Cherry orchard for firs. Firs - character characteristics

FIRS - central character comedy by A.P. Chekhov “The Cherry Orchard” (1903). The image of F., the old faithful servant of the Gaevs, contains individual psychological and historical and symbolic meaning. His “literary pedigree” (Savelich in “ The captain's daughter » A.S. Pushkin; Zakhar in “Oblomov” by I.A. Goncharov; Marey in “The Peasant Marey” by F.M. Dostoevsky) allows us to distinguish the image of F. into a certain historical and cultural phenomenon. F.’s antique livery and white gloves are as much a memory of the past as the room, which “is still called the nursery,” the century-old “respected closet,” the family estate with a house and a cherry orchard. F. himself - in the literal sense of the word - is a “walking” memory of ancient manor life and customs. His joy: “The lady has arrived!” - this is the joy of recognizing the past: “And the master once went to Paris...” He remembers how and when to serve coffee in the living room, knows when to put a pillow under the lady’s feet. He has not forgotten what kind of clothing is required “on the road”, and “instructively” blames Gaeva: “They put on the wrong trousers again.” When it gets dark, he doesn’t forget to bring the master’s coat, sternly reprimanding him: “If you please, sir, put it on, it’s damp.” For him, the aging Gaev and Ranevskaya are still “the lord’s children” who must be taken care of and protected. And F., like the kind “spirit of the estate”, like the family “brownie”, does not stop doing this and, even when sick, pulls this cart: “Without me, who will give here, who will give orders? One for the whole house." Everyone has become accustomed to F.'s muttering, and no one is trying to listen to him and understand his meaning. In the broad temporal perspective of the action, it is the past itself that murmurs, reminding us that it is still alive, still going on, still lasting. “The sound of a broken string” - this is either a “sigh” or a “shudder of history” (D. Strehler) - was heard by everyone, but only F. muttered prophetically: “Before the misfortune it was the same...” In the muttering of the dying F. (“ Life has passed, as if he had never lived…”) one can also hear “something that cannot be understood...”. Before leaving, everyone was worried about F., worried, mentioned, reminded, asked four times whether he had been sent to the hospital - and forgot in the tightly boarded up house, where there would be no one until spring. Against the background of the forgotten F., joyful exclamations of “Goodbye, old life!” sound bitterly ironic. and “Hello, new life!” For some reason, I remember F.’s words about joy “before the will”: “And I remember, everyone is happy, but what they are happy about, they themselves don’t know.” The past is cut off. Decrepit, sick, but still alive F. - “the spirit of history”, “patriarch of the house”, “native Firs” - is left to die alone. The words “They forgot Firs” became a linguistic metaphor, penetrated into everyday life, being a generalization of purely Russian “unintentional stupidity”, the results of which are sad, if not catastrophic. The first performer of the role of F. was A.R. Artem (1904). Among other performers N. P. Khmelev (1934), Yu.V. Tolubeev (1978), I.V. Ilyinsky (1982).

    Chekhov's mature plays, built on specific everyday material, at the same time have a generalizing, symbolic meaning. The meaning of “The Cherry Orchard” (1903) is also not at all limited to the story of how the old owners of the estate, the nobles, were replaced...

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    A.P. Chekhov called his work “The Cherry Orchard” a comedy. Having read the play, we attribute it more to tragedy than to comedy. The images of Gaev and Ranevskaya seem tragic to us, and their fates are tragic. We sympathize and empathize with them. At first we can't...

The characterization of Firs in Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard is not at all as clear as it might seem. According to the three-part scheme, he undoubtedly belongs to the heroes of the “past”, both in age (Firs is the oldest among characters, he is eighty-seven years old), and in his views and worldview - he is a staunch supporter of serfdom, and this situation is actually not as paradoxical as it seems at first glance. Serfdom, with its close connection between peasant and master, for Firs embodies an ideal, harmonious system of society, sealed by mutual obligations and responsibility. Firs sees in her the embodiment of reliability and stability. Therefore, the abolition of serfdom becomes a “misfortune” for him: everything that held “his” world together, made it harmonious and integral, is destroyed, and Firs himself, having fallen out of this system, becomes an “extra” element in the new world, a living anachronism. “...everything is fragmented, you won’t understand anything” - with these words he describes the chaos and meaninglessness of what is happening around him that he feels.

Closely connected with this is also the peculiar role of Firs in “The Cherry Orchard” - at the same time the “spirit of the estate”, the keeper of traditions that have not been observed by anyone for a long time, the business manager-manager and the “nanny” for the “lordly children” who never grew up - Ranevskaya and Gaev. Thriftiness and “maturity” are emphasized by the very speech of the old servant: “Without me, who will serve here, who will give orders?” - he says with full awareness of the importance of his place in the house. “They put on the wrong trousers again,” he addresses the fifty-year-old “child” Gaev. For all its distance from real life With cultural and social circumstances having long ago changed, Fiers nevertheless comes across as one of the few characters in the play who is capable of rational thought.

