“The Cherry Orchard” is considered an example of a dramatic classic. Its creation accompanied a turning point in Russian theater and Russian literature. This lyrical comedy with characteristic Chekhov's works sad aftertaste.
History of creation
Literary scholars believe that the play is autobiographical. The plot of the work is built around a bankrupt noble family forced to sell the family estate. Chekhov happened to find himself in a similar situation, so he knew the experiences of his heroes firsthand. State of mind each character was familiar to the writer as a person who was faced with the need to leave home. The narrative is permeated with subtle psychologism.
The innovation of the play lay in the fact that its characters were divided not into positive and negative heroes, not on the main and minor ones. These were people of the past, present and future, whom the writer classified according to their worldview. Lopakhin was a representative of the present, although sometimes there is a feeling that he could also lay claim to the position of a man of the future.
Work on the work was carried out from 1901 to 1903. Chekhov was seriously ill, but completed the play, and in 1904 the premiere theatrical production According to a new plot, it took place on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater.
"The Cherry Orchard"
The biography and fate of Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin is closely connected with the life of the Ranevskaya family. The hero's father was a serf of Father Ranevskaya and lived in petty trade. The young lady showed sympathy for the young man, who was constantly bombarded by his father, and he talks about this, recalling the story of life in serfdom. Ranevskaya’s attitude excited the consciousness of Ermolai Lopakhin. He liked the caress of an attractive girl, but he understood that there was an abyss between them based on slavery. Even the meaning of the hero’s surname and name suggests that he is intended for a completely different society.
Lopakhin became rich by becoming a merchant and was able to change his fate. He made himself and, despite the lack of proper education, became a popular man, of which he is incredibly proud. Although he admits that books are empty for him, and his handwriting has never acquired a noble appearance. The former serf achieved everything through hard work; his whole life consists of work. Lopakhin is in a hurry all the time, looking at his watch, waiting for a new meeting. He knows how to manage his own time and finances, unlike the Ranevskaya family.
Lopakhin more than once starts a conversation about the cherry orchard, offering help. He easily parts with money by lending money, but in the case of the estate being sold, something else is involved: Lopakhin loves Ranevskaya. He acts nobly, offering to buy the garden and rent it out as summer cottages, although he could have quietly bought it for his own use.
Lopakhin demonstrates amazing for a former serf business qualities. He is practical and calculating, but does not use his talents against those close to him. At the same time, some characters give an unflattering description of the hero, believing that Lopakhin is pursuing the possibility of a profitable deal.
Throughout the action, the conversation repeatedly comes up about Lopakhin's marriage to Vara. Ermolai does not marry the girl not because of the lack of a dowry, but because of the issue of cutting down the garden. Varya sees in the groom only a businessman for whom the wedding can be beneficial as a deal. Incoherent dialogues between the characters make it clear that there is no mutual understanding between them. The love for Ranevskaya, warming in Lopakhin’s heart, does not allow him to think about other women. The hero proposes to Varya solely at the request of his beloved.
Illustration for the book "The Cherry Orchard" In the play, each character loses something along with The Cherry Orchard. Lopakhin loses faith in love, realizing that the image of a simple man has forever been assigned to him in Ranevskaya’s perception. Having bought Ranevskaya’s garden at auction, he, a representative of the future, the owner of an estate where his family was in service, falls into euphoria. But, having acquired the garden, he did not achieve the fulfillment of a dream that remained unattainable. Ranevskaya leaves Russia, going to Paris, and Lopakhin is left alone with the estate where he spent his youth.
At the end of the play, Ermolai Alekseevich talks about his awkward life. It becomes obvious to him that everything he strived for turned out to be empty. He realizes how many people in his country exist aimlessly and do not understand what they live for.
Still from the film "The Cherry Orchard" The author's attitude towards Lopakhin is not as negative as that of other characters in the play. Chekhov considers Lopakhin a “klutz” and justifies the hero with a lack of education and upbringing. Many of Lopakhin’s actions indicate that, despite his business acumen, the man is not distinguished by simple forethought. He is late for the train to meet Ranevskaya. Wanting to help her out of trouble, he buys a garden. He decides to ask Varya to marry and immediately forgets about it.
