Exercise 1

Identification of the two-part aesthetic pathos of the play: the combination of lyrical-pathetic tonality with comic.

Working with the text of the first action. Students must show:

- how a constant change of tone is created, a transition from pathos to comedy and vice versa;

– how do the unconverted remarks of the characters serve this play of tones, their inadequate utterance, the concatenation of random phrases; unexpected collisions of people, sudden changes in their moods, "accidental" comic situations that the main characters find themselves in; significant statements by comic faces;

- how this dual unity of pathos is manifested in the interaction of cross and opposite assessments that the characters of the play give to the same persons (for example, Ranevskaya).

Task 2

Work on the plot of the play:

- revealing the plot role of Lopakhin;

- to determine, "build" the logic of Lopakhin's personal relationships with Varya and Ranevskaya;

- the imaginary of his suitor and sincere declarations of love to another, readiness for sacrifice - and the reaction of the woman he loves "more than his own" to them.

Is it good luck for Lopakhin to buy a cherry orchard? How does the theme of Lopakhin's fate relate to the theme of the "cherry orchard"?

Task 3

Study of the relationship between the central and secondary characters of the play.

Determine the similarities in the situation of Lopakhin's declaration of love with Varvara, Epikhodov with Dunyasha, Dunyasha with Yasha. Who reflects and parodies whom?

Task 4

Study of the relationship between everyday and essential plans. Working with the text of the 2nd step.

How is the plot of saving the estate moving? How are conversations about everyday life interrupted by the characters' statements about the general structure of life? To whom do these statements belong? How do the main and secondary characters compare in this regard? Are the "essential" statements presented only in a pathetic tone, or does the play of tones continue?

Task 5

Clash of two cultures. Analyze the dialogue between Ranevskaya and Trofimov in the 3rd act (from the words of Lyubvi Andreevna “Do not tease her, Petya ...” to her own words “What an eccentric this Petya is ...”).

To explain to Petin the “truth” and “truth” of Ranevskaya, the expression in them of the position of different cultural strata, different historical generations.

Task 6

Analysis of the symbolic images of the play. How do different heroes of the play feel about the cherry orchard? What is the symbolic meaning of the cherry orchard? Why does the second action take place on the border between home and open space?

Saturation of traditional toposes of the House and Garden with new intentions. What?

The symbolic meaning of other details: telegrams from Paris; noise from a bucket that fell off in a mine, etc. Find symbolic details and explain them.

Bibliography

Chekhov A.P. The Cherry Orchard (any edition).

Polotskaya E A."The Cherry Orchard" / E. A. Polotskaya, I. Yu. Tverdokhlebov // Chekhov A. P. Fields. coll. cit.: In 30 vols. T. 13. M., 1978.

Berdnikov G.P. Dramaturgy of Chekhov. M., 1971 Or: He. Fav. Works: In 2 vols. T. 2. M., 1986.

Singerman B. Chekhov's theater and its world significance. M., 1988. S. 319–383.

Paperny A. On the unity of form and content in "The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhov // Moral searches of Russian writers. M., 1972. S. 339–380.

Semanova M. L."The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhov. L., 1958.

Educational edition

History of Russian literature of the 2nd half of the 19th century

Topics of practical classes for students of the Faculty of Philology

Compilers

Podchinenov Alexey Vasilievich

Sozina Elena Konstantinovna

Slinger ____________________

Editor

Computer layout

Municipal budgetary educational institution "Secondary school of the village of Verkhniy Arbash" of the Kukmor municipal district

Republic of Tatarstan

Republican Conference of Research Works of Students

“My Self in Big Science” named after R.I. Utyamyshev

Nomination "Russian language and literature"

"The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhov: problems and poetics

class

Kamalova Elvira Ilnurovna

Scientific adviser:

teacher of Russian language

and literature 1kv. categories

Kamalova Gulfina Munipovna

Table of contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. Public life in the 80s of the 19th century.

The formation of the artistic talent of A.P. Chekhov.

1.1. "New drama" as a genre that synthesizes all the motives of creativity

A.P. Chekhov.

Chapter 2. Poetics and problems of the comedy "The Cherry Orchard".

Definition of the genre of the work.

2.1. The main knot of dramatic conflict.

1. The doom and illusory existence of Chekhov's heroes.

Conclusion.

List of used literature.

Topic: “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov

Kamalova Elvira Ilnurovna MBOU "Secondary school d. Verkhniy Arbash" Grade 11

Scientific adviser: Kamalova Gulfina Munipovna

Since childhood, I have been reading his stories “Kashtanka”, “Horse Surname”, “I want to sleep”. As I got older, I became interested in his more serious works.

On the advice of the teacher of literature Kamalova Gulfina Munipovna, she read the plays "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya" and learned a lot about Chekhov, the playwright.

Among dramatic works, I especially like the comedy The Cherry Orchard, because it was in it that Chekhov's concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, were most fully realized.

Research topic– “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov: problems and poetics

The object of my research is the work of A.P. Chekhov, the subject of the research is the problems and poetics of the comedy "The Cherry Orchard".

Research objectives:

Determine the place of A.P. Chekhov in the literature of deaf timelessness of the 80s;

Establish the origins of the "new drama" by A.P. Chekhov;

Find out the main knot of the dramatic conflict of comedy;

To reveal the problems and poetics of comedy.

Chapter 1. Social life in the 80s of the 19th century. The formation of the artistic talent of A.P. Chekhov.

The formation of the artistic talent of A.P. Chekhov proceeded in a period of deaf timelessness of the 80s of the 19th century, when a dramatic painful change was made in the worldview of the Russian intelligentsia. “It seems that everyone was in love, fell out of love and is now looking for new hobbies,” Chekhov defined the essence of the social life of his time with sad irony.

“Everything that they messed up, that they set up, that people blocked themselves with, everything needs to be thrown away in order to feel life. Enter into the original, simple attitude towards her, ”wrote the playwright.

It was precisely such a simple relationship with life that Chekhov, the artist, greatly valued, well aware that “the general idea or god of a living person” must be sought anew, that the answer to the painful question about the meaning of human existence can only be given by life in its complex course, historical self-movement and self-development. .

The more intently Chekhov peered into life, frozen in complacency and indifferent stupefaction, the sharper and more penetratingly he felt the tremors of a new life breaking through it to the light, with which the writer concluded a “spiritual union”. What it would be specifically, he did not know, but he felt that it should be based on such a “general idea” that would not truncate the living fullness of being, but, like a vault of heaven, would embrace it: “A person needs not three arshins of earth, not a manor, but the whole globe, all nature, where in the open space he could show all the properties and characteristics of his free spirit.

1. "New Drama" as a genre synthesizing all the motives of A.P. Chekhov's creativity

Chekhov was not destined to write a novel, but the “new drama” became a genre that synthesized all the motives of his work. It was in it that Chekhov's concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, were most fully realized.

Chekhov's dramas are permeated by an atmosphere of general unhappiness. They don't have happy people. Their heroes, as a rule, are not lucky either in big or small: they all turn out to be failures to one degree or another. In "The Seagull", for example, there are five stories of unsuccessful love, in "The Cherry Orchard" "non-pretentiousness" is a characteristic feature of all the characters.

General trouble is complicated and intensified by the feeling of general loneliness.In Chekhov's drama there is a special atmosphere of deafness - psychological deafness. People are too absorbed in their own troubles and failures, and therefore they do not hear each other well. Communication between them hardly turns into a dialogue.With mutual interest and goodwill, they cannot get through to each other in any way, since they “talk to themselves and for themselves” more.

