The system of images in the play The Cherry Orchard table. The system of images in the play “The Cherry Orchard”

A.P. Chekhov, as a Russian writer and Russian intellectual, was concerned about the fate of the Motherland on the eve of social changes felt by society. The figurative system of the play “The Cherry Orchard” reflects the writer’s view of the past, present and future of Russia.

Figurative system “The Cherry Orchard”— author's features

It is, in particular, that in his works it is practically impossible to single out one main character. is important for understanding the issues that the playwright raises in the play.

Thus, the images of the heroes in “The Cherry Orchard” represent

on the one hand, the social strata of Russia on the eve of the turning point (nobility, merchants, common intelligentsia, partly peasantry),
on the other hand, these groups uniquely reflect the past, present and future of the country.

Russia itself is represented by the image of a large garden, which all the heroes treat with tender love.

Images of heroes of the past

The personifications of the past are the heroes of Ranevskaya and Gaev. This is the past of noble nests leaving the historical arena. There is no selfish calculation in Gaev and Ranevskaya: the idea of selling a cherry orchard for land to summer residents is completely alien to them. They subtly sense the beauty of nature

(“To the right, at the turn of the gazebo, a white tree bent over, looking like a woman”...).

They are characterized by a certain childishness of perception: Ranevskaya has a childish attitude towards money, does not count it. But this is not only childishness, but also the habit of living without regard to expenses. Both Gaev and Ranevskaya are kind. Lopakhin remembers how in ancient times Ranevskaya took pity on him. Ranevskaya also feels sorry for Petya Trofimov with his instability, and Anya, who was left without a dowry, and the passerby.

But the time of the Gaevs and Ranevskys has passed. Their intelligence, inability to live, carelessness turn into callousness and selfishness.

Ranevskaya squanders her fortune, leaving her daughter in the care of her adopted daughter Varya, leaves for Paris with her lover, having received money from her Yaroslavl grandmother intended for Anya, she decides to return to Paris to the man who practically robbed her, while she does not think about how things will turn out Anya's life further. She shows concern for the sick Firs, asking if he was sent to the hospital, but she cannot and does not want to check this (Ranevskaya is a man of word, but not of action) - Firs remains in the boarded up house.

The result of the life of the nobles is the consequence of a life in debt, a life based on the oppression of others.

Images of the future

New Russia is Ermolai Lopakhin, merchant. In it, the author emphasizes the active principle: he gets up at five o’clock in the morning and works until the evening; work brings him not capital, but also joy. Ermolai Lopakhin is a self-made man (his grandfather was a serf, his father a shopkeeper). A practical calculation is visible in Lopakhin’s activities: he sowed the fields with poppy seeds - both profitable and beautiful. Lopakhin proposes a way to save the cherry orchard, which should bring benefits. Lopakhin appreciates and remembers goodness, such is his touching attitude towards Ranevskaya. He has a “subtle, gentle soul,” according to Petya Trofimov. But the subtlety of his feelings is combined with the benefit of the owner. Lopakhin could not resist and bought a cherry orchard at auction. He repents to Ranevskaya, consoles her and immediately declares:

“The new owner of the cherry orchard is coming!”

But there is some kind of anguish in Lopakhin, otherwise where would the longing for another life come from? At the end of the play he says:

“If only our awkward, unhappy life would change!”

Images of the future - Petya Trofimov and Anya. Petya Trofimov is an eternal student, he is full of optimism, in his speeches there is a conviction that he, he is the one who knows how to make life wonderful

(Humanity is moving towards the highest truth, towards the highest happiness that is possible on earth, and I am in the forefront! ").

It is he who says to Anya:

“All of Russia is our garden!”

But his image is ambiguous. Petya Trofimov in the play is also more likely a man of words rather than deeds. In practical life, he is a klutz, like the rest of the characters in the play. The image of Anya is perhaps the only image in the play in which there is a lot of feeling of light. Anya is similar to Turgenev’s girls who are ready to go into a new life and give it all of themselves, so Anya has no regret about the loss of the cherry orchard.

Secondary images

The secondary characters of the play highlight the fates of Gaev and Ranevskaya. Simeono-Pishchik is a landowner who is ready to adapt to life, which makes him different from Ranevskaya and Gaev. But he also lives practically on debt. The image of Charlotte emphasizes the disorder and practical homelessness of Ranevskaya.