The image of Lopakhin is incredibly relevant in last decades. This is a “hero of our time”, skillfully building a business, but callous in soul. A person incapable of perception and thinking exclusively about his own self-realization through material wealth. Ermolai Lopakhin presents with his description an anti-portrait of Chekhov. A sensitive writer whose works are full philosophical meaning and tragedy, is the complete opposite of the son of serfs who has made it into the people.
Film adaptations
The first film adaptation of the play by Russian playwright Chekhov was made in Japan in 1936 by director Morato Makoto. The characters were modernized to match current Japanese images. In 1959, director Daniel Petri shot the film “The Cherry Orchard,” in which Martin Hirte played the role of Lopakhin. In the 1973 production by Jan Bull, the image of Lopakhin was absent, and in the Soviet film adaptation of 1976, Yuri Kayurov appeared in the role of the merchant in Leonid Kheifetz's teleplay.
Vysotsky plays in the play "The Cherry Orchard" Richard Eid in 1981 directed Bill Paterson as Lopakhin, and in Soviet picture Igor Ilyinsky played Ermolai in 1983. Anna Chernakova, who directed the film “The Cherry Orchard” 10 years later, invited Lopakhin to play the role. The image of the merchant in the television film by Sergei Ovcharov in 2008 went to. The most famous performer of this role on theater stage became .
Quotes
Lopakhin is beautiful by the fact that he does not forget his place. Like any person who has not seen a prosperous life, he is proud of what he managed to achieve without patronage and help. For him, the main expression of success is material wealth:
“My father, it’s true, was a man, but here I am in a white vest and yellow shoes.”
Illustration for the play "The Cherry Orchard" The hero understands how valuable an education he did not receive would be in his current situation. He also feels that he lacks the ability to understand the world that he is so eager to get into, where he wants to be accepted as “one of his own”:
“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 that was all with a stick. In essence, I’m just as much of a blockhead and an idiot. I haven’t studied anything, my handwriting is bad, I write in such a way that people are ashamed of me, like a pig.”
Lopakhin's main achievement is that he manages to understand: the life he strives for is worthless. Money doesn't bring him pleasure. Owning a cherry orchard makes him understand that his dreams turned out to be empty, the pleasure from their fulfillment is doubtful. Work becomes the main life credo for the hero:
“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 a merchant and represents the person new era, which is to fill Russia and destroy the former classes. Landowners are replaced by capitalists, who in turn emerged from common people, but received significant opportunities.
In fact, the story is not new and Chekhov did not ironize the figure of the rich Lopakhin, who can communicate on equal terms with the people who actually owned his ancestors. Ermolai Alekseevich himself has quite a high degree accurate reflection and has no illusions about himself. He calls himself a simple man and this makes sense, just as his ancestors got up before dawn and went to bed at night and worked, he also works incessantly, just conditions have changed and now such people can make capital.
In essence, Lapakhin is an illustration of how a more or less decent person who is allowed to certain opportunities will behave. He behaves in many ways ruthlessly and does not have the refinement of nature, high ideals and sublimity of mind. At the same time, it is he who describes the cherry orchard reverently.
Although for Lopakhin such a description is simply beautiful words and a slight movement of the soul, he really just doesn’t feel deeply, he cannot understand the deep feelings that its owners have for the garden. Yes, Lopakhin likes the garden, but he likes money more, and likes the opportunity to earn money and work in general. Therefore, he easily parts with the garden and even more so.
Chekhov skillfully presents some of the predatory, and, let’s say, “gluttonous” nature of Lopakhin, who, having achieved his goal (buying a garden), can no longer control himself. He dances around and even cuts down the garden before the owners leave - probably precisely to demonstrate his own power, in order to offend Ranevskaya, but mainly Gaev.
