevskaya: “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this one” - she is not just trying to console her mother, but as if trying to imagine the future. She inherited the best traits from her mother: spiritual sensitivity and sensitivity to beauty. At the same time, she is determined to change and remake life. She dreams of a time when the entire way of life will change, when life, and not trees, will turn into a blooming garden, giving people joy and happiness. She is even ready to work and sacrifice for such a future. And in her enthusiastic speeches, I heard the voice of the author of the play himself, who tells us, revealing the secret of his work: trees are not to blame for people’s misfortunes, and people, unfortunately, can, but do not always want to make themselves and the trees around them happy.

TENDER SOUL OR PREDATORY BEAST? (The image of Lopakhin in A.P. Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard”)

After all, this is not a merchant in the vulgar sense of the word. We need to understand this.

A. P. Chekhov

When creating the play “The Cherry Orchard,” A.P. Chekhov paid great attention to the image of Lopakhin as one of the central images of the comedy. In revealing the author's intention, in resolving the main conflict, it is Lopakhin who plays a very important role.

Lopakhin is unusual and strange; he caused and continues to puzzle many literary critics. In fact, Chekhov's character does not fit into the usual scheme: a rude, uneducated merchant destroys beauty without thinking about what he is doing, caring only about his profits. The situation for that time was typical not only in literature, but also in life. However, if you imagine Lopakhin as such even for a moment, the entire carefully thought-out system of Chekhov’s images collapses. Life is more complex than any schemes, and therefore the proposed situation cannot at all be Chekhovian.

Among the Russian merchants, people appeared who clearly did not correspond to the traditional concept of merchants. The duality, inconsistency, and internal instability of these people are vividly conveyed by Chekhov in the image of Lopakhin. Lopakhin's inconsistency is especially acute because the situation is extremely dual.

Ermolai Lopakhin is the son and grandson of a serf. For the rest of his life, the phrase Ranevskaya said to a boy beaten by his father was probably etched into his memory: “Don’t cry, little man, he’ll live before the wedding...” He feels like an indelible mark on himself from these words: “Little man... My father, True, he was a man, but here I am in a white vest, yellow shoes... but if you think about it and figure it out, then the man is a man...” Lopakhin suffers deeply from this duality. He destroys the cherry orchard not only for the sake of profit, and not so much for its sake. There was another reason, much more important than the first - revenge for the past. He destroys the garden, fully aware that it is “an estate better than which there is nothing in the world.” And yet Lopakhin hopes to kill the memory, which, against his will, always shows him that he, Ermolai Lopakhin, is a “man”, and the bankrupt owners of the cherry orchard are “gentlemen”.

With all his might, Lopakhin strives to erase the line separating him from the “gentlemen.” He is the only one who appears on stage with a book. Although he later admits that he didn’t understand anything about it.

Lopakhin has his own social utopia. He very seriously views the summer residents as a huge force in the historical process, designed to erase this very line between the “peasant” and the “gentlemen.” It seems to Lopakhin that by destroying the cherry orchard, he is bringing a better future closer.

Lopakhin has the features of a predatory beast. But money and the power acquired with it (“I can pay for everything!”) crippled not only people like Lopakhin. At the auction, the predator in him awakens, and Lopakhin finds himself at the mercy of the merchant's passion. And it is in excitement that he finds himself the owner of a cherry orchard. And he cuts down this garden even before the departure of its former owners, not paying attention to the persistent requests of Anya and Ranevskaya herself.

But Lopakhin’s tragedy is that he is not aware of his own “bestial” nature. Between his thoughts and actual actions lies the deepest abyss. Two people live and fight in it: one - “with a subtle, gentle soul”; the other is a “beast of prey.”

To my greatest regret, the winner is most often the predator. However, there is a lot that attracts people in Lopakhino. His monologue is surprising and deafening: “Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and living here, we ourselves must be truly giants...”

Yes, that's enough! Is this Lopakhin?! It is no coincidence that Ranevskaya is trying to lower Lopakhin’s pathos, to bring him down “from heaven to earth.” Such a “little man” surprises and frightens her. Lopakhin is characterized by ups and downs. His speech can be surprising and emotional. And then there are breakdowns, failures, indicating that there is no need to talk about Lopakhin’s true culture (“Every ugliness has its own decency!”).

Lopakhin has a desire, a real and sincere thirst for spirituality. He cannot live only in the world of profit and cash. But he also doesn’t know how to live differently. Hence his deepest tragedy, his fragility, a strange combination of rudeness and softness, bad manners and intelligence. Lopakhin's tragedy is especially clearly visible in his monologue at the end of the third act. The author's remarks deserve special attention. At first, Lopakhin tells a completely business-like story about the progress of the auction, he is openly happy, even proud of his purchase, then he himself becomes embarrassed... He smiles affectionately after Varya leaves, is gentle with Ranevskaya, bitterly ironic towards himself...

“Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change...” And then: “There comes a new landowner, the owner of the cherry orchard!” I can pay for everything!”

That's enough, is that all?

Will Lopakhin ever understand all his guilt before Firs, who is boarded up in his house, before the destroyed cherry orchard, before his homeland?

Lopakhin can be neither a “tender soul” nor a “beast of prey.” These two contradictory qualities coexist in him at the same time. The future does not promise him anything good precisely because of its duality and inconsistency.

“CLOOMS” IN D., P. CHEKHOV’S PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

The vast majority of people are deeply unhappy.

A. P. Chekhov

Chekhov's artistic world is infinitely complex, multifaceted, and devoid of any unilinearity. All the imperfections of life were revealed to the writer; the deep tragedy of human existence was understandable. Therefore, it is natural that the play “The Cherry Orchard” includes the theme of “incompetence.” Chekhov portrays unhappy, suffering people. The circle of “klutz” is quite wide, although the word “klutz” is used in the play in relation to only four characters: Yasha, Dunyasha, Petya Trofimov, Firs...

Lackey Yasha dreams only of a brilliant Parisian life and, of course, does not realize his spiritual poverty. But in this distortion and coarseness of the Russian person lies one of the manifestations of that very “lack of warmth” that old Firs so subtly felt.

The fate of the governess Charlotte Ivanovna is another variation on the theme of “incompetence.” Her confession is imbued with hopeless loneliness and melancholy: “...When my father and mother died, a German lady took me in and began to teach me... But where I come from and who I am, I don’t know...”

The clerk Epikhodov has a very eloquent nickname - “twenty-two misfortunes.” And indeed, Epikhodov’s love is rejected, his claims to education have no basis. Chekhov accurately conveys the clerk’s vague dissatisfaction with life: “I am a developed person, but I just can’t understand the direction of what I actually want, whether I should live or shoot myself.”

The elderly footman Firs also belongs to the “klutzes”. Before us is a faithful slave who considers the abolition of serfdom a misfortune. Dignity never awakened in this man, spiritual emancipation did not occur. We see how touchingly 87-year-old Firs cares for Gaev. The more terrible and hopeless the ending of the play...

Let us now turn to the images of the former owners of the cherry orchard. Ranevskaya and Gaev are “klutzes” in the full sense of the word. They have long lost their sense of reality and are hoping for the unlikely help of a wealthy Yaroslavl aunt, rejecting a completely feasible plan to save the estate. The tragedy of these people is not that they went broke, but in the crushing of their feelings, in the loss of the last reminder of childhood - the cherry orchard.

The suffering of Ranevskaya and Gaev is completely sincere, although it takes on a somewhat farcical form. Ranevskaya's life is not without drama: her husband dies, her seven-year-old son Grisha dies tragically, her lover leaves... Lyubov Andreevna, by her own admission, cannot fight her feelings even when she realizes that she has been deceived by her beloved. In the heroine’s excessive concentration on her own experiences, there is a considerable amount of selfishness, detachment from other people’s suffering and deprivation. Ranevskaya talks about the death of her old nanny over a cup of coffee. In turn, memories of the deceased Anastasia do not prevent Gaev from getting the treasured box of lollipops...

Anya, Varya, and Petya Trofimov are deeply unhappy in the play “The Cherry Orchard.” Of course, the suffering of the young is not so obvious. 27-year-old Petya is an idealist and a dreamer, but he is also subject to the inexorable passage of time. “How ugly you have become, Petya, how old you have become!” - Varya notes. Trofimov considers himself “above love,” but it is love that he lacks. “You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz,” Ranevskaya accurately guesses the reason for Petya’s unsettled life.

Ermolai Lopakhin should also be included among the “klutzes” in the play “The Cherry Orchard”. Petya Trofimov is right when he talks about his “tender soul.” Lopakhin's duality lies in the tragic inconsistency of his image. In his relationship with Varya, the hero is extremely constrained and timid. He is, in essence, as lonely and unhappy as those around him.