This gives rise to a special sense of the drama of life. Evil in Chekhov's plays is crushed, penetrating everyday life, dissolving into everyday life. Therefore, in Chekhov it is very difficult to find a clear culprit and a specific source of human failures. A frank and direct bearer of social evil is absent in his dramas. There is a feeling that everyone individually and collectively is to blame for the inconsistency of relations between people to one degree or another. This means that evil lies in the very foundations of the life of society, in its very composition. Life in the forms in which it exists now, as it were, cancels itself, casting a shadow of doom and incompleteness on all people, on all its direct participants.

Therefore, conflicts are muted in Chekhov's plays, there is no clear division of heroes into positive and negative accepted in classical drama. Even the "prophet of the future" Petya Trofimov in "The Cherry Orchard" is both "stupid" and "shabby gentleman" at the same time, and Uncle Vanya's shot at Professor Serebryakov is a blunder not only in the literal, but also in a broader, symbolic sense.

Chapter 2. Poetics and problems of the comedy "The Cherry Orchard". Definition of the genre of the work.

I want to use the example of the comedy The Cherry Orchard to reveal the poetics and problems of Chekhov's dramaturgy.

A.P. Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard a comedy. In his letters, he repeatedly and specifically emphasized this. But contemporaries perceived his new thing as a drama. Stanislavsky wrote: "For me, The Cherry Orchard is not a comedy, not a farce - but a tragedy in the first place." And he staged The Cherry Orchard in that dramatic vein.

This production, despite the noisy audience success, did not satisfy Chekhov: “I can say one thing: Stanislavsky ruined my play.” As if the matter is clear: Stanislavsky introduced dramatic and tragic notes into the comedy and thereby violated Chekhov's plan. But in reality, everything looks much more complicated. Let's try to figure out why?

It is no secret that the genre of comedy did not at all exclude the serious and sad in Chekhov. "The Seagull", for example, Chekhov called a comedy, but this is a play with a deeply dramatic fate of people. And in The Cherry Orchard, the playwright did not deny the dramatic tonality: he made sure that the sound of the “broken string” was very sad, he welcomed the sad finale of the fourth act, the scene of the farewell of the heroes, and in a letter to the actress M.P. Lilina, who played the role Ani, approved the tears at the words: “Farewell, home! Farewell, old life!

But at the same time whenStanislavsky drew attention to the fact that there are many crying people in the play, Chekhov said: “Often I have remarks “through tears”, but this only shows the mood of faces, not tears.” In the scenery of the second act, Stanislavsky wanted to introduce a cemetery, but Chekhov corrected: “There is no cemetery in the second act, but it was a very long time ago. Two, three slabs lying randomly - that's all that's left"

So, it was not about removing the sad element from The Cherry Orchard, but about softening its shades. . Chekhov emphasized that the sadness of his heroes is often superficial, that their tears sometimes hide the tearfulness common to nervous and weak people. By thickening the dramatic colors, Stanislavsky obviously violated Chekhov's measure of the ratio of the dramatic to the comic, the sad to the funny. The result was a drama where Chekhov dreamed of a lyrical comedy.

A.P. Skaftymov drew attention to the fact that all the heroes of the Chekhov play are presented in a dual, tragicomic light. It is impossible not to notice, for example, notes of the author's sympathetic attitude towards Ranevskaya and even Gaev. A number of researchers, seizing on them, began to talk about Chekhov's poeticization of the outgoing nobility, called him the "singer" of noble nests, and reproached him for "feudal-gentry romance." But after all, Chekhov's sympathy for Ranevskaya does not exclude hidden irony over her practical helplessness, flabbiness of character, and infantilism.

There are certain sympathetic notes in Chekhov and in the image of Lopakhin. He is sensitive and kind, he has intelligent hands, he does everything possible to help Ranevskaya and Gaev keep the estate in their hands. Chekhov gave other researchers a reason to talk about his "bourgeois sympathies." But after all, in the double Chekhovian illumination, Lopakhin is far from being a hero: he has a businesslike prosaic lack of wings, he is not able to get carried away and love, in relations with Varya Lopakhin is comical and awkward, and finally, he himself is dissatisfied with his life and fate.

A number of researchers saw the author's sympathy in the coverage of the young heroes of the drama - Petya Trofimov and Anya. There was even a tradition, which has not been outlived to this day, to present them as the "petrels" of the revolution. But the comic decline applies no less to these actors.

Thus, all the characters in Chekhov are given in double illumination; the author both sympathizes with some aspects of their characters, and flaunts the funny and bad - there is no absolute bearer of evil. Good and evil are here in rarefied and dissolved existence in the everyday life.

At first glance, the play presents a classic clear alignment of social forces in Russian society and outlines the prospect of a struggle between them: the outgoing nobility (Ranevskaya and Gaev), the rising and triumphant bourgeoisie (Lopakhin), new revolutionary forces that are replacing the nobility and the bourgeoisie (Petya and Anya). Social, class motives are also found in the characters of the characters: the lordly carelessness of Ranevskaya and Gaev, the bourgeois practicality of Lopakhin, the revolutionary inspiration of Petya and Anya.

However, the seemingly central event - the struggle for the cherry orchard - is devoid of the significance that a classical drama would assign to it. The conflict based on social struggle is muted in Chekhov's play. Lopakhin, the Russian bourgeois, is devoid of predatory grip and aggressiveness towards the nobles - Ranevskaya and Gaev, and the nobles - any resistance to Lopakhin. It turns out as if the estate itself floats into his hands, and he, as it were, reluctantly buys a cherry orchard.

2.1. The main knot of dramatic conflict

What is the main knot of the dramatic conflict? Probably not in the economic bankruptcy of Ranevskaya and Gaev. Indeed, already at the very beginning of the drama, they have an excellent option for economic prosperity, proposed by the kindness of the heart of the same Lopakhin: rent out the garden for summer cottages. But the heroes refuse him. Why? Obviously, because the drama of their existence is deeper than elementary ruin, so deep that money cannot fix it and the fading life in the heroes cannot be returned.

On the other hand, the purchase of the cherry orchard by Lopakhin also does not eliminate the deeper conflict of this person with the world. T Lopakhin's ordeal is short-lived, it is quickly replaced by a feeling of despondency and sadness. This strange merchant turns to Ranevskaya with words of reproach and reproach: “Why, why didn’t you listen to me? My poor, good, you will not return now. And as if in unison with all the heroes of the play, Lopakhin utters a significant phrase with tears: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.”

Here Lopakhin directly touches on the hidden, but the main source of drama: it lies not in the struggle for the Cherry Orchard, but in the subjective dissatisfaction with life, equally, although in different ways, experienced by all the heroes of The Cherry Orchard without exception. This life goes absurdly and awkwardly, it brings neither joy nor a feeling of happiness to anyone. This life is unhappy not only for the main characters, but also for Charlotte, lonely and useless with her tricks, and for Epikhodov with his constant failures, and for Simeonov-Pishchik with his eternal need for money.