Of course, Ermolai is not a negative character in the literal sense, but if you look at it from the side of the landowners, he does not have any special inner dignity. Lopakhin knows about this and is not at all sad, because he can buy a garden, which the landowners cannot, who do not fall asleep over books, but are not particularly awake for this harsh and simple new world that Chekhov foresaw.
Essay about Lopakhin
A man, a man, Lopakhin says about himself. This image is collective and represents, to some extent, the ruler of modern times.
Lopakhin is truly the ruler of the coming era, he managed to make money thanks to new conditions. Such hardworking people become merchants and businessmen and amass capital. They belong to high society, but do not pretend to high culture and high ideals; they fall asleep over books, but work a lot.
For Lopakhin, the cherry orchard (which, by the way, personifies Russia) does not carry any symbolic ideal or shrine, it is only a profitable space for creating summer cottages and receiving money for rent. Quite a short time after Chekhov wrote his play, men like Lopakhin will march en masse throughout the country, dividing up plots for summer residents, and in general, as they say, “selecting them and dividing them up.” Lopakhins do not really need comfort and grace high society, they are practical people.
Of course, this world needs people like Lopakhin, simple and active, but when they become the main driving force and replace the elite, then the country turns from a cherry orchard into vulgar areas for summer residents. Of course, Gaev’s happiness is also vulgar, his philistinism is no good, however, Lopakhin’s proletarian happiness does not look like a healthy alternative.
After all, what is happiness for Lopakhin? We see at the end of the play, when he loses control, begins to dance and does not even allow Ranevskaya and the others to leave the estate calmly, he begins to cut down the garden in front of the former owners, in order, as they say, to rub his nose in. Previously, Lopakhin's ancestors worked in this garden for their owners, but now he is the king of the world, who has achieved everything with his hump.
Yes, Lopakhin is hardworking, but, in essence, he achieves everything only through brute force. He received a more or less normal upbringing and some moral principles precisely thanks to the landowners and the Ranevskaya family in particular. By the way, with representatives of the upper class he continues to behave politely and restrains himself, although as soon as he gets what he is looking for, his old manners disappear and Lopakhin becomes a simple and rude predator who sees only the practical side of existence.
Of course, Chekhov does not see Lopakhin as a negative figure; he probably sees in him the natural course of the world, just as the seasons replace each other, so when the landowners become pampered Gaevs, the more practical and stern Lopakhins come to replace them. This is a change of eras, which Chekhov accurately saw and characterized in his own creation.
Option 3
At the center of the play is A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" - sale of a neglected noble estate. The owners, a former rich noble family, are unbusinesslike people, not adapted to the new living conditions. The representative of the new social force that replaced the nobility at the beginning of the 20th century - the bourgeoisie - is one of the heroes of the play - the merchant Lopakhin.
Lopakhin Ermolai Alekseevich is the grandson and son of serfs, an honest, hardworking, energetic person. The bulk of his fortune was earned by his own labor. He is illiterate and has never studied anywhere. But he has business acumen and intelligence. Lopakhin is completely absorbed in some business, he always lacks time, he is constantly on the road. He cannot live without work. He is the only one among the characters in the play who constantly looks at his watch and is interested in time. Lopakhin does not regret lending money to Ranevskaya and Simeonov-Pishchik, and offers it to Petya Trofimov. He is a reasonable, but kind, decent person.
Lopakhin is not at all an enemy of the nobles Ranevskaya and Gaev. On the contrary, he feels sympathy for them and really wants to help. Lopakhin does not want to destroy the cherry orchard, but gives practical advice: divide the garden into plots for summer cottages and rent them out for a reasonable fee. But for them, noble intellectuals, this sounds like an insult. For them, the Cherry Orchard is the personification of the noble past. Lopakhin cannot understand why all his impulses to help do not find a response. This is their last chance. He is annoyed by their delay. For him, a garden is an object of purchase and sale, a profitable investment of capital.
Lopakhin is not given personal happiness. His relationship with Varya is complicated. She wants to marry Lopakhin, seeing him as a suitable match. But he hesitates to propose to her, although he understands that this is expected of him. He doesn't love her, he's bored with her. Lopakhin has warm feelings for Ranevskaya. He remembers how kind she was to him, protecting him from his father’s beatings as a child. He lends her money and wants to help. But Lyubov Andreevna does not take Lopakhin’s feelings seriously.