The play “The Cherry Orchard” ends with the sad word “klutz,” which is uttered by Firs, forgotten by everyone. There is a lot behind this word... Chekhov is far from empty denunciation. The dream of a life worthy of a person coexists in the work with compassion for unfortunate, suffering people who are looking for the “highest truth” and still cannot find it...

“THE CHERRY ORCHARD” - DRAMA, COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?

The play “The Cherry Orchard” was written by A.P. Chekhov in 1903. Not only the socio-political world, but also the world of art felt the need for renewal. A.P. Chekhov, being a talented person who showed his skills in short stories, enters dramaturgy as an innovator. After the premiere of the play “The Cherry Orchard,” a lot of controversy broke out among critics and spectators, among actors and directors about the genre features of the play. What is “The Cherry Orchard” in terms of genre - drama, tragedy or comedy?

While working on the play, A.P. Chekhov spoke in letters about its character as a whole: “What came out of me was not a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce...” In letters to Vl. A.P. Chekhov warned I. Nemirovich-Danchenko that Anya should not have a “crying” tone, so that in general there would not be “a lot of crying” in the play. The production, despite its resounding success, did not satisfy A.P. Chekhov. Anton Pavlovich expressed dissatisfaction with the general interpretation of the play: “Why is my play so persistently called a drama on posters and in newspaper advertisements? Nemirovich and Alekseev (Stanislavsky) see in my play positively not what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that both of them have never read my play carefully.” Thus, the author himself insists that “The Cherry Orchard” is a comedy. This genre did not at all exclude the serious and sad in A.P. Chekhov. Stanislavsky, obviously, violated the Chekhovian measure in the relationship between the dramatic and the comic, the sad and the funny. The result was drama where A.P. Chekhov insisted on lyrical comedy.

One of the features of “The Cherry Orchard” is that all the characters are presented in an ambivalent, tragicomic light. The play has purely comic characters: Charlotte Ivanovna, Epikhodov, Yasha, Firs. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov makes fun of Gaev, who “lived his fortune on lollipops,” and of the sentimental Ranevskaya beyond her age and her practical helplessness. Even over Petya Trofimov, who, it would seem, symbolizes the renewal of Russia, A.P. Chekhov sneers, calling him an “eternal student.” Petya Trofimov deserved this attitude from the author with his verbosity, which A.P. Chekhov did not tolerate. Petya pronounces monologues about workers who “eat disgustingly and sleep without pillows,” about the rich who “live in debt, at someone else’s expense,” about “a proud man.” At the same time, he warns everyone that he is “afraid of serious conversations.” Petya Trofimov, having done nothing for five months, keeps telling others that “they have to work.” And this is with the hardworking Vara and the businesslike Lopakhin! Trofimov does not study because he cannot both study and support himself. Petya Ranevskaya gives a very sharp but accurate description regarding Trofimova’s “spirituality” and “tact”: “...You have no purity, and you are just a neat person.” A.P. Chekhov speaks ironically about his behavior in his remarks. Trofimov either screams “with horror,” or, choking with indignation, cannot utter a word, or threatens to leave and cannot do this.

A.P. Chekhov has certain sympathetic notes in his portrayal of Lopakhin. He does everything possible to help Ranevskaya keep the estate. Lopakhin is sensitive and kind. But in double lighting he is far from ideal: there is a businesslike winglessness in him, Lopakhin is not capable of getting carried away and loving. In his relationship with Varya, he is comical and awkward. The short-term celebration associated with the purchase of a cherry orchard is quickly replaced by a feeling of despondency and sadness. Lopakhin utters a significant phrase with tears: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” Here Lopakhin directly touches on the main source of drama: it lies not in the struggle for the cherry orchard, but in dissatisfaction with life, experienced differently by all the characters in the play. Life goes on awkwardly and awkwardly, bringing no joy or happiness to anyone. This life is unhappy not only for the main characters, but also for Charlotte, lonely and useless, and for Epikhodov with his constant failures.

Defining the essence of a comic conflict, literary scholars argue that it rests on the discrepancy between appearance and essence (comedy of situations, comedy of characters, etc.). In “the new comedy of A.P. Chekhov, the words, deeds and actions of the heroes are in precisely such a discrepancy. Everyone’s internal drama turns out to be more important than external events (the so-called “undercurrents”). Hence the “tearfulness” of the characters, which does not have a tragic connotation at all. Monologues and remarks “through tears” most likely indicate excessive sentimentality, nervousness, and sometimes even irritability of the characters. Hence the all-pervasive Chekhovian irony. It seems that the author seems to be asking questions to the audience, the readers, and himself: why do people waste their lives so mediocrely? Why do they treat loved ones so frivolously? Why do they waste words and vitality so irresponsibly, naively believing that they will live forever and that there will be an opportunity to live their lives completely, anew? The heroes of the play deserve both pity and merciless “laughter through tears invisible to the world.”

Traditionally, in Soviet literary criticism, it was customary to “group” the characters of the play, calling Gaev and Ranevskaya representatives of Russia’s “past,” its “present” Lopakhin, and its “future” Petya and Anya. It seems to me that this is not entirely true. In one of the stage versions of the play “The Cherry Orchard,” the future of Russia turns out to be people like the lackey Yasha, who looks to where the power and money are. A.P. Chekhov, in my opinion, cannot do without irony here either. After all, a little more than ten years will pass, and where will the Lopakhins, Gaevs, Ranevskys and Trofimovs end up when the Yakovs judge them? With bitterness and regret, A.P. Chekhov is looking for Man in his play and, it seems to me, he does not find it.

Of course, the play “The Cherry Orchard” is a complex and ambiguous play. That is why it attracted the attention of directors from many countries, and four productions were presented at the penultimate theater festival in Moscow. Disputes about the genre have not subsided to this day. But we should not forget that A.P. Chekhov himself called the work a comedy, and in my essay I tried to prove, as far as possible, why this is so.

WHY A. P. CHEKHOV INSISTS THAT “THE CHERRY ORCHARD” IS “A COMEDY, IN PLACES EVEN A FARCE”

Despite the fact that the play “The Cherry Orchard” was perceived by many of Chekhov’s contemporaries, in particular Stanislavsky, as a tragic work, the author himself believed that “The Cherry Orchard” was “a comedy, sometimes even a farce.”

First of all, if we proceed from the definition of the genre, then tragedy is characterized by the following elements: a special, tragic state of the world, a special hero and an insoluble conflict between the hero and the world around him, which ends with the death of the hero or the collapse of his moral ideals. Thus, “The Cherry Orchard” cannot be called a tragedy, because the heroes of the play: the frivolous, sentimental Ranevskaya, the inactive Gaev, not adapted to life, “who spent his entire fortune on candy,” Lopakhin, “who can buy everything” and considers himself “a man, a fool and an idiot,” are ambiguous, contradictory, presented ironically, with all their weaknesses and shortcomings, and do not pretend to be called special, titanic personalities. Their fate, in particular the fate of Ranevskaya, who “always wasted money” and whose husband “died from champagne,” does not evoke deep sympathy and pain. In addition, the change of eras and historical forces, the departure of the nobility from the historical stage, from political, economic and cultural life / and the triumph of a new social group, the Russian bourgeoisie, are considered by Chekhov as natural and natural phenomena that do not seem tragic. That is why the state of the world in the play cannot be called special, tragic.

Gaev and Ranevskaya, whose time is irrevocably running out, whose world is collapsing when everything has “gone to pieces” for them, do not try to fight for their property, save themselves from ruin and impoverishment, and finally resist the bourgeoisie, which dominates society and gained power thanks to money . These heroes try to avoid solving problems, hope that everything will be solved somehow by itself, and take their situation lightly. Thus, Ranevskaya, when Lopakhin tries to explain to her how to preserve the estate and save the cherry orchard, says that “with him (Lopakhin ) is still more fun,” and Gaev does not take any decisive action, but only promises to “come up with something.” In the work there are generally no conflicts, struggles of ideas, opinions, clashes of characters, which makes the play as close as possible to everyday life, “where people don’t shoot themselves every minute, hang themselves, declare their love, say smart things,” where there are no too sharp conflicts and tragedies...

So, “The Cherry Orchard” is “a comedy, sometimes even a farce.” It must be said that all of Chekhov's comedies are unique. For example, the comedy “The Seagull” tells the story of the broken destinies of Treplev and Zarechnaya. It can be assumed that Chekhov called his works “comedy” in the sense in which Honore de Balzac called the cycle of novels “Human Comedy”, when the concept of “comedy” implies a sad, ironic look at the field of human lives. But, despite the fact that “The Cherry Orchard” is an emotionally two-sided play, because both funny and sad are intertwined in it, the comic turns out to be stronger. So, the heroes often cry, but tears are an expression of true sadness only when Ranevskaya speaks with Petya Trofimov about his drowned son, after Varya’s failed conversation with Lopakhin, and, finally, in the finale, when Gaev and Ranevskaya leave the estate forever.

