Lesson 4.5. “I wish our awkwardness would change somehow, unhappy life" Analysis of the play " The Cherry Orchard" Generalization
Progress of a double lesson
I. The comedy “The Cherry Orchard,” which completes the trilogy, can be considered as the writer’s testament, his last word.
1. Student message. The history of the creation of the play, its perception by contemporaries (K. Stanislavsky, V. Nemirovich-Danchenko, M. Gorky, V. Meyerhold).
2. Reading Act I.
Homework work.
Homework results.
In assessing the plot, it is important to pay attention to the lack of plot characteristic of plays; The mood of the characters, their loneliness, and isolation determine the development of the plot. They offer a ton of rescue projects. cherry orchard, but are decidedly unable to act.
The motifs of time, memories, unfavorable fate, the problem of happiness are also leading in The Cherry Orchard, as in previous plays, but now they play a decisive role, completely subjugating the characters. The motives of “purchase - sale”, “departure - stay” in the house open and complete the action of the play. Let us draw the students' attention to the fact that the motive of death here sounds more insistent.
The placement of heroes becomes more complicated. In Act I we have new, but easily recognizable heroes. They have aged a lot, gained the ability to look at the world soberly, but they do not want to part with illusions.
Ranevskaya knows that the house needs to be sold, but she hopes for Lopakhin’s help and asks Petya: “Save me, Petya!” Gaev perfectly understands the hopelessness of the situation, but diligently fences himself off from the world of reality, from thoughts about death with the absurd phrase “Who?” He is absolutely helpless. Epikhodov becomes a parody of these heroes, who cannot decide whether to live or shoot himself. He adapted to the world of the absurd (this explains his nickname: “22 misfortunes”). He also turns the tragedy of Voinitsky (“Uncle Vanya”) into a farce and brings to its logical conclusion the storyline associated with the idea of suicide. The “younger generation” in the play looks no less helpless: Anya is naive, full of illusions (a sure sign of the hero’s failure in Chekhov’s world). The image of Petya clearly illustrates the idea of degradation of the idealistic hero (in previous plays these were Astrov and Vershinin). He is an “eternal student”, “a shabby gentleman”, he is not busy with anything, he speaks - and even then inappropriately. Petya doesn’t accept it at all real world, the truth does not exist for him, which is why his monologues are so unconvincing. He is “above love.” The author’s obvious irony is heard here, emphasized on stage (in Act III, in the ball scene, he falls from the stairs and everyone laughs at him). “Cleany” Lyubov Andreevna calls him. At first glance, Ermolai Lopakhin looks the most sensible. A man of action, he gets up at five in the morning and cannot live without doing anything. His grandfather was Ranevskaya’s serf, and Ermolai is now rich. It is he who breaks the illusions of Ranevskaya and Gaev. But he also buys a house that is the center of illusions; he cannot arrange his own happiness; Lopakhin lives in the power of memories, the past.
3. Thus, the main character in the play becomes the house - “cherry orchard”.
Let's think about the question: why, in relation to the comedy “The Cherry Orchard,” is it more appropriate to talk about the chronotope of the house, while in relation to the first two plays of the trilogy it is more correct to talk about the image of the house?
Let's remember what a chronotope is?
Chronotope is the spatiotemporal organization of an image.
Working with the stage directions of the play. Let us trace how the image of time and space is created in the play. The action is “cherry orchard” - house.
I. “The room, which is still called the nursery... Dawn, the sun will rise soon. It’s already May, the cherry trees are blooming, but it’s cold in the garden, it’s morning. The windows in the room are closed.”
II. "Field. An old, crooked, long-abandoned chapel..., large stones that once were, apparently, gravestones... To the side, towering, poplars darken: there the cherry orchard begins. In the distance there is a row of telegraph poles, and far, far away on the horizon a large city is vaguely visible, which is visible only in very good, clear weather. The sun will set soon.”