The servant heroes in the image system of the play “The Cherry Orchard,” in addition to their own characteristic functions, are also “mirrors” of the masters. However, Firs in this case, rather, an “anti-mirror”: if in the image of Dunyasha one can see an indirect parallel with Ranevskaya, and Yasha is a reflection of the nobility as a whole as a class, then in the image of Firs in the play “The Cherry Orchard” the author emphasizes those features that Gaev and Ranevskaya are deprived of : thoroughness, thriftiness, emotional “adulthood”. Firs appears in the play as the personification of these qualities, which are lacking to varying degrees in almost all the characters.

Everyone in the play is in one way or another connected with the main object around which the conflict unfolds - the cherry orchard. What is the cherry orchard for Firs? For him, this is the same imaginary chronotope as for everyone else, but for the old servant it personifies the “old” life, the “old order” - synonyms of stability, orderliness, a “correctly” functioning world. As an integral part of this world, Firs continues to live there in his memory; with the destruction of the previous system, the death of the old order, he himself dies - the “spirit of the estate” dies along with it.

The image of a devoted servant in the play “The Cherry Orchard” differs from similar ones in other works of Russian classics. We can see similar characters, for example, in Pushkin - this is Savelich, an ingenuous, kind and devoted “uncle”, or in Nekrasov - Ipat, a “sensitive serf”. However, the hero of Chekhov's play is more symbolic and multifaceted, and therefore cannot be characterized solely as a “servant” happy with his position. In the play, he is a symbol of time, the keeper of a passing era with all its shortcomings, but also its virtues. As the “spirit of the estate”, he occupies a very important place in the work, which should not be underestimated.

Work test

Firs

FIRS is the central character of A.P. Chekhov’s comedy “The Cherry Orchard” (1903). The image of F., the old faithful servant of the Gaevs, contains individual psychological and historical and symbolic meaning. His “literary pedigree” (Savelich in “The Captain’s Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin; Zakhar in “Oblomov” by I.A. Goncharov; Marey in “The Peasant Marey” by F.M. Dostoevsky) allows us to distinguish the image of F. in a certain historical cultural phenomenon. F.’s antique livery and white gloves are as much a memory of the past as the room, which “is still called the nursery,” the century-old “respected closet,” the family estate with a house and a cherry orchard. F. himself - in the literal sense of the word - is a “walking” memory of ancient manor life and customs. His joy: “The lady has arrived!” - this is the joy of recognizing the past: “And the master once went to Paris...” He remembers how and when to serve coffee in the living room, knows when to put a pillow under the lady’s feet. He has not forgotten what kind of clothing is required “on the road”, and “instructively” blames Gaeva: “They put on the wrong trousers again.” When it gets dark, he doesn’t forget to bring the master’s coat, sternly reprimanding him: “If you please, sir, put it on, it’s damp.” For him, the aging Gaev and Ranevskaya are still “the lord’s children” who must be taken care of and protected. And F., like the kind “spirit of the estate”, like the family “brownie”, does not stop doing this and, even when sick, pulls this cart: “Without me, who will give here, who will give orders? One for the whole house." Everyone has become accustomed to F.'s muttering, and no one is trying to listen to him and understand his meaning. In the broad temporal perspective of the action, it is the past itself that murmurs, reminding us that it is still alive, still going on, still lasting. “The sound of a broken string” - this is either a “sigh” or a “shudder of history” (D. Strehler) - was heard by everyone, but only F. muttered prophetically: “Before the misfortune it was the same...” In the muttering of the dying F. (“ Life has passed, as if he had never lived…”) one can also hear “something that cannot be understood...”. Before leaving, everyone was worried about F., worried, mentioned, reminded, asked four times whether he had been sent to the hospital - and forgot in the tightly boarded up house, where there would be no one until spring. Against the background of the forgotten F., joyful exclamations of “Goodbye, old life!” sound bitterly ironic. and “Hello, new life!” For some reason, I remember F.’s words about joy “before the will”: “And I remember, everyone is happy, but what they are happy about, they themselves don’t know.” The past is cut off. Decrepit, sick, but still alive F. - “the spirit of history”, “patriarch of the house”, “native Firs” - is left to die alone. The words “They forgot Firs” became a linguistic metaphor, penetrated into everyday life, being a generalization of purely Russian “unintentional stupidity”, the results of which are sad, if not catastrophic. The first performer of the role of F. was A.R. Artem (1904). Other performers include N.P. Khmelev (1934), Yu.V. Tolubeev (1978), I.V. Ilyinsky (1982).

