The old owners of the cherry orchard before. What attracts and alarms in the old and new owners of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"

The play "The Cherry Orchard" was created by Chekhov in 1903. Its main theme is the death of the noble nest as a result of the collapse

economics and psychology of the nobility. The characters and moods of the class leaving the historical stage are embodied in the play in the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev.

In front of us is a typical "noble nest", a manor surrounded by an old cherry orchard. “What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky! .. ”- the heroine of the play Ranevskaya says enthusiastically.

This nest of nobles is living its last days. The estate was not only mortgaged, but also re-mortgaged. Soon, in case of non-payment of interest, it will go under the hammer. What are these last owners of the cherry orchard, living more in the past than in the present?

In the past, this was a wealthy noble family who traveled to Paris on horseback and at whose balls generals, barons, admirals danced. Ranevskaya even had a dacha in the south of France, in Menton.

The past reminds Ranevskaya of a blooming cherry orchard, which is to be sold for debts.

Lopakhin offers the owners of the estate a sure way to save the estate: break the cherry orchard into plots and rent it out as summer cottages.

But from the point of view of their aristocratic concepts, this means seems unacceptable to them, offensive to honor and family traditions. It contradicts their noble aesthetics. “The dacha and summer residents are so vulgar, sorry,” Ranevskaya arrogantly declares to Lopakhin. The "poetry" of the cherry orchard and its "noble past" obscures life from them and deprives them of practical calculation. Lopakhin correctly calls them "frivolous, unbusinesslike, strange people."

Lack of will, unsuitability, romantic enthusiasm, mental instability, inability to live characterize, first of all, Ranevskaya. The personal life of this woman was unsuccessful. Having lost her husband and son, she settled abroad and spends money on a man who deceived and robbed her.

Life has taught her nothing. After the sale of the cherry orchard, she again leaves for Paris, nonchalantly declaring that the money sent by her aunt will not last long.

In the character of Ranevskaya, at first glance, there are many good features. She is outwardly charming, loves nature and music. This, according to the reviews of others, is a sweet, “kind, glorious” woman, simple and direct.

In essence, Ranevskaya is selfish and indifferent to people. While her domestic servants "have nothing to eat", Ranevskaya litters money right and left and even arranges an unnecessary ball.

Her life is empty and aimless, although she talks a lot about her tender love for people, for the cherry orchard.

The same as Ranevskaya, a weak-willed, worthless person in life is her brother Gaev. All his life he lived in the estate without doing anything. He himself admits that he ate his fortune on candy. His only “occupation” is billiards. He is completely immersed in thoughts about various combinations of billiard moves: “... yellow in the middle ... Doublet in the corner!”, “I cut in the middle,” he casually inserts during conversations with others.

His "business" connection with the city is expressed only in the purchase of anchovies and Kerch herring.

In contrast to his sister, Gaev is somewhat rude. The lordly arrogance towards others is felt in his words “whom?” and "boor", and in remarks: "And here it smells of patchouli" or "Step away, my dear, you smell like chicken," thrown at either Lopakhin or Yasha.

These people, accustomed to live carelessly without working, cannot even comprehend the tragedy of their situation. Ranevskaya and Gaev lack genuine, deep feelings. A. M. Gorky subtly notes that the “teary” Ranevskaya and her brother are people “selfish, like children, and flabby, like old people. They were late in time to die and whine, not seeing anything around them, not understanding anything.

Both Ranevskaya and Gaev, in essence, do not love their homeland and live only by personal feelings and moods. Ranevskaya passionately exclaims: “God sees, I love my homeland, I love dearly,” and at the same time irresistibly rushes to Paris. They don't have a future. These are the last representatives of the degenerate nobility. In the play "The Cherry Orchard" Chekhov brought this gallery of images to the end.