III. “The living room...a Jewish orchestra is playing in the hallway...Evening. Everyone is dancing". At the end of the action: “There is no one in the hall and living room except Lyubov Andreevna, who sits and...cries bitterly. The music is playing quietly.”
IV. “The scenery of the first act. There are no curtains on the windows, no paintings, there is only a little furniture left, which is folded in one corner, as if for sale. One feels the emptiness...The door to the left is open...” At the end of the action: “The stage is empty. You can hear all the doors being locked and then the carriages driving away.”
Results of observations.
In the first act, events do not go beyond the room, which “is still called the nursery.” The feeling of enclosed space is achieved by mentioning closed windows. The author emphasizes the lack of freedom of the heroes, their dependence on the past. This is reflected in Gaev’s “odes” to the hundred-year-old “wardrobe”, and in Lyubov Andreevna’s delight at the sight of the nursery. The topics of the characters' conversations are related to the past. They talk about the main thing - selling the garden - in passing.
In the second act there is a field on stage (limitless space). The images of a long-abandoned chapel and stones that were once gravestones become symbolic. With them, the play includes the motive not only of death, but also of the heroes overcoming the past and memories. The image of another, real space is included by the designation on the horizon big city. This world is alien to the heroes, they are afraid of it (scene with a passerby), but the destructive impact of the city on the cherry orchard is inevitable - you cannot escape from reality. Chekhov emphasizes this idea with the sound instrumentation of the scene: in the silence “suddenly a distant sound is heard, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad.”
Act III- the culmination, both in the development of an external conflict (the garden is sold) and an internal one. We again find ourselves in the house, in the living room, where an absolutely absurd event is taking place: a ball. “And the musicians came at the wrong time, and we started the ball at the wrong time” (Ranevskaya). The tragedy of the situation is overcome by the technique of carnivalization of reality, tragedy is combined with farce: Charlotte shows her endless tricks, Petya falls down the stairs, they play billiards, everyone dances. The misunderstanding and disunity of the heroes reach their apogee.
Work with text. Let's read Lopakhin's monologue, which concludes Act III, and follow the author's remarks for changes in psychological state hero.
“The new landowner, the owner of the cherry orchard” does not feel happy. “If only our awkward, unhappy life would change,” Lopakhin says “with tears.” Lyubov Andreevna cries bitterly, “there is no one in the hall and living room.”
The image of an empty house dominates Act IV. Order and peace have been disrupted. We are again, as in Act I, in the nursery (ring composition). But now everything feels empty. Former owners leaving the house. The doors are locked, forgetting about Firs. The play ends with “a distant sound, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad” being heard again. And in the silence “you can hear how far in the garden an ax is knocking on a tree.”
What's the point last scene plays?
The house has been sold. The heroes are no longer connected by anything, their illusions are lost.
Firs, the personification of ethics and duty, is locked in the house. The “ethical” is over.
The 19th century is over. The 20th, “iron” century is coming. “Homelessness is becoming the fate of the world.” (Martin Heidegger).
What then do Chekhov's heroes gain?
If not happiness, then freedom... This means that freedom in Chekhov’s world is the most important category, the meaning of human existence.
II. Generalization.
What makes it possible to combine A. Chekhov’s plays “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters”, “The Cherry Orchard” into a trilogy?
We invite the children to summarize the lesson material on their own.
The result of the work.
Let us define the criteria for this community.
1. In every play the hero is in conflict with the world around him; everyone also experiences internal discord. Thus, the conflict acquires a total character - almost all people bear it. Heroes are characterized by an expectation of change.
2. Problems of happiness and time become leading in the trilogy.
All heroes have:
happiness is in the past,
unhappiness in the present
hopes for happiness in the future.
3. Image of the house (“ noble nest”) is central to all three plays.
The house embodies the characters’ idea of happiness - it preserves the memory of the past and testifies to the troubles of the present; its preservation or loss inspires hope for the future.
Thus, the motives of “buying and selling” a house, “leaving and staying” in it become meaningful and plot-organizing in the plays.
