What is the artistic meaning of Chekhov's famous brevity. Artistic features of Chekhov's works

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is one of the most famous and talented playwrights in the world. What is surprising is that this unique person, who created about 900 very different works, was a doctor by profession.

From the age of 13 he became a fan of the theater, and his first drama “ Fatherlessness"was written at the age of 18, while he was studying at the gymnasium. And when he already became a student, he published two stories in the magazine “Dragonfly” - then it was published for the first time.

As a student, he mainly wrote short stories and humoresques, but since 1887 his works have become longer and more profound. He developed a desire to travel, a desire to visit his native places, a sense of personal freedom, which helped Chekhov write on deeper and more philosophical topics. He traveled to Sakhalin, where he wrote nine essays under the general title “ From Siberia».

Thus, Chekhov begins to use his humor and satire in the most effective way, and over time his stories come out " Princess», « I want to sleep», « Women", in which there is no author's assessment. This attracted the attention of critics, many of whom considered it a flaw. But over time, the author’s impartiality in his work was appreciated, and many aspiring and young writers tried to inherit his style, such as I.A. Bunin and A.I. Kuprin.

Features of Chekhov's creativity

A feature of Chekhov's work is the absence of any important events in the lives of the characters that could show the reader the author's intention. Chekhov always focused on a detailed description of the characters’ everyday life, and thus talked about the inner world of the characters and the emotional content of their lives. But most of all, readers and critics are struck by the compactness of form, which can be traced throughout Chekhov’s work. For example, the story " Husband”, which takes only 4 pages, but these pages are more than enough to fully show the psychology of a person embittered and mired in the swamp of his own consciousness.

Chekhov's later works become deeper and more impressive - the famous " Three sisters», « Uncle Ivan», « Boring story" The last story accurately reflects the degree of melancholy and despair that gripped Russian society, and mainly the Russian intelligentsia in the 80s. Chekhov wants to most clearly reveal the images of mediocrity, immorality and vulgarity of ordinary people, and this topic is raised in most of his works. Stories like " Guys», « Into the ravine e" present terrible pictures of people's life, and even in the story "Three Sisters" there are similar motives - in a city of a hundred thousand people there is not even anyone to talk to.

Chekhov's gloomy pessimism

Chekhov gloomy pessimism is inherent. But it is worth distinguishing the subtlety of his skill in noticing the underlying causes and prerequisites of despair and hopelessness of the mind, which lead a person to immorality and suffering from a general sarcastic view of the life of certain strata. Chekhov's stories and plays are revealed on the theater stage in a completely different light, because it is the stage and the embodiment of what is described that allows us to see those subtle details and nuances with which the author tried to convey to our consciousness the secret bottom of what is happening in the country and in the hearts of people.

Chekhov's work is a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian literature, because it combines kind and sad humor, the presentation of eternal problems for humanity, gentle pedagogy and sometimes notes of tragedy.

Childhood and youth of A.P. Chekhov. First steps in creativity

The future Russian writer and playwright was born in the city of Taganrog in January 1860. His father was a merchant and kept a small shop where you could buy everything: from food to household items.

The family had many children. Chekhov later admitted that his childhood was difficult: together with his brothers and sisters, he helped his father, so he combined work and study. There was practically no time left for children's games and pranks.

Anton began writing early; his first stories and stories appeared when Chekhov was still a student at the gymnasium. The young man dreamed of literary fame, so he sent his novels and short stories to magazines, but publishers were in no hurry to publish them.

In 1879, an important event occurred in Chekhov’s life: he entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. At the same time, the future doctor’s life in Moscow is not easy: Chekhov is poor and, in order to earn a piece of bread, begins to look for literary work - he writes short humorous stories under the pseudonym “Antoshi Chekhonte” and many other equally funny names. These stories are gradually becoming popular. Later, the writer will collect all his early works into two collections, which he will call “Motley Stories” and “Innocent Speeches.”

Features of Chekhov's early work

Chekhov's early work includes mainly humorous works. These are stories such as “Thick and Thin”, “Death of an Official”, “Chameleon”, “Groom”, etc.
In these works, the author ridicules many human vices and, first of all, hypocrisy, stinginess and servility. Two school friends met in the story “Fat and Thin.” We were sincerely delighted at the meeting and began a dialogue, but in the process it turned out that the fat one occupied a rank much higher than the thin one, and the thin one, having learned about this, immediately began to fawn over his former comrade. And all the joy of their meeting disappears.