The play contains many farcical scenes, such as Charlotte’s tricks, Epikhodov’s mistakes, Gaev’s inappropriate remarks (“doublet in the corner,” “croiset in the middle”), Petit’s fall, Lopakhin’s remark that “Yasha lapped up all the champagne.” Often Ranevskaya and Gaev appear to us too detached from life, sentimentally touched, and Ranevskaya, kissing the “native cabinet,” as well as Gaev, constantly sucking lollipops and making a speech to the “respected cabinet,” look comical.

But all this does not cancel the ambiguous, largely sad ending of the play. Ranevskaya, saying goodbye to the house, to the “tender, beautiful garden,” says goodbye at the same time to her past, to her youth, to her happiness. Her future seems sad, just like Gaev’s future: the ruined Ranevskaya leaves for Paris to live with her “keeper,” and Gaev is going to work in a bank, but, not adapted to life, inactive and impractical, he, as Lopakhin predicts, “will not sit still, very lazy...” And at the same time, Anya, saying goodbye to her old life, is directed, like Petya Trofimov, like the author himself, towards “a bright star that burns in the distance.” Thus, to a better future, to goodness, to “the highest truth and highest happiness.”

“THE CHERRY ORCHARD” BY A. P. CHEKHOV AS A COMEDY

About “The Cherry Orchard” Chekhov wrote: “What came out of me was not a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce.” Outwardly, the events mentioned in the play are dramatic. But Chekhov managed to find such an angle of view that the sad turned into a comical one. The heroes he brings to the stage are incapable of serious, dramatic experiences. They are strange and funny, like everything they do. But since for Chekhov there are no just “heroes”, but there are people, the author involuntarily sympathizes with the “klutzes” of the past. They cannot be anything other than what they are. The comedy came out special - lyrical, sad, at the same time acutely social, accusatory. Chekhov's smile is subtle, sometimes unnoticeable, but nevertheless merciless; the comedic sound of “The Cherry Orchard” in the presence of highly dramatic situations constitutes its genre originality.

Let's try to understand the hidden comedy of the play, its “hidden” laughter, more often sad than cheerful; Let us consider how, under the artist’s pen, the dramatic becomes funny.

It is always difficult to understand and appreciate the comic. The comedy of “The Cherry Orchard” is not in the events, but in the actions and conversations of the characters, in their awkwardness and helplessness. “Think, gentlemen, think,” says Lopakhin, warning against trouble. And now it turns out that the gentlemen do not know how to think - they have not learned. This is where the comedy actually begins. At critical moments, Gaev thinks about how to send the “yellow” to the middle, and Ranevskaya goes over her “sins” in her memory. They behave like children. “Dear cabinet,” says Gaev, but does nothing to prevent this cabinet from being auctioned off. With the same “respect” he treats the garden, his sister, and his past. “A lot and inappropriately,” he says. In front of the closet - yes, but in front of the servant?! Ranevskaya is outraged by this, and not by the fact that her brother is talkative and stupid. Gaev says that he suffered for his beliefs. Here is one of them: “Why work, you will die anyway.” He really suffered for this “conviction.” It is characteristic that Chekhov forces Gaev and Lopakhin to utter the same word: Gaev sends the “clean” one to the corner, and Lopakhin earns forty thousand “clean”. As you can see, there is a difference here, and a considerable one.

Lackey Yasha cannot hear Gaev “without laughing.” Isn’t Chekhov trying to evoke the same attitude in the reader towards Leonid Andreevich, whose speeches make no more sense than Firs’ “mutterings”? Many of Gaev's remarks end with an ellipsis. He is constantly interrupted, although he is the eldest in the house. In Chekhov, everything matters: what the character says, and how he does it, and how and what he is silent about. Gaev's silence (sometimes he manages to remain silent) does not make him more mature and serious. Here, too, he theoretically “puts down” the ball, but will end up laying his family estate at the “man’s” feet. Drama? If so, then it's comic. “You’re still the same, Lenya,” notes Ranevskaya. This does not refer to Gaev’s appearance, but to his childish manners. He could say the same about his sister. Railways, telegraph poles, summer residents appeared, but the gentlemen were still the same as half a century ago. Now they are trying to hide in the “children’s room” from life, from its cruel blows.

Ranevskaya remembers her drowned son and “cries quietly.” But the reader cannot get emotional; he is definitely disturbed by the author, who responds to Ranevskaya: “The boy died, drowned... For what? For what?" introduces a dissonant interruption: “Anya is sleeping there, and I speak loudly, making noise.” And further: “What, Petya? Why are you so stupid? Why have you aged?” And it didn’t turn out dramatic, because it’s unclear what worries Lyubov Andreevna more: the drowned boy, the sleeping Anya, or the ugly Petya.”

Chekhov achieves a comic effect by various means. About Pishchik, for example, Firs says: “They were at our holy day, they ate half a bucket of cucumbers...” They didn’t eat half a bucket, but... Not without reason, after Firs’ remark, Lopakhin jokingly throws out: “What a mess.”

The semantic subtext is of great importance. Ranevskaya, in her words, was “drawn” to Russia, to her homeland, but in reality she “barely made it,” i.e. She returned involuntarily, after she was robbed and abandoned. Soon she will also be “pulled” to Paris... “by courier”. She will go with the money sent to the “dityuse”, and, of course, she will squander it with the “wild man”.

“Come with me,” Anya says to her mother after selling the estate. If Ranevskaya had gone! There would be a dramatic turn of the topic: a new life, difficulties, adversity. New comedy: life has taught this eccentric, selfish woman nothing, who, however, is not without many positive traits. But all this perishes in her monstrous frivolity and selfishness. Ranevskaya will not say: you must, finally, be businesslike and sober. She will say something different: “You have to fall in love.” When Pishchik asks her to lend him money, she easily replies: “I really don’t have anything.” “Nothing” worries Anya, Varya, and finally Lopakhin, but not Ranevskaya and Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna constantly loses wallets. Even if Lopakhin’s plan had been accepted, it would not have changed anything: the gentlemen are wasting money. Ranevskaya’s husband died from champagne; he “drank terribly.” And the gentlemen do everything “terribly”: they drink terribly, fall terribly in love, talk terribly, are terribly helpless and frivolous...

This is how the comedy of absurdity, strange eccentricity arises. This is the origin of hidden laughter. The lives of such people never turned into a drama, and therefore a comedy “came out.” The well-known idea that history repeats itself twice: once as a tragedy, the second as a farce, can be illustrated by the characters in the play “The Cherry Orchard.”

INNOVATION BY A. P. CHEKHOV (Based on the play “The Cherry Orchard”)

Chekhov's play “The Cherry Orchard” appeared in 1903, at the turn of the century, when not only the socio-political world, but also the world of art began to feel the need for renewal, the emergence of new plots, characters, and artistic techniques. Chekhov, being a talented person, has already demonstrated his skill as an innovator in short stories, and enters dramaturgy as a person striving to form new artistic principles.

He proceeds from the idea that in real life people do not quarrel, make up, fight and shoot as often as they do in modern plays. Much more often they just walk, talk, drink tea, and at this time their hearts break, destinies are built or destroyed. Attention is focused not on the event, but on the inner world of the characters, mood, feelings, thoughts. From this Chekhov’s technique was born, which is now commonly called semantic subtext, “undercurrent,” “iceberg theory.”

“On stage everything should be as simple and as complex as in life” (Chekhov). And indeed, in the works of A.P. Chekhov we see not a depiction of everyday life itself, as was the case with A.N. Ostrovsky, but an attitude towards it.

Chekhov's main idea in creating a new play could not but be reflected in the features of a dramatic work in its usual sense (commence, development of action, etc.). The plot is new, the plot is missing. In Chekhov, the plot is the fate of Russia, and the plot is just a chain of events. We can say that Chekhov's play is based not on intrigue, but on mood. In the composition of the work, this special lyrical mood is created by the monologues of the characters, exclamations (“Farewell, old life!”), and rhythmic pauses. Even the landscape of a cherry orchard in blossom is used by Chekhov to convey the nostalgic sadness of Ranevskaya and Gaev for their old serene life.

Chekhov's details are also interesting: the sound of a bursting string, as it sets off and enhances the emotional impression, props, replicas, and not just the landscape, as in Ostrovsky. For example, the telegram that Ranevskaya received at the very beginning of the play is, as it were, a symbol of the old life. Receiving it at the end of the play, Ranevskaya thereby cannot give up her old life, she returns there. This detail (telegram) helps to evaluate Chekhov’s attitude towards Ranevskaya, who was unable to move into a new life.

The lyrical mood of the play is also connected with the peculiarity of its genre, which the author himself defined as “lyrical comedy.” When determining the genre of the play, it should be noted that Chekhov does not have a positive hero, the presence of which was typical for the works of his predecessors.