As a result, it is Lopakhin who turns out to be the owner of the garden. He is both happy and embarrassed at the same time. He is the owner of an estate in which his grandfather and father were serfs. The acquisition of an estate is evidence of it success in life, self-affirmation. He is shocked by Ranevskaya's tears. In Lopakhin’s last desperate words, which he addresses to her, one senses an understanding of the impossibility of living the way one wants.
The play “The Cherry Orchard” became the swan song, the pinnacle work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Premonition big changes in the life of the country made the writer think about historical path Russia, about its past, present and future. Chekhov had never set himself such a task before. However, in Russian literature the theme of impoverishment and decline of noble estates was not new. At one time, N.V. Gogol, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I.A. Goncharov, I.S. Turgenev and other Russians addressed this topic writers XIX century, but Chekhov approached the disclosure of this topic in a completely new way: in the connection of times, in showing the changes that he saw in Russia.
At the same time, in the play there is no acute clash of opposing ideas, moral principles, characters - her conflict is internal, psychological character.
The present in the play is personified, first of all, by the merchant Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin. The author gave this image special meaning: “...Lopakhin’s role is central. If it fails, then the whole play will fail.” Lopakhin replaces Ranevsky and Gaev, and in comparison with representatives of the past he is progressive, it is no coincidence that A.P. Chekhov placed him in the center figurative system of your work.
Ermolai Lopakhin's father was a serf, but after the reform of 1861 he became rich and became a shopkeeper. Lopakhin himself says this to 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 me with a stick. In essence, I’m just as much of a blockhead and an idiot. I haven’t studied anything, my handwriting is bad, I write in such a way that people are ashamed of me, like a pig.” 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 white vest, yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a row... Only he's rich, he has a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, he's a man... "But it would be a mistake to think that this remark reflects only the modesty of the hero. Lopakhin likes to repeat that he is a man, but he is no longer a man, not a peasant, but a businessman, a businessman.
Lopakhin undoubtedly has intelligence, business acumen and enterprise. He is energetic, and the scope of his activities is much wider than that of the previous masters of life. At the same time, most of Lopakhin’s fortune was earned by his own labor, and the path to wealth was not easy for him. “I sowed a thousand dessiatines of poppy in the spring and now I have earned forty thousand net,” he says. “And when my poppy bloomed, what a picture it was!” Individual remarks and remarks indicate that Lopakhin has some kind of big “business” in which he is completely absorbed. But at the same time, he easily parted with the money, lending it to Ranevskaya, just as persistently offering it to Petya Trofimov: “So, I say, I earned forty thousand and, therefore, I’m offering you a loan because I can.” 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; hanging out somehow strangely, like strangers”; “And I’m leaving for Kharkov now... There’s a lot to do.”
Lopakhin looks at his watch more often than others; his first remark is: “What time is it?” He constantly remembers the time: “I have to go to Kharkov now, at five o’clock in the morning”; “It’s October, but it’s sunny and quiet like summer. Build well. (Looking at the clock, at the door.) Gentlemen, keep in mind, there are only forty-six minutes left before the train! That means we’ll be heading to the station in twenty minutes. Hurry up." The characters perceive Lopakhin differently. Their reviews of him are very contradictory: for Ranevskaya he is “good, interesting person", for Gaev - "boorish", "fist", for Simeonov-Pishchik - "a man of enormous intelligence." Petya Trofimov gives a playful description of Lopakhin:
“I, Ermolai Alekseevich, understand: you are a rich man, you will soon be a millionaire. This is how you need it in terms of metabolism beast of prey, which eats everything that comes in its way, so you are needed.” Parting with Lopakhin, he says seriously: “...After all, I still love you. You have tender fingers, like an artist, you have a subtle, unclear soul...” The contradiction inherent in these statements by Petya Trofimov reflects the position of the author.