4. In the plays, the idealistic hero degrades.
In “Uncle Vanya” it is Doctor Astrov;
in “Three Sisters” - Colonel Vershinin;
in The Cherry Orchard - student Trofimov.
Work in rows. Call them “positive programs.” What do they have in common?
Answer: The idea of work and happiness in the future.
5. The heroes are in a situation of choosing their future fate.
Almost everyone feels the situation of the collapse of the world to a greater or lesser extent. In "Uncle Vanya" it is, first of all, Uncle Vanya; in “Three Sisters” - sisters Olga, Masha and Irina Prozorov; in The Cherry Orchard - Ranevskaya.
There are also parodies of them in the plays: Telegin, Chebutykin, Epikhodov and Charlotte.
You can trace other parallels between the heroes of the plays:
Marina - Anfisa;
Ferapont - Firs;
Telegin - Epikhodov;
Salty - Yasha;
Serebryakov - Prozorov.
There is also an external similarity:
religiosity, deafness, failed professorship, and so on.
This commonality of conflict, plot, and system of images allows us to introduce the concept of a metaplot.
Metaplot - a plot that unites all plotlines individual works, building them as an artistic whole.
It is the situation of choice in which the heroes find themselves that determines the metaplot of the trilogy. Heroes must:
or open up, trust the world of the absurd, abandoning the usual norms and values;
or continue to multiply illusions, eking out an untrue existence, hoping for the future.
The ending of the trilogy is open; we will not find answers to the questions posed in Chekhov’s plays, because this is not the task of art, according to the playwright. Now in beginning of XXI centuries, we ask ourselves questions about the meaning of existence that so worried A.P. Chekhov, and the wonderful thing is that everyone has the opportunity to give their answer, make their choice...
“The Cherry Orchard” is the pinnacle of Russian drama of the early 20th century, lyrical comedy, the play that marked the beginning new era development of Russian theater.
The main theme of the play is autobiographical - a bankrupt family of nobles sells their family estate at auction. The author, as a person who went through such life situation, describes with subtle psychologism state of mind people who will soon be forced to leave their homes. The innovation of the play is the absence of division of heroes into positive and negative, into main and secondary ones. They are all divided into three categories:
- people of the past - noble aristocrats (Ranevskaya, Gaev and their lackey Firs);
- people of the present - their bright representative, the merchant-entrepreneur Lopakhin;
- people of the future - the progressive youth of that time (Petr Trofimov and Anya).
History of creation
Chekhov began work on the play in 1901. Due to serious health problems, the writing process was quite difficult, but nevertheless, in 1903 the work was completed. First theatrical performance The play took place a year later on the stage of the Moscow art theater, becoming the pinnacle of Chekhov's work as a playwright and a textbook classic of the theatrical repertoire.
Analysis of the play
Description of the work
The action takes place on the family estate of landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, who returned from France with her young daughter Anya. On railway station they are met by Gaev (Ranevskaya's brother) and Varya (her adopted daughter).
The financial situation of the Ranevsky family is nearing complete collapse. Entrepreneur Lopakhin offers his own version of a solution to the problem - to divide the land into shares and give them to summer residents for use for a certain fee. The lady is burdened by this proposal, because for this she will have to say goodbye to her beloved cherry orchard, with which many warm memories of her youth are associated. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that her beloved son Grisha died in this garden. Gaev, imbued with his sister’s feelings, reassures her with a promise that their family estate will not be put up for sale.
The action of the second part takes place on the street, in the courtyard of the estate. Lopakhin, with his characteristic pragmatism, continues to insist on his plan to save the estate, but no one pays attention to him. Everyone turns to the teacher Pyotr Trofimov who has appeared. He delivers an excited speech dedicated to the fate of Russia, its future and touches on the topic of happiness in a philosophical context. The materialist Lopakhin is skeptical about the young teacher, and it turns out that only Anya is capable of being imbued with his lofty ideas.