In Chekhov's play there is no unambiguous assessment of the characters' characters. For example, Chekhov's Charlotte Ivanovna is both a comic and at the same time a tragic hero. But in the play there is only one character whom the author evaluates mercilessly - this is Yasha. “The Cherry Orchard” is a comedy of old, outdated types of people who have outlived their time. Chekhov sadly laughs at his heroes. Over the old Gaev, “who lived his fortune on lollipops,” to whom the even more “ancient” Firs habitually advises which “pants” to wear, over Ranevskaya, who swore her love for her Motherland and immediately left back for Paris, until her lover changed his mind about returning . Even over Petya Trofimov, who, it would seem, symbolizes the renewal of Russia, Chekhov sneers, calling him an “eternal student.”

Chekhov's desire to show the broad social background of the events taking place in the play leads to the fact that he portrays a large number of off-stage characters. All the people who were once associated with the estate, as it were, surround it, influence the lives of the real characters (Lopakhin’s father, Ranevskaya’s parents, her husband and son, her Parisian lover, Aunt Anya, to whom they are going to turn for money, etc. .d.).

The undoubted artistic merit of the play can be considered the most simple, natural and individualized language of the characters. Gaev’s enthusiastic speeches, repetitions of some words that make his speech melodious, his billiard terms, Charlotte Ivanovna’s funny remarks, the restrained language of the “footman from a good house” Firs, Lopakhin’s merchant talk individualize the characters and testify to the talent of their creator.

But Chekhov’s innovation at that time was far from obvious to his contemporaries, since the viewer, brought up on the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Ostrovsky, could not comprehend Chekhov’s dramaturgy. The author tried for a long time to convince both actors and directors that his play was a comedy and not a tragedy. This is Chekhov's innovation, that he has no external conflict, his conflict is internal. It is based on the discrepancy between the internal state of mind and the surrounding reality.

The artistic originality of the play “The Cherry Orchard” helps us understand why Chekhov’s plays are still interesting and relevant, and also why their author is called one of the founders of the “new theater.”

“THE CHERRY ORCHARD” - COMEDY OF THE EPOCH

“The connection of times has fallen apart,” Hamlet understands with horror, when in the Kingdom of Denmark, having barely buried the sovereign, the wedding of the dowager queen and the brother of the deceased is celebrated, when magnificent palaces of “new life” are erected on the newly filled up grave. The most difficult thing is to grasp how this happens - the change of eras, the destruction of the old way of life, the emergence of new forms. Then, decades later, historians will identify a “turning point,” but rarely do contemporaries realize what time it is. And even less often, having realized it, they will say, as Tyutchev said: “Blessed is he who visited this world in its fatal moments.”

Living in “fateful moments” is scary. It’s scary, because people are lost in understanding: why does everything that has stood for centuries suddenly collapse, why do the strong walls that protected grandfathers and great-grandfathers suddenly turn out to be cardboard decorations? In such an unpleasant world, blown by all the winds of history, a person seeks support - some in the past, some in the future, some in mystical beliefs. They don’t look for support in their neighbors - those around them are just as confused and stunned. And a person is also looking for those “to blame”; who “arranged all this?” The culprits most often turn out to be those who are nearby: parents, children, acquaintances. It was they who did not protect, who missed... Ah, the eternal Russian questions: “who is to blame?” and “what should I do?”

In “The Cherry Orchard,” Chekhov not only created images of people whose lives occurred at a turning point, but captured time itself in its movement. The course of history is the main nerve of comedy, its plot and content. The heroes of “The Cherry Orchard” are people caught in a tectonic rift formed in time, forced to live, that is, to love and rejoice, in this cleft of the circumstances of a big story. This destructive moment is the time of their only life, which has its own special private laws and goals. And they live above the abyss - they are doomed to live. And the content of their time is the destruction of what was the life of generations.

Chekhov's hero, as always, plays a secondary role in his own life. But in “The Cherry Orchard” the heroes find themselves victims not of unfortunate circumstances and their own lack of will, but of the global laws of history. The active and energetic Lopakhin is as much a hostage of time as the passive Gaev.

The play is built on a unique situation that has become a favorite for all new drama of the 20th century - this is the situation of the threshold. Nothing like this is happening yet, but there is already a feeling of an edge, an abyss into which a person must fall.

It’s ridiculous to talk, like Petya Trofimov, about historical necessity in a situation of someone’s personal grief. It’s scary, like Blok, to justify the destruction of the family nest, where the lives of generations passed, from a class point of view. These arguments are, first of all, immoral.

One of Chekhov’s main convictions is that no one is given the ability to know the whole truth; everyone sees only part of it, taking their incomplete knowledge for the completeness of the truth. And to be self-absorbed by this truth, to stand unshakably on one’s own - this looks like Chekhov’s common destiny, an irreducible feature of human existence. This - the immutability and unshakable loyalty of each to his own essence - is the basis of the comedy of the play, no matter how serious or sad the consequences and complications such constancy turns out to be for its bearers and for those around him.

ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

Chekhov's plays seemed unusual to his contemporaries. They differed sharply from the usual dramatic forms. They did not have the seemingly necessary beginning, climax and, strictly speaking, dramatic action as such. Chekhov himself wrote about his plays: “People are just having lunch, wearing jackets, and at this time their destinies are being decided, their lives are being shattered.” There is a subtext in Chekhov's plays that acquires special artistic significance. How is this subtext conveyed to the reader, the viewer? First of all, with the help of the author's remarks. This strengthening of the significance of the stage directions and the expectation of reading the play leads to the fact that in Chekhov’s plays there is a convergence of the epic and dramatic principles. Even the place where the action takes place sometimes has symbolic meaning. “The Cherry Orchard” opens with an expressive and lengthy remark, in which we find the following remark: “A room that is still called a nursery.” It is impossible to translate this stage direction, and it is not intended for stage implementation and does not serve as an instruction to the director of the play, but in itself has artistic meaning. The reader, especially the reader, immediately gets the feeling that time in this house has frozen, lingered in the past. The heroes have grown up, but the room in the old house is still a “children’s room”. On stage, this can only be conveyed by creating a special atmosphere, a special mood, an atmosphere that would accompany the entire action, creating a kind of semantic background. This is all the more important because later in the play the dramatic motif of passing, slipping time, which leaves the heroes overboard, will arise several times. Ranevskaya turns to her nursery, to her garden. For her, this house, this garden is her precious, pure past; she imagines that her late mother is walking through the garden. But it is important for Chekhov to show the impossibility of returning to a happy past, and the action of the fourth act of the play takes place in the same nursery, where the curtains on the windows are now removed, the paintings are from the walls, the furniture is put in one corner, and suitcases lie in the middle of the room. The heroes leave, and the image of the past disappears without being transformed into the present.

With the help of stage directions, Chekhov conveys the semantic nuances of the dialogues of the characters, even if the stage direction contains only one word: “pause.” Indeed, the conversations in the play are not animated, often interrupted by pauses. These pauses give the conversations of the characters in “The Cherry Orchard” some kind of chaos, incoherence, as if the hero does not always know what he will say in the next minute. In general, the dialogues in the play are very unusual compared to the plays of Chekhov's predecessors and contemporaries: they rather resemble dialogues of the deaf. Everyone talks about his own things, as if not paying attention to what his interlocutor is saying. Thus, Gaev’s remark that the train was two hours late unexpectedly entails Charlotte’s words that her dog eats nuts. Everything seems to contradict the laws of dramaturgy developed by the entire world of dramatic realistic literature. But, naturally, Chekhov has a deep artistic meaning behind this. Such conversations show the originality of the relationship between the characters in the play, and in general the originality of Chekhov’s images. In my opinion, each character in “The Cherry Orchard” lives in his own closed world, in his own system of values, and it is their discrepancy with each other that comes to the fore in the play, as emphasized by the author.

The fact that Lyubov Andreevna, who is threatened with the sale of her estate at auction, gives out money to the first person she meets, is Chekhov intended only to demonstrate her extravagance as a character trait of an eccentric lady or to testify to the moral correctness of the thrifty Varya? From Varya's point of view, yes; from Ranevskaya’s point of view, no. And from the author’s point of view, this is generally evidence of the lack of ability for people to understand each other. Lyubov Andreevna does not at all strive to be a good housewife; in any case, Chekhov does not portray this desire and does not condemn the heroine for its absence. He generally talks about something else that lies outside the boundaries of economic practice and has nothing to do with it. Likewise, Lopakhin’s advice, smart and practical, is unacceptable to Ranevskaya. Is Lopakhin right? Undoubtedly. But Lyubov Andreevna is also right in her own way. Is Petya Trofimov right when he tells Ranevskaya that her Parisian lover is a scoundrel? He’s right, but his words don’t make any sense to her. And Chekhov does not at all set himself the goal of creating the image of a stubborn and headstrong woman who does not listen to anyone’s advice and ruins her own home and family. For this, the image of Ranevskaya is too poetic and charming. Apparently, the reasons for disagreements between people in Chekhov's plays lie not in the practical area at all, but in some other area.