He defines his hero as a “klutz.” This is manifested both in appearance (white vest, yellow shoes) and in actions: he likes Varya, who hopes that Ermolai Lopakhin will propose to her, but when the girl cries in response to Ranevskaya’s tactless remark that she has been matched, Lopakhin, as if mockingly says: “Okhmelia, oh nymph, remember me in your prayers” (he cannot marry a dowry). Or another clear example: Lopakhin came on purpose to meet Ranevskaya - and “suddenly overslept”, wanted to help her - and bought the estate himself. Chekhov, as a realist artist, sought to emphasize the contradictions between good qualities human nature“new masters” and the inhumanity generated by their thirst for profit and acquisition.
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 in those around him, and at the same time acutely senses the imperfection of life: “Oh, if only all this would pass, sooner If only our awkward, unhappy life would change somehow.” Lopakhin sees the reasons for this “awkward, unhappy” life in the imperfection of man, in the meaninglessness of his existence: “You just need to start doing something to understand how few honest, decent people there are...”, “...And how many, brother , in Russia, people who exist for no one knows why.”
Lopakhin is 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. In a conversation with Dunyasha he says:
“I remember when I was a boy of about fifteen, my late father - he was selling in a shop here in the village back then - hit me in the face with his fist, blood started coming out of my nose... Lyubov Andreevna, as I remember now, was still young, so thin, let me down me to the washstand, in this very room, in the nursery. “Don’t cry, he says, little man, he’ll heal before the wedding...”
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, it is only necessary to “clean up, clean up... for example,... demolish all the old buildings, like this one old house, which is no longer any good, cut down the old cherry orchard..." Lopakhin convinces Ranevskaya and Gaev that they need to make this “only correct” decision, not realizing that his reasoning will deeply hurt them.
Convinced of the futility of his attempts to persuade Ranevskaya and Gaev, Lopakhin himself becomes the owner of the “cherry orchard”. Genuine pride can be heard in his monologue: “If only my father and grandfather would get up from their graves and look 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 were not 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 and watch how Ermolai Lopakhin takes an ax to the cherry orchard and how the trees fall to the ground! We will set up the dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see new life...Music, play!”
The “new master” of life, Lopakhin, personifies a new time. He is the only one who can come closer to understanding the essence of the era, but in his life there is no place for real beauty, sincerity, humanity, because Lopakhin is a symbol only of the present. The future belongs to other people
Lopakhin is a self-made man: the son of a serf, became a merchant, rich, influential person. Enterprising, able to earn and save a penny, he is already offering help to Ranevskaya, the owner of the estate where his father recently worked.
“Predator,” that’s what Petya Trofimov calls him. But let's take a closer look at it. Lopakhin is looking forward to Ranevskaya's return; his first words in the play are: “The train has arrived, thank God!” On the first pages of Chekhov
twice introduces a remark relating to this hero: listens.”
Lopakhin came on purpose to meet Ranevskaya. He doesn’t listen to Dunyasha, he thinks about his own things. About my own - this is about the arrival of the mistress of the estate, about what she has become: “Will she recognize me? We haven’t seen each other for five years.” Dunyasha reports that Epikhodov proposed to her. Lopakhin reacts indifferently: “Ah!”, and then interrupts: “It seems they are coming...”
It is interesting to pay attention to the following passage:
“Lopakhin (listens). Here, he repents, they are going...
Dunyasha, They're coming! What's wrong with me, I'm completely cold.
L o pakh i n. They really are going. Let's go meet. Will she recognize me? We haven't seen each other for five years.
Dunyasha (excitedly). I’m going to fall... Oh, I’m going to fall!”
“Will she recognize me?” - Lopakhin reflects. And after a while Ranevskaya says: “And I recognized Dunyasha.” Maybe Dunyasha's words to a greater extent designed to convey what is happening now inside Lopakhin?
Outwardly he is calm. Yes, he’s clearly waiting for Ranevskaya, but he’s calm. What about inside? Maybe Dunyasha is a kind of double of Lopakhin? He inspires Dunyasha: “You are very gentle, Dunyasha. And you dress like a lady, and your hair too. This is not possible. We must remember ourselves." And almost the same about himself: “In a white vest, yellow shoes... and if you think about it and figure it out, then the man is a man...”
