How old is Gaev's cherry orchard. Gaev's characterization in the play "The Cherry Orchard"

Gaev's place in the system of images of the work

To understand Chekhov's perception of the nobility, it is necessary to consider the characterization of Gaev in the play The Cherry Orchard, the brother of the main character, practically a double of Ranevskaya, but less significant. Therefore, in the list of characters, he is designated "brother Ranevskaya", although he is older than her and has the same rights to the estate as her sister.

Gaev Leonid Andreevich is a landowner who "has eaten a fortune on candy", leading an idle lifestyle, but it is strange to him that the garden is being sold for debts. He is already 51 years old, but he has neither a wife nor children. He lives in an old estate, which is being destroyed before his eyes, under the care of the old footman Firs. However, it is Gaev who is always trying to borrow money from someone in order to cover at least the interest on his and his sister's debts. And his options for repaying all loans are more like pipe dreams: “It would be nice to receive an inheritance from someone, it would be nice to marry our Anya to a very rich person, it would be nice to go to Yaroslavl and try your luck with the aunt-countess ...”

The image of Gaev in the play "The Cherry Orchard" became a caricature of the nobility in general. All the negative aspects of Ranevskaya found a more ugly attitude in her brother, thereby further emphasizing the comedy of what is happening. Unlike Ranevskaya, Gaev's description is mainly in stage directions, which reveal his character through actions, while the characters say very little about him.

Gaev's character traits

Very little is told about Gaev's past. But it is clear that he is an educated person, able to expose his thoughts in beautiful, but empty speeches. All his life he lived on his estate, a frequenter of men's clubs, in which he indulged in his favorite pastime - playing billiards. It was from there that he brought all the news and there he received an offer to become a bank employee, with an annual salary of six thousand. However, for those around it was very surprising, the sister says: “Where are you! Sit down already ... ”, Lopakhin also expresses doubt:“ But he won’t sit, he’s very lazy ... ”. The only person who believes him is his niece Anya "I believe you uncle!". What caused such distrust and in some ways even a dismissive attitude on the part of others? After all, even the footman Yasha shows his disrespect for him.

As already mentioned, Gaev is an empty talker, at the most inopportune moments he can indulge in ranting, so that everyone around is simply lost and asks him to be silent. Leonid Andreevich himself understands this, but this is part of his nature. He is also very infantile, unable to defend his point of view, and he cannot even formulate it properly. He so often has nothing to say on the merits that his favorite word "Kogo" constantly sounds and completely inappropriate billiard terms appear. Firs still follows his master like a small child, now shaking off the dust from his trousers, now bringing him a warm coat, and for a fifty-year-old man there is nothing shameful in such guardianship, he even goes to bed under the sensitive gaze of his footman. Firs is sincerely attached to the owner, but even Gaev in the finale of the play "The Cherry Orchard" forgets about his devoted servant. He loves his nieces and his sister. It’s just that he couldn’t become the head of the family, in which he remained the only man, and he can’t help anyone, since it doesn’t even occur to him. All this shows how shallow the feelings of this hero are.

For Gaev, the cherry orchard means as much as for Ranevskaya, but, like her, she is not ready to accept Lopakhin's offer. After all, dividing the estate into plots and renting it out is “wonderful”, largely because it will bring them closer to such businessmen as Lopakhin, and for Leonid Andreevich this is unacceptable, since he considers himself a true aristocrat, looking down on such merchants. Having returned in a depressed state from the auction where the estate was sold, Gaev has only tears in his eyes, and as soon as they hear the cue hitting the balls, they dry up, once again proving that deep feelings are simply not characteristic of him.

Gaev as the final step in the evolution of the nobility in the work of A.P. Chekhov

Gaev closed the chain, consisting of the images of the nobles, created by Chekhov throughout his creative life. He created "heroes of his time", aristocrats with excellent education, unable to defend their ideals, and it was this weakness that allowed such as Lopakhin to occupy a dominant position. In order to show how small the nobles were, Anton Pavlovich underestimated the image of Gaev as much as possible, bringing him to a caricature. Many representatives of the aristocracy were very critical of this depiction of their class, accusing the author of ignorance of their circle. But after all, Chekhov did not even want to create a comedy, but a farce, which he succeeded in doing.

Reasoning about the image of Gaev and a description of the features of his characters can be used by students in grade 10 while writing an essay on the topic “Characteristics of Gaev in the play “The Cherry Orchard””.

Artwork test

One of the main characters of the work is Gaev Leonid Andreevich, the brother of the main characters of the owner of the estate Ranevskaya.

