Lopakhin, it is true, is a merchant, but a decent one
human in every sense.
A. Chekhov. From letters
The play “The Cherry Orchard” was written by Chekhov in 1903, when great social changes were brewing in Russia. The nobility collapsed, a new class emerged - the bourgeoisie, whose representative in the play is Ermolai Lopakhin.
Chekhov persistently emphasized the significance and complexity of this image: “... Lopakhin’s role is central. If it fails, then the whole play will fail.”
Lopakhin became the new owner of the cherry orchard; he is a symbol of the real Russia. What is it, is it real?
Lopakhin’s father was a “man” - “he traded in a shop in the village.” And Ermolai says about himself: “He’s just rich, he has a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, he’s a man.”
This hero apparently inherited his love of work from his ancestors, and achieved everything in life on his own. His capital is not inherited, but earned. Active and active, Lopakhin was accustomed to relying on his own strength in everything. He really has a “subtle, gentle soul”, he knows how to feel beauty: he is sincerely admired by the garden, “there is nothing more beautiful in the world”, a blooming poppy field. And at the same time, his delight at the profitable sale of poppies is quite understandable.
Lopakhin cannot be considered a villain who snuck in with malicious intent into a noble family. In fact, he is deeply decent and sincerely attached to Ranevskaya, who once did a lot of kindness for him: “... You, in fact, you once did so much for me that I... love you like dear... more than his own..." That is why he wants to save Ranevskaya and Gaev from ruin, tries to teach them, calls them to action and, seeing how weak-willed these people are, unable to solve even minor everyday problems, sometimes he comes into despair.
Like Ranevskaya, Lopakhin is attached to this house and garden, but this attachment is of a completely different nature than memories of all the good things in life. Lopa-khin's father and grandfather were serfs in a house where "they weren't even allowed into the kitchen." Having become the owner of the estate, Ermolai is proud and happy, he wants his ancestors to be happy for him because “their Ermolai, the beaten, illiterate Ermolai, who ran barefoot in the winter,” managed to advance in life. Material from the site
Lopakhin dreams that soon “our awkward, unhappy life”, and is ready to completely destroy the terrible memory of the past. But in this case, his businesslike nature eradicates the spirituality in him, and he himself understands this: he cannot read books - he falls asleep, he does not know how to deal with his love. Saving the cherry orchard, he cuts it down to rent out the land to summer residents, and the beauty dies in his hands. He doesn’t even have the tact to wait for his former owners to leave.
It is clear from everything that Lopakhin feels like the master of life, but the author is clearly not on the side of the man who mercilessly chops down the trunks of beautiful trees with an ax.
It seems to me that the image of Lopakhin is ambiguous; he cannot be called either exclusively a “beast of prey” or only the owner of a “subtle, gentle soul.” These character qualities are combined in him, due to the difficult transition period in public life Russia. But the contradictions of Lopakhin’s image precisely constitute the interest and drama of a new type of people - the masters of Russia in Chekhov’s present.
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On this page there is material on the following topics:
- characteristics of Lopakhin with quotes
- Lopatin is a thin gentle soul or beast of prey based on the play The Cherry Orchard
- Petya Trofimov says that he loves Lopakhin, believes that he has a subtle and gentle soul, and at the same time sees him as a predatory beast. how to understand this?
- cherry orchard characteristics Lopakhin gentle soul
- Who is this Ermolai Lopakhin?
/ / / The image of Lopakhin in Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard”
Lopakhin in Chekhov's play is presented as a “man” from the people who, through his labor, was able to earn a fortune. It was “gifted” by the author as a last chance to get out of the current situation.
Ermolai is very smart and calculating. But the scheme he came up with to use the cherry orchard as an object that can be rented out as dachas is not taken seriously. He cannot understand why his “business plan” was not heard, why all his impulses to help are cut short. In the Ranevsky family, and in society as a whole, he is not recognized as one of their own. He remains a “yard” peasant.
The arrogance and empty talk of the public irritates a man. He is decisive in his actions and demands the same from those around him. He equates delay with death, so Ranevskaya’s waiting kills him from the inside.
Ermolai really sincerely wants to help get out of the debt hole that the Ranevskys fell into. He does not share the awe for cherry trees, memories and other nonsense when it is practically at stake further fate families.
The man has warm feelings for Lyubov, tries to help her financially, but at some point he is internally disappointed in her, calling her “woman.” This is how he expresses his protest against the stupidity and hypocrisy that reign in the estate. He realizes that he has wasted his precious time...