Lopakhin remembers Ranevskaya with great tenderness: “She is a good person. An easy, simple person." Then in conversation he tells her very warm, touching words: “I have to go to Kharkov now, at five o’clock. Such a shame! I wanted to look at you, talk... You are still just as gorgeous.”
“Your brother, Leonid Andreevich, says about me that I’m a boor, I’m a kulak, but that doesn’t really matter to me. Let him talk. I only wish that you would still believe me, that your amazing, touching eyes would look at me as before. Merciful God! My father was a serf to your grandfather and father, but you, in fact, you once did so much for me that I forgot everything and love you like my own, more than my own.”
Everyone is waiting for him to propose to Varya, but he doesn’t. For two years now (!) everyone has been talking about this, but he is either silent or joking. Varya: “he has a lot to do, he has no time for me... and he doesn’t pay attention... Everyone talks about our wedding, everyone congratulates, but in reality there is nothing, everything is like a dream...”
When Lopakhin is told that he needs to get married, he answers calmly but indifferently: “Yes... So what? I wouldn't mind... She good girl" But doesn’t Lopakhin’s words addressed to Ranevskaya contain the answer to the question of why he still doesn’t propose to Varya? Isn't this a confession?
I think he loves Ranevskaya, has loved him for a long time... But! Firstly, Ranevskaya doesn’t hear him: I can’t sit, I’m not able to... (Jumps up and walks around in great excitement.) I won’t survive this joy...” Ranevskaya is busy with her feelings. (In fairness, it must be said that in general all the heroes of Chekhov’s play are preoccupied exclusively with themselves.)
She cannot (or does not want?) understand Lopakhin’s feelings. It is no coincidence that in the second and fourth acts she will advise Lopakhin to propose to Varya. Although it’s not at all clear why everyone decided that Lopakhin was in love with Varya.
He openly mocks her:
Lopakhin (looks into the door and hums). Me-e-e... (Leaves).
Secondly, Lopakhin’s confession was probably belated. (Although how could he have confessed to her before?) It is no coincidence that he overslept today and did not meet the train.
“What a fool I was! I came here on purpose to meet him at the station, and suddenly overslept... I fell asleep while sitting. Annoyance...” A moment that, perhaps, once existed in Lopakhin’s life, which happens in every person’s life, was missed.
The motif of missed opportunities constantly appears in the play. Let us again pay attention to Lopakhin’s words: I have to go to Kharkov now, at five o’clock. Such a shame! I wanted to look at you, talk... You are still just as magnificent.”
Let’s just highlight something else in them: “I have to go to Kharkov now, at five o’clock. Such a shame! I wanted to look at you, talk ... "And one more thing: I want to tell you something pleasant, cheerful. (Looking at his watch.) I’m leaving now, there’s no time to talk...”
Lopakhin was waiting for Ranevskaya so much! He thought about what she had become, but now he had no time to talk to her. It’s like this all my life: there’s no time. And then it turns out that it’s too late.
Thirdly, we repeat again that Lopakhin’s father was a serf to Ranevskaya’s father and grandfather.
Then he traded in a shop in the village. And the differences in upbringing, education, and lifestyle of Ranevskaya and Lopakhin cannot be removed by anything, even if you put on a white vest and yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a row... Just now he's rich, there's a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, then he's a man... (He flips through the book.) I read the book and didn't understand anything. I read and fell asleep."
“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 that was all with a stick. In essence, I’m just as much of a blockhead and an idiot. I haven’t studied anything, my handwriting is bad, I write in such a way that people are ashamed of me, like a pig.”
Let's pay attention to Lopakhin's condition in the third act after the purchase cherry orchard.
“I bought it!.. (Laughs.) Cherry Orchard now mine! My! (Laughs.) My God, Lord, my cherry orchard! Tell me that I’m drunk, out of my mind, that all this is imagining me... (Stamps his feet.) I’m dreaming, I’m only imagining this, it’s only seeming... This is a figment of your imagination, covered in the darkness of the unknown.”