The third act begins with Ranevskaya using her last money to invite an orchestra and organize a dance evening. Gaev and Lopakhin are absent at the same time - they went to the city for an auction, where the Ranevsky estate should go under the hammer. After a tedious wait, Lyubov Andreevna learns that her estate was bought at auction by Lopakhin, who does not hide his joy at his acquisition. The Ranevsky family is in despair.
The finale is entirely dedicated to the departure of the Ranevsky family from their home. The parting scene is shown with all the deep psychologism inherent in Chekhov. The play ends with a surprisingly deep monologue by Firs, whom the owners in a hurry forgot on the estate. The final chord is the sound of an axe. The cherry orchard is being cut down.
Main characters
A sentimental person, the owner of the estate. Having lived abroad for several years, she got used to a luxurious life and, by inertia, continues to allow herself many things that, given the deplorable state of her finances, according to the logic of common sense, should be inaccessible to her. Being a frivolous person, very helpless in everyday matters, Ranevskaya does not want to change anything about herself, while she is fully aware of her weaknesses and shortcomings.
A successful merchant, he owes a lot to the Ranevsky family. His image is ambiguous - he combines hard work, prudence, enterprise and rudeness, a “peasant” beginning. At the end of the play, Lopakhin does not share Ranevskaya’s feelings; he is happy that, despite his peasant origins, he was able to afford to buy the estate of his late father’s owners.
Like his sister, he is very sensitive and sentimental. Being an idealist and romantic, to console Ranevskaya, he comes up with fantastic plans to save the family estate. He is emotional, verbose, but at the same time completely inactive.
Petya Trofimov
An eternal student, a nihilist, an eloquent representative of the Russian intelligentsia, advocating for the development of Russia only in words. In pursuit of the “highest truth,” he denies love, considering it a petty and illusory feeling, which immensely upsets Ranevskaya’s daughter Anya, who is in love with him.
A romantic 17-year-old young lady who fell under the influence of the populist Pyotr Trofimov. Recklessly believing in better life After the sale of her parents' estate, Anya is ready for any difficulties for the sake of shared happiness next to her lover.
An 87-year-old man, a footman in the Ranevskys' house. The type of servant of old times, surrounds his masters with fatherly care. He remained to serve his masters even after the abolition of serfdom.
A young lackey who treats Russia with contempt and dreams of going abroad. A cynical and cruel man, he is rude to old Firs and even treats his own mother with disrespect.
Structure of the work
The structure of the play is quite simple - 4 acts without dividing into separate scenes. The duration of action is several months, from late spring to mid-autumn. In the first act there is exposition and plotting, in the second there is an increase in tension, in the third there is a climax (the sale of the estate), in the fourth there is a denouement. Characteristic feature the play is the absence of genuine external conflict, dynamism, unpredictable turns storyline. The author's remarks, monologues, pauses and some understatement give the play a unique atmosphere of exquisite lyricism. Artistic realism The play is achieved through the alternation of dramatic and comic scenes.
(Scene from a modern production)
The development of the emotional and psychological plane dominates in the play; the main driver of the action is the internal experiences of the characters. The author expands art space works using input large quantity characters who never appear on stage. Also, the effect of expanding spatial boundaries is given by the symmetrically emerging theme of France, giving an arched form to the play.
Final conclusion
Chekhov's last play, one might say, is his “swan song.” The novelty of her dramatic language is a direct expression of Chekhov’s special concept of life, which is characterized by extraordinary attention to small, seemingly insignificant details, and a focus on the inner experiences of the characters.
In the play “The Cherry Orchard,” the author captured the state of critical disunity of Russian society of his time; this sad factor is often present in scenes where the characters hear only themselves, creating only the appearance of interaction.
"The Cherry Orchard": analysis Chekhov's play
Let's remember Chekhov's stories. Lyrical mood, piercing sadness and laughter... These are his plays too - unusual plays, and even more so that seemed strange to Chekhov's contemporaries. But it was in them that the “watercolor” nature of Chekhov’s colors, his soulful lyricism, his piercing accuracy and frankness were most clearly and deeply manifested.