Or another hero - “Chameleon”, who in any situation strives to show his best side in front of his superiors and benefit from it. The story “Chameleon” itself takes up a little more than one page and causes laughter, but it is laughter through tears, because readers see in the hero’s behavior a response to their shortcomings.

Or another story, “The Groom.”

It depicts a young man madly in love with his bride, the blond beauty Varya. The groom accompanies Varya to the train, gives her 25 rubles of money with him, however, despite all the bright feelings for his bride, he does not forget to take her receipt. What is this? Stinginess or cynicism. Or maybe hypocrisy? But the fact of the matter is that our groom is truly in love, but still cannot give these “unfortunate” 25 rubles to his bride.

The peculiarities of Chekhov's creativity of this period lie precisely in the creation of such works that tell about the life of different people, ridiculing their vices, but forcing readers to turn to the world of their own soul, seeing the shortcomings of their own behavior.

In the mid-80s of the 19th century, Chekhov (who had already become a professional doctor by that time) entered the “great Russian literature.” His name becomes known to readers, and his stories begin to enjoy incredible popularity.

Chekhov's work in the 90s.

Having already become a famous Russian writer, whose works were published in the leading literary magazines of the time, Chekhov went on a trip to Russia. In 1890, the writer visited Siberia and even reached the island of Sakhalin, which at that time was the most famous place of hard labor and exile in the empire.

The result of his trips is the book “Sakhalin Island,” published in 1895.

The themes of Chekhov's creativity of that period are associated with the study of the human soul, the deepest motives of the individual psyche. During this period, the writer published his most famous works, the stories “Gooseberry”, “Man in a Case”, About Love”, “Ionych”, “Lady with a Dog”, “Ward No. 6”.

The writer thinks a lot about the fate of man, about the meaning of the feeling of love in people's lives. For example, in the story “The Lady with the Dog,” he describes the state into which two people plunge when they accidentally meet at a resort. Gurov and Anna Sergeevna cannot cope with the feeling of love that has gripped them. At the same time, the heroes are deeply unhappy, not only because external circumstances do not give them the opportunity to unite their destinies, but also because the very feeling of their love is deeply tragic.

Another Chekhov story from that period, which caused controversy among his contemporaries, is called “Darling.” It tells about the fate of a woman who lived all her life for others. Once she was lost in the fate of her first husband, after whose death she also devoted herself to all the interests of her second husband. When her second husband also died, Darling found herself a new object of love and care.

Moreover, the writer was so delicate that he did not give the author’s assessment to the heroine’s behavior, leaving this right to the readers. Some readers saw in Darling a heroine who, forgetting herself, was ready to love “her neighbor,” while others saw her as an empty and stupid woman who did not know what to do and therefore gave herself to everyone who was nearby.

In total, during this period of Chekhov’s work, the writer wrote about 150 works, many of which were included in the treasury of Russian literature.

Dramatic works

A.P. Chekhov also went down in the history of Russian culture as a talented playwright. He is the author of numerous works. These are the plays “Uncle Vanya”, “The Seagull”, “The Cherry Orchard”, “Three Sisters” and many others. To this day, these works are embodied in the repertoire of leading theaters around the world.

Largely thanks to the work of Chekhov and many of his talented contemporaries, actors and directors, they managed to give birth to a new genre of special psychologically oriented Russian drama.

The main thing in Chekhov's plays is the appeal to the inner world of his characters. It was the writer who wrote the phrase that people can drink tea on stage, and at the same time their fate is being decided. In his plays there are few sharp, bright conflicts, dramatic collisions, murder scenes and frank declarations of love. Everything is hidden, naked and realistic. At the same time, his heroes are vital and humane. Chekhov himself wrote about this: “Let everything on stage be as simple and at the same time as complex as in life.”

Ranevskaya, the main character of the play “The Cherry Orchard,” is looking for happiness in life, but does not find it anywhere, she strives for good, but does not want to make efforts for any specific good deed. Three sisters from another Chekhov play are also looking for another better life in life; they dream of life in Moscow, but they themselves are afraid to take any action to fulfill their dream. Another hero of the writer from the play “Uncle Vanya” creates an idol for himself from his relative, and when he realizes the falsity of his illusion, he falls into the deepest depression.