The writer presents Gaev as a lonely fifty-year-old man, a landowner who does not have a family of his own, living in an old estate under the care of old Firs, who lowered his family fortune due to an idle lifestyle in the form of a favorite pastime - playing billiards.

The characteristic features of the hero are his aristocratic education, combined with a weak-willed nature, which is expressed in the inability and unwillingness to make important life decisions, to defend his own position. But at the same time, Gaev is distinguished by artistry and sincerity in expressing his thoughts, as well as sentimentality and romanticism.

Participating in conversations, Leonid Andreevich is verbose, often speaks not on the merits of the conversation, and sometimes he himself notices that he is talking off topic and inappropriately inserts expressions that are not entirely clear to his interlocutors.

Gaev is characterized by a loving attitude towards his household and relatives, he sincerely cares for the happiness of his sister and his nieces, hoping to successfully marry one of the girls, Anna, to a worthy and wealthy nobleman. Gaev is very attached to the old Firs, he cannot do without him even while preparing for bed, but at the end of the play he does not even remember the old man.

Naively believing that it is possible to save the estate from the sale and preserve the cherry orchard, which is of great importance to him, however, as well as to all family members, Gaev in his dreams imagines receiving an unrealistic inheritance. In fact, Leonid Andreevich does not want to realize the fait accompli of the loss of the family estate, although he says goodbye to the garden with tears in his eyes, but deep feelings and suffering are not characteristic of this hero. Therefore, he enters the service with a small annual salary in the men's club, although, according to his relatives and the merchant Lopakhin, Gaev's work will not last long, since Leonid Andreevich is not disciplined for work and is lazy.

Describing the image of Gaev in the play, the writer caricaturely reveals the essence of the devastation of the noble class of that time, the spinelessness and lack of initiative of the aristocracy, idealizing the ongoing events, which are already being actively replaced by representatives of commerce and business merchants in the form of Lopakhin, striving for a dominant position in society.

Option 2

Gaev Leonid Alekseevich is one of the heroes of the play by the great Russian writer and playwright Anton Pavlovich Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard". In his image, as in Ranevskaya, the author depicted the past of Russia. He is a representative of the nobility, an aristocrat, while, wanting to show that their time is over, the author purposefully makes Gaev a ruined landowner.

Gaev is already 51 years old, but at the same time he is absolutely not independent. The old servant Firs still dresses and undresses him like a little child, carefully watching that the master does not catch a cold. Gaev is infinitely lazy. When the question arises of selling the Cherry Orchard at auction, he only makes long pompous solemn speeches, swearing that under no circumstances will he allow the sale ... But that's all. In practice, no action was taken, and even a feeble attempt to do something. Gaev is an example of pure selfishness. Caring only for himself, he doesn't really care what happens to the Cherry Orchard. At the end of the play, he forgets about the old devoted servant Firs.

Gaev's hobby is playing billiards, besides he likes to eat candy. Passion for the game and sweet emphasizes the infantilism of the character. After the sale of the garden, Leonid Alekseevich will get a job in a bank, but no one believes that this will be for a long time. Everyone knows his inconstancy and laziness.

Chekhov contrasts Gaev with Lopakhin, who is a typical representative of the merchant class of that time. Leonid Alekseevich speaks badly of Lopakhin, considers him a boor and a rude man. Rejects his business proposal to rent the Cherry Orchard for dachas, which in reality could save the garden, referring to the mythical vulgarity of such a deal. At the same time, Gaev does not consider it shameful to beg for money from others. In the play, he says that it would be good to go to the aunt-countess - to ask for money to cover debts or to receive an inheritance, or to marry a rich man Anya - his niece

The purpose of creating The Cherry Orchard was to reflect the division of society of that time into the past (Ranevskaya, Gaev), the present (Lopakhin) and the future of Russia (Petya Trofimov, Anya). Gaev is an image of the obsolete noble past of Russia. He is helpless and absolutely not adapted to modern life.

Composition The image and characteristics of Gaev

The play The Cherry Orchard is still relevant, many characters are written incredibly textured and represent collective images of various human types. One of the main characters in action is Leonid Andreevich Gaev, who throughout his existence was a landowner and was always ready for anything. When it's time for a new time and there is a need, Gaev does not know what to do.

In fact, you need to consider this hero as the antithesis of Lopakhin and vice versa. Gaev from birth was in bliss, he was constantly taken care of and accustomed to prosperity and habits of people of the upper class. In turn, Lopakhin is a man, as they say in America, "who made himself." He is somewhat similar, for example, to Stolz from Goncharov's novel, he is also active, mostly a materialist who strives to achieve everything.