Lopakhin is not educated, does not know how to express his feelings, and perhaps simply hides them. Being a generous person by nature, he was used to paying in full for everything. However, it is not his intention to pay for what a person does not hold on to.
Lopakhin's relationships are very complex. They sympathize with each other, but the man’s hesitation to propose marriage forces the girl to leave the estate. He feels that Varya is offended by him for “buying her whole life.” This is also evidenced by the fact that she hands him the keys, defiantly throwing them on the floor. The man is not filled with pride. He picks up the bundle with a grin, without judging the girl.
Being a simple man, Lopakhin still knows his worth. He wants others to appreciate his efforts and achievements. However, this does not happen and the man no longer cares what others think about him. He won, which means he is a winner. Despite everything, he was able to buy back this estate, in which his ancestors were enslaved. Ermolai is happy about this. He does not at all sympathize with the Ranevsky family. On the occasion of their departure, the merchant even buys champagne, which the footman ends up drinking.
Lopakhin, one of the few in the play, appears before the reader as reasonable, a little prim, but very a kind person. He was used to earning money, solving his problems on his own, and not holding any grudges or grudges against anyone. It has more of a business approach than an adventurous spirit.
Why is Lopakhin not accepted as one of their own, despite his condition? Simply because he is different. He doesn’t devote his speeches to “cabinets”, he loves practicality, and most importantly, he has no time to waste his life on nonsense. He is happy because he is rich, and he is rich because he works, and this is the whole meaning of his life.
The role of Lopakhin A.P. Chekhov considered the play “The Cherry Orchard” to be “central”. In one of his letters he said: “...if it fails, then the whole play will fail.” What is special about this Lopakhin and why exactly his A.P. Chekhov placed in the center figurative system of your work?
Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin - merchant. His father, a serf, became rich after the reform of 1861 and became a shopkeeper. Lopakhin recalls this in a conversation with Ranevskaya: “My father was a serf to your grandfather and father...”; “My dad was a man, an idiot, he didn’t understand anything, he didn’t teach me, he just beat me when he was drunk and kept hitting him with a stick. In essence, I’m the same idiot and idiot. I didn’t learn anything, my handwriting is bad, I write in such a way that people are as ashamed as pigs."
But times change, and “the beaten, illiterate Ermolai, who ran barefoot in the winter,” broke away from his roots, “made his way into the people,” became rich, but never received an education: “My father, it’s true, was a man, but I’m a a white vest, yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a row... Only he's rich, he has a lot of money, and if you think about it and figure it out, he's a man..." But don't think that this remark reflects only the hero's modesty. Lopakhin likes to repeat that he is a man, but he is no longer a man, not a peasant, but a businessman, a businessman.
Individual remarks and remarks indicate that Lopakhin has some kind of big “business” in which he is completely absorbed. He always lacks time: he either returns or is going on business trips. “You know,” he says, “I get up at five o’clock in the morning, I work from morning to evening...”; “I can’t live without work, I don’t know what to do with my hands; they dangle somehow strangely, like they belong to someone else”; “I sowed a thousand dessiatines of poppy in the spring and now I have earned forty thousand net.” It is clear that not all of Lopakhin’s fortune was inherited; most of it was earned by his own labor, and the path to wealth was not easy for Lopakhin. But at the same time, he easily parted with the money, lending it to Ranevskaya and Simeonov-Pishchik, persistently offering it to Petya Trofimov.
Lopakhin, like every hero of “The Cherry Orchard,” is absorbed in “his own truth,” immersed in his experiences, does not notice much, does not feel much in those around him. But, despite the shortcomings of his upbringing, he is acutely aware of the imperfections of life. In a conversation with Firs, he sneers at the past: “It was very good before. At least they fought.” Lopakhin is worried about the present: “We must say frankly, our life is stupid...” He looks into the future: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” Lopakhin sees the reasons for this disorder in the imperfection of man, in the meaninglessness of his existence. “You just have to start doing something to understand how few honest, decent people there are. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think: “Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and living here, we they themselves should truly be giants..."; "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.”