The last years of the writer's life

At the age of forty, shortly after his wedding to theater actress Olga Knipper, Chekhov learned that he was sick with a disease that was fatal for that time - consumption. The writer is forced to change his place of residence - he moves to Yalta. Here Chekhov's creative path ends with the creation of his last plays and his last stories. The most striking work of that time is the story “The Bride,” which tells the story of the fate of a young girl from the provinces, who, instead of marrying a man she did not love, left her small town to study. This story also caused different assessments among contemporaries, but Chekhov himself considered it one of his favorite works.

In 1904, the writer went to Germany to improve his health. This is where death finds him. Chekhov's body was transported to Russia, where he was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. Already under Soviet rule in 1933, the cemetery was liquidated and the grave was moved to another place.

In this article we will introduce you to the life and work of Chekhov, the great Russian writer and playwright. From it you will learn about how he became an original author, about the creative heritage of Anton Pavlovich, about the personality and character of the creator of immortal works. Let's begin to describe Chekhov's life and work with his biography.

The writer's early years

Anton Pavlovich was born in Taganrog. His father, Chekhov Pavel Georgievich, was a merchant who was part of the third guild. Mother's name was Evgenia Yakovlevna. This is recorded in the registry book in the cathedral church of Taganrog.

According to the recollections of Chekhov's brothers and himself, upbringing in the family was strict. The young writer studied at a classical gymnasium, helped his father in the grocery store with his sister and brothers, and also sang in the church choir, which was organized by Pavel Georgievich. According to his father, the shop needed a master's eye, so Anton, being the most conscientious of all the children, found himself more often than others in the role of clerk. A living gallery of various human types, conversations, and characters passed before the future writer. He became an involuntary witness to various life situations, situations, and conflicts. All this contributed to the fact that Anton Pavlovich developed an early knowledge of people, he quickly matured.

Moving to Moscow

My father went bankrupt in 1876, fled to Moscow from creditors, where he settled with his family. The eldest sons, Nikolai and Alexander, left to study in the capital even earlier. Anton, however, remained in Taganrog to graduate from high school. He earned his own living, gave lessons, and even sent money to Moscow for his family. This is how Chekhov’s independent life and creativity begin. During his years at the gymnasium, he created the drama “Fatherlessness,” the work “What the Chicken Sang About” (vaudeville), as well as many short comic works.

Studying at the University

Chekhov's life and work by year in the period from 1879 to 1884 is represented by the following events. At this time, the writer became a student at Moscow University, entering the medical faculty.

At the same time, he publishes short sketches, parodies, jokes in various humorous magazines ("Alarm Clock", "Dragonfly", "Oskolki") under various pseudonyms (My Father's Brother, Man Without a Spleen, Antosha Chekhonte, Purselepetantov). The first works that were published were parodies entitled “Letter to a Learned Neighbor”, as well as “What is Most Often Occurred...” Both works were published in 1880. Four years later, the writer’s stories appeared, “Tales of Melpomene,” followed by “Motley Stories” in 1886, “At Twilight” in 1887, and “Gloomy People” in 1890.

First recognition from readers and critics

Chekhov did not immediately receive recognition from Russian critics, but he gained success among readers much earlier. And these critics can be understood. It was unclear what Chekhov the narrator was talking about, what goal he was leading to, what he was calling for. At that time, his refusal to preach and strive to solve “big” problems in literature (“What to do?”, “Who is to blame?”), as was traditionally the case in the works of Russian classics, was very unusual. However, a few years after his debut as a writer, in 1887, Chekhov was awarded the prestigious Pushkin Prize for a collection of stories called “At Twilight.” This was recognition not only of him as a writer, but also of the genre in which Chekhov worked. Many of his contemporaries perceived the stories as a narrative about themselves, their lives. Chukovsky, for example, said that Tolstoy seemed omniscient, but his books were about someone else, but Chekhov’s story “My Life” was written as if about him, reading it as if you were reading your own diary.

Medical activity and its reflection in creativity

Having received the position of district doctor, in 1884 Chekhov began to practice medicine.

