Past, present and future in the play by A.P. Chekhov “ The Cherry Orchard”.
“The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov is a unique work in which all three periods of life are connected: past, present and future.
The action takes place at a time when the outdated nobility is being replaced by merchants and entrepreneurship. Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, Leonid Andreevich Gaev, the old footman Firs are representatives of the past.
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They often reminisce about the old days when there was no need to worry about anything, especially money. These people value something more sublime than material. For Ranevskaya, the cherry orchard is memories and her whole life; she will not allow the thought of selling it, cutting it down, or destroying it. For Gaev, even such things as a hundred-year-old wardrobe matter, to which he addresses with tears in his eyes: “Dear, respected wardrobe!” And what about the old footman Firs? He did not need the abolition of serfdom, because he devoted his whole life and all of himself to the family of Ranevskaya and Gaev, whom he sincerely loved. “The men are with the gentlemen, the gentlemen are with the peasants, and now everything is fragmented, you won’t understand anything,” this is how Firs spoke about the state of things after the abolition of serfdom in Russia. He, like all representatives of the old time, was satisfied with the previously existing order.
The nobility and antiquity are being replaced by something new - the merchants, the personification of the present. The representative of this generation is Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin. He comes from a simple family, his father traded in a shop in the village, but thanks to his own efforts, Lopakhin was able to achieve a lot and make a fortune. Money mattered to him; he saw the cherry orchard only as a source of profit. Yermolai was smart enough to develop a whole project and help Ranevskaya in her deplorable situation. It was savvy and a craving for material wealth that were inherent in the generation of the present time.
But sooner or later the present must also be replaced by something. Any future is changeable and vague, this is exactly how A.P. Chekhov shows it. The future generation is quite diverse, it includes Anya and Varya, student Petya Trofimov, the maid Dunyasha and the young footman Yasha. If the representatives of the old days are similar in almost everything, then the young ones are completely different. They are full of new ideas, strength and energy. However, among them there are those who are only capable of beautiful speeches, but they don't really change anything. This is Petya Trofimov. “We are at least two hundred years behind, we have absolutely nothing, no definite attitude towards the past, we only philosophize, complain about melancholy and drink vodka,” he says to Anya, while doing nothing to make life become better and still remain an “eternal student.” Although Anya is fascinated by Petya’s ideas, she goes her own way, intending to get settled in life. “We will plant new garden, more luxurious than this,” she says, ready to change the future in better side. But there is another type of youth, which includes the young lackey Yasha. A completely unprincipled, empty person, capable of only grins and not attached to anything. What will happen if the future is built by people like Yasha?
“All of Russia is our garden,” notes Trofimov. That’s right, the cherry orchard personifies the whole of Russia, where there is a connection between times and generations. It was the garden that connected all representatives of the past, present and future into one whole, just as Russia unites all generations.
Updated: 2018-06-15
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Here is an essay on the work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, or rather on his play “The Cherry Orchard,” written at the beginning of the 20th century shortly before the death of the great writer. The essay is intended for 10th grade or 11th grade students.
THE FUTURE IN D.P.'S PLAY CHEKHOV'S "CHERRY ORCHARD"
The play “The Cherry Orchard” was written by Chekhov in 1904 - on last year writer's life. It was perceived by the reader as the creative testament of a talented satirist and playwright. One of the main themes of this play is the theme of the future of Russia. This topic is revealed through the images of Petya Trofimov and Anya, Ranevskaya’s daughter. While covering this topic, Chekhov simultaneously raises in the play a number of other problems that are characteristic of all Russian literature as a whole. These are the problems of fathers and children, the human doer, love and suffering. All these problems are intertwined in the content of The Cherry Orchard, the leitmotif of which is the farewell of the new, young Russia to its past, its aspiration to a brighter day tomorrow.
The image of Russia is embodied in the very title of the play “The Cherry Orchard.” " All Russia is our garden ,” says Chekhov through the lips of his hero. And, indeed, the cherry orchard for Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev is a family nest, a symbol of youth, prosperity and a former graceful life. The owners of the garden love it, although they do not know how to preserve or save it. Ranevskaya speaks with tears and tenderness about her estate:
“...I love this house, I don’t understand my life without the cherry orchard, and if you really need to sell, then sell me along with the orchard...”