Chekhov's dramaturgy has several plans, and what the characters say is by no means what the author himself hides behind their remarks. And what he is hiding may not be what he would like to convey to the viewer...
This diversity makes it difficult to define the genre. For example, a play
As we know from the very beginning, the estate is doomed; The heroes are also doomed - Ranevskaya, Gaev, Anya and Varya - they have nothing to live for, nothing to hope for. The solution proposed by Lopakhin is impossible for them. Everything for them symbolizes the past, some ancient wonderful life when everything was easy and simple, and they even knew how to dry cherries and send them by cart to Moscow... But now the garden has grown old, productive years are rare, the method of preparing cherries has been forgotten... Constant trouble is felt behind all the words and actions of the heroes... And even the hopes for the future expressed by one of the most active heroes - Lopakhin - are unconvincing. Petya Trofimov’s words are also unconvincing: “Russia is our garden,” “we need to work.” After all, Trofimov himself is an eternal student who cannot begin any serious activity. The trouble is in the way the relationship between the characters develops (Lolakhin and Varya love each other, but for some reason they don’t get married), and in their conversations. Everyone talks about what interests them in this moment, and does not listen to others. Chekhov's heroes are characterized by a tragic “deafness,” so the important and the small, the tragic and the stupid get in the way in the dialogues.
After all, in “The Cherry Orchard,” as in human life, tragic (financial difficulties, inability of the heroes to act), dramatic (the life of any of the heroes) and comic (for example, Petya Trofimov’s fall from the stairs at the most tense moment) are mixed. Discord is visible everywhere, even in the fact that servants behave like masters. Firs says, comparing the past and present, that “everything is fragmented.” The existence of this person seems to remind the young that life began a long time ago, even before them. It is also characteristic that he is forgotten on the estate...
And the famous “sound of a breaking string” is also a symbol. If a stretched string means readiness, determination, efficiency, then a broken string means the end. True, there is still a vague hope, because the neighboring landowner Simeonov-Pishchik was lucky: he is no better than others, but they either found clay or had a railroad...
Life is both sad and funny. She is tragic, unpredictable - this is what Chekhov talks about in his plays. And that is why it is so difficult to determine their genre - after all, the author simultaneously shows all aspects of our life...
Chekhov himself called “The Cherry Orchard” a comedy, although he admitted later that “What I came up with was... a comedy, sometimes even a farce.” A great director K. S. Stanislavsky called the work a tragedy: “This is a tragedy...” The problem of the genre and the date itself is one of the most difficult when studying Chekhov’s play, although there seems to be such a genre as tragicomedy, which combines the tragic and the funny, only in “The Cherry Orchard” there doesn’t seem to be anything tragic, just the usual collapse of not very lucky people who continue to live on, not really looking back - which is why they forget old Firs in the house abandoned by everyone... Together with However, this “comedy” shows the deepest internal tragedy of people who have outlived their time and are feverishly trying to somehow get settled in a new, so incomprehensible to them, even hostile towards them, life, the departure of a whole historical era, which was replaced by an era of major social and moral upheavals. Only this is clear to us now, what will happen “after” Ranevskaya and Gaev, what will come to replace the “cherry orchard,” and for them, who lived then, it was incredibly difficult to “guess” the future, which frankly frightened them, because it destroyed the life in which they felt good and which they would like to keep for themselves forever.
The peculiarity of the era determined the main external conflict of the play “The Cherry Orchard”: it is a conflict between the past, present and future. However, not only does it determine the plot and composition of the work, it is permeated internal conflicts, almost each of the image-characters carries duality; he not only confronts reality, but also painfully tries to reconcile himself with his own soul, which turns out to be the most difficult thing. Chekhov’s characters cannot be divided into “positive” and “negative”; they are living people, in whom there is a lot of good and not so good, who behave the way they think they should behave in the situations in which they find themselves - and it can be funny, or not very funny, or completely sad.