From April to December 1890, the writer was on the island of Sakhalin, which at that time became the place where Anton Pavlovich’s contemporaries were serving hard labor. This was a civic act for Chekhov, “going to the people.” Anton Pavlovich, in a book entitled “Sakhalin Island” (years of creation - 1893-1894), acted as a researcher of the life of the people, living in conditions of exile and hard labor. From that time on, as Chekhov himself said, all his work was “sweetened.” For example, the stories “Ward No. 6” and “In Exile” (both written in 1892) reflected the impressions of visiting this island. The trip significantly worsened the writer’s health; his tuberculosis worsened.

Moving to Melikhovo

The life and work of Chekhov, whose brief biography we describe, continues in Melikhovo. Chekhov acquired this estate near Moscow in 1892. In it, he not only created his works, but also treated peasants, opened several schools and a first-aid post for their children, traveled to provinces that were gripped by famine, and also participated in the population census. Chekhov's life and work took place on this estate until 1898. The works “Rothschild’s Violin”, “The Jumper”, “The Seagull”, “Literature Teacher”, “Uncle Vanya” and others were written.

A. P. Chekhov: life, creativity and achievements in Yalta

The writer moved to Yalta in 1898. Here he purchased a plot of land on which he built a house. Such famous contemporaries as Maxim Gorky, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, Isaac Ilyich Levitan visited Anton Pavlovich.

At the end of the 1880s, Chekhov created many plays for the theater, such as “The Leshy,” “Ivanov,” “The Wedding,” as well as the vaudeville “Anniversary,” “The Bear.”

In 1896, not understood by the audience and actors, one of his most famous plays today, “The Seagull,” failed. But two years later she had a resounding success in the production of the Moscow Art Theater, becoming a symbol of the new stage art. Chekhov's life and work were closely connected with the theater at this time. The writer's best works were also staged in "Uncle Vanya" (in 1898), "Three Sisters" (in 1901) and "The Cherry Orchard" (in 1904). Since then, they have not left the stage in theater productions around the world.

Anton Pavlovich was elected Academician of Fine Literature in 1900, but he refused this title in 1902 (together with Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko), since Gorky's election to the Academy was declared invalid by decree of the Tsar.

Last years

In 1901, Chekhov married O. L. Knipper, an actress who played in the Moscow Art Theater. Three years later, the writer goes to the resort of Badenweiler, Germany, for treatment, as his health is rapidly deteriorating. Here he died on June 2 (new style - June 15). Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was buried in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery.

What does Chekhov's biography teach us?

The biography of Chekhov is instructive: this man educated himself. His words: “You have to train yourself.” In his youth, the writer was not at all the Chekhov we know. When his wife reported that Anton Pavlovich had a soft, compliant character, he told her that in fact his character was hot-tempered and harsh, but he was used to restraining himself, since it was not appropriate for a decent person to let himself go, as Chekhov believed.

The life and work of a writer are closely interconnected. The author tried to prove what he wrote about in his works with his own life. The biography of his themes is instructive that the writer was able to suppress rudeness and hot temper, develop gentleness and delicacy, which none of the writers of that time possessed. This was reflected in his work. The difference between the early Chekhov (the author of parodies and feuilletons) and the Chekhov of the 1890s is striking: over time, his creations acquired nobility, classical restraint, precision in the expression of feelings and thoughts, and dignity. Chekhov's life and work are closely intertwined.

His favorite poems, which he dedicated at the age of 23 to Ekaterina Yunosheva, his classmate (“Forgive me for the last time”), he cited a year later in his story “Oh, women, women!..” as an example of mediocre rhyming.

Chekhov's transformation manifested itself even in the writer's appearance, which combined artless, typically Russian features with sophistication and deep nobility.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, whose life and work we are describing, was a very modest, tactful and hardworking person. He was not a so-called “teacher of life” and avoided direct conversation about aesthetics and ethics in his works. But the ennobling educational value of his books was (and, of course, continues to remain) above the influence of any passionate sermons. The writer was uncompromising about mediocrity and vulgarity, but his courage and this intransigence were special - subtle, tactful, Chekhovian.

L.N. Tolstoy called Anton Pavlovich “an artist of life.” The definition of this has two meanings: it means “artist” not only “master of words.” Chekhov painted his own life, constructing it from the first to the last minute as proof of a moral theorem.