But for Ranevskaya and Gaev, the cherry orchard is a symbol of the past. Another hero, the active Lopakhin, looks at the garden only from the practical side. He sees in it an opportunity to get a big income, and he does not stand on ceremony with his methods. Ermolai Lopakhin, the new merchant-industrialist, symbolizes the present of Russia, its transition to the capitalist path of development.
Chekhov connects the future prosperity of Russia with the younger generation, represented in the play by Petya Trofimov and Anya. They are the ones who have to build new Russia, plant new ones cherry orchards. Petya Trofimov is the son of a pharmacist, a commoner, who makes his way in life through oral labor. He is poor and familiar with the hard life of the people. Petya believes that only through continuous work can you change the oppressed situation of the people and achieve a bright future for your country. Trofimov is smart, proud and honest in his thoughts. He lives with faith in the wonderful future of Russia and enthusiastically shares this faith with those around him: “ Forward! Don't lag behind, friends! “His speech is bright, convincing, full of patriotism. Sometimes, of course, Trofimov is wrong or overly categorical, as is typical of youth. One day he declares to Ranevskaya: “ We are above love! "Such accidents in his behavior allow the older generation to consider him a klutz or "shabby gentleman" as Varya called him. But his bright and sincere faith in the happy future of his Motherland, his energy and willingness to act evoke sympathy among readers and trust in Anya, Ranevskaya’s daughter.
Anya is a young, educated girl. Her soul is distinguished by spontaneity and beauty of feelings. She can enjoy an entertaining flight like a child. hot-air balloon, and at the same time, unlike her mother, she shows interest and concern for economic affairs in the estate.
She considers exploitation immoral, she wants to work to provide for herself and her mother and through work to become useful to society. Her plans are simple: pass the exam for a gymnasium course, then study and work. Here is her naive idea of happiness:
Such ardent movements of the soul and noble impulses bring these two images closer together. They symbolize hope for a better future. It is with their lives that Chekhov connects the future of Russia, it is in their mouths that he puts his own thoughts, despite the fact that the estate has been sold, and axes are already knocking in the garden, the author believes that new people will come and plant new gardens, “ there is nothing more beautiful in the world «.
“The Cherry Orchard” is the great creation of Chekhov, who put comedy on a par with drama and tragedy, raising it to unattainable heights.
I hope you liked the proposed essay on the topic THE FUTURE IN D.P.’S PLAY. CHEKHOV'S "CHERRY ORCHARD"
The era of greatest aggravation social relations, stormy social movement, the preparations for the first Russian revolution were clearly reflected in the writer’s last major work - the play “The Cherry Orchard”. Chekhov saw the growth of the revolutionary consciousness of the people, their dissatisfaction with the autocratic regime. Chekhov's general democratic position was reflected in The Cherry Orchard: the characters in the play, being in great ideological clashes and contradictions, do not reach the point of open hostility. However, the play shows the world of the noble-bourgeois in a sharply critical manner and depicts in bright colors people striving for a new life.
Chekhov responds to the most pressing demands of the time. The play "The Cherry Orchard", being the completion of the Russian critical realism, amazed contemporaries with its unusual truthfulness and conciseness of the image.
Although “The Cherry Orchard” is based entirely on everyday material, in it everyday life has a general, symbolic meaning. This was achieved by the playwright through the use of an “undercurrent”. The cherry orchard itself is not the focus of Chekhov’s attention: symbolic garden- this is the whole homeland (“all of Russia is our garden”) - Therefore, the theme of the play is the fate of the homeland, its future. Its old owners, the nobles Ranevskys and Gaevs, leave the stage, and the capitalists Lopakhins come to replace it. But their dominance is short-lived, for they are destroyers of beauty.