The change in conversation topics in the play could also cause confusion. There seems to be no logical connection between the successive talking groups. So, in the second act, Petya and Anya, who are talking about the meaning of life for Ranevskaya, Gaev and Lopakhin, are replaced by Petya and Anya, people far from what worries the elders and excites them. This “mosaic” nature of the scenes is due to the uniqueness of Chekhov’s system of images and dramatic conflict. As a matter of fact, there was no dramatic conflict in the usual sense in Chekhov’s plays, the action was not based on the confrontation of characters, and the characters were no longer divided into “good” and “bad,” “positive” and “negative.” In The Cherry Orchard, only Yasha is clearly portrayed ironically, while the rest do not fit into the traditional categories of negative characters. Rather, each hero is unhappy in his own way, even Simeonov-Pishchik, but even those characters on whose side the author’s sympathy still does not look unambiguously “positive”. Ranevskaya’s address to her children’s room sounds genuinely sad; Chekhov does not allow him to rise to a truly tragic sound, neutralizing the tragic beginning with Gaev’s comic address to the closet. Gaev himself is funny in his pompous and absurd monologues, but at the same time, he is sincerely touching in his fruitless attempts to save the cherry orchard. The same - “funny and touching” - can be said about Pete Trofimov.

The same trait makes a hero attractive, funny, and pathetic. This is perhaps the trait that unites them all, regardless of their external position. The intentions and words of the heroes are remarkable, the results are at odds with the intentions, that is, they are all, to some extent, “klutzes,” to use Firs’s word. And in this sense, the figure of Epikhodov, who seems to concentrate in himself this general “incompetence,” acquires not only comic significance. Epikhodov is a parody of each character and at the same time a projection of the misfortunes of each.

Here we come to the symbolism of “The Cherry Orchard”. If Epikhodov is a collective image, a symbol of the actions of each character, then the general symbol of the play is a life receding into the past, breaking down and the inability of people to change it. That’s why the room that “is still called the nursery” is so symbolic. Even some of the characters are symbolic. Charlotte, for example, who does not know her past and fears the future, is symbolic of people losing their place in life. People are unable to change its course in their favor, even in small things. This is the main pathos of the play: the conflict between the heroes and life, which breaks their plans, breaks their destinies. But in the events that take place before the eyes of the audience, this is not expressed in the struggle against any attacker who has set himself the goal of destroying the inhabitants of the estate. Therefore, the conflict of the play goes into subtext.

All attempts to save the estate were in vain. In the fourth act, Chekhov introduces the sound of an ax hitting wood. The cherry orchard, the central image of the play, grows into an all-encompassing symbol expressing the inevitable death of a passing, decaying life. All the characters in the play are guilty of this, although they are all sincere in their desire for the better. But intentions and results diverge, and the bitterness of what is happening is able to suppress even the joyful feeling of Lopakhin, who finds himself in a struggle in which he did not strive for victory. And only one Firs remained completely devoted to that life, and that is why he found himself forgotten in a boarded-up house, despite all the cares of Ranevskaya, Varya, Anya, Yasha. The guilt of the heroes before him is also a symbol of universal guilt for the death of the beautiful that was in the passing life. With the words of Firs, the play ends, and then only the sound of a broken string and the sound of an ax cutting down a cherry orchard are heard.

TIME AND PLACE IN THE PLAYS OF A. P. CHEKHOV

The magical meaning of time and place in Chekhov's plays has not yet been studied deeply enough, so it would be extremely interesting to discover some patterns of the participation of time and space in Chekhov's drama. The dramatic genre of literature itself limits the possibilities of expressing the author’s position, therefore the “voice” of Chekhov in his works becomes not only the plot, composition or characters of the characters, but also the place and time, which have a specific meaning in life for each human character.

The heroes of Chekhov's plays are almost all unanimous in their attitude to these categories: they proclaim their dependence on place and time. For example, three sisters from the play of the same name are looking for the meaning of life, that is, the origins of happiness, and find it precisely in time and in a certain place: “Sell the house, end everything here and go to Moscow...”

Moscow is seen by women as the promised land; it occupies the main positions in their past and, most importantly, in the future. The heroine of another Chekhov play, Ranevskaya, also has an obvious “enchanted” place - a cherry orchard, which is connected with her past as tightly as Moscow is with the future of the Prozorov sisters. The important thing is that Chekhov's most remarkable heroes live not only in an implied place, but also in a surreal time. Nobody wants to live in the present, no one can live in the present. Three sisters grasp at time as if it were a saving straw, trying to rely on memories: “Father died exactly a year ago, exactly on this day... Father received a brigade and left Moscow with us eleven years ago...” One of the heroes “Three Sisters” rants about the future, and his voice merges in the chorus with other Chekhovian heroes: “In two hundred - three hundred, finally a thousand years, a new, happy life will come.” Let’s compare with Petya’s words in “The Cherry Orchard”: “I have a presentiment of happiness, Anya, I already see it...”

The scary thing is that the heroes are trying to deceive time, set ghostly deadlines in order to reach for them or, conversely, freeze in a moment from the past. This is exactly what Arkadina from “The Seagull” is trying to do in order to stay young; Ranevskaya recalls her childhood, trying to isolate herself from the near future.

The heroes miss time: they retreat into the haze and, finally, the rosy future in Moscow for the three sisters disappears; The cherry orchard is sold - his time is coming to an end.

To indicate the line between living and dead time, reality and unreality of existence, Chekhov uses elusive but accurate details. Chebutykin from “Three Sisters” breaks the clock and says “Shattered!” It is not the clock that is shattered, but the time that the heroes were counting down for themselves. Now it is clearly visible that the Prozorovsky house stands on a special dial, along the edge of which time runs, fencing off this place from the rest of the space, as if with barbed wire.

The time by which a person lives is symbolically represented at the end of the play “The Seagull”, when Dr. Dorn, having heard a shot, suggests: “The bottle of ether burst.” The man was exhausted like ether, his time burst like a bottle. In “The Cherry Orchard” the sound of time tearing is not even veiled by a symbol: “Suddenly a distant sound is heard, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad.” Time is running out, people feel it, but no one is fighting it, except, perhaps, Lopakhin and Natasha. These people rode fate and time with place first. Lopakhin took possession of the main place in “The Cherry Orchard” - the cherry orchard itself - and immediately separated from the rest of the characters, gaining time and space. Natasha captured the Prozorovs' house, the space where other heroes languish.

Everyone is looking for a place, the search for a “corner” for the soul, for business has always occupied the heroes of Russian drama: from Chatsky, who is fleeing “out of Moscow,” to the three sisters, striving for Moscow. Ranevskaya runs to Paris, back to the cherry orchard and again to Paris. In Paris, she lives in a cramped, smoky apartment that gives her a feeling of fullness.

For the heroes of Chekhov's plays, emptiness is one of the most depressing sensations. Masha in “Three Sisters” is afraid of the emptiness in her memory: Nina Zarechnaya pronounces words from Treplev’s play: “Empty, empty, empty. Scary, scary, scary.” The stage directions in the last scene of “The Cherry Orchard” read: “The stage is empty.” The stage is empty not only in the last episode; throughout the entire action, the stage was filled only with things that play the role of people (for example, a closet), and people distinguished by the immobility of things (for example, Firs). In general, Firs is the only person who is not looking for a place of salvation. He became so accustomed to it that he himself became a place, which is why he was abandoned, just as the entire space of the cherry orchard was abandoned, which, together with the old servant, will go “under the axe,” that is, into the past. Having made themselves dependent on place and time, people unconditionally entrust their fate to them, not noticing that place is subject to time, and time has already cracked in the present, which means it is unlikely to last into the future.

It seems to me that Chekhov revealed to us the tragedy of his heroes, showing this fatal dependence. Spatial and temporal dimensions should not dominate a person, life should not be measured in hours and years, place should not be a guarantor of happiness; a person must simply prevent internal emptiness and spiritual timelessness.

SYMBOLICS OF THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

The play “The Cherry Orchard” was written by Chekhov shortly before his death. It is impossible to imagine a person who would not know this play. In this touching work, Chekhov seems to say goodbye to a world that could be more merciful and humane.

Studying Chekhov’s work “The Cherry Orchard,” I would like to note one feature of his heroes: they are all ordinary people, and not one of them can be called a hero of their time, although almost each of them is a symbol of the time. The landowner Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev, Simeonov-Pishchik and Firs can be called a symbol of the past. They are burdened by the legacy of serfdom, under which they grew up and were raised, these are the types of the outgoing Russia. They cannot imagine any other life for themselves, just like Firs, who cannot imagine life without masters. Firs considers the liberation of the peasants a misfortune - “the men are with the gentlemen, the gentlemen are with the peasants, and now everything is in pieces, you won’t understand anything.” The symbol of the present is associated with the image of Lopakhin, in which two principles are fighting. On the one hand, he is a man of action, his ideal is to make the earth rich and happy. On the other hand, there is no spiritual principle in him and in the end the thirst for profit takes over. The symbol of the future was Anya - the daughter of Ranevskaya and the eternal student Trofimov. They are young and they are the future. They are obsessed with the idea of ​​creative work and liberation from slavery. Petya calls on you to give up everything and be free like the wind.