Features of Chekhov's stories

As we have already said, the early stories of such a multifaceted writer as Chekhov, whose life and work we briefly present in this article, are very different from others written after 1888. This milestone was mentioned for a reason - it is considered a turning point in the work of the author of interest to us. In the early stories ("Thick and Thin", "Death of an Official", etc.) the comic element dominates first of all. The imagination of their author, who called himself Purselepetantov, Antosha Chekhonte and others, was inexhaustible and rich in bright and unexpected funny incidents, pictures, plots. He knew how to observe them in life.

The stories of the 1890s seem different in tone. They are dominated by skepticism, sadness, and regret of the writer; they are largely philosophical. Chekhov's later works have a different poetics; it is expressed in the genre definition of these works as satirical stories.

In fact, outwardly simple works are complex; they leave a feeling of inexhaustiveness and incompleteness. they are not emphasized. The tone of the story is usually lyrical irony. With a sad smile, the writer peers at the person, reminding him of a beautiful, ideal life, the way it should be. The main thing for Chekhov is to awaken moral consciousness in his readers, and not at all to impose his ideas about the world and man, literature, and life.

Features of Chekhov's dramaturgy

Chekhov created his own theater, with his own special dramatic language. He was not immediately understood by Anton Pavlovich’s contemporaries. His plays seemed to many to be unstageable, clumsily made, with a lack of action, with chaotic, drawn-out dialogues, with the author’s intention unclear, etc. For example, M. Gorky wrote about “The Cherry Orchard” that it evokes a green longing for something in the audience. then the unknown. Chekhov created a theater of mood: halftones, hints with an “undercurrent” (Nemirovich-Danchenko) - in many ways anticipating dramaturgical quests in the 20th century.

Chronotope in Chekhov's drama

Anton Pavlovich expanded the concept of chronotope (space and time), characteristic of classical Russian literature of the 19th century. In the works of his predecessors, the center was mainly the noble estate, peasant and noble Russia. And Chekhov introduced into his works the image of a city man with a corresponding urban worldview. Anton Pavlovich's chronotope - cities. This does not mean geography, but psychology, the feelings of a city person.

Chekhov also developed his own concept of depicting man and life - fundamentally unheroic, everyday. There are no acute conflicts, struggles, or clashes in the works. Sometimes it seems like nothing is happening in them. The movement does not go from one event to another, but from mood to mood.

The language of the plays is polysemantic, melodic, poetic, and symbolic, which was required to create a general sense of subtext and general mood.

The significance of Chekhov's work

The book entitled "Sakhalin Island" was an artistic document of the author's contemporary era.
Chekhov was at the origins of modern tragicomedy.
His work presents the best examples of Russian literature in all varieties of short prose genres.
Chekhov's dramaturgy has become a kind of calling card of Russian literature in the world.
The call that Anton Pavlovich left us: “Take care of the person within you!” - eternal.
This author was not only a writer and playwright, but also a poet. The poems written during his years at the gymnasium reflect his life.

Both Chekhov’s work, whose best poems can be found in the eighteenth volume of “Complete Works and Letters,” and his biography are very remarkable.
The artistic discoveries of this writer greatly influenced the theater and literature of the 20th century. Translated into many languages, dramatic works have become invariably included in theatrical repertoires around the world.
This author managed to create new moves in literature, significantly influencing the development of the short story genre. The innovation lies in the use of the so-called stream of consciousness, a technique that was later adopted by James Joyce, as well as other modernist writers.
Chekhov was the first in Russian literature to clearly demonstrate to us the image of an ordinary person from the provinces, devoid of a thirst for activity, a broad outlook, and good aspirations. Like no one else, the writer clearly showed how dangerous philistinism is for society and the individual (stories “The Literature Teacher”, “Ionych”).

So, we have presented in general terms the life and work of Chekhov. We have selected the best and most interesting and instructive for you. However, we recommend that you use other sources. Chekhov's life and work by dates can be studied in more detail if desired. There are now a great many books written about this author. It is interesting to read the correspondence of Anton Pavlovich with his wife, published in 1972 by V. Schatz, S. Danilova and others, as well as the work of N. I. Gitovich, created in 1986, which presents the memories of contemporaries about this great writer. The chronology of Chekhov's life and work can be supplemented based on these and other sources.