All characteristics in alphabetical order:

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/ / / The image of Firs in Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard”

Firs, in Chekhov's play, is an old servant. He is over eighty years old and almost deaf. However, it is he who considers himself the most important in the family, as he continues to monitor order in the estate. For for long years, the old man helps his master Gaev, gives him clothes, and makes sure that he puts on the appropriate coat on cool days.

Firs in the play personifies the old regime. He obeys and never gets into an argument. Proud of his age, he tries to teach young people about life, but not everyone likes this. Many in clear text they wish him death. But the old man is not offended. He believes that since he is still alive, it means God wants it this way.

Firs, how faithful old dog walks around the estate. He is also worried that he will have to say goodbye to the cherry orchard, however, most of all he is worried only about the well-being of the owners. He's up to last days runs the household and takes care of others.

Chekhov shows Firs as the complete opposite of the other servants. Unlike Yasha, he does not look for favorable living conditions for himself, and does not chase his owners’ money. The old man simply does his job with dignity. The work of his whole life, which he not only loves, the old man simply cannot live without it. That is why, when in a hurry to catch the train they simply forget about him and leave him alone on the estate, the man lies down and begins to wait for them to come for him. He doesn't panic. The man firmly believes that his owners certainly need him, because no one else will take care of them like that. It is with such thoughts that death comes to the old man. It does not occur in the hospital, as Gaev and I planned, but here, on the estate. In the very place where the man lived his most correct and happiest life.

The image of Firs in the story is a sign of constancy. Despite his age, he never stops being the right person. , was like a son to him, a little boy requiring constant care and attention. And this “parental” control did not interfere with Gaev, although the owner himself was over fifty years old.

Firs is not only an old and faithful servant, he is an eyewitness of the former and real life. He is accustomed to serfdom and will never accept anything else. This is a model for him right life. For him, being a servant, first of all, means remaining necessary for people, which means being valuable.

The caring old man has no one else but his owners. In fact, he is alone and weak, in fact, a man is in charge big family, where he loves everyone very much and who is used to him.

The very thought that the garden and estate were sold, and he would have to be in the hospital, kills the man. And Chekhov took pity on the old man. He gave him a death that he could only dream of. End of life within native walls. In a house where he was the most important and at the same time no one. In the place where his happiness began and ended.

He carried out his “service” with dignity and now, after selling the estate at auction, having become an unnecessary burden for the owners, he deservedly goes to eternal rest, having remained a faithful old servant.

In Chekhov's play " The Cherry Orchard“I personally am not attracted to many characters, but one of them struck me with its sanity compared to other heroes - this is Firs.

Firs is an old servant who is eighty-seven years old. He is a very reasonable, quiet, calm and rational person. Only now he had to live in a century when a great misfortune overtook him: the abolition of serfdom. Yes, yes, for Firs this is a real disaster, because he is an adherent of old views, he sincerely believes that in order for there to be order in the country and in society, this very society simply needs a “master-servant” relationship. When everyone has their own obligations and due to this a normal, orderly political system. The abolition of such a system entails terrible consequences for people who are accustomed to the old laws: they simply do not know why they are needed anymore in this world. The same thing affected Firs, his mental wound opened because he doesn’t know why he is needed, he feels superfluous.

Nevertheless, our hero understands that no one will take care of Ranevskaya and Gaev, whom he serves, that they are not adapted to life and have not matured emotionally enough for Firs to calmly retire. Gaev can’t even put on the right pants himself, even though he’s fifty years old! These two “children” still keep Firs afloat.

As for the main object of the play - cherry orchard, then his image is closely connected with Firs, because he associates life itself, the old foundations and the stable world that the elderly servant had with the cherry orchard, which is about to sink into oblivion.

Firs is very often associated with the spirit of the estate, because he absorbed many years of life on the estate, knew many of the ancestors who owned it and had great respect for the gentlemen to whom it now belongs. Firs is a symbol of devotion until the last breath to his views, and at the same time to his masters: even after their departure from the estate, he continues to live there.

The death of Firs for me, as a reader, also meant the death of all the old orders of the estate, it meant some kind of logical, but very disturbing and depressing end an entire era such faithful and devoted servants as Firs was. He is replaced by lackeys like Yasha. I think that Yasha is a bright antagonist of Firs, necessary to once again emphasize to the reader the difference between the past world and the future world after turning point- abolition of serfdom.

Option 2

Firs in this work refers rather to positive characters. Compared to others, he surprises with his own common sense.

He is an elderly servant who is already eighty-seven years old. His character can be distinguished by calmness, evenness, rationality and diligence. He lives in a time when it was canceled serfdom. For Firs this is a complete tragedy. The fact is that the old servant serves his masters very faithfully. He doesn't understand innovation. For him, such a relationship was always clear when there are masters who give orders and servants who carry them out. If everyone has their own responsibilities and rules of behavior, then there will always be order in the country. When such a hierarchy is violated, the adherents of the old traditions will not understand what to do. After all, they existed for a long time together with old customs, to which they were quite accustomed. Therefore, recently, after the serf reform, Firs feels oppressed. He doesn’t know what to do, because now no one needs him. Therefore he is very sad.