2.2 Doom and illusory existence of Chekhov's heroes.

The drama of life lies in the division of the most essential, its root foundations. And therefore, all the heroes of the play have a sense of the temporality of their stay in the world, a sense of the gradual exhaustion and death of those forms of life that once seemed unshakable and eternal. In the play, everyone lives in anticipation of the inevitable impending fateful end. The old foundations of life are disintegrating both outside and in the souls of people, and new ones are not yet born, at best they are vaguely anticipated, and not only by the young heroes of the drama. The same Lopakhin says: “Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think: Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and living here, we ourselves should really be giants ... "

The future presents these people with a request to which, due to their human weakness, they are not able to give an answer. There is in the well-being of Chekhov's heroes a feeling of some kind of doom and illusory nature of their existence. From the very beginning, we have people in front of us, anxiously listening to something inevitable that is coming ahead. This breath of the end is brought into the very beginning of the piece. It is not only in the fateful date known to all - August 22, when the cherry orchard will be sold for debts. This date also has a different, symbolic meaning - the absolute end. In its light, their conversations are illusory, unstable and capricious - changeable communication. People are, as it were, turned off for a good half of their existence from the accelerating flow of life. They live and feel at half strength, they are hopelessly late, lagging behind.

The circular composition of the play is also symbolic, connected with the motive of being late, first to the arrival and then to the departure of the train. Chekhov's heroes are deaf in relation to each other, not because they are selfish, but because in their situation full-blooded communication is simply impossible. They would be happy to reach out to each other, but something constantly "revokes" them. The characters are too immersed in the experience of internal drama, looking back sadly or looking ahead with anxieties and hopes. The present remains outside the scope of their attention, and therefore they simply do not have enough strength for complete mutual “listening”.

“Everyone, shuddering and looking around with fear, is waiting for something ... The sound of a broken string, the rude appearance of a tramp, an auction at which they will sell a cherry orchard. The end is coming, approaching, despite the evenings with Charlotte Ivanovna's tricks, dancing to the orchestra and recitation. That's why laughter is not funny, that's why Charlotte Ivanovna's tricks hide some inner emptiness. When you follow an impromptu ball arranged in a town, you obviously know that someone from the auction is about to come and announce that the cherry orchard is sold - and therefore you cannot surrender completely to the power of fun. Here is the prototype of life as Chekhov portrays it. Death will certainly come, liquidation, rude, violent, inevitable, and what we considered fun, rest, joy is only an intermission, waiting for the curtain to rise over the final scene. ... They live, the inhabitants of the "Cherry Orchard", as if half asleep, transparently, on the border of the real and the mystical. Bury life. Somewhere, a string broke. And the youngest of them, barely blooming like Anya, seem to be dressed up in all white, with flowers, ready to disappear and die, ”wrote A.R. Kugel. in the book "Russian playwrights".

In the face of impending changes, Lopakhin's victory is a conditional victory, just as Ranevskaya's defeat is a conditional defeat. Time is running out for both. There is something in The Cherry Orchard from Chekhov's intuitive forebodings of the impending fatal end: “I feel like I don’t live here, but fall asleep or I’m leaving, leaving somewhere without stopping, like a balloon.” This motif of escaping time stretches throughout the play. “Once upon a time, you and I, sister, slept in this very room, and now I’m already fifty-one years old, oddly enough…” Gaev says. “Yes, time is running out,” Lopakhin echoes him.

Chapter 3. Who is destined to be the creator of new life, who will plant a new garden in it?

Time runs! But who is destined to be the creator of a new life, who will plant a new garden in it? Life does not yet give an answer to this question. Petya and Anya seem to be ready. And where Trofimov speaks of the disorder of the old life and calls for a new life, the author definitely sympathizes with him. But there is no personal power in Petya's reasoning, there are a lot of words that look like spells, and sometimes some kind of empty “gayness” also slips through. In addition, he is an "eternal student" and a "shabby gentleman." It is not such people who master life and become creators and masters of it. On the contrary, life itself pretty patted Petya. Like all the "klutzes" in the play, he is clumsy and powerless before her. Youth, inexperience and unsuitability for life are also emphasized in Ana. It is no coincidence that Chekhov warned M.P. Lilina: “Anya is first of all a child, cheerful, who does not fully know life.”

So, Russia, as Chekhov saw it at the turn of two centuries, had not yet worked out in itself a real ideal of man. Premonitions ripen in her the next coup, but people are not yet ready for it. There are rays of truth, humanity and beauty in each of the heroes of The Cherry Orchard.

But they are so scattered and fragmented that they are unable to illuminate the coming day. Good secretly shines everywhere, but there is no sun - cloudy, diffused lighting, the light source is not focused. At the end of the play, there is a feeling that life ends for everyone, and this is not accidental. The people of the Cherry Orchard have not risen to the heights required of them by the coming test.

Conclusion.

“It’s good to remember such a person, vigor immediately returns to your life, a clear meaning enters it again,” Gorky wrote about Chekhov.

Yes, A.P. Chekhov is an extraordinary writer. In the course of my research, I tried to show the formation of Chekhov's artistic talent, to establish the origins of the "new" drama, to reveal the problems and poetics of the comedy "The Cherry Orchard".

Based on the analysis of the work, it was proved that it was in it that Chekhov's concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, were most fully realized.

We were able to observe the doom and illusory nature of the existence of Chekhov's heroes. The author could not answer the question of who will be the creator of a new life, because the heroes of The Cherry Orchard did not rise to the height that the coming life requires of them.

References

A.P. Chekhov. Plays. Nizhne-Volga book publishing house, Volgograd 1981

M. Nevedomsky. Without wings. Anniversary Chekhov collection. - M., 1910.

N.Ya.Abramovich. The human way. Anniversary Chekhov collection.-M., 1910.

T.K. Shah - Azizova. Chekhov and Western European drama of his time.

A.P. Skaftymov. Moral quests of Russian writers. - M., 1972.

A.R. Kugel. Russian playwrights. - M., 1934.

A.Turkov. A.P. Chekhov and his time. - M., 1987.

A.P. Chekhov. Leads and stories. M. "Enlightenment" 1986

A.P. Chekhov in portraits, illustrations, documents. Edited by V.A. Manuilov. State Educational and Pedagogical Publishing House of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR Leningrad Branch Leningrad. 1957

"The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhova: In Search of Lost Time*

The nature of the action, genre values, compositional techniques, worldview guidelines, methods of symbolization and generalization, parameters of space and time, principles of characterization of characters, communicative features of Chekhov's dramaturgy in The Cherry Orchard are perhaps more vivid than in any other play by this author. "The Cherry Orchard" closes the circle of addition of the Anton Chekhov Theatre, coming very close in its poetics to the miniatures of his own vaudevilles. Meanwhile, the noted crystallization of the figurative properties of Chekhov's dramaturgy paradoxically coincided with the deepening of discrepancies and contradictions in its interpretation.

The dispute about the genre priorities of The Cherry Orchard is well known, which goes back to disagreements in understanding them by A.P. Chekhov and K.S. Stanislavsky. Is the play a comedy or a drama, a tragedy or a farce? Already in 1904, V.E. expressed his authoritative opinion on this matter. Meyerhold. Meanwhile, the intention of Chekhov himself to write a "fun play" for the Moscow Art Theater, which first arose as early as 1901, subsequently remained unchanged. In 1903, in a series of letters, Chekhov clarified the details of the comedy plan. The central role in the play will belong to the "old woman", wrote the playwright V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. "You will play stupid," he assured O.L. Knipper. "If my play does not come out the way I planned it, then hit me on the forehead with your fist. Stanislavsky has a comic role, and so do you." In the Moscow Art Theater production of 1904, Knipper played the role of Ranevskaya, and Stanislavsky - Gaev. It was with these images that the "tragic-dramatic" representations of directing were first of all mated. “I will call the play a comedy,” wrote Chekhov V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. “I didn’t get a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce,” he insisted, addressing the performer of the role of Anya M.P. Lilina. And even after the performance was shown to the public, and the obvious discrepancy in the understanding of The Cherry Orchard became a stage reality, Chekhov continued to appeal to Knipper. “Why is my play so stubbornly called a drama on posters and in newspaper ads? Nemirovich and Alekseev see positively in my play something that I didn’t write, and I’m ready to give any word that they never once carefully read my play".