A feature of Chekhov's work is the absence of any important events in the lives of the characters that could show the reader the author's intention. Chekhov always focused on a detailed description of the characters’ everyday life, and thus talked about the inner world of the characters and the emotional content of their lives. But most of all, readers and critics are struck by the compactness of form, which can be traced throughout Chekhov’s work. For example, the story “The Husband”, which takes only 4 pages, but these pages are more than enough to fully show

The psychology of a person embittered and mired in the swamp of his own consciousness.

Chekhov's later works become deeper and more impressive - the famous "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya", "A Boring Story". The last story accurately reflects the degree of melancholy and despair that gripped Russian society, and mainly the Russian intelligentsia in the 80s. Chekhov wants to most clearly reveal the images of mediocrity, immorality and vulgarity of ordinary people, and this topic is raised in most of his works. Such stories as “Men”, “In the Ravine” present

Terrible pictures of people’s life, and even in the story “Three Sisters” there are similar motives - in a city of a hundred thousand people there is not even anyone to talk to.

Chekhov is characterized by gloomy pessimism. But it is worth distinguishing the subtlety of his skill in noticing the underlying causes and prerequisites of despair and hopelessness of the mind, which lead a person to immorality and suffering from a general sarcastic view of the life of certain strata. Chekhov's stories and plays are revealed on the theater stage in a completely different light, because it is the stage and the embodiment of what is described that allows us to see those subtle details and nuances with which the author tried to convey to our consciousness the secret bottom of what is happening in the country and in the hearts of people.