However, the old servant knows very well that Gaeve and Ranevskaya will not be able to cope without his help. He always served them, they practically did nothing on their own. So far, they have become so mature emotionally that Firs leaves work with peace of mind. And Gaev is not even able to put on the pants he needs, despite the fact that he already has fifty dollars! It is only because these two have not yet embarked on the path of independence that Firs is still working as a servant.

Also special treatment has Firs to the cherry orchard - the main subject in this work. With him old man associates his most best years, when he was still a young servant. There used to be a strong and friendly world there, with its inhabitants and traditional foundations. This garden has very little time left and it will no longer exist.

Firs is like a manor spirit who is very old and has outlived several owners of the cherry orchard. And a devoted servant always respects current masters. Firs is the only one who has several owners of the estate and is devoted to them with all his soul. In fact, it is a symbol of devotion and fidelity.

Essay about Firs

Gogol's works were always filled with themes that excited the minds of his contemporaries, forcing them to think about this or that issue; in other words, he made people think, trying to guide them on the path of enlightenment and awareness, no matter who these people were.

So in his work “The Cherry Orchard” he discusses with the reader the topic of the abolition of serfdom, the possible consequences of this event, and other things that would be nice to think about together. Actually, he did just that in his work. Namely in this work he thinks through the image of Firs.

Through his image, the author conveys to us the whole range of emotions that the old generation, accustomed to established norms and rights, experienced. Through the image of Firs, the problem of conservatism can also be traced, that is, the denial of everything new and revolutionary, since the old society was accustomed to established rules and did not want to change them, which explains Firs’ excessive conservatism. He is simply afraid of losing the life to which he is accustomed and which he loved with all his heart. And in the process of the story, we learn that this very life, one might say, was taken away from him, which is why he is very indignant, since he is used to obeying and being obeyed. His only stronghold old life is the cherry orchard, in which he feels as if in the past, transported to a time that is pleasant and radiant for him. Based on all this, the image of Firs becomes understandable and as clear as possible.

Firs is a man of the old era, does not perceive anything new, and does not want changes in his life; in truth, he can easily be called a person of a very conservative character and lifestyle. Since he is accustomed to everything old, the abolition of serfdom, which in itself is very new for Russia, makes him feel very uncomfortable even at home, and only in his cherry orchard can he feel complete safety and serenity.

Also, through his image, the author speaks to the reader, discussing the question of the correctness of the decision of the authorities to abolish serfdom, since he was tormented by similar thoughts, and he often thought about what could ultimately happen after this event. Where will the vector of development of his homeland turn after the abolition of such a terrible thing as serfdom?

Essay 4

Image this character- servants on the estate, personifies the old times, the old life, the destruction of which the heroes of the work mourn.

Firs is classic look faithful servant. He got used to his role social role long ago absorbed everything else in him, so Firs even in to a greater extent than the owners, cannot live without an estate. The old servant simply cannot even imagine that life could be different.

The old servant is eighty years old, however, he is too attached to his occupation and does not even think about trying to lighten his duties. The functions it performs (in particular, helping the owner get dressed) are not of fundamental importance. The owners of the estate could well do without what the old servant does. However, for them it is simply a fragment of the past, the same as the cherry orchard itself, around which the plot of the work is built.

Moreover, if the owners, after selling the estate at auction, were still able to part with their cherry orchard and familiar home and went to new life, then Firs found himself tied to the past much more strongly. Chekhov shows the death of a servant in an estate that has already been sold. This symbolizes the fact that he cannot imagine his life without his usual place where he spent his whole life. Firs is in this work the same personification of a former life, collapsing before our eyes, like the cherry orchard.

It is significant that, unlike other servants, Firs is not looking for benefits for getting lost. By and large, he doesn’t need money and material values. His duties as a servant, his position with his masters, as well as his confidence (as it turned out to be unfounded, because he still did not leave with former owners estates) gave him the only meaning of life. In his affection for his owners one feels not so much servility as real care.

In the image of Firs one can also see an example of a meaningless existence, an example of subordinating one’s life to pitiful and insignificant goals. Firs, from the insignificant functions he performed, created an idol for himself, after the destruction of which he had no reason to live.

Like his masters, Firs is shown weak person. Changes in the life of the country not only swept them out of their way, but essentially destroyed Firs himself. Neither the old servant nor the ruined landowners were able to even try to resist the passage of time. They limited themselves to only empty talk, as well as teachings to others, like Firs.

Fiers is probably deliberately depicted as old and almost deaf. Physical weakness and death at the end of the work represent the death of the old society and its orders.

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