The real masters of life will come, and they will turn Russia into a blooming garden. Ideological pathos plays - in the denial of the noble-landowner system as outdated. At the same time, the writer argues that the bourgeoisie, which replaces the nobility, despite its vitality, brings with it destruction and oppression. Chekhov believes that new forces will come that will rebuild life on the basis of justice and humanity. The farewell of the new, young, tomorrow's Russia to the past, which has become obsolete and doomed to an early end, the aspiration to the tomorrow of the homeland - this is the content of “The Cherry Orchard.”
The peculiarity of the play is that it is based on showing clashes between people who are representatives of different social strata- nobles, capitalists, commoners and people, but their clashes are not hostile. The main thing here is not the contradictions of property, but the deep revelation of the emotional experiences of the characters. Ranevskaya, Gaev and Simeonov-Pishchik form a group of local nobles. The playwright’s work was complicated by the fact that in these characters it was necessary to show positive traits. Gaev and Pischik are kind, honest and simple, and Ranevskaya is endowed and aesthetic feelings(love of music and nature). But at the same time, they are all weak-willed, inactive, incapable of practical affairs.
Ranevskaya and Gaev are the owners of an estate, “more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world,” as one of the characters in the play, Lopakhin, says - a delightful estate, the beauty of which lies in the poetic cherry orchard. The “owners” ruined the estate with their frivolity and complete lack of understanding real life to a pitiful state, the estate will be sold at auction. Got rich peasant son, the merchant Lopakhin, a friend of the family, warns the owners about the impending disaster, offers them his rescue projects, and encourages them to think about the impending disaster. But Ranevskaya and Gaev live with illusory ideas. Both shed many tears over the loss of their cherry orchard, which they are sure they cannot live without. But things go on as usual, auctions take place, and Lopakhin himself buys the estate.
When the disaster is over, it turns out that no special drama is happening for Ranevskaya and Gaev. Ranevskaya returns to Paris, to her absurd “love”, to which she would have returned anyway, despite all her words that she cannot live without her homeland and without the cherry orchard. Gaev also comes to terms with what happened. “A terrible drama”, which for its heroes, however, did not turn out to be a drama at all for the simple reason that they cannot have anything serious, nothing dramatic at all. The merchant Lopakhin personifies the second group of images. To him special meaning Chekhov added: “... the role of Lopakhin is central. If it fails, then the whole play will fail.”
Lopakhin replaces Ranevsky and Gaev. The playwright persistently emphasizes the relative progressiveness of this bourgeois. He is energetic, businesslike, intelligent and enterprising; he works “from morning to evening.” His practical advice If Ranevskaya had accepted them, the estate would have been saved. Lopakhin’s “thin, gentle soul", thin fingers, like an artist. However, he recognizes only utilitarian beauty. Pursuing the goals of enrichment, Lopakhin destroys beauty - he cuts down the cherry orchard.
The dominance of the Lopakhins is transitory. New people will come to the stage for them - Trofimov and Anya, who make up the third group of characters. The future is embodied in them. It is Trofimov who pronounces the verdict on the “nests of the nobility.” “Whether the estate is sold today,” he says to Ranevskaya, “or not sold, does it matter? It’s been over for a long time, there’s no turning back..."
In Trofimov, Chekhov embodied aspirations for the future and devotion to public duty. It is he, Trofimov, who glorifies work and calls for work: “Humanity moves forward, improving its strength. Everything that is out of reach for him now will someday become close and understandable, but he must work and help with all his might those who are seeking the truth.”
True, the specific ways to change the social structure are not clear to Trofimov. He only declaratively calls for the future. And the playwright endowed him with features of eccentricity (remember the episodes of searching for galoshes and falling down the stairs). But still, his service to public interests, his calls awakened the people around him and forced them to look forward.
Trofimov is supported by Anya Ranevskaya, a poetic and enthusiastic girl. Petya Trofimov encourages Anya to turn her life around. Anya's connections with ordinary people, her thoughts helped her notice the absurdity, the awkwardness of what she observed around her. Conversations with Petya Trofimov made clear to her the injustice of the life around her.
Influenced by conversations with Petya Trofimov, Anya came to the conclusion that her mother’s family estate belonged to the people, that it was unfair to own it, that one must live by labor and work for the benefit of disadvantaged people.