The patriarchal peasantry is represented by images of servants. This is Firs, in whom the main feature of the old servants has been preserved - devotion to the master. How Firs looks after Gaev for a small child. His fate is tragic and symbolic: he is forgotten, in general abandoned by those who spoke so much about loving him and did so little for him. Dunyasha and Yasha are servants of the new generation. Dunyasha repeats “subtlety of feelings”, exaggerating his mistress. Yasha absorbed the egoism of the masters.

Image of a cherry orchard

As already mentioned, the role of the cherry orchard in the figurative system of the play is enormous. It is around the cherry orchard that an external conflict arises; all the characters in the play express their attitude towards the orchard. Therefore, the viewer and reader feel his fate in a humanly tragic way:

“... and you can only hear how far away in the garden an ax is being knocked on a tree.”

Chekhov and the writer are characterized by sensitive listening to the beat of everyday life, the ability to find the most important social problems in this life and build his work so that these problems become the property of his compatriots.

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The comedy of The Cherry Orchard is inherent in the very structure of the play. Each character is absorbed in his own truth,” immersed in his experiences and does not notice those around him: their pain, their melancholy, their joys and hopes. Each of the characters is, as it were, playing his own one-man show. These one-man shows make up the action, which is so complex in sound. This is at the same time and polyphony (polyphony, a specially organized choir of independent voices), and dissonance, an inconsistent, discordant sound, where each voice strives to be unique.

Where does this self-absorption of the heroes of The Cherry Orchard come from? What prevents them from hearing each other: after all, they are all close people trying to help, support and receive support from each other? Let us pay attention: each of the characters confesses, but in the end all these confessions turn out to be addressed to the audience, and not to their partners on stage. At some point, the confessor realizes that he cannot explain the most important thing. So, Anya will never understand her mother’s drama, and Lyubov Andreevna herself will never understand her passion for Petya’s ideas. What “doesn’t allow” the characters in the play to see each other? The fact is that, according to the author’s plan, each of them is not only a person, but also a performer of a certain socio-historical role: what can be called a “hostage of History.” A person can, to a certain extent, adjust his personality and his relationships with others. But he cannot change his role, no matter how alien it may be to him. The discrepancy between the hero's inner essence and the socio-historical role that he is forced to play is the dramatic essence of The Cherry Orchard.

“An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” is how Chekhov characterized Ranevskaya in his letters to Stanislavsky, who staged the play. What's in her past? Her youth, family life, blooming and fruit-bearing cherry orchard - all this ended several years ago, ended tragically. The husband died, the estate fell into disrepair, and a new tormenting passion arose. And then the irreparable happened: Grisha died - drowned in the river. The death of a son is the worst tragedy. For Ranevskaya, the horror of loss was combined with a feeling of guilt: infatuation with her lover, absorption in love, it seems to her, alienated her from her son. Perhaps the absurd death could have been prevented? Perhaps Grisha's death is a punishment for her, her mother, for her inadmissible passion? And Ranevskaya runs away from home - from the cherry orchard, from her daughters, from her brother, from that river where her son drowned - from her entire previous life, from her past, which turned into an irreparable disaster. He runs so as never to return, he runs so that somewhere he can end his sinful and absurd life - after the death of the boy.

Ranevskaya ends up in Paris. The acute pain dulled, the first wave of despair subsided. Ranevskaya was saved by love. Feelings for a person unworthy of her, for a scoundrel... But is it really given to us to choose whom to love? Yes, he is a scoundrel, her last lover, he robbed and abandoned her, and then returned again - again a beggar. And Lyubov Andreevna knows everything about him, understands everything - and does not want to know or remember it. For the feeling itself is valuable, because for her there is nothing in life higher than love.

This is the only heroine of “The Cherry Orchard” who lives in an aura of love: it is no coincidence that her very name is Love. Past and present loves are intertwined in her soul, the ability to love unselfishly and recklessly, completely surrendering to feeling - this is the “key” to the image of Ranevskaya. “This is a stone around my neck, I am going to the bottom with it, but I love this stone and cannot live without it.” Which other Russian heroine was so frank?!