Since then, "The Cherry Orchard" has been read and re-read countless times, each time, while reading its own. I will try again to read carefully some pages of the play in connection with certain circumstances that accompanied its appearance and existence. No more. And even less. In real detail, I intend to analyze only the first two pages of the text. However, to begin with, you should look at the poster for The Cherry Orchard.

In the list of actors, attention is drawn to Chekhov's record number of significant characters of the lower class - servants. Looking ahead, I note that in terms of their dramatic functions, they are all clowns. Clowns and heroes with clown functions are present in almost every Chekhov play. Meanwhile, in The Cherry Orchard, almost all of its heroes are clowns. Absolute clowns - Simeonov-Pishchik, Charlotte Ivanovna, Epikhodov, Firs, Yasha, Dunyasha. Persons with clowning - Ranevskaya and Gaev (the latter at the same time reveals a clear tendency to absolute clowning). Anya and Trofimov are nothing more and nothing less than a couple of comic simpletons in love. Trofimov's pathetic monologues often sound like a paraphrase of Gaev's clown monologues, and Anya, as we know from Chekhov himself, is "a child cheerful to the end." In his own way, a "child" (in social terms) and her Petya, who, according to Ranevskaya, does not know real, practical life. "Eternal Student" - "role" in itself, of course, comedy. Finally, the relationship between Varya and Lopakhin also comes through with a comedic interpretation and is associated with the central situation of Gogol's "Marriage". In Chekhov, such transparent associations are never accidental.

The scene of the first act is "the room that is still called children's"whereas in the play no one has children of the appropriate tender age." bloom cherry trees but in the garden cold, morning". So, two "shifts" in time, indicating a clear temporal discrepancy, are already hidden in the first remark.

What happens in the first scene? What is its action? Expectation. Waiting as an action. In terms of events, nothing happens, at the same time, the effective filling of the scene is so intense, tense, that at the end of the episode, with its permission, Dunyasha is close to fainting. We still do not know anything about the nature of Dunyasha's extreme delicacy and sensitivity, and therefore the word "fainting" is perceived as identical to itself. An "intense" action unfolds at two in the morning (another significant shift in time) against the background of not only a visible, but even a deliberate lack of action - Lopakhin "yawns and stretches", he "overslept".

Who and when sleeps in the Cherry Orchard is of significant importance. As already mentioned, the duration of the episode is night. Lopakhin overslept, but what is so important he overslept? Never mind. His apparent awkwardness, missing the temporary situation - imaginary. We know that in the final Lopakhin will be the only one who does not oversleep the real time. It is no coincidence that Chekhov warned the Moscow Art Theater that Lopakhin was "a role ... central." If it diverges in time, it is not with time itself, but with other actors. All the rest will "sleep" the real time and won't even notice it. Lopakhin is the only person who is in real time, he sleeps at night, he sleeps at night. Ranevskaya drinks coffee at night.

"Everything is like a dream," Varya notes further. "What if I'm sleeping?" - Ranevskaya will ask herself. The clown Pishchik constantly falls asleep and snores in the course of the action. Sleeping in her childish ignorance of life Anya. The leittheme of the dream that unfolds further, which is extremely significant in the play, begins in the first episode precisely with Lopakhin, who allegedly "overslept".

There are two characters on stage, Lopakhin and Dunyasha. We learn from them that the train on which the expected heroes arrived is also out of tune with time - it was "late" for at least two hours. Thanks to the sluggishness of the train, we can learn something about those present.

Lopakhin's auto-representation that follows is full of meaning. "... My father ... he traded in a shop in the village" and Lopakhin himself was a "man" for Ranevskaya as a child. "Man ... My father, however, was a man, but I in a white vest, yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a kalashny row ... Only now he is rich, there is a lot of money, but if you think and figure it out, then a peasant is a peasant ... I read a book and did not understand anything. I read and fell asleep. "The fact that Lopakhin fell asleep while reading a book is not so important. If reading this overcame Yermolai Alekseevich, then either the book was boring, or there was no practical meaning in it, which for him is the same thing. Lopakhin's incomprehensibility, as and his lack of time, imaginary, for the time being masking his extreme sharpness. It is much more important that in the person of Lopakhin we meet the first "disguised" "Cherry Orchard". He is in a white waistcoat and yellow shoes, and he himself is a peasant. Thus begins the main theme plays, the theme of a man who is not in his place and not in his time.

Having introduced himself, Lopakhin, as if inadvertently, “introduces” his interlocutor to us.

"LOPAKHIN. What are you, Dunyasha, such ... DUNYASHA. My hands are shaking. I'm going to faint.

(Later, the theme of Dunyasha's fainting will be pumped up and developed by Chekhov in a purely farcical way - A.K.)

LOPAKHIN. You are very gentle, Dunyasha. And you dress like a young lady, and your hair too. You can not do it this way. We must remember ourselves."

So Dunyasha is also "in disguise", also, in her own way, out of place. The third character enters, Epikhodov. Chekhov's remark: "Epikhodov enters with a bouquet, he is in a jacket and in brightly polished boots that creak strongly". It turns out that Epikhodov is also "disguised". Meanwhile, Chekhov immediately makes it clear that he has entered clown. Remarque: "on entering, he drops the bouquet." Epikhodov voiced yet another piece of news about the "dislocated time", already stated in the first remark: "Now it's a matinee, the frost is three degrees, and the cherry is all in bloom."

On the one hand, Chekhov offers us a subtle poetic dramatic image of "flowers in the frost", but this image is put into the mouth of Epikhodov. This is immediately followed by Epikhodov's comedic clown's revealing commentary, warning against taking his words seriously. “I can’t approve of our climate. (Sighs.) I can’t. Our climate cannot help just right. Here, Yermolai Alekseich, let me add, I bought myself boots the day before, and I dare to assure you, they creak so that there's no way..."

The comic effect is carried out here by a clear discrepancy between words, language, and the meaningful meaning of the spoken text. It turns out that not only Epikhodov himself turns out to be in disguise, but also his language, his I. "Disguised" are also his "twenty-two misfortunes", which are not misfortunes: he dropped his bouquet, his boots creak, he stumbled over a chair, and the like.

Epikhodov leaves, but Dunyasha picks up his comedy theme At the top of her "lyrical" story about Epikhodov's "crazy" love for her and about the proposal he made to her, the waiting episode is resolved - "they are coming!"

In principle, the entire two-page episode looks like a clown divertissement before the start of the show. This divertissement already contains all the future themes of the big play and, above all, the main theme of "dislocated time", people who are not in their place and in their time, who have fallen out of time, who have confused time, and therefore are in a relationship of opposition with time. Comedy opposition.

This divertissement is reminiscent of the opening divertissement of another Chekhov comedy, The Seagull, played by Medvedenko and Masha ("Why do you always wear black?") True, in The Seagull the clown couple Medvedenko and Masha form a contrasting opposition to the pair of lovers of the first plan, Treplev and Zarechnaya. In the "farcical" "The Cherry Orchard", despite its parody, parody is not perceived as a contrast, but only as a doubling and exaggeration of a situation or a behavioral motive. The distance between the parodied and the parodied is not so great, because the clownery of The Cherry Orchard is total, rampant and captures almost all characters from the frank clowness Charlotte Ivanovna to Ranevskaya and Gaev, inclusive.