Old and new owners of the cherry orchard

In Chekhov's comedy "The Cherry Orchard" we see a combination of dramatic and comic, which is connected with the problems of the work.
The play shows the passage of time: past, present and future.
The central characters are Ranevskaya and Gaev. But can they be called the main characters? Of course not. They live in the past, they have no present or future. Everything is illusory in their view.
They are the owners of the cherry orchard, the estate where the heroes were born, grew up, seemed to be happy. But can they be called real owners of the cherry orchard? No, you can’t, although they sometimes cause sympathy for themselves.
Ranevskaya is a kind, generous, charming, emotional woman. But she is careless, impractical, her words are at odds with her deeds. She is indecisive; can not dispose of not only the estate, but also his own destiny.
She loves the cherry orchard as her past, as a symbol of beauty and kindness to her heart. But she cannot do anything to save the estate. She hopes that Lopakhin, the Yaroslavl grandmother, even Gaev will help her.
Her fate is dramatic, she herself feels it, that she has a "stone around her neck." But the heroine “litters” money when the servants have nothing to eat, arranges a ball with an orchestra when the fate of the cherry orchard is decided.
Ranevskaya says that she loves her homeland. But can she be trusted when she lives in Paris almost all the time.
It is a pity for her when, having learned that the cherry orchard has been sold, she cries, hugging her brother. But Ranevskaya will again leave for Paris, forgetting about the old Firs.
Even more impractical is Gaev in the play. This is really a "clunky" who does not know how to live, make decisions, serve. It's a phrase-monger giving a speech in front of a closet. Where can he decide the fate of the cherry orchard when he can't dress himself.
He is comical, utters some words, reminiscent of Epikhodov. So Ranevskaya and Gaev cannot be the real owners of the cherry orchard. Moreover, under the image of the cherry orchard, Chekhov means the image of the Motherland.
But here comes the "new owner" of the cherry orchard - Lopakhin. Energetic, active, determined. He has many positive qualities: he is kind, generous, respectful of Ranevskaya, Petya Trofimov. He is ready to help Ranevskaya and Gaev, but they are different people and do not understand each other.
Lopakhin "makes money" out of everything. Time for him is money. Blooming poppy - money. And he looks at the cherry orchard as a master, an acquirer.
When buying a cherry orchard, he says: “Everyone come and watch Yermalai Lopakhin hit the cherry orchard with an axe.”
He does not notice the beauty of the flowering poppy, the beauty of the cherry orchard. He doesn’t even really feel sorry for Ranevskaya, since they haven’t left yet, but the sound of an ax is already heard in the cherry orchard.
Can he be called the real owner of the cherry orchard, the representative of the present time in the play? No. Of course, he is the owner, but he is the acquirer, you cannot entrust him with the beauty of the cherry orchard, which he destroys. He could not even marry Vara. He has no time. He has time and money. He is more like a "predatory beast", but not a "tender soul", according to Trofimov's definition.
The play depicts the images of the younger generation. This is Anya and Petya Trofimov. They are directed to the future, Petya calls Anya to throw the keys to the household and follow him into a brighter future. Petya's monologues are optimistic, appealing, even pathetic. "All Russia is our garden." In this he is right. The future of Russia seems bright and beautiful to Chekhov. He loves Anna. These scenes are lyrical, emotional, wonderful landscapes are given.
But Petya is sometimes comical. Calling Anya to work, he hardly knows what this work will be, this future. And most importantly, what is its role in this.
Will Petya reach a brighter future? "I'll get there or I'll show others how to get there."
Rather, he will show the way to others. Just like Anya.
Anya is morally superior to Petya. This is the personification of purity, beauty, tenderness. But she believes Petya's monologues, she is more resolute. I want to believe that she will find the right path in life and reach a brighter future.
Chekhov wanted to see beautiful Russia, he believed in its future. And the real owners of the cherry orchard are people who go forward for happiness. Such as Anya. Anya says goodbye to the cherry orchard, her past. "Goodbye, old life! Hello new life!
"We will plant a garden, more luxurious than this ...".
Chekhov believed in the future of Russia.

The main themes of the play "The Cherry Orchard", written in 1904, are: the death of a noble nest, the victory of an enterprising merchant-manufacturer over the obsolete Ranevskaya and Gaev, and the theme of the future of Russia, associated with the images of Petya Trofimov and Anya.

The parting of the new, young Russia with the past, with the obsolete one, the aspiration for tomorrow in Russia - this is the content of The Cherry Orchard.

The Russia of the past, which is becoming obsolete in the play, is represented by the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev. For both heroes, the cherry orchard is dear, dear as a memory of childhood, youth, prosperity, an easy and elegant life. They cry about the loss of the garden, but it was they who ruined it, gave it to the axe. At the same time, they remained true to the beauty of the cherry orchard, and therefore they are so insignificant and ridiculous.

Ranevskaya - in the past, a wealthy noblewoman, who even had a dacha in the south of France in Menton, the owner of an estate, "there is nothing more beautiful in the world." But with her misunderstanding of life, her inability to adapt to it, her lack of will and frivolity, the hostess has brought the estate to complete ruin, to the point that the estate will be sold at auction!

Lopakhin, an enterprising merchant-manufacturer, offers the owners of the estate a way to save the estate. He says that all you need to do is lay out a cherry orchard for dachas. But although Ranevskaya sheds tears about the loss of her garden, although she cannot live without it, she still refuses Lopakhin's offer to save the estate. Selling or renting garden plots seems to her unacceptable and offensive. But the bidding goes on, and Lopakhin buys the estate himself.

And when the "trouble" struck, it turned out that there was no drama for the hostess of the cherry orchard. Ranevskaya returns to Paris to her ridiculous "love", to which she would have returned anyway, despite all her words that she cannot live without a homeland. The drama with the sale of the cherry orchard is not at all a drama for its owner. This happened only because Ranevskaya did not have any serious experiences at all. She can easily move from a state of concern, anxiety to a cheerful revival. That is what happened this time as well. She quickly calmed down and even declared to everyone: "My nerves are better, it's true."

And what is her brother, Leonid Andreevich Gaev? He is much smaller than his sister. He is able to say simple, sincere words, shamefully realizing his own vulgarity and stupidity. But Gaev's shortcomings reach caricature proportions. Remembering the past, Ranevskaya kisses her favorite closet. Gaev makes a speech before him. Gaev is a miserable aristocrat who ate his fortune on candy.