Her current strange Parisian existence is, in essence, life after life. Nothing of the past has been forgotten. The terrible wound has not healed and will never heal. The connection with one’s home and loved ones becomes more and more elusive. It is increasingly impossible to become “one of our own” in Paris, or to return to the cherry orchard... The illusory nature, the absurdity of existence, homesickness, the feeling of guilt in front of our daughter and stepdaughter - for leaving them, for wasting their fortune - Lyubov Andreevna is tormented. And now, before our eyes, a decisive step is taken: Ranevskaya returns home. She tears up telegrams from her lover, tears them up without reading: she’s finished with Paris! She is happy: “I want to jump, wave my arms... God knows, I love my homeland, I love it dearly, I couldn’t watch from the carriage, I kept crying.” “If only I could take the heavy stone off my chest and shoulders, if only I could forget my past!”

Ranevskaya returns to the house where everyone loves her, where they are waiting for her - and have been faithfully waiting for her for five “Parisian” years. And where everyone condemns her for something: for “viciousness”, for frivolity... No one wants to accept her for who she is; they love her, condemning and laughing. And Ranevskaya herself acutely feels this, accepts the justice of the reproaches, and constantly feels guilty. But along with the feeling of guilt, alienation grows in her: why does everyone demand from her something that she cannot give, why do they expect her to change, to become what others want her to be, to stop being herself?! The further we go, the clearer it becomes: she is a stranger here.

In the list of characters, Ranevskaya is designated by one word: “landowner.” But this is a landowner who never knew how to manage her estate, who loved it passionately - and was unable to save it. Her flight from the estate after Grisha's death, mortgaging and remortgaging this estate... Nominally, she is a landowner. In fact, he is a child of this cherry orchard, unable to save him from ruin and death.

The role of the landowner for Ranevskaya has been “played out” for a long time. The role of the mother is also: Anya leaves for a new life, where there is no place for Lyubov Andreevna; Varya arranges herself in her own way... Having returned to stay forever, Ranevskaya only completes her previous life and becomes convinced that it is impossible to enter the same river twice. All hopes turn into a memorial service for the old life: the past has died, gone forever. She lived through all the “plots” possible in Russia. The homeland did not accept the prodigal daughter: the return did not take place. And the ghostly Parisian “life after life” turns out to be the only reality. Ranevskaya returns to Paris - and in Russia, in her cherry orchard, the ax is already knocking.

The element of love, painful passions, sin and repentance in which Ranevskaya lives is alien to the other heroes of the comedy. Here is her brother and the same age, Gaev. Leonid Andreevich, a middle-aged man who has already lived most of his life, thinks and acts like an old boy. But Gaev’s inexhaustible youth is not like his sister’s gullibility and lightness. He is simply infantile. It was not youth with its rebellious passions that remained in him - Gaev, it seems, never grew up to it, never crossed the threshold of the nursery. Helpless, talkative, shallow, not really loving anything or anyone. “Croise... Yellow in the middle...” The sound of billiard balls completely cures his suffering after the loss of the cherry orchard... But even in him, a stupid, spiritually undeveloped man, Chekhov sees something sweet: he is one of the eccentric county landowners , in their own way adorned the province in the old days, giving the Russian noble nests a peculiar charm. Gaev is a figure born of his time; comical, ridiculous and pathetic in the new era.

The comedy intertwines several storylines. The line of the failed romance between Lopakhin and Varya ends before anyone else. It is built on Chekhov’s favorite technique: they talk most and most willingly about what does not exist, discuss details, argue about trifles - non-existent things, without noticing or deliberately hushing up what exists and is essential. By the way, let us pay attention: Gogol also loves this technique very much. Let us remember how the whole city in “Dead Souls” tastefully discussed Chichikov’s peasants, who were no longer in the world, how they argued about what “Chichikov’s peasant” was like, whether the newly-minted Kherson landowner would be able to cope with this peasant. And how Chichikov himself, with pleasure, almost believing in the reality of his own invention, discusses the problems of his Kherson estate. But for Gogol, this technique is designed to greatly enhance the interaction of the real and unreal layers of his artistic world, the fusion of phantasmagoria and reality. Chekhov surrounds with endless conversations the non-existent, the apparent, in order to emphasize the very illusory nature of sober calculations, logical plans that his heroes build in an unstable and unreliable world. Convinced, as if it had been decided long ago, Ranevskaya talks about her break with “that man” - and leaves for him... Projects for saving the garden are confidently discussed... They talk about the romance of Lopakhin and Varya. But why didn’t this romance take place? Why didn’t the destinies of the hard worker Varya and the business man Lopakhin unite? And here it is permissible to ask: was there an affair? Was it wishful thinking?