So who is the future? For Petya? For Anya? For Lopakhin? This question could have been rhetorical if history had not provided Russia with a second attempt to resolve it. The end of the play is very symbolic - the old owners leave and forget the dying Firs. So, the logical ending: inactive consumers in the social sense, a servant - a lackey who served them all his life, and a cherry orchard - all this is irrevocably a thing of the past, to which there is no way back. History cannot be returned.

I would like to note the cherry orchard as the main symbol in the play. Trofimov’s monologue reveals the symbolism of the garden in the play: “All of Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it. Think, Anya: your grandfather, great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serf owners who owned living souls, and don’t human beings look at you from every cherry tree in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk, don’t you really hear voices... Own living souls, because this has reborn all of you who lived before and are now living, so that your mother, you, and uncle no longer notice that you are living in debt at someone else’s expense, at the expense of those people whom you do not allow beyond the front hall.. “All the action takes place around the garden; the characters’ characters and their destinies are highlighted on its problems. It is also symbolic that the ax raised over the garden caused a conflict between the heroes and in the souls of most of the heroes the conflict is never resolved, just as the problem is not resolved after cutting down the garden.

“The Cherry Orchard” lasts about three hours on stage. The characters live during this time for five months. And the action of the play covers a more significant period of time, which includes the past, present and future of Russia.

SYMBOL OF THE CHERRY ORCHARD IN A. P. CHEKHOV’S PLAY

The end of Chekhov's life came at the beginning of a new century, a new era, new moods, aspirations and ideas. This is the inexorable law of life: those who were once young and full of strength become old and decrepit, giving way to a new - young and strong life... Death and dying are followed by the birth of a new one, disappointment in life is replaced by hopes, expectation of change . Chekhov's play “The Cherry Orchard” reflects just such a turning point - a time when the old has already died, and the new has not yet been born, and now life stopped for a moment, became quiet... Who knows, maybe this is the calm before the storm ? Nobody knows the answer, but everyone is waiting for something... In the same way, Chekhov waited, peering into the unknown, anticipating the end of his life, and the entire Russian society, suffering from uncertainty and in confusion, waited. One thing was clear: the old life was irretrievably gone, another was coming to replace it... What would it be like, this new life? The characters in the play belong to two generations. With the poetry of sad memories of a former brilliant life, forever faded, the kingdom of cherry orchards ends. An era of action and change is about to begin. All the characters in the play anticipate the onset of a new life, but some are waiting for it with fear and uncertainty, while others are waiting for it with faith and hope.

Chekhov's heroes do not live in the present; The meaning of their life lies for them either in their idealized past, or in an equally idealized bright future. What happens “here and now” does not seem to bother them, and the tragedy of their situation is that everyone sees the purpose of their existence outside life, outside the “cherry orchard”, which personifies life itself. The Cherry Orchard is the eternal Present, which links together the past and the future in the eternal movement of life. The ancestors of the Ranevskys worked in this garden, whose faces look at Petya and Anya “from every leaf, from every branch in the garden.” The garden is something that has always existed, even before the birth of Firs, Lopakhin, Ranevskaya, it embodies the highest truth of life, which Chekhov’s heroes cannot find. In spring the garden blooms, by autumn it bears fruit; dead branches give new fresh sprouts, the garden is filled with the smells of herbs and flowers, birds singing, life is in full swing here! On the contrary, the life of its owners stands still, nothing happens to them. There is no action in the play, and the characters do nothing but spend the precious time of their lives in conversations that do not change anything in it... “The Eternal Student” Petya Trofimov mercilessly attacks human vices - idleness, laziness, passivity - and calls for to activity, to work, preaching the “highest truth.” He claims that he will certainly find for himself and show others “the way to reach” it, to this highest truth. But in life he does not go beyond words and in reality turns out to be a “klutz” who cannot complete the course and whom everyone makes fun of because of his absent-mindedness.

Anya, whose soul has sincerely opened up to Petya’s free aspirations, exclaims enthusiastically: “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this.” She easily abandons the past and happily leaves her home, because she has a “bright future” ahead of her. But this new life that Petya and Anya are so looking forward to is too illusory and uncertain, and they, without realizing it, are paying a high price for it!

Ranevskaya is also full of vague and unclear hopes. She cries at the sight of the nursery, pronounces pompous monologues about her love for her homeland, but nevertheless sells the garden and leaves for Paris to the man who, according to her, robbed and abandoned her. The garden, of course, is dear to her, but only as a symbol of her faded youth and beauty. She, like all the other characters in the play, cannot understand that no myth that a person creates for himself in order to overcome the fear of emptiness and chaos - no myth will fill life with true meaning. Selling the garden is only a visible solution to the problems, and there is no doubt that Ranevskaya’s tossing soul will not find peace in Paris, and Petya and Anya’s dreams will not come true. “All of Russia is our garden,” says Petya Trofimov, but if he so easily refuses what connects him with the past, if he is unable to see the beauty and meaning in the present and does not realize his bright dream here and now, in this garden, then and then, in the future, he will hardly find meaning and happiness.

Lopakhin, who lives by the laws of practicality and profit, also dreams of the end of his “clumsy, unhappy life.” He sees a way out of the situation in buying a garden, but, having acquired it, he values ​​it “only because it is big” and is going to cut it down in order to build summer cottages on this site.

The Cherry Orchard is the semantic and spiritual center of the play; it is the only stable and unchanging living organism, true to itself, in which everything is subordinated to the strict order of nature and life. Cutting down the garden, the ax falls on the most sacred thing that remains for Chekhov's heroes, on their only support, on what connected them with each other. For Chekhov, the worst thing in life was to lose this connection - the connection with ancestors and descendants, with humanity, with Truth. Who knows, perhaps the prototype of the cherry orchard was the Garden of Eden, which was also abandoned by a person who was flattered by deceptive promises and dreams?

A. P. CHEKHOV - SHAKESPEARE OF THE XX CENTURY

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was tormented by moral problems all his life. Ethics - this pinnacle of philosophy - permeates all his work.

Oleg Efremov

Chekhov is sometimes called the Shakespeare of the 20th century. And indeed it is. His dramaturgy, like Shakespeare's, played a huge turning role in the history of world drama.

Of course, the innovation of Chekhov's dramaturgy was prepared by the searches and discoveries of his great predecessors, the dramatic works of Pushkin and Gogol, Ostrovsky and Turgenev, on whose good, strong tradition he relied. Chekhov brilliantly showed how in a vulgar environment any human feeling becomes shallow and distorted, how human souls are crippled, how feelings turn into absurdity, how everyday life kills holidays. The playwright laughed at human absurdity and life's collisions, but did not kill the man himself with laughter.

New times were coming. Russia stood on the threshold of painful changes. And Chekhov, like no one else, felt this. The birth of the mature dramaturgy of Anton Pavlovich is associated with this new atmosphere of public life.

“The Seagull” is a play about people of art, and about the torments of creativity, and about restless, restless young artists, and about the smug, well-fed older generation, striving to maintain their gained positions. This is a play about love, about unrequited feelings, about mutual misunderstanding, about the cruel disorder of personal destinies. Finally, this is a play about the painful search for the true meaning of life. All the characters in the play are equally significant. And everyone is equally unhappy. Contacts between them are broken, each exists on his own, alone, incapable of understanding the other. That is why the feeling of love is so especially hopeless here: everyone loves, but everyone is unloved. Nina can neither understand nor love Treplev; he does not notice Masha’s devoted, patient love. Nina loves Trigorin, but he leaves her. Arkadina uses her last strength to keep Trigorin close to her, although there has been no love between them for a long time. Polina Andreevna constantly suffers from Dorn's indifference, teacher Medvedenko - from Masha's callousness...

The inability to understand each other turns into indifference and callousness. Thus, Nina Zarechnaya soullessly betrays Treplev, rushing after Trigorin in search of “noisy fame.” The whole play is imbued with the languid spirit of the characters, the anxieties of mutual misunderstanding, unrequited feelings, and general dissatisfaction. Even the most seemingly prosperous person - the famous writer Trigorin - is not satisfied with his fate, doubts his own talent and secretly suffers. Far from people, he will sit silently with fishing rods by the river, and then suddenly he will break out in a truly Chekhovian monologue, and it will become clear that even this man, too, is, in essence, unhappy and lonely.