In The Cherry Orchard itself, the initial still implicit clownish divertissement of the first act is developed in the already frank clowning of the first scene of the second act, performed by Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha and Epikhodov. This scene is a parade of caricatured clowns with revolvers, guns, talmochki, cigars, love romance, explanations, betrayal, offended dignity, motives for loneliness and desperate suicide. Fatal themes and the surroundings and vocabulary corresponding to them "in a human" look parodic, while the main theme "a man is out of place and out of his time" is preserved. Charlotte says that she does not have a passport, that she does not even know how old she is. "... Where I come from and who I am - I don't know... (Takes a cucumber out of his pocket and eats it.) I don't know anything." Charlotte with the cucumber in this scene is nothing more and nothing less than a parody double of Ranevskaya.

Returning to the first act, it is appropriate to note that it was Ranevskaya who was the first to pick up the theme of the clown divertissement there, joyfully, through tears, touched by the room, "children's!". "Children's" this is akin to Gaev's "closet". "Children's, my dear, beautiful room ... I slept here when I was little ... ( crying.) And now I’m like a little one ... "If we recall Chekhov's definition of Ranevskaya as an "old woman", the inappropriateness of her sentiments will become more than obvious. expresses nothing more than the mood of the character, and by no means the scene, and does not contradict the comedic nature of the action.

The life of the cherry manor is already history. The garden is remarkable only because it is mentioned in the Encyclopedic Dictionary. The house and everything in it is associated with memories, but not at all suitable for real life. In fact, in reality, they no longer exist. In fact, they no longer belong to the previous owners. Lopakhin pronounces the verdict on the cherry orchard at the beginning of the first act.

In 1914, Stanislavsky recalled. "The play was not given for a long time. Especially the second act. It has, in the theatrical sense, no action and seemed very monotonous at rehearsals. It was necessary to portray boredom of doing nothing so that it would be interesting..." We turned to Chekhov with a request for a reduction. "Apparently, this request caused him pain, his face darkened. But then he answered: “Well, shorten it ...” Stanislavsky, looking for action, actually finds himself in captivity of words, not noticing the action hiding behind them. Together with Chekhov’s heroes, he does not feel the real course of time, finding himself not on stage, but in life in a comic situation. The theme of the second act is not "boredom" at all - such an understanding of the play was criticized by the same Meyerhold in 1904. His theme, again, expectation, rapidly growing in scale - the expectation of a mystical catastrophe of a collapsing house. The effect of the second act lies in the fact that there is no action, or rather, no action, despite Lopakhin's persuasion to make a practical decision. At the same time, real time moves, bringing the inevitable collapse of the cherry estate closer. Meanwhile, this is by no means "the boredom of doing nothing", but the tension of a stretched string, which breaks off at the end of the act (the "sound of a broken string" is heard).

The third act opens at all with a farce: a dance scene, a "ball" taking place against the backdrop of ongoing auctions. It is no coincidence that the dancers appeared to Meyerhold as carelessly dancing marionettes. The meaning of this farce is expressed not so much in the words and behavior of individual characters, but in the situation as a whole. (However, as it should be in a farce, the clown Pishchik, who tells about the horse origin of his kind, is the first to speak.) Before the impending catastrophe, even Ranevskaya herself seems to see clearly. Reality emerges. Her insight, however, like Lopakhin's seeming "misses", is imaginary. “The misfortune seems to me so incredible that I somehow don’t even know what to think, I’m at a loss ...” Meanwhile, the “misfortune” has already taken place. Lopakhin bought the Cherry Orchard, and this fact speaks for itself and for him, Lopakhin, more than anything else. In the face of Lopakhin, real time triumphs over illusory time.

The fourth act is again opened by the clown, this time by Yasha. A series of goodbyes follows. Lopakhin and Trofimov compare their values, while the educated, talkative and absolutely inactive Petya has long and in all respects "lost" to the uneducated, but active Yermolai Alekseevich. Saying goodbye, Yasha and Dunyasha also explain, not allowing the action to fall out of the comedy framework prescribed for him by Chekhov. Gaev and Ranevskaya fall back into childhood. With someone else's, Anina's aunt's money, she goes to Paris, knowing that the funds will not last long, but not wanting to look far into the future. The case, it turns out, is not at all in the cherry orchard, which in reality no longer exists. The Cherry Orchard finally reveals its own symbolic nature. Firs is forgotten locked in the house. The sound of a broken string is heard again, followed by the sound of an ax ...

Responding to Chekhov's letter to Lilina, Stanislavsky objected. "This is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote - this is a tragedy, no matter what outcome to a better life you open in the last act. I cried like a woman." Meanwhile, there is no special "outcome to a better life" in Chekhov's play. The outcome is exhausted by the exposure of the illusion, the illusory nature of imaginary time. Anya is happy about the collapse of the Cherry Orchard only because it means freedom from illusion. Trofimov's revolutionary past and future are also absent from the play. They will be invented later. In part, this will be facilitated by the events not of the play, but of the life of the next 1905.

It is curious that for Stanislavsky and the tradition he represents, "exodus" is the main determinant of the genre of the play. The absence of an outcome for Ranevskaya and Gaev makes the play a tragedy in his opinion. Meanwhile, it is obvious that Stanislavsky and Chekhov demonstrate a different understanding of the scale and nature of the conflict due to a different understanding of the nature of not only action, but also humanism. Different both historically and aesthetically. Stanislavsky professes a personalistic understanding of humanism: at the level of people he likes, the conflict turns out to be insoluble - this Stanislavsky sees as a tragedy. That is why he interprets the conventions of the play in terms of the logic of life behavior that does not correspond to them.

Chekhov has a different, generalized understanding of humanism. His characters are not in conflict with each other, but with the inexorable passage of time. Stanislavsky, like many after him, cannot admit, for example, that the comedy ends with a scene with the sick Firs, forgotten and locked in the house, who will now inevitably die. For Chekhov, however, in real time, Firs had long since died, long before the play began. The fact that he was forgotten is another proof of the "dislocated century", a time that, with the sale of the cherry orchard, finally lost its illusory nature. The Cherry Orchard was the last illusion that made it possible to consider the unreal time dimension in which its heroes lived as a reality. In this generalized meaning of "The Cherry Orchard" is the guarantee of its relevance.

Chekhov's play is by no means rigidly tied to any particular time, or to any particular social stratum. To talk in connection with it about the crisis of the nobility or serfdom, about the growing activity of the merchants, about the revolutionary spirit of Trofimov, and the like, is to bury the play in history. However, she successfully resists this. How the theater resists this, over time offering new and relevant interpretations of The Cherry Orchard.

________________________________________

* All quotes are taken from the book: Chekhov A.P. Sobr. cit.: In 12 t. M., 1963. T. 9. Italics are mine everywhere - A.K.

taken from the site: http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/16/index16.shtml

On October 5, 1903, N.K. Garin-Mikhailovsky wrote to one of his correspondents: “I met and fell in love with Chekhov. He's bad. And it burns out like the most wonderful day of autumn. Delicate, subtle, barely perceptible tones. A beautiful day, caress, peace, and the sea, mountains doze in it, and this moment seems eternal with a wonderful pattern given. And tomorrow ... He knows his tomorrow and is glad and satisfied that he has finished his drama "The Cherry Orchard".