Let's take a closer look at the image of Lopakhin. Chekhov himself considered his role “central” in the comedy, writing to Stanislavsky that “if it fails, then the whole play will fail.” Chekhov asked Stanislavsky to play the role of Lopakhin himself; he believed that no other actor could do it: he “would either play it very pale, or act out, make Lopakhin a clown... After all, this is not a merchant in the vulgar sense of the word, you have to understand this.” However, the Moscow Art Theater team did not heed the author’s requests and staged “The Cherry Orchard” in their own way. And, although the play was a great success, Chekhov was extremely dissatisfied with the production, responded sharply negatively, claiming that the theater did not understand the play and failed everything. The theater had the right to its own interpretation, but what did the playwright himself put into the comedy, why not Ranevskaya and Gaeva, as Stanislavsky played, but he placed Lopakhin at the center of the figurative system.

The figure of the merchant has attracted Russian literature for half a century. Along with dark tyrants and absurd nouveau riche, they were looking for the traits of a new, intelligent merchant, a wise and honest entrepreneur. But his features were slipping away. So, in “Mad Money” Ostrovsky created the image of the merchant Vasilkov - it seems, one of the most distinct failures of the great playwright. In "Talents and Admirers" he develops the image of a merchant-philanthropist: silent, intelligent, drawn to goodness and light Velikatov. In Velikatov there is no longer the “stiltedness” or unnaturalness of Vasilkov, and yet in his image there are enough reticences and ambiguities. Of course, Lopakhin belongs to this rank, to the ranks of the new merchants, to the circle of merchant-entrepreneurs at the end of the century. But this circle, this phenomenon is one of the most interesting in Russia at that time! This is a unique socio-psychological type that arose at the turn of the century, was spat upon and destroyed by the revolution. Lopakhin vividly captures the features of Tretyakov, Shchukin, Sytin, Morozov, Klein, Mamontov, and even Stanislavsky himself - after all, he is from the Alekseev merchant family. Rich factory owners, they had a keen understanding of art, were patrons of the arts, maintained theaters, created magnificent museums, and published cheap books for the people. What is there! They also endlessly helped the underground revolutionaries! At Savva Morozov's factory, workers went on strike, and the strike committee existed with Morozov's money. His money helped the Bolsheviks cross borders, hiding from the tsarist police. Gorky wrote interestingly: “And when I see Morozov behind the scenes of the theater, in dust and trepidation for the success of the play - I am ready to forgive him all his factories - which, however, he does not need, I love him, because he selflessly loves art “that I can almost feel in his peasant, merchant, acquisitive soul.”

It is this combination of unselfish love for beauty - and a merchant's spirit, peasant simplicity - and a subtle artistic soul that Chekhov strives to capture and embody in the image of Lopakhin.

Lopakhin is the only one who offers a real plan for saving the cherry orchard. And this plan is realistic, first of all, because Lopakhin understands: the garden cannot be preserved in its previous form, its time has passed, and now the garden can be saved only by reorganizing it, re-creating it in accordance with the requirements of the new era.

Indeed, the garden was once an important part of the landowner's economy: “In the old days, about forty to fifty years ago, cherries were dried, soaked, pickled, jam was made, and it used to be...dried cherries were sent by cartload to Moscow and Kharkov. There was money And then the dried cherries were soft, juicy, sweet, fragrant... They knew the method then..." recalls Firs. Now this method is forgotten. There is a catastrophic lack of money, but they save on food for the servants, while there is nowhere to put the cherries, they fall off and disappear. The garden turned into a symbol and ceased to be a reality: for everyone except Lopakhin, it is the abode of the ghosts of the past. Here Ranevskaya sees her deceased mother walking through the garden. Here Petya explains to Anya: “...don’t human beings look at you from every cherry tree in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk, don’t you really hear voices...”