Gaev is a spacious and mostly dreamy, inactive nature. He literally cannot take care of his property himself, but can only think about how good it would be to receive some kind of indulgence, some kind of contentment from other people. Having lived like this until the age of 50, he can no longer choose anything else, and only at the end of the play do we learn about how Leonid Andreevich gets a job as an employee in a bank.

As Lopakhin says, Gaev will not be able to hold out at this job, as he is very lazy and this really makes sense. Lopakhin, of course, in many ways treats the landowner contemptuously and does not miss the opportunity to hook him, but he gives very clear definitions that correspond to reality.

It seems to me that in the image of Gaev, Chekhov portrayed the crisis of the aristocratic class and the crisis among the landowners.

As you know, in order to maintain power, one should have clear and firm convictions, as well as the ability to defend these convictions in fact. Leonid Andreevich, in turn, is an aristocrat only nominally, he is a landowner by inheritance, but in fact he could not achieve the privileges that he possesses.

In my opinion, the figure of Gaev is sad and even tragic to some extent, although he does not arouse sympathy.

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The play "The Cherry Orchard" is called Chekhov's swan song. This is his last play, written a year before his early death.

Written in 1903. First staged on January 17, 1904 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The playwright passed away on July 15, 1904. He was 44 years old.

The play was written on the threshold of the first Russian revolution of 1905-07, it contains a moment of Chekhov's foresight of subsequent historical events that he was no longer able to see.

The central image in the work is the image of a cherry orchard, all the characters are located around it, each of them has his own perception of the garden. And this image is symbolic. Behind the image of the cherry orchard stands the image of Russia, and the main theme of the play is the fate of Russia.

The play is imbued with the author's reflections on the past, present and future of Russia, the symbol of which is the cherry orchard.

Ranevskaya and Gaev personify the past of the cherry orchard and at the same time the past of Russia. In the play, the garden is cut down, but in life the nests of the nobility disintegrate, the old Russia, the Russia of the Ranevskys and Gaevs, is becoming obsolete.

Ranevskaya and Gaev are images of ruined noble landowners. They are the descendants of wealthy owners of a magnificent estate with a beautiful cherry orchard. In the old days, their estate brought income, on which its idle owners lived.

The habit of living by the labors of others, not caring about anything, made Ranevskaya and Gaev people unsuitable for any serious activity, weak-willed and helpless.

Ranevskaya, outwardly charming, kind, simple, is basically the personification of frivolity. She is sincerely concerned about the disorder of her adopted daughter Varya, pities her faithful servant Firs, and easily kisses the maid Dunyasha after a long separation. But her kindness is the result of abundance, not created by her own hands, a consequence of the habit of spending money without counting.

The double of Ranevskaya, but a less significant personality, is Gaev in the play. And he is sometimes able to say smart things, sometimes be sincere, self-critical. But the sister's shortcomings - frivolity, impracticality, lack of will - become caricatured by Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna only kisses the closet in a fit of tenderness, but Gaev makes a speech in front of him in "high style".

Gaev is frankly ridiculous in his attempts to live as if nothing has changed, as if he had not eaten a fortune on candies. He almost always speaks out of place, utters meaningless billiard terms, reminiscent of the times of his cheerful youth. Gaev is pitiful with his empty high-flown speeches, with the help of which he tries to revive the familiar atmosphere of former well-being.

Brother and sister are all in the past. But Gaev and Ranevskaya still somehow like us. They are able to feel the beauty, and the cherry orchard itself is perceived mainly aesthetically, and not utilitarianly - as a source of berries that can be used for food or sold, or as a large plot of land, which again has commercial value.

There is an elegiac mood in the play, the sadness of parting with an obsolete past, in which there was a lot of bad, but there was also good. At the same time, this is a kind of Chekhov's lyrical comedy, which, with some sly good nature, but still quite severely, with Chekhov's sobriety and clarity, chuckles at the nobility leaving the historical stage.

The criticism that responded to the production of the play at the Art Theater regarded it as the final verdict on the noble class. One of the reviewers of the performance claimed that in The Cherry Orchard a “monument was erected over the grave of pretty white-handed women, orchids that have faded behind someone else’s coffin”, and “their sluggish humility and meekness fills the heart with horror and pity”.

People like Gaev and Ranevskaya are being replaced by a completely different type of people: strong, enterprising, dexterous. One of these people is another character in the play, Lopakhin.