Lopakhin's joy and laughter gave way to tears! He bought a cherry orchard, he will cut it down as he wanted, and rent out the land to summer residents (maybe). But this victory is illusory (“I’m dreaming, I’m only imagining this”).
Ranevskaya remained unattainable. Not everything is as Lopakhin wishes. Not everything in life can be paid for. “There’s just a lot of money, but the man was still a man.”
He ironically (!) says that a new owner of the cherry orchard is coming. And in general he becomes like Epikhodov: “I accidentally pushed the table and almost knocked over the candelabra.” (Epikhodov in the first act: I’ll go. (Bumps into a chair that falls)
The blow that was intended for Epikhodov falls on Lopakhin. Why am I comparing Lopakhin and Epikhodov? It’s just that everyone calls Epikhodov “twenty-two misfortunes”; they see that he is an unhappy person and sympathize with him.
And Lopakhin is usually perceived as a strong man, who has achieved a lot with his work, with his mind, as a predator who will take and buy the cherry orchard. (Petya Trofimov about him: “Just as in the sense of metabolism a predatory beast is needed that eats everything that gets in its way, so you are needed.”)
Meanwhile, Lopakhin is an endlessly lonely man, long and unrequitedly in love with a woman who does not notice this love and will never reciprocate his feelings.
Dunyasha is a double of Ranevskaya herself, who similarly chooses an unworthy person. Lopakhin offers Ranevskaya to rent out the estate as a dacha, but his words, taken separately, look like Ranevskaya’s proposal and a painful wait for an answer.
“L o pakhin. Do you agree to give up the land for dachas or not? Answer in one word: yes or no? Just one word!”
Ranevskaya does not react.
“L o pakhin. Just one word! (Pleadingly.) Give me the answer! There is no other way, I swear to you. No and no."
Offering Ranevskaya to rent out the garden of giving, Lopakhin says: “and then your cherry orchard will become happy, rich, luxurious.”
Why did Lopakhin need a cherry orchard? Why is he trying to knock him out as quickly as possible? I didn’t have time to buy it - the axes are knocking!
This garden stood between him and Ranevskaya. For Lopakhin, the Cherry Orchard is a symbol of his serf past, it is the cruelty of his father (“I remember when I was a boy, my late father... hit me in the face with his fist, blood came from my nose... Then for some reason we came into the yard, and he I was drunk"), this is illiteracy and the inability to understand what is written in books...
They are too different. Maybe that’s why Lopakhin is so eager to cut down this garden? To become closer to Ranevskaya, to destroy these class differences between her and yourself?
Is it possible to get rid of the past forever? Is it possible to forget who you are and where you come from? Probably not. But the axes are knocking on the cherry trees, on the past. From grief, from Lopakhin’s suffering. (Even if he doesn’t chop it himself, it seems like he does it himself.) No love! No home! Life passed as if I had never lived at all!
At the end of the play, Lopakhin leaves with everyone else, and does not stay to enjoy the “victory.” And won’t he shoot himself, as Epikhodov spoke about this just recently?
Instead of a conclusion.
Why is the auction scheduled for August twenty-second in the play?
In the “Encyclopedia of Symbols” we read about the symbolism of the number two: “The day is divided into two parts: day and night. Time is for the past and the future, between which there is an almost elusive moment of the present.”
It is this “elusive moment of the present” that is our life. And it is precisely this moment that we often do not notice. We suffer about the past, we peer into the future. And life goes on.
It is this moment, it seems to me, that was depicted by A.P. Chekhov. The moment when you can see and hear a person who truly loves you; moment when you can remember true values life; when can you find
peace, get rid of loneliness; a moment when you can still create your own paradise. But he is not noticed by the heroes of the play.
Life moved on.
Paradise is lost.
Forever.
/ / / 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 have fallen into. He does not share the awe for cherry trees, memories and other nonsense when practically everything is at stake. further fate family.
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 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.