The Seagull symbol is deciphered as a motive for an eternal anxious flight, a stimulus for movement, a rush into the distance. Only through suffering does Nina Zarechnaya come to the simple thought that the main thing is “not glory, not brilliance,” not what she once dreamed of, but “the ability to endure.”

There are practically no events in the play “Uncle Vanya”. The most notable incident is the arrival of the capital's professorial couple Serebryakov to an old neglected estate, where Uncle Vanya and his niece Sonya habitually live and work tiredly. Walking on the grass and talking about the loss of the meaning of life coexist with worries about mowing, memories of the past are interspersed with a glass of vodka and the strumming of a guitar.

It would seem that the course of life is peaceful and calm, but what passions rage in the souls of the heroes. In the slow rhythm of summer village life, drama is gradually brewing from within. On a stuffy, stormy night, during insomnia, when Voinitsky suddenly clearly understands how stupidly he “wasted” his life, throwing it at the feet of the exaggerated idol Serebryakov, whom he had revered as a genius for twenty-five years.

Uncle Vanya's insight and “rebellion” simultaneously signify the painful process of breaking the old authorities in Russian reality.

How to live the rest of life, now endure the “test of everyday life,” now that a person is deprived of the purpose and meaning of life, the “general idea”? And what to do when the idol turns out to be false? How to start a “new life”? This is the true “extra-event” drama of Voinitsky. This is a drama of an “impersonal” nature, because, in the end, it’s not all about Serebryakov. The fact is that the entire old world is collapsing, collapsing, and its cracks pass through the human soul.

Chekhov completed his last play, “The Cherry Orchard,” on the threshold of the first Russian revolution, in the year of his early death. The title of the play is symbolic. And indeed, thinking about the death of the old cherry orchard, about the fate of the inhabitants of the ruined estate, he mentally imagined “all of Russia” at the turn of the era. It’s not just a matter of selling the estate and the arrival of a new owner: all of old Russia is leaving, a new century is beginning. Chekhov is ambivalent about this event. On the one hand, the historical breakdown is inevitable, the old noble nests are condemned to extinction. The end is coming, soon there will be neither these faces, nor these gardens, nor estates with white columns, nor abandoned chapels. On the other hand, death, even inevitable, is always tragic. Because living things die, and the ax does not knock on dry trunks.

The play begins with Ranevskaya’s arrival at her old family estate, with a return to the cherry orchard, which is noisy outside the window, all in bloom, to people and things familiar from childhood. They spent their childhood here, their parents lived here, their grandfathers and great-grandfathers lived here. But there is no money, idleness and laziness do not provide the opportunity to improve matters, everything goes on as it goes. The loss of the cherry orchard for Ranevskaya and Gaev is not only a loss of money and fortune. They never cared about their daily bread, that’s how they were raised. This reflects both the lordly carelessness and the frivolity of people who never knew work, did not know the value of a penny and how it was obtained. But this also reveals their amazing disinterestedness and contempt for mercantile interests. And therefore, when Lopakhin suggests that in order to save themselves from debt, they should rent out the cherry orchard for dachas, Ranevskaya dismisses it with contempt: “Dachas and summer residents - it’s so vulgar, sorry.”

The property has been sold. "I bought!" - the new owner triumphs, rattling the keys. Ermolai Lopakhin bought an estate where his grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. He is ready to take an ax to the cherry orchard. But at the highest moment of triumph, this “intelligent merchant” suddenly feels the shame and bitterness of what has happened: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” And it becomes clear that for yesterday’s plebeian, a person with a gentle soul and thin fingers, buying a cherry orchard is, in essence, an “unnecessary victory.”

This is how Chekhov makes one feel the fluidity and temporality of the present: the arrival of the bourgeoisie is an unstable, transient victory. The present is, as it were, blurred from both the past and the future. Old people, like old things, huddled together, they stumble over them without noticing them.

A single, multifaceted and multifaceted theme runs through all the dramatic works of A.P. Chekhov - the theme of the search for the meaning of life of the Russian intelligentsia at the beginning of the century.

Chekhov's favorite heroes - Treplev, Nina Zarechnaya, Astrov, Uncle Vanya, Sonya, Ranevskaya - are people of a special breed, of a special type. Intellectuals who are able to go beyond the boundaries of their time, they become heroes of transpersonal consciousness, for whom the search for the meaning of life and truth turns out to be more important than practical goals and the struggle for them.

THE SEARCH FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE AND HAPPINESS IN THE WORKS OF A. P. CHEKHOV.

If every person on a piece of land did everything he could, how beautiful would the land be? sha.

A. P. Chekhov

Finding the meaning of life is the destiny of every thinking and conscientious person. Therefore, our best writers have always intensively searched for an artistic solution to this eternal question. Today, when old ideals have faded and new ones are gaining their place, these problems have become perhaps the most important. But we cannot say with complete confidence that many people have found this meaning of life. It would be joyful to know that everyone was looking for him and is looking for him. Only each person sees the meaning of life in his own way. It seems to me that the meaning of life is to love those who surround you and the work that you do. And to love people and your work, you need to love everyday little things, see joy in them, try every minute to improve something around you and within yourself. In my opinion, Chekhov teaches us exactly this. He himself, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was a man whose life was filled with hard work. He was compassionate towards people, afraid of lies, was a sincere, gentle, polite, well-mannered person.

A sign of a person’s spiritual culture is readiness for dedication and self-sacrifice. Chekhov was always ready to help people. He treated the sick while working as a doctor. But healing the souls of people turned out to be more difficult and more important. Chekhov could not help but become a writer! In his plays and stories we see the life of ordinary people, everyday life. People close to the author are people of ordinary fate. These are intellectuals searching for the meaning of life.

When discussing the topic of searching for the meaning of life in Chekhov’s works, it is necessary to dwell on his last play, “The Cherry Orchard.” It closely intertwines the past, present and future of all of Russia.

Ranevskaya says goodbye to the garden, as if parting with her past, idle, wasteful, but always free from calculations and vulgar mercantile interests. She doesn’t feel sorry for wasted money; she doesn’t know the value of a penny. Ranevskaya is worried about this unhappy, awkward life. Even the last ball that the heroine starts, this world on the ruins of the past, carries within itself the main goal of life - the desire to observe a joyful moment, overcome one’s despair, forget about the bad, find joy in every minute, rise above chaos and misfortune.

Petya Trofimov is full of thoughts about the future. He infects Anya with his dreams. They believe in future joy, freedom, love.

Ermolai Lopakhin sees the meaning of life in acquiring real estate, in mastering what his grandfather and father could not even dream of, since they were slaves. And he achieved his goal, he became the owner of a cherry orchard. But he did not become any happier when he realized that this was an “unnecessary victory,” that its owners were not sad about the loss of the garden, that there were completely different values.

Each of the characters in the play is looking for their own path to the future. The theme of the “cherry orchard” is a theme of personal involvement in beauty, in nature, calling for a search for the meaning of life.

The heroine of the story “The Jumper,” Olga Ivanovna Dymova, is not looking for the meaning of life. For her, her whole life is a period of pleasure, dancing, laughter. All the people around her serve only to please her. Only when she loses Dymov does the realization of his extraordinary nature come, and even then not for long. She doesn’t want to believe that there will be no more carefree and idle life.

For someone who loves Olga Ivanovna Dymov, happiness lies in satisfying all the whims of his wife, cherishing her and enduring everything for her good. A timid, intelligent person sacrifices everything without thinking about himself. He works, heals people, endures hardships for the sake of business, for the sake of duty. He cannot do otherwise because he loves people.

“Free and deep thinking, which strives to understand life, and complete contempt for the stupid vanity of the world - these are two blessings greater than which man has never known,” says Dr. Ragin in the story “Ward No. 6” to his patient. “A person’s peace and contentment is not outside of him, but within himself... a thinking person is distinguished by the fact that he despises suffering, that he is always satisfied.” Ivan Dmitrievich Gromov thinks differently. For him, life is an opportunity to respond to pain with screams and tears, to meanness with indignation, to abomination with disgust.

The result of their disputes is sad: one day in the hospital was enough for Ragin to collapse his theory.

In the story “The Bride,” Sasha convinces the main character Nadya to go to study, leaving home, her usual way of life, and her fiancé, in order to show everyone that she is tired of this “motionless, gray, sinful life.” He paints magnificent pictures in front of Nadya, the horizons that a new life will open for her: “wonderful gardens, fountains.” Like Trofimov, Sasha believes in a wonderful future, and his faith convinces Nadya. Both of them see the meaning of life in striving for the best, when “there will be no evil, because everyone will know why he lives.”

In the story “House with a Mezzanine,” Lida Volchaninova follows the ideas of populism, seeing this as her calling. Chekhov shows us a progressively thinking girl who seeks the meaning of life in helping the sick, in teaching illiterate children, in caring for the poor.