The image of Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya is the core image; all other characters are somehow connected with her. Ranevskaya combines sincerity and spiritual callousness, ardent love for the Motherland and complete indifference to it; they say about her that she is a “good”, “easy” person - and this is true, as is the truth that it is unbearably difficult to live next to her... First of all, it should be noted that the contradictory image of Ranevskaya does not mean that she is - some special, complex, incomprehensible person, rather, on the contrary: she is always who she is, it’s just that to those around her such behavior seems extravagant to some, and unusually attractive to others. The contradictory behavior of Lyubov Andreevna is explained by the fact that she never truly understood that life had changed, she continues to live in that life when there was no need to think about a piece of bread, when the cherry orchard provided an easy and carefree life for its owners. That’s why she wastes money, repenting of it herself, that’s why she doesn’t think about the future (“everything will work out!”), that’s why she’s so cheerful. She spends money on her “fatal passion,” realizing that she is thereby complicating the life of her daughters, and at the end of the play she returns to Paris again, where she can live the way she is used to. Ranevskaya is one of the best manifestations of the old life (it is no coincidence that she is idolized by Lopakhin, who since childhood sees in her an unattainable ideal), however, like all this life, she must leave - and the viewer perceives her departure with sympathy and pity, because -Humanly she is so sweet and attractive.
Little can be said about Ranevskaya’s brother, Gaev. He is very similar to his sister, but he does not have her lightness and charm, he is simply ridiculous in his reluctance and inability to face life and “grow up” - Chekhov emphasizes that the footman Firs still perceives him as little boy, which, in essence, is what he is. Gaev’s inappropriate, tearful monologues (addressing the closet!) are not just funny, they take on a touch of tragedy, since such a blatant isolation from the life of an elderly person cannot but frighten.
Much attention in the play "The Cherry Orchard" is paid to the problem of the future. Chekhov shows us, so to speak, two options for the future: the future “according to Petya Trofimov” and the future “according to Ermolay Lopakhin.” IN different periods In history, each of these future options had its adherents and opponents.
Petya Trofimov, with his vague calls, loud assurances that “All of Russia is our garden,” and his denunciation of modernity, during the creation of the play, was perceived as positive hero, his words “I have a presentiment of happiness, Anya, I already see it...” were perceived auditorium with great enthusiasm. However, Chekhov himself was wary of this hero: we see Petya, who, a “shabby gentleman,” does practically nothing. For him in beautiful words it is difficult to see truly real affairs, moreover, he constantly finds himself in a funny position. Even when at the beginning of Act IV he loudly promises Lopakhin that he will reach " higher truth, to the highest happiness that is possible on earth,” because in this movement of humanity towards them he is “in the forefront!”, he cannot find ... his own galoshes, and this makes his confidence ridiculous: he takes aim at such things, but He can’t find his galoshes!..
The future “according to Ermolay Lopakhin” is depicted in a completely different way. A former serf who bought “an estate where his grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen,” who gets up “at five o’clock in the morning” and works all day, who made millions and knows what needs to be done with the cherry orchard ( “Both the cherry orchard and the land must be rented out for dachas, do this now, as soon as possible”), in fact, he knows practically nothing about relationships between people, he is tormented by the fact that wealth does not give him a feeling of happiness. The image of Lopakhin is an image close to tragic, because for this man the meaning of life was the accumulation of money, he succeeded, but why then does he so desperately, “with tears,” exclaim at the end of the third act, when he had already become the owner of the estate , “there is nothing more beautiful in the world”: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change”? A millionaire - and an unhappy life?.. But in fact: he understands that he has remained a “man a man”, he loves Varya in his own way, but still does not dare to explain himself to her, he is able to feel beauty (“I in the spring I sowed a thousand dessiatines of poppy and now I earned forty thousand net. And when my poppy bloomed, what a picture it was!” gentle soul“(this is what Petya Trofimov says about him) - but he is truly unhappy. What despair can be heard in his words: “We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see here new life..."! Grandchildren and great-grandchildren - this is understandable, but what do you have left in life for yourself?..