Chekhov wrote his last play about home, about life, about the motherland, about love, about losses, about the inexorably escaping time. The piercingly sad comedy The Cherry Orchard has become a testament to readers, theater, and the 20th century. Textbook is now the assertion that Chekhov laid the foundations of a new drama, created a "theatre of philosophical mood." However, at the beginning of the century this position did not seem indisputable. Each new play by Chekhov caused conflicting assessments. The comedy "The Cherry Orchard" was no exception in this series. The nature of the conflict, the characters, the poetics of Chekhov's drama - everything in this play was unexpected and new.

So, Gorky, Chekhov's “brother” on the stage of the Art Theater, saw rehashings of old motives in The Cherry Orchard: “I listened to Chekhov’s play - in reading it does not give the impression of a big thing. New - not a word. Everything - moods, ideas - if you can talk about them - faces - all this was already in his plays. Of course - beautifully and - of course - from the stage it will blow on the audience with green melancholy. And I don’t know what the longing is about. ”

Contrary to such forecasts, Chekhov's play became a classic of the Russian theater. Chekhov's artistic discoveries in dramaturgy, his special vision of life are clearly manifested in this work.

Chekhov was perhaps the first to realize the inefficiency of the old methods of traditional dramaturgy. "Other paths for drama" were outlined in The Seagull (1896), and it is there that Treplev pronounces a well-known monologue about the modern theater with its moralistic tasks, arguing that this is "routine", "prejudice". Aware of the power of the unsaid, Chekhov built his own theater - a theater of allusions, allusions, halftones, moods, exploding traditional forms from within.

In pre-Chekhovian dramaturgy, the action unfolding on the stage had to be dynamic and was built as a clash of characters. The intrigue of the drama developed within the framework of a given and clearly developed conflict, affecting mainly the area of ​​social ethics.

The conflict in Chekhov's drama is fundamentally different. Its originality was deeply and precisely defined by A. P. Skaftymov: “Chekhov’s dramatic and conflicting positions do not consist in opposing the volitional orientation of different sides, but in objectively caused contradictions, before which the individual will is powerless ... And each play says: it’s not individual people who are to blame, but all the existing composition of life as a whole. The special nature of the conflict makes it possible to detect internal and external action, internal and external plots in Chekhov's works. Moreover, the main thing is not the external plot, developed quite traditionally, but the internal one, which Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko called the "second plan", or "undercurrent".

The external plot of The Cherry Orchard is the change of owners of the house and garden, the sale of the family estate for debts. (Chekhov already addressed this topic in the youthful drama Fatherless, although it was secondary there, the love affair was the main one.) This plot can be considered in the plane of social problems and commented accordingly. A businesslike and practical merchant opposes the educated, mentally subtle, but not adapted to life nobles. The plot of the play is the destruction of the poetry of estate life, which indicates the onset of a new historical era. Such an unambiguous and straightforward interpretation of the conflict was very far from Chekhov's intention.

As for the construction of the plot of the play "The Cherry Orchard", there is no conflict in it, because there is no outwardly expressed confrontation of the parties and a clash of characters. The social role of Lopakhin is not limited to the traditional one. idea of ​​a merchant-acquirer. This character is no stranger to sentimentality. Meeting with Ranevskaya for him is a long-awaited and exciting event: “... I would only like you to believe me as before, so that your amazing, touching eyes look at me as before. Merciful God! My father was a serf with 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.

However, at the same time, Lopakhin is a pragmatist, a man of action. Already in the first act, he joyfully announces: “There is a way out ... Here is my project. Attention please! Your estate is only twenty versts from the city, there is a railway nearby, and if the cherry orchard and the land along the river are divided into summer cottages and then leased out for summer cottages, then you will have at least twenty-five thousand a year income.

True, this “exit” to a different, material plane is the plane of utility and benefit, but not beauty, so it seems “vulgar” to the owners of the garden. In essence, there is no opposition. There is a plea for help, on the one hand: “What should we do? Teach what? (Ranevskaya) and willingness to help, on the other hand: “I teach you every day. Every day I say the same thing” (Lopakhin). The characters do not understand each other, as if they speak different languages. In this sense, the dialogue in the second act is indicative:

"Lopakhin. We must finally decide - time does not wait. The question is completely empty. Do you agree to give the land for dachas or not? Answer in one word: yes or no? Only one word! Lyubov Andreevna. Who's smoking disgusting cigars here... (Sits down.) GAYEV. Here the railway was built, and it became convenient. (Sits down.) We went to the city and had breakfast ... yellow in the middle! I would first go to the house, play one game ... Lyubov Andreevna. You will succeed. Lopakhin. Only one word! (Pleading.) Give me an answer! GAYEV (yawning). Whom? LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (looks in her purse). Yesterday there was a lot of money, and today there is very little. My poor Varya, out of economy, feeds everyone with milk soup, in the kitchen they give the old people one pea, and I somehow spend it senselessly ... (She dropped her purse, scattered the gold ones.) Well, they fell down ... (She is annoyed.) "

Chekhov shows the confrontation of different life positions, but not the struggle of characters. Lopakhin pleads, begs, but they don’t hear him, or rather, they don’t want to hear him. In the first and second acts, the viewer retains the illusion that it is this hero who will play the role of a patron and friend and save the cherry orchard.

The climax of the external plot - the auction sale of the cherry orchard on August 22 - coincides with the denouement. The hope that everything would somehow work itself out melted away like smoke. The Cherry Orchard and the estate have been sold, but nothing has changed in the arrangement of the characters and their destinies. Moreover, the denouement of the external plot is even optimistic:

“Gaev (cheerfully). In fact, everything is fine now. Before the sale of the cherry orchard, we all worried, suffered, and then, when the issue was finally resolved, irrevocably, everyone calmed down, even cheered up ... I am a bank servant, now I am a financier ... yellow in the middle, and you, Lyuba, after all, look better , that's for sure."

So, in organizing external action, Chekhov departed from the canons of classical drama. The main event of the play turned out to be moved to the "periphery", behind the stage. According to the logic of the playwright, it is a private episode in the eternal cycle of life.

Artistic analysis of the play "The Cherry Orchard"

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Section III. literary criticism

UDC 82-2 BBK 74.268.0

S. A. Garmash

A. P. CHEKHOV. COMEDY "THE CHERRY ORDER" (EXPERIENCE OF READING THE PLAY)

Annotation. The article shows the experience of reading A.P. Chekhov's comedy "The Cherry Orchard". The images, conflict, symbolism, subtext of the play are highlighted.

Key words: Chekhov, comedy "The Cherry Orchard", conflict, images, subtext, symbolism.

A. P. CHEKHOV. THE COMEDY "THE CHERRY ORCHARD" (EXPERIENCE OF PERUSAL)

abstract. This paper shows the experience of perusal of the A. P. Chekhov"s comedy "The Cherry Orchard". Characters, the conflict, the symbolism and the implication of the play are covered.

Key words: Chekhov, comedy "The Cherry Orchard", the conflict, imagery, the implication, the symbolism.

A.P. Chekhov searched for his way to the last play for a very long time. He felt the need to express himself in a new way. He wanted to abandon the usual in dramaturgy, to find new means of creating a system of images, building a plot, he dreamed of an unusual ending to the play.