Love for a small, simple person is the meaning of life for Lida Volchaninova, Nadya, Gromov, Dymov and other heroes of Chekhov. Finally, in the “little trilogy” Ivan Ivanovich appears before us, a seeking man, reflecting on his fate. He calls: “...don’t calm down! While you are young... don’t get tired of doing good!.. If there is meaning and purpose in life, then this meaning is not in our happiness, but in something more reasonable and greater. Do good!”

Revolting against a passive view of life, Chekhov reveals to his readers faith in the Russian intelligentsia, faith in every decent person capable of withstanding the blows of fate and rising above his time in the eternal search for the highest meaning of life.

Using the example of Belikov (“The Man in a Case”), Chekhov shows that from among the indifferent and passive intelligentsia, convinced defenders of obscurantism often emerged. According to the writer, this is natural: whoever does not fight for what is new, for what is fair, will sooner or later turn out to be a zealot for what is outdated and inert. In the image of Belikov, Chekhov gave a symbolic type of person who himself is afraid of everything and keeps everyone around him in fear. Belikov’s words became the classic formula of cowardice: “No matter what happens.”

You never cease to be amazed at the modernity of Chekhov’s stories, their topicality and relevance. Are there not even now among us such Belikovs for whom the opinions of others, fear for their own actions, are more important than personal beliefs?

There are no identical characters, no absolutely identical destinies. It seems that people go somewhere together, from birth to death, following a similar path. But it only seems so. Each person goes his own way. In search of his own meaning in life, he chooses his friends, profession, and destiny. This is very difficult and not everyone succeeds. Many give up, retreat, changing their beliefs. Some die in an unequal struggle against difficulties and vicissitudes of fate. Only the one in whom a good heart beats, who is able to understand his neighbor and help the weak, achieves happiness. Happiness is understanding the meaning of life. Happiness is the need and ability to do good. The immortal, modest and kind Chekhov teaches us this. Life itself teaches us this. The sooner we understand the need to do good, the faster we achieve happiness. Sometimes, unfortunately, a person realizes too late that his moral ideals were wrong, that he was looking for the meaning of life in the wrong place.

It’s good if such a person manages to understand this when there is still time to change and correct something. Reading and rereading Chekhov means hastening to do good!

“A WRITER IS NOT A JUDGE, BUT ONLY AN IMPARTIAL WITNESS OF LIFE” (A.P. Chekhov)

Since ancient times, every artist has been faced with the question of whether to depict what exists, or what should (or should not) exist; and in the first case, another one - why such an artist is needed. He depicted a bull on the wall of a cave, he was hit with spears and actually killed during the hunt. Gradually, the question was replaced by another - whether the artist has the right not to correct the vices of his fellow tribesmen, not to point out to them their shortcomings. (Being a literate person and knowing how everything happened in the past, he easily noticed inconsistencies.) But who gave him the opposite right - to be a judge, to go against society? Each author had to find a way out of the mechanical state in his own way: he could go along with or contrary to society, express it directly, hide the author’s position or do without it; could choose from existing types of literature; Finally, I could give up creativity completely. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov took an intermediate path between “saving” and “not saving,” between edification and abandoning it, the most true path, because “Russian literature has always been a truth-seeker.”

In the original version of “Thick and Thin,” for example, the action took place in the office of the fat man, who, not being the boss of the thin man and being friendly towards him in his soul, is still forced to “crack” him, because that’s how it’s supposed to be. In the classic version, the action takes place at a train station, where, in principle, passengers are equal. And it is difficult to say whether this work ridicules the social system in which vulgarity and veneration have so deeply penetrated souls, or souls into which vulgarity and veneration could penetrate. It is no coincidence that even at the very end of “Ionych” the doctor is “lonely.” “His life is boring, nothing interests him.....love for Kitty was his only

joy and probably the last.” If he could become completely vulgar, he would probably be happy, like Ivan Petrovich Turkin, who “has not aged, has not changed at all and still makes jokes and tells jokes.” It is impossible to derive a moral from “Ionych”; as in most of Chekhov's works. His plays are especially characteristic here - with an airy, imperceptible and unnecessary plot. Ranevskaya’s arrival was completely unnecessary for the sale of her estate.

Chekhov conveys the atmosphere of ancient noble “nests”, regretting that all this will disappear, but understanding the inevitability of the end of the cherry orchard and the layer of Russian culture associated with it. The dramatic form is deliberately chosen, minimizing the direct expression of the author's position. Like music, Chekhov's dramaturgy affects first and foremost feelings; and when you start to analyze, nothing is clear. The image of Lopakhin is especially complex. A “predator” who buys a garden, at the beginning of the comedy, he is nervously awaiting the arrival of the owners, in the middle he tries to give advice (to which Ranevskaya replies that summer residents are vulgar), and then gets angry at the workers who started cutting before the owners left. The images of Anya and Petya are images of a questioning future. There are actually comic characters - the “enlightened” servant Yasha (who has learned that “ordinary” people cannot understand him; he is parodying, perhaps, Petya Trofimov) and Boris Borisovich Simeonov-Pishchik, who lives on odd incomes and continues the theme of inadequacy in a farcical way nobility.

“...There is only one truth.” Let me, following Yu. V. Leontyev, call aesthetics such a truth. Its opposite will be vulgarity (according to Merezhkovsky, “what was used”). Of course, such an interpretation will represent only one of the possible “truths.” Then Ranevskaya behaves beautifully - despite her characterization in the plot (she comes from Paris and leaves in the finale there, to her lover, being already an elderly lady, from the land where her son died) - if the author was a moralist, he would scold this heroine no less than the thick and thin in the original version of the story. Treplev and, perhaps, Prishibeev are beautiful in their own way. The vulgar pole includes Chervyakov (“Death of an Official”), thin, Nikolai Ivanovich Chimsha-Himalayan, who called his domain Himalayan; Heroes like Trigorin definitely cannot be placed anywhere. Trigorin, calling his notes a “literary storeroom,” laughs at himself, and his very image is an auto parody of Chekhov. “A cloud floated like a piano,” may pass for a formula for the unnaturalness of modern life - but such a formula has been found. Chekhov, like Trigorin, had many notebooks; his relationship with Nina is an autobiographical motive. Therefore, Trigorin can be classified among the “aesthetic” heroes. Lopakhin's dispute with Ranevskaya and Gaev is a dispute between aesthetic truths: a talented entrepreneur who was once flogged in this garden, and useless, beautiful-hearted owners. This dispute is so complex that it never happens on the event plane - the bearer of one truth cannot hear another truth.

The reader, if he is able to penetrate the action of Chekhov's airy drama and his complex short story, is forced to think for himself, dividing the heroes according to his own criteria. (For example, to sincerely sympathize with the crushed Chervyakov and the “special person” Belikov - or be indignant at them, who let vulgarity into their souls.) Therefore, a novel - showing an unchanging hero in different situations or his long consistent change in the constant presence of the Author - was impossible for Chekhov.

Any society consists of specific people, they, in turn, are a reflection of this society, era and values ​​inherent in that time. People come up with ideologies and rules of life and then they themselves are forced to abide by them. Inconsistency with one’s time always knocks a person out of society, while at the same time drawing the close attention of those around him to himself. The problem of man in society is raised by many poets, writers, and playwrights. Let's look at how Chekhov solves this problem in his play "The Cherry Orchard."

Anton Pavlovich tried to reflect social contradictions associated with changes in the economic structure.

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For example, Lopakhin skillfully integrates into the new economic life of the country. The most important thing for him is to have money. Ermolai Alekseevich can be called a unique businessman of that time. He knows how to handle the estate and the cherry orchard, is practical, knows how to manage a budget, and make money. To obtain greater benefits, Lopakhin comes up with a plan: to cut down the garden and divide it into small plots that can be rented out. Such an enterprising businessman personifies a person who skillfully adapts to the conditions of the surrounding world and does not miss the opportunity to get a better job in a new society.

The opposite of Lopakhin is Ranevskaya. Lyubov Andreevna, accustomed to a life of prosperity and even luxury, cannot live within her means and, being completely in debt, still continues to live in grand style. Even when her only remaining estate was put up for sale, she still eats in restaurants and gives out tips. And when there was nothing to feed the servants, he gave the gold to a passerby. Ranevskaya does not understand that for a nobleman it is not enough to have a certain external gloss; it is also necessary to use finances wisely and manage the estate. This requires new times.

What do we see in the end? Ranevskaya goes completely bankrupt, losing her cherry orchard, and Lopakhin is now rich, and he understands that his fortune will soon increase. Yes, of course, we feel sorry for Lyubov Andreevna, but the time of the “Ranevskys” has passed, and people like her need to change in order to fully exist.

Society is sometimes cruel. To live well and with dignity in it, you need to try to be energetic, purposeful and, of course, progressive, because the world itself changes every day, and we must correspond to it.

Updated: 2018-02-05

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