The prototypes of Ranevskaya, according to the author, were Russian ladies who lived idly in Monte Carlo, whom Chekhov observed abroad in 1900 and at the beginning of 1901: “And what insignificant women ... [about a certain lady. – V.K.] “she lives here from nothing to do, she only eats and drinks ...” How many Russian women die here ”(from a letter by O. L. Knipper).

At first, the image of Ranevskaya seems to us sweet and attractive. But then it acquires stereoscopicity, complexity: the lightness of her turbulent experiences is revealed, the exaggeration in expressing feelings: “I can’t sit, I’m not able. (Jumps up and walks around in great agitation.) I won't survive this joy... Laugh at me, I'm stupid... My dear closet. (He kisses the closet.) My table ... "At one time, the literary critic D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky even stated, referring to the behavior of Ranevskaya and Gaev:" The terms "frivolity" and "emptiness" are no longer used here in a walking and general , and in a closer - psychopathological - sense, the behavior of these characters in the play is "incompatible with the concept of a normal, healthy psyche." But the fact of the matter is that all the characters in Chekhov's play are normal, ordinary people, only their ordinary life and everyday life are viewed by the author as if through a magnifying glass.

Ranevskaya, despite the fact that her brother (Leonid Andreevich Gaev) calls her a "vicious woman", oddly enough, inspires respect and love from all the characters in the play. Even the footman Yasha, who, as a witness to her Parisian secrets, is quite capable of familiarity, does not come to mind to be cheeky with her. Culture and intelligence gave Ranevskaya the charm of harmony, sobriety of mind, subtlety of feelings. She is smart, able to tell the bitter truth about herself and about others, for example, about Petya Trofimov, to whom she says: “You have to be a man, at your age you need to understand those who love. And you have to love yourself... “I am higher than love!” You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz.”

And yet in Ranevskaya much evokes sympathy. For all the lack of will, sentimentality, she is characterized by the breadth of nature, the ability for disinterested kindness. This attracts Petya Trofimov. And Lopakhin says about her: “She is a good person. Easy, simple man.

Ranevskaya's double, but a less significant personality, is Gaev in the play, it is no coincidence that he is presented in the list of characters by belonging to his sister: "Ranevskaya's brother." And he is sometimes able to say smart things, sometimes be sincere, self-critical. But the sister's shortcomings - frivolity, impracticality, lack of will - become caricatured by Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna only kisses the closet in a fit of tenderness, while Gaev makes a speech in front of him in "high style". In his own eyes, he is an aristocrat of the highest circle, as if Lopakhin does not notice and tries to put "this boor" in his place. But his contempt - the contempt of an aristocrat who ate his fortune "on candies" - is ridiculous.

Gaev is infantile, absurd, for example, in the following scene:

"Firs. Leonid Andreevich, you are not afraid of God! When to sleep?

GAYEV (Waving off Firs). I’ll undress myself, so be it.”

Gaev is another variant of spiritual degradation, emptiness and vulgarity.

It has been noted more than once in the history of literature, the unwritten "history" of the reader's perception of Chekhov's works, that he allegedly experienced a special prejudice towards the high society - towards noble, aristocratic Russia. These characters - landowners, princes, generals - appear in Chekhov's stories and plays not only empty, colorless, but sometimes stupid, ill-bred. (A. A. Akhmatova, for example, reproached Chekhov: “But how he described the representatives of the upper classes ... He didn’t know these people! He didn’t know anyone higher than the assistant to the head of the station ... Everything is wrong, wrong!”)

However, it is hardly worth seeing in this fact Chekhov's certain tendentiousness or his incompetence, the writer was not interested in the knowledge of life. This is not the point, not the social "registration" of Chekhov's characters. Chekhov did not idealize the representatives of any estate, any social group, he was, as you know, outside of politics and ideology, outside of social preferences. All classes “got” from the writer, and the intelligentsia too: “I don’t believe in our intelligentsia, hypocritical, false, hysterical, ill-mannered, lazy, I don’t believe even when it suffers and complains, because its oppressors come out of its own depths” .

With that high cultural, moral, ethical and aesthetic exactingness, with that wise humor with which Chekhov approached man in general and his era in particular, social differences lost their meaning. This is the peculiarity of his "funny" and "sad" talent. In The Cherry Orchard itself, there are not only idealized characters, but also unconditionally positive heroes (this also applies to Lopakhin (“modern” Chekhov Russia), and to Anya and Petya Trofimov (Russia of the future).