Lopakhin strives to bring life back to the garden - even if he breathes new life into it, almost negating the old one. “Dividing the garden into summer cottages - the idea that Lopakhin is running around with - is not just the destruction of the cherry orchard, but its reconstruction, the creation, so to speak, of a publicly accessible cherry orchard. With that former, luxurious garden, which served only a few, this new, thinned out and accessible to anyone at a reasonable price, the Lopakhinsky garden correlates like the democratic urban culture of Chekhov's era with the marvelous estate culture of the past." (Kataev V.B. Literary connections of Chekhov. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1989). V.B. Kataev very cleverly and subtly comments on the essence of Lopakhin’s idea. For him, a peasant son, a peasant, Ranevskaya’s garden is part of an elite aristocratic culture, its quintessence. What was inaccessible twenty years ago is now almost “lying on the road”: and this feeling intoxicates Lopakhin. On the other hand, the garden is dying - and only he, Lopakhin, can save this treasure. All his attempts to save the garden lead to nothing for Ranevskaya: she does not hear Lopakhin, does not understand his simple and clear arguments. After all, for Lyubov Andreevna, the cherry orchard exists only in its original form, in its integrity. The garden, divided into plots and given over to dachas, is still lost and destroyed: “...sell me along with the garden...”

Lopakhin convinces Ranevskaya and Gaev, explains, proves, offers money: he is sincerely trying to preserve the garden for the owner. And in the end he himself turns out to be the owner of the garden - unexpectedly, unexpectedly for himself and those around him. He is at the same time happy - and dejected, discouraged by what happened: “Hey, musicians, play, I want to listen to you! Come everyone to watch how Ermolai Lopakhin will hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees will fall to the ground! We will set up dachas, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren they will see a new life here... Music, play!.. Why, why didn’t you listen to me? My poor, good one, you can’t bring me back now. (With tears.) Oh, I wish all this would soon go away, I would sooner change somehow our awkward, unhappy life."

Let's think about Lopakhin's last desperate words. He - the only one in the play - is given the opportunity to get closer to the real truth, to a deep understanding of the essence of the era. Lopakhin sees not just someone’s individual private sins and faults, but the deep troubles of all modern life: “We must say frankly, our life is stupid... We make a fool of each other, but life, you know, passes by...” It is this understanding the global absurdity of modern life, its illogicality, the impossibility of living the way you want, in harmony with yourself and the world, and pushes Lopakhin to the central place in comedy.

Now let’s think: could Lopakhin be attracted to Varya - gray, narrow-minded, caught up in petty economic calculations? Does Varya love Lopakhina? How does she understand love? Remember, Petya is still angry that Varya is spying on him and Anya, he is afraid that an affair might turn out between them, that something illegal might happen. And the point is not that Petya and Anya are far from love, but in Varya’s principles and views, in her petty, rational, petty-bourgeois perception of any human relationship - including her relationship with Lopakhin. Varya does not wonder whether she loves Ermolai Alekseevich and whether he loves her. She sees a suitable match (especially since there are no other contenders for her hand, even those around her have no one else to gossip about). She wants to get married. And she is waiting for a declaration of love and a proposal from Lopakhin - and the fact that Lopakhin does not utter the long-awaited words, Varya attributes to his businesslike nature": "He has a lot to do, he has no time for me," and "he is getting rich, he is busy with business... "Varya is waiting for a simple and logical course of life: since Lopakhin often visits a house where there are unmarried girls, of whom only she, Varya, is “suitable” for him, that means he must get married. And only being busy prevents him from noticing her merits. At Varya’s Even the thought does not arise to look at the situation differently, to think whether Lopakhin loves her, is she interested in him? All Varina’s expectations are based on the conversations of others that this marriage would be successful, on idle gossip!

It is not shyness or busyness that prevents Lopakhin from explaining things to Varya. Understanding what everyone expects from him, and understanding that Varya is a “decent match” for him, Ermolai Alekseevich still hesitates and in the end does not make an offer. Well, he doesn’t love Varya, he’s bored with her! In parallel with the alleged affair with Varya, about which everyone is talking so much, another thread runs through Lopakhin: he “like his own, more than his own,” loves Ranevskaya. This line is perfectly revealed by V.B. Kataev: “This would seem unthinkable, absurd to Ranevskaya and everyone around him, and he himself, apparently, is not fully aware of his feelings. But it is enough to observe how Lopakhin behaves, say, in the second act, after Ranevskaya tells him so that he proposes to Varya. It is after this that he speaks with irritation about how good it was before, when men could be beaten, and begins tactlessly teasing Petya. All this is the result of a decline in his mood after he clearly sees that Ranevskoy and it doesn’t even occur to us to take his feelings seriously. And later in the play this unrequited tenderness of Lopakhin will break through several more times.