Lopakhin is truly the central figure of the work. Threads stretch from him to all the characters. He is the link between the past and the future. Of all characters Lopakhin clearly sympathizes with Ranevskaya. He keeps warm memories of her. For him, Lyubov Andreevna is “still the same magnificent” woman with “amazing”, “touching eyes”. He admits that he loves her “like his own... more than his own,” he sincerely wants to help her and finds, in his opinion, the most profitable “salvation” project. The location of the estate is “wonderful” - twenty miles away Railway, near the river. You just need to divide the territory into plots and rent them out to summer residents, while having a considerable income. According to Lopakhin, the issue can be resolved very quickly, the matter seems profitable to him, you just need to “clean up, clean up... for example,... demolish all the old buildings, like this one an old house, which is no longer any good, to cut down the old cherry orchard..." Lopakhin is trying to convince Ranevskaya and Gaev of the need to make this "only correct" decision, not realizing that with his reasoning he is deeply hurting them, calling everything that is unnecessary rubbish long years was their home, was dear to them and sincerely loved by them. He offers to help not only with advice, but also with money, but Ranevskaya rejects the proposal to lease out the land for dachas. “Dachas and summer residents are so vulgar, sorry,” she says.
Convinced of the futility of his attempts to persuade Ranevskaya and Gaev, Lopakhin himself becomes the owner of the cherry orchard. In the monologue “I bought,” he cheerfully tells how the auction went, rejoices at how he “grabbed” Deriganov and “beat” him. For Lopakhin, peasant son, the cherry orchard is part of an elite aristocratic culture; it has acquired something that was inaccessible twenty years ago. Genuine pride can be heard in his words: “If my father and grandfather stood up from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Ermolai... bought an estate, the most beautiful of which there is nothing in the world. I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they weren’t even allowed into the kitchen..." This feeling intoxicates him. Having become the owner of the Ranevskaya estate, the new owner dreams of a new life: “Hey, musicians, play, I want to listen to you! Come everyone and watch how Ermolai Lopakhin will hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees will fall to the ground! We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see here new life... Music, play!.. There comes a new landowner, the owner of the cherry orchard!..” And all this in the presence of the crying old mistress of the estate!
Lopakhin is also cruel towards Varya. For all the subtlety of his soul, he lacks humanity and tact to bring clarity to their relationship. Everyone around is talking about the wedding and congratulating. He himself talks about marriage: “What? I’m not averse... She good girl..." And these are his sincere words. Lopakhin certainly likes Varya, but he avoids marriage, either from timidity, or from an unwillingness to give up freedom, the right to manage his own life. But, most likely, the reason in excessive practicality, which does not allow such a miscalculation: marrying a dowryless woman who has no rights even to a ruined estate.
(354 words) In the play “The Cherry Orchard,” the playwright allegorically depicted the process of the gradual ruin of the nobility and the emergence in its place of a new bourgeois class - merchants, who from Ostrovsky’s sloppy and ignorant heroes turned into polite, beautifully dressed and modern Lopakhins. It would seem that this change is for the better: Ranevskaya and Gaev are not capable of helping the country. But is it? How did Chekhov portray the present in the play “The Cherry Orchard”?
Lopakhin came from the common people, but managed to become the master of life. “He’s just rich, he has a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, he’s a man,” he introduces himself. The hero feels a lack of education and etiquette, admits this, but at the same time understands that courtesy and intelligence can be lost in a furious and gambling capitalist game.
The hero has mastered all the skills of a businessman. In particular, he maintains impeccable business communication. Although he consoles Ranevskaya with a soft, kind voice, he still does not cease to be a capitalist. Benefit for Lopakhin is above all. He convinces the heroine to sell him the cherry orchard, although he feels how painful it is for her to say goodbye to small homeland. At the same time, the businessman does not feel pity, that is, he does not belong to sensitive people. But he cannot be called cruel either: he does not reproach anyone for the serf past of his ancestors, and does not impose guilt on anyone for their slavery. It seems that Lopakhin lives only by business, and the emotional side of life does not concern him.
Characteristics of Lopakhin should begin with such a quality as determination. The cherry orchard is his old dream, and he buys it. He measures everything in money, so all his goals revolve around them. Of course, the hero can be accused of narrow-mindedness, but capitalism is unthinkable without such people. They are the ones who create market economy with its predatory laws and wild customs. Such an environment is a necessary condition for progress, so one character cannot be blamed for its sins. He is part of this system, not its essence. If determination is a positive characteristic of businessmen, then the goals themselves are a flaw in the system. This is confirmed by Lopakhin himself. With tears, he says: “I wish our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.”
Chekhov showed the present in the image of Lopakhin not in the best light, because he hoped that the time would come to replace the predatory laws of the financial jungle with an intelligentsia that was democratically and creatively minded, that would finally transform the world and establish justice.
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