Chekhov refused to build the play "The Cherry Orchard" on direct clashes, the struggle between characters. Instead of external conflicts, he put forward internal conflicts, expressed in the emotional experiences of the characters. Behind their remarks, actions, the “subtextual” development of the action was traced. The modification of structural and genre forms was subordinated to the main goal - to reveal spiritual fermentation in the society of a critical era. It was a period of dull stagnation in the 1980s, when a dramatic, painful turning point was made in the worldview of the Russian intelligentsia.

Therefore, it is so important to feel the changing internal states of the heroes of the comedy The Cherry Orchard from the first to the last scene. This play is permeated, in our opinion, by the atmosphere of general trouble, there are no happy people in it.

The awareness of the gap between the past, present and future in Chekhov's play is inherent in most of the characters. In this regard, each of them develops his own emotional state: from a sense of doom for some to optimistic elation for others. Let us follow how the idea of ​​the broken connection of times is expressed in the play The Cherry Orchard.

Thus, the “long-liver” Firs, a witness to the life of the forefathers, constantly opposes the time “before” and “now”: Before, “the peasants are with the masters, the gentlemen are with the peasants, and now everything is scattered, you won’t understand anything.” “Before, generals, barons, admirals danced at our balls.” “In the old days, forty or fifty years ago, cherries were dried, soaked ..., sent in wagons to Moscow and Kharkov. There was money! ”, They knew the“ way ”how to receive income from the garden and maintain the estate, - and now they“ forgot. Nobody remembers." Or another example: the author’s remark about the sound of a broken string is given, then the reaction to this sound “fading, sad” is described:

Firs. Before the misfortune, it was also: the owl screamed, and the samovar buzzed endlessly.

Gaev. Before what misfortune?

Firs. Before will.

In addition to Firs' remarks, all this comes through in Lopakhin's expression about "our awkward life", and in the author's repeated remark about the broken string, and in the remarks of other characters. The idea of ​​awkwardness, disunity in Chekhov's play is expressed not only lexically, but also compositionally. We are close to the point of view of the researcher A.P. Skaftymov, who argued that “the dialogical fabric of the play is characterized by fragmentation, inconsistency and brokenness of thematic lines” .

General trouble is complicated and intensified by the feeling of general loneliness. A special atmosphere of psychological deafness reigns in Chekhov's comedy. The heroes of the play are absorbed in their own troubles and failures, and therefore they do not hear each other well, communication between them hardly turns into a dialogue. There is a feeling that everyone individually and all together are to blame for this to one degree or another. There is no direct bearer of social evil in the play.

vuet, which means that evil lies in the very foundations of the life of society. This gives rise to a special sense of the drama of life.

In the comedy "The Cherry Orchard" the conflict is muted, there is no division of heroes into positive and negative accepted in the classical drama. Chekhov, first of all, destroys the through action (key event) that organizes the unity of the plot, with the disappearance of which the plot lines of individual characters in the play are decentralized.

The subject of the image in the play is not the action that develops as a conflict, but the evasion of the main characters from the action. Chekhov builds his play on such life situations that contain all the conditions for conflict and intense action, but the characters are inactive. For example, Ranevskaya and Gaev know that on August 22 the cherry orchard will be sold for debts, therefore, they had to take some kind of active action in order to save the garden and the entire estate. Lopakhin even offers them a certain line of struggle, but they shy away from this struggle.

So what is the main knot of the dramatic conflict? Apparently, not in the economic bankruptcy of Ranevskaya and Gaev. After all, Lopakhin offered them a variant of economic prosperity: to rent the garden for summer cottages. Why do the heroes refuse him? Obviously, because the drama of their existence is deeper than elementary ruin.

Yes, and Lopakhin himself, having bought a cherry orchard, does not triumph for long. This acquisition does not remove the character's deeper conflict with the world. And, as if in unison with all the characters in the play, he says: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.”

In our opinion, the main (hidden) source of drama lies not in the struggle for the cherry orchard, but in the subjective dissatisfaction with life of all the heroes of the play "The Cherry Orchard". Changes are coming in public life, against which the victory of Lopakhin is a conditional victory, as the defeat of Gaev and Ranevskaya is a conditional defeat. The main thing is that time is running out for both. All the heroes of the play have a feeling of the gradual withering away of those forms of life that once seemed unshakable and eternal. The drama of life lies in the discord of its most essential foundations.

Chekhov comes in the play "The Cherry Orchard" to a new disclosure of the dramatic nature. In the classical drama, the images of the characters were revealed through actions and actions aimed at achieving the set goals, and the playwright opened up new possibilities for portraying the character: the image-character is revealed not in the struggle to achieve the goal, but in experiencing the contradictions of life. The pathos of action is replaced by the pathos of reflection. Chekhov's "subtext" unknown to classical drama emerges. What is important here is the hidden emotional subtext that the characters put into words. For example, in the second act of the play, Epikhodov, the living embodiment of bad luck and misfortune, passes in the back of the stage. The following dialog appears:

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...

Anya (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...

Gaev. The sun has set, gentlemen.

Trofimov. Yes.

As you can see, the characters talk about Epikhodov and the sunset, but only formally - about this, but in essence - about something else. Through fragments of these phrases, the internal state of the characters, their disorder and the absurdity of an uncomplicated life are conveyed.

Let's give an example of another "subtext". Ranevskaya arrives at her estate, where she has not been for five years. The first minutes in the house... Both the joy of recognition and the excitement of meeting with the past are very natural in her. But here are the replicas of Gaev, Charlotte, Pishchik:

Gaev. The train was two hours late. What is it? What are the orders?

Charlotte. (Pishchik). My dog ​​eats nuts too.

Pishchik (surprised). You think!

Falling out of Ranevskaya's lyrical mood, these remarks reduce her feelings, prepare the reader and the viewer to understand that her experiences are not so deep as they seem outwardly.

Chekhov's poetics is also characterized by hidden symbolism, leading into the subtext of the play. As an example, let's consider the central image-symbol of the cherry orchard in the play of the same name by A.P. Chekhov and, based on the text of the play, we will try to give different interpretations of this image-symbol.

So what does the Cherry Orchard symbolize?

1. The beautiful past of Ranevskaya and Gaev, irretrievably gone.

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (looks out the window at the garden). Oh, my childhood, my purity!

Oh, my dear, my gentle, beautiful garden! ..

My life, my youth, my happiness, goodbye!

2. High poetry of life.

VARYA (quietly opens the window). Look... what wonderful trees! My God, air! The starlings sing!

Lyubov Andreevna. What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue

3. Happiness.

Lyubov Andreevna. ... Oh, my garden! After a dark, rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not abandoned you...

4. A symbol of the gloomy feudal past of Russia.

Trofimov. .all your ancestors were feudal lords and really from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, every trunk, human beings are not looking at you ...

5. A symbol of life's commercial success.

Lopakhin. The cherry orchard is now mine!

6. Russia.

Trofimov. All Russia is our garden.

One should also pay attention to Chekhov's remarks, with the help of which the author expresses his attitude to the depicted, gives assessments to the characters, explains the situation and subtext of the play. Remarks in the comedy "The Cherry Orchard", in addition to their usual role (draw the situation, indicate the sequence of actions, set off the subtle lyricism of the play, complement the characterization of the characters, revealing their psychological state, etc.), often help to understand the hero's inner world, his thoughts and feelings. So, for example, remarks related to the image of Anya (“she is very tired, even staggers”, “gently”, “joyfully”, “speaks cheerfully, like a child”) indicate the pure, trusting and sincere soul of this young girl.