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Chekhov was not destined to write a novel, but the “new drama” became a genre that synthesized all the motifs of his novels and short stories. It was in it that Chekhov’s concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, was most fully realized.
At first glance, Chekhov's dramaturgy represents some kind of historical paradox.
And in fact, at the turn of the century, during the period of a new social upsurge, when a premonition of a “healthy and strong storm” was brewing in society, Chekhov created plays in which there were no bright heroic characters, strong human passions, and people lost interest in mutual conflicts , to a consistent and uncompromising struggle.
Why is this so? I think because, if Gorky writes at this time about active people who, in their opinion, know how and what needs to be done, then Chekhov writes about confused people who feel that the old way of life has been destroyed, and that something new is coming. replaced by something more terrible, like everything unknown.
Yearning, fermentation, restlessness become a fact of people’s daily existence. It is on this historical soil that the “new Chekhovian drama” grows with its own poetic features that violate the canons of classical Russian and Western European drama.
First of all, Chekhov destroys the “through action,” the key event that organizes the plot unity of the classical drama. However, the drama does not fall apart, but is assembled on the basis of a different, internal unity. The destinies of the heroes, with all their differences, with all their plot independence, “rhyme”, echo each other and merge into a common “orchestral sound”.
With the disappearance of cross-cutting action in Chekhov's plays, the classic single-hero character, the concentration of the dramatic plot around the main thing, is also eliminated.
leading character. The usual division of heroes into positive and negative, main and secondary is destroyed, each leads his own part, and the whole, as in a choir without a soloist, is born in the consonance of many equal voices and echoes.
The themes of Chekhov's plays echo the multifaceted themes of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". He wrote about the dominance in life of stupidity, outright selfishness, about “the humiliated and insulted,” about human relationships, about love, about the formation of personality in society, about moral experiences. Starting with Gogol, “laughter through tears” was established in the literature of the 19th century, sympathetic laughter, quickly giving way to sadness. Chekhov's laughter in his plays is exactly like this.
Striving for truth in life, for naturalness, he created plays that were not purely dramatic or comedic, but of a very complex form. In them, the dramatic is realized in an organic mixture with the comic, and the comic is manifested in an organic interweaving with the dramatic. A convincing example of this is the play “The Cherry Orchard.” “What I came out with was not a drama, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce,” Chekhov himself wrote.
Indeed, we must admit that the basis of the play is not a dramatic, but a comedic beginning. Firstly, positive images, such as Trofimov and Anya, are shown not at all dramatically; in their inner essence they are optimistic. Secondly, the owner of the cherry orchard, Gaev, is also depicted mainly comically. The comic basis of the play is clearly visible, thirdly, in the comic-sotirical depiction of almost all the minor characters: Epikhodov, Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha. “The Cherry Orchard” includes obvious Vaudeville motifs, expressed in jokes, tricks, jumping, and dressing up of Charlotte.
But contemporaries perceived Chekhov's new work as a drama. Stanislavsky wrote that for him “The Cherry Orchard” is not a comedy, not a farce, but primarily a tragedy. And he staged “The Cherry Orchard” in exactly this dramatic vein.
Chekhov opened up new possibilities for depicting character in drama. It is revealed not in the struggle to achieve a goal, but in experiencing the contradictions of existence. The pathos of action is replaced by the pathos of thought. A Chekhovian “subtext” or “undercurrent”, unknown to classical drama, appears. Ostrovsky's heroes are entirely and completely realized in the word, and this word is devoid of ambiguity, hard and durable, like granite. In Chekhov's heroes, on the contrary, the meanings of words are blurred, people cannot fit into a word and they are exhausted by words.
can not. Something else is important here: the hidden spiritual subtext that the characters put into their words. Therefore, the call of the three sisters “To Moscow! To Moscow!" did not at all mean Moscow with its specific address. These are futile but persistent attempts by the heroines to break into a different life with different relationships between people. The same in The Cherry Orchard.
In the second act of the play, Epikhodov passes in the back of the stage - the living embodiment of clumsiness and misfortune. The following dialogue appears:
Lyubov Andreevna (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...
Anya (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...
Gaev. The sun has set, gentlemen.
Trofimov. Yes.
They talk formally about Epikhodov and the sunset, but essentially about something else. The souls of the heroes, through fragments of words, sing about the unsettledness and absurdity of their entire unfulfilled, doomed life. With external
the diversity and awkwardness of the dialogue is a spiritual inner rapprochement, to which some cosmic sound responds in the drama: “Everyone is sitting, thinking. Silence. You can only hear Firs quietly muttering. Suddenly a distant sound is heard, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, dying sad.”
Ostrovsky, to depict the drama of his characters, does not take the smooth flow of ordinary life, but, as it were, breaks an event out of it. For example, the story of Katerina’s death is an event that shocked the residents of Kalinov, revealing the tragic doom of her situation.
In Chekhov, drama lies not only in events, but also in the ordinary everyday monotony of everyday life. The play “Uncle Vanya” depicts the life of Serebryakov’s village estate in all its everyday life: people drink tea, walk, talk about current affairs, worries, dreams and disappointments, play the guitar... Events - Voinitkov’s fight with Serebryakov, the departure of the Serebryakovs - do not change anything in the lives of Uncle Vanya and Sonya and, therefore, are not decisive for the content of the drama, although a shot was fired on stage. The drama of the characters’ situation is not in these random episodes, but in the monotony and hopeless way of life for them, in the useless waste of their strength and abilities.
An important event that changes the lives of the characters rarely occurs, and those that do occur are often taken out of the action by Chekhov. For example, Treplev’s suicide in the play “The Seagull”, or the duel in “Three Sisters”. In an unchanging life, people rarely find happiness - it is difficult for them to do this, because... To do this, one must overcome immutability and routine. Not everyone can do this. But happiness always coexists with separation, death, with “something” that interferes with it in all Chekhov’s plays.
Chekhov's dramas are permeated by an atmosphere of general ill-being. There are no happy people in them. Their heroes, as a rule, are unlucky in either big or small things: they all turn out to be losers to one degree or another. In "The Seagull", for example, there are five stories of unsuccessful love, in "The Cherry Orchard" Epikhodov with his misfortunes is the personification of the general awkwardness of life from which all the heroes suffer.
With rare exceptions, these are people of the most common professions: teachers, officials, doctors, etc. The fact that these people are not distinguished by anything other than the fact that their lives are described by Chekhov allows us to believe that the life that Chekhov’s heroes lead is Most of his contemporaries live.
Chekhov's innovation as a playwright lies in the fact that he departs from the principles of classical drama and reflects not only problems through dramatic means, but also shows the psychological experiences of the characters. Chekhov's drama has conquered the theater stage of almost all countries of the world. And in our country there is no major theater or cinema artist who did not name Chekhov among his teachers. And in confirmation of this, Chekhov’s “The Seagull” is depicted on the curtains of the Moscow Art Theater.