The failure of the noble liberal intelligentsia in the past determined the dominance in the present of people like Lopakhin. But in fact, Chekhov associates future prosperity with the younger generation (Petya Trofimov and Anya), it is they who will have to build a new Russia, plant new cherry orchards.

The play "The Cherry Orchard" is Chekhov's last work. In the eighties, Chekhov conveyed the tragic situation of people who have lost the meaning of their lives. The play was staged at the Art Theater in 1904. The twentieth century is coming, and Russia is finally becoming a capitalist country, a country of factories, factories and railways. This process accelerated with the liberation of the peasantry by Alexander II. The features of the new relate not only to the economy, but also to society, the ideas and views of people are changing, the old system of values ​​is being lost.

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 stormy 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, everyday life is 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 lackey Yasha, who, as a witness to her Parisian secrets, is quite capable of familiar treatment, 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. With 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 a “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).

My life, my youth

my happiness, goodbye!

A. P. Chekhov

Chekhov, unlike many of his predecessors, does not have a central character around whom the plot would be built. All characters are given in a complex interaction, and none of them, except for Yasha, can be unambiguously characterized. The image of Ranevskaya is especially complicated.

Chekhov never for a moment lets the reader forget about the difficult situation in which Gaev and Ranevskaya found themselves. Their family estate is mortgaged. All deadlines have passed, but Gaev has not returned the money taken on bail. The estate has become the property of the bank and will be sold at auction.

Lyubov Andreevna is loved by all the characters: relatives, Lopakhin, and servants. And she seems to love everyone too. Her affectionate smile, gentle words are addressed to everyone without exception, even to the room: “Children’s, my dear, beautiful room ...” Subtly, carefully and unobtrusively, already at the beginning of the play, Chekhov makes his own adjustments to our perception of this sweet and charming woman. The further, the more. In the same first act, Lyubov Andreevna exclaims with emotion: “God knows, I love my homeland, I love dearly, I couldn’t look out of the carriage, I kept crying ... However, I must drink coffee.” With all the kindest attitude towards Ranevskaya, you feel how such a sharp and unexpected transition to coffee involuntarily reduces the pathos of her lofty speeches. And after that comes another significant episode. To the words of Gaev that the nanny had died, Lyubov Andreevna, drinking coffee, remarks: “Yes, the kingdom of heaven. They wrote to me." The dryness of the heroine in this episode is striking: for the nursery, she found warmer words.

Ranevskaya's mood changes almost instantly. She either cries, or laughs, or acutely feels the impending threat, or flatters herself with groundless hopes for a miraculous salvation. Very important in this regard is the scene of the ball in the third act, arranged at the insistence of Ranevskaya on the day of the auction. Her thoughts all the time there, in the city, at the auction, she cannot forget about the fate of the cherry orchard for a minute, but she speaks aloud about something else, optional, accidental. This is the whole Ranevskaya.

Her frivolity affects her personal life as well. How could she love such an unworthy man, leaving her twelve-year-old daughter for him? However, justice requires recognizing that in love Ranevskaya behaves nobly: when her chosen one fell ill, she “did not know rest day or night for three years.” And now “he is sick, he is lonely, unhappy, and who will look after him there, who will keep him from making mistakes, who will give him medicine in time?” As you can see, Lyubov Andreevna is not thinking about herself. She rushes to help, as they rush, without hesitation, to the perishing. Will she save him? Most likely not, just as they did not save Gaev and the cherry orchard.

Lopakhin kept wondering: why are they so indifferent to the fate of the estate, why are they not doing anything, why are they in no hurry to cut down the cherry orchard and get a lot of money at the same time? “Forgive me, I have never met such frivolous people like you, gentlemen, such unbusinesslike, strange people,” he says.

Yes, they are non-business people. Is it good or bad? The behavior of Gaev and Ranevskaya seems strange to Lopakhin from the standpoint of sober calculation. Indeed, why did they never accept his proposal? For Lopakhin, the destruction of the cherry orchard is reasonable and expedient, because it is profitable. But he cannot understand in any way that in this case the benefit is not of decisive importance for Ranevskaya and Gaev. material from the site

The former owners of the cherry orchard have one undeniable advantage that elevates them above all other characters: they understand what a cherry orchard is, they feel their involvement in beauty, firmly aware that beauty is not for sale. And yet they did not save the cherry orchard. And we are very sorry for Ranevskaya and her brother, who are losing everything. At the very end of the play, we see an amazing scene. Lyubov Andreevna and Gaev were left alone. “They were definitely waiting for this, throw themselves on each other’s necks and sob restrainedly, quietly, afraid that they would not be heard.” Gaev in despair repeats only two words: “My sister, my sister!” The Cherry Orchard personified youth, purity, happiness for them. What lies ahead for them? It is unlikely that Gaev will be able to work. And Ranevskaya will very quickly spend the money sent by her grandmother. What will happen next? It's scary to imagine. That is why, knowing that they themselves are to blame for everything, we still feel sorry for them and weep with them.