Enthusiastic Anya was captivated and carried away by Trofimov’s romantically upbeat speeches about a new life, about the future, and she became a supporter of his beliefs and dreams. Anya Ranevskaya is one of those who, having believed in the truth of working life, parted with their class. She does not feel sorry for the cherry orchard, she no longer loves it as before; she realized that behind him were the reproachful eyes of the people who planted and raised him.
Smart, honest, crystal clear in her thoughts and desires, Anya happily leaves the cherry orchard, the old manor house in which she spent her childhood, adolescence and youth. She says with delight: “Farewell, home! Goodbye old life! But Anya’s ideas about a new life are not only vague, but also naive. Turning to her mother, she says: “We will read on autumn evenings, we will read many books, and a new, wonderful world will open before us...”
Anya's path to a new life will be extremely difficult. After all, she is practically helpless: she is used to living, ordering numerous servants, in complete abundance, carefree, without thinking about her daily bread, about tomorrow. She is not trained in any profession, is not prepared for constant, hard work and for everyday deprivation of the most necessary things. Striving for a new life, she, by way of life and habits, remained a young lady of the noble-landed circle.
It is possible that Anya will not withstand the temptation of a new life and will retreat before its trials. But if she finds the necessary strength in herself, then her new life will be in studying, in educating the people and, maybe (who knows!) political struggle for his interests. After all, she understood and remembered Trofimov’s words that redeeming the past, putting an end to it “can only be done through suffering, only through extraordinary, continuous labor.”
The pre-revolutionary politicized atmosphere in which society lived could not but affect the perception of the play. “The Cherry Orchard” was immediately understood as the most social play Chekhov, who embodied the destinies of entire classes: the outgoing nobility, those who came to replace capitalism and those already living and acting people future. This superficial approach to the play was picked up and developed by literary criticism of the Soviet period.
However, the play turned out to be much higher than the political passions that flared up around it. Already contemporaries noted the philosophical depth of the play, dismissing its sociological reading. Publisher and journalist A. S. Suvorin argued that the author of “The Cherry Orchard” is aware that “something very important is being destroyed, it is being destroyed, perhaps out of historical necessity, but still this is a tragedy of Russian life.”
Essay on literature.
Here she is - open secret, the secret of poetry, life, love!
I. S. Turgenev.
The play "The Cherry Orchard", written in 1903, - last piece Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, completing it creative biography. In it, the author raises a number of problems characteristic of Russian literature: the problems of fathers and children, love and suffering. All this is united in the theme of the past, present and future of Russia.
The Cherry Orchard - central image, uniting heroes in time and space. For the landowner Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev, the garden is a family nest, an integral part of their memories. It’s as if they have grown together with this garden; without it they “don’t understand their life.” To save the estate, decisive action is needed, a change in lifestyle - otherwise the magnificent garden will go under the hammer. But Ranevskaya and Gaev are unaccustomed to all activities, impractical to the point of stupidity, unable to even seriously think about the impending threat. They betray the idea of the cherry orchard. For landowners, he is a symbol of the past. Firs, Ranevskaya’s old servant, also remains in the past. He considers the abolition of serfdom a misfortune, and to his former owners attached as to his own children. But those whom he devotedly served all his life abandon him to his fate. Forgotten and abandoned, Firs remains a monument to the past in a boarded-up house.
Currently represented by Ermolai Lopakhin. His father and grandfather were serfs of Ranevskaya, and he himself became a successful merchant. Lopakhin looks at the garden from the point of view of the “circulation of the matter.” He sympathizes with Ranevskaya, but the cherry orchard itself is doomed to death in the plans of a practical entrepreneur. It is Lopakhin who brings the agony of the garden to its logical conclusion. The estate is divided into profitable dacha plots, and “you can only hear how far away in the garden an ax is knocking on a tree.”
The future is personified by the younger generation: Petya Trofimov and Anya, Ranevskaya’s daughter. Trofimov is a student working hard to make his way into life. His life is not easy. When winter comes, he is “hungry, sick, anxious, poor.” Petya is smart and honest, understands the difficult situation the people live in, and believes in a bright future. “All of Russia is our garden!” - he exclaims.