An interesting image is the old servant Firs, for whom the liberation of the serfs was a “misfortune.” He cannot imagine a life other than life in slavery, which is why he remains in the house - to die along with the cherry orchard, which is not hit by Ermolai Lopakhin with an axe, but by time itself. The image of the “cherry orchard” is a semi-symbolic image of the past, which is doomed and which needs to be gotten rid of for the sake of the future, but we have already seen what it can be, this is the future. The historical doom of the past is obvious, but it in no way explains what, in fact, this future, desired by some and cursed by other heroes, could become, therefore Chekhov’s entire play is permeated with anxious expectations that make the heroes’ lives even more bleak, and parting with The “cherry orchard” is especially painful - isn’t that why Lopakhin is in such a hurry, ordering the trees to be cut down when the old owners have not yet left the doomed estate?
“The Cherry Orchard,” which we analyzed, was created by Chekhov on the eve of dramatic changes in Russian life, and the author, welcoming them, ardently wishing for a change in life for the better, could not help but see that any changes are always destruction, they bring with them someone else’s life. then dramas and tragedies, “progress” necessarily denies something that earlier, in its time, was also progressive. Awareness of this determined the moral pathos of Chekhov’s “comedy”, his moral position: he welcomes the change in life and at the same time he is worried about what it can bring to people; he understands the historical doom of his heroes and humanly sympathizes with them, who find themselves “between the past and the future” and trying to find their place in a new life that frightens them. As a matter of fact, Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” is very relevant today, since now Russia is again “between the past and the future,” and I really want us to be happier than the heroes of “The Cherry Orchard.”
The play "The Cherry Orchard" - the last dramatic work, in which Anton Pavlovich Chekhov pays tribute to his time, the nobles and such a broad concept as “estate”, so valued by the author at all times.
The genre of “The Cherry Orchard” has always served as a reason for controversy and gossip. Chekhov himself wished to attribute the play to comedy genre, thereby going against critics and connoisseurs of literature, who loudly convinced everyone that the work belonged to tragicomedy and drama. Thus, Anton Pavlovich gave readers the opportunity to judge his creation for themselves, to observe and experience the variety of genres presented on the pages of the book.
The leitmotif of all scenes in the play is the cherry orchard, because it is not just a backdrop against which it happens. whole line events, but also a symbol of the course of life in the estate. Throughout his career, the author gravitated toward symbolism, and did not sacrifice it in this play. It is against the backdrop of the cherry orchard that both external and internal conflicts develop.
The reader (or viewer) sees the owners of the house replacing each other, as well as the sale of the estate for debts. Upon a quick reading, it is noticeable that all the opposing forces are represented in the play: youth, noble Russia and aspiring entrepreneurs. Of course, social confrontation, often taken as the main line of conflict, is obvious. However, more attentive readers may notice that the key reason for the clash is not social confrontation at all, but the conflict of key characters with their environment and reality.
The “underwater” current of the play is no less interesting than its main plot. Chekhov builds his narrative on halftones, where, among unambiguous and indisputable events, perceived as fact and for granted, existential questions appear from time to time, emerging throughout the play. “Who am I and what do I want?” Firs, Epikhodov, Charlotte Ivanovna and many other heroes ask themselves. Thus, it becomes obvious that the leading motive of “The Cherry Orchard” is not confrontation at all social strata, but the loneliness that haunts every hero throughout his life.
Teffi described “The Cherry Orchard” with only one saying: “Laughter through tears,” analyzing it immortal work. It’s both funny and sad to read it, realizing that both conflicts raised by the author are relevant to this day.
In addition to the analysis of the play “The Cherry Orchard,” there are other works:
- Analysis of the story by A.P. Chekhov's "Ionych"
- “Tosca”, analysis of Chekhov’s work, essay
- “The Death of an Official,” analysis of Chekhov’s story, essay
- “Thick and Thin”, analysis of Chekhov’s story