When analyzing the image of Ranevskaya, let's pay attention to the remarks that depict a change in her moods and feelings. Only in one first act do we find remarks that testify to the contrasting transitions in her mood from grief to joy, from crying to laughter, from meditation to carefree fun. For example, upon entering the nursery, Lyubov Andreevna says “joyfully, through tears”, uttering the following remark, “crying”, then “kissing” those around her. In the next appearance, she “laughs,“ kisses ”Anna, and soon she says“ through her tears ”. After a few moments she "jumps up and walks about in great agitation", "kisses the cupboard" and almost immediately "sits down and drinks coffee". After coffee, she "looks out the window at the garden" and "laughs with joy." So, for a short period of time, Ranevskaya's moods change dramatically. As you can see, Chekhov's whole characterization of Ranevskaya convinces us that for her, as for an exceptionally emotional person, with elements of even a certain tune, this is quite natural.

But let's take a closer look at the stylistic dominants. The plot dynamics is maximally weakened, psychologism is weakly expressed. The leading stylistic feature of the comedy "The Cherry Orchard" is descriptiveness, only peculiar: Chekhov's attention is drawn not to the objective world, but to the forms of people's behavior that have already become familiar in this environment. In accordance with the specifics of the dramatic kind, the emphasis is placed, first of all, on the description of the characters.

The second stylistic dominant is heteroglossia, in which different speech manners are opposed to each other; it also works for descriptiveness, creating also a speech image of various ways of life. In the comedy The Cherry Orchard, heteroglossia, combined with descriptiveness, expresses sociocultural issues, Chekhov's interest in certain stable features of the way of life.

Consider the speech dominant "controversy". In the statements of the heroes of the play, two types of speech behavior are mainly realized: a) the speech of the characters is inexpressive, primitive, sometimes incorrect; b) speech is saturated with rhetoric. An example of the first type can be Gaev's jerky phrases sprinkled with billiard terms, Lopakhin's indignant remark "Every disgrace has its decency", statements by Charlotte, Pishchik, Epikhodov.

An example of the second type of speech is Gaev's statements: “Dear respected closet! I welcome your existence, which for more than a hundred years has been directed towards the bright ideals of goodness and justice.”, “Oh, nature, wondrous, you shine with eternal radiance ...”, Ranevskaya’s monologue “Oh, my childhood, my purity! .. Oh, my garden!..”, pathetic speeches by Petya Trofimov: “Humanity is moving towards the highest truth, towards the highest happiness that is possible on earth, and I am in the forefront!”.

In a number of cases, one speech manner is instantly and naturally replaced by another: this happens all the time with Gaev, and very often with Ranevskaya, Trofimov. But in both manners of speech, something in common is manifested: in both cases, the speech of the characters is minimally meaningful, the phrase remains an empty form, not filled with an action corresponding to the phrase. There is also a particularly pathetic phraseology of the characters in the play, which turns out to be a lie in the end: such, for example, are the slogans and appeals of Petya Trofimov, who does not notice in his impulse to light -

neither the real life dramas of Ranevskaya, Lopakhin, Varya, nor the triumphant rudeness of Yasha, nor the doom of old Firs, nor the death of the living beauty of the cherry orchard.

Concretizing the content dominant of comedy, let us find out what kind of socio-cultural problems Chekhov is interested in. As the researcher A. B. Yesin rightly noted, “Chekhov comprehended the Russian reality of his time not from the point of view of social, political, economic relations, but from the point of view of the state of culture, in the “middle layer” beloved by the writer, in everyday life refraction. The failure of the cultural structure, the absence of high values ​​and relevant cultural skills in the mass consciousness is one of the most important ideas of the play; hence, perhaps, the genre of the play, persistently affirmed by the writer, is comedy.

The comedy genre gave the author a brilliant opportunity to make people look at each other and realize what funny characters they turn into, hiding in the shell of their personal lives, following the norms and rules of behavior imposed on them.

What seemed to the playwright funny and vicious in contemporary life? Chekhov believed that aristocrats (Gaev), relic people (Firs), whom the owners of estates keep as living witnesses of their former greatness, are ridiculous. Ridiculous in his stupidity Pishchik, who believes in winning on a lottery ticket. Epikhodov's misfortunes and Charlotte's comedy are ordinary.

It seems to us important to emphasize the fact that all the heroes of Chekhov's play are presented in a dual, tragicomic light. It is impossible not to notice, for example, the author's sympathetic attitude towards Ranevskaya, but this does not exclude the hidden irony over her spinelessness, practical helplessness and infantilism. The drama of Ranevskaya is in the conflict between her desires to live in the old way, that is, as it was before the debts, and the complete impossibility of returning to the past. She herself does not realize this abyss between “today” and “yesterday”, which makes her idle and frivolous. As in the old days, Ranevskaya invites an orchestra to the evening or gives a golden passerby, although she has nothing to feed people on the estate. The inability to soberly assess one’s position causes an unpleasant feeling in the reader and the viewer, which is intensified, firstly, by her manner of speaking, not showing genuine interest in anything, and secondly, by the fact that, as a result, Ranevskaya again goes to Paris, to the person, who picked her.

There are certain sympathetic notes in Chekhov and in the image of Lopakhin. He is sensitive and kind, he seeks to help Gaev and Ranevskaya save the estate. But in Chekhov's double coverage, Lopakhin is far from being a hero: he has a business-like, prosaic lack of wings, he is incapable of love, in relations with Varya Lopakhin is awkward and comical, and he himself is dissatisfied with his life. The play contains Lopakhin's remarks that characterize him not from the best side. He utters one of them at the moment when the Ranevskaya estate has already been bought: “Let everything be as I wish! A new landowner is coming, the owner of a cherry orchard! I can pay for everything! - should be understood: for love, and for power, and for friendship.

A number of researchers highlight the images of Petya Trofimov and Anya, emphasizing the author's sympathies in their coverage. But we must note that the comic decline applies no less to these young heroes. So, the play focuses on Ani's youth, inexperience and inability to live. Petya Trofimov is also depicted in the double Chekhov illumination. This hero, like Chekhov himself, does not consider his contemporary structure of life to be reasonable. But, tormented by the nonsense of existence, full of compassion for those who are poor and unfortunate, he utters angry monologues, calls for himself into the future, which he does not see and does not understand, therefore his sincere words inspire only melancholy and pity. There is no personal power in Petya's reasoning; they contain many words that look like spells. In addition, he is an "eternal student" and a "shabby gentleman." “A funny eccentric,” Ranevskaya says about him. Such an image of the image of Petya Trofimov gives reason to believe that Chekhov, most likely, was convinced of the following: it is not such people who master life and become its creators.

Thus, all the characters in Chekhov's comedy "The Cherry Orchard" are depicted in a dual, tragicomic light: the author sympathizes with some aspects of their character, and flaunts the funny, negative. Here there is no absolute bearer of good, just as there is no absolute bearer of evil.

Consequently, Russia at the turn of the two centuries, as A.P. Chekhov imagined it, had not yet developed a real ideal of a person in itself, and the heroes of the play The Cherry Orchard had not risen to the height required to overcome the upcoming trials.

REFERENCES

1. Esin, A. B. Principles and methods of analysis of a literary work: textbook. allowance / A. B. Esin. - M.: Flinta: Science, 1998.

2. Skaftymov, A.P. Moral searches of Russian classics / A.P. Skaftymov. - M., 1972.

3. Chekhov, A. P. Sobr. cit.: in 18 volumes / A.P. Chekhov. - M.: Fiction, 1978. - T. 13.