A dying garden and failed, even unnoticed love are two cross-cutting, internally connected themes of the play" (Kataev V.B. Chekhov's Literary Connections. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1989).

A man, a peasant son, who owes his success in life only to himself, to his abilities and hard work, Lopakhin becomes the owner of a cherry orchard. It is to him that the most ardent recognition belongs: “...an estate, the most beautiful of which is nothing in the world.” None of the characters in the play spoke more soulfully and enthusiastically about the garden! A man of the people, he takes into his own hands what until now belonged only to the aristocracy and what the aristocracy was unable to keep. Does Chekhov rely on Lopakhin? Yes of course. But the author does not delude himself about the new men who, like Lopakhin, have broken away from their circle. Next to Ermolai Alekseevich there is a very “important figure - the lackey Yasha. He is the same peasant son, he also feels the gap between his current position (lived in Paris! saw civilization! joined!) and his past. And this arrogant, disgusting boor clearly sets off Lopakhin, with all its essence opposes him. Not only Ranevskaya’s Russia and Petya Trofimov’s Russia look at each other, but also Lopakhin’s Russia and the Russia of the lackey Yasha.

"... Lopakhin at the end of the play, having achieved success, is shown by Chekhov by no means as a winner. The entire content of “The Cherry Orchard” reinforces the words of this hero about “an awkward, unhappy life,” which “you know it’s passing.” In fact, a man who alone is able to truly appreciate what a cherry orchard is, is forced (after all, there are no other ways out of this situation) to destroy it with his own hands. With merciless sobriety, Chekhov shows in “The Cherry Orchard” the fatal discrepancy between a person’s personal good qualities, the subjectively good “his intentions - and the results of his social activities "(Kataev V.B. Chekhov's Literary Connections. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1989). And here again one cannot help but recall Gogol's "Dead Souls". The intrigue of "The Cherry Orchard" mirrors Gogol's mirage intrigue. Chichikov, who strained all his strength to accumulate wealth and become the master of life, absurdly and unexpectedly breaks down from the “highest point” of each of his scams, when, it would seem, happiness is just a stone's throw away. Just as unexpectedly and inevitably, he receives a cherry orchard - " an estate, the most beautiful of which there is nothing in the world,” Lopakhin, who was desperately trying to save it for Ranevskaya.

The unexpectedness of such a turn strengthens those around him in the opinion that he is a merchant, a money-grubber, thinking only about profit. And the abyss separating Lopakhin from the rest of the characters in the play becomes deeper and deeper. Three ideological and compositional centers are united in the play: Ranevskaya, Gaev and Varya - Lopakhin - Petya and Anya. Please note: among them only Lopakhin is absolutely alone. The rest form stable groups. We have already comprehended the first two “centers,” now let’s think about the third center - about Pete Trofimov and Anya.

Petya certainly plays the leading role. This figure is contradictory, and the attitude of the author of the comedy and the inhabitants of the estate towards him is contradictory. A stable theatrical tradition forced us to see Petya as a progressive thinker and activist: this began with Stanislavsky’s first production, where V. Kachalov played Petya as Gorky’s “petrel”. This interpretation was also supported in most literary works, where researchers relied on Petya’s monologues and did not correlate them with the actions of the hero, with the entire structure of his role. Meanwhile, let us remember that Chekhov’s theater is a theater of intonation, not text, therefore the traditional interpretation of Trofimov’s image is fundamentally incorrect.

First of all, literary roots are clearly felt in the image of Petya. He is correlated with the hero of Turgenev's "Novi" Nezhdanov and with the hero of Ostrovsky's play "Talents and Admirers" Pyotr Meluzov. And Chekhov himself spent a long time exploring this historical and social type - the type of Protestant-enlightener. Such are Solomon in "The Steppe", Pavel Ivanovich in "Gusev", Yartsev in the story "Three Years", Doctor Blagovo in "My Life". The image of Petya is especially closely connected with the