Chekhov puts Petya in ridiculous situations, reducing his image to the extremely unheroic. Trofimov is a “shabby gentleman”, an “eternal student”, whom Lopakhin constantly stops with ironic remarks. But the student’s thoughts and dreams are close to the author’s. The writer, as it were, separates the word from its “carrier”: the significance of what is spoken does not always coincide with social significance"carrier".
Anya is seventeen years old. For Chekhov, youth is not only a sign of age. He wrote: “...that youth can be considered healthy, which does not put up with the old orders and... fights against them.” Anya received the usual upbringing for nobles. Trofimov had a great influence on the formation of her views. The girl’s character contains sincerity of feelings and mood, spontaneity. Anya is ready to start new life: pass exams for the gymnasium course and break ties with the past.
In the images of Anya Ranevskaya and Petya Trofimov, the author embodied everything best features inherent in the new generation. It is with their lives that Chekhov connects the future of Russia. They express the ideas and thoughts of the author himself. The sound of an ax is heard in the cherry orchard, but young people believe that the next generations will plant new orchards, more beautiful than the previous ones. The presence of these heroes enhances and strengthens the notes of vivacity that sound in the play, the motives of the future have a wonderful life. And it seems - not Trofimov, no, it was Chekhov who came on stage. “Here it is, happiness, here it comes, coming closer and closer... And if we don’t see it, don’t know it, then what’s the harm? Others will see him!”
(482 words) “The Cherry Orchard” – last play A.P. Chekhov. It was written by him in 1903, shortly before the 1905 revolution. The country then stood at a crossroads, and in the work the author skillfully conveyed the atmosphere of that time through events, characters, their characters and actions. The Cherry Orchard is the embodiment of pre-revolutionary Russia, and the heroes different ages- the personification of the past, present and future of the country.
Ranevskaya and Gaev represent earlier times. They live in memories and do not want to solve the problems of the present at all. Their house is under threat, but instead of making any attempts to save it, they in every possible way avoid conversations with Lopakhin on this topic. Lyubov Andreevna constantly wastes money that could be used to buy out a house. In the second act, she first complains: “Oh, my sins... I’ve always wasted money without restraint, like crazy...” - and literally a minute later, having heard the Jewish orchestra, she suggests “inviting him somehow, having an evening.” There is a feeling that before us are not adult, experienced, educated heroes, but foolish children who are unable to exist independently. They hope that their problem will be solved miraculously, but they themselves do not take any action, leaving everything to the mercy of fate. In the end, they are deprived of the entire past that they treasured so much.
The present time is personified by the merchant Ermolai Lopakhin. He is a representative of the growing class in Russia - the bourgeoisie. Unlike Ranevskaya and Gaev, he is not childish, but very hardworking and enterprising. It is these qualities that help him eventually buy the estate. He grew up in a family of serfs who used to serve the Gaevs, so he is very proud of himself: “... beaten, illiterate Ermolai... bought an estate where his grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen.” For Ermolai, the garden is not a memory of past years; for him, the plot is only a means for making money. Without any doubt, he cuts it down, thereby destroying the old, but at the same time, without creating anything new.
Anya and Petya Trofimov are heroes of the future. They both talk about the future as something absolutely bright and beautiful. But in reality, for the two of them it is quite vague. Petya talks a lot, but does little. At 26, he still hasn't graduated from university, earning him the nickname "the eternal student." He criticizes the nobility and supports the bourgeoisie, calling people to work, but he himself is not capable of anything. Of all the characters in the play, only Anya supports him. She is still a 17-year-old girl who represents the personification of youth, inexhaustible strength and the desire to do good. Her future is also unknown, but it is she who reassures her mother: “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this.” She has no doubt that the loss of the estate is not the most terrible tragedy and you can plant a new garden, just as you can start a new life. Although the author does not claim anything, perhaps Anya is the true future of Russia.
A.P. Chekhov showed readers heroes of different generations, classes and views on life of that time, but was never able to give a definite answer as to who the future of the country lay behind. But still, he sincerely believed that Russia’s future would certainly be bright and beautiful, like a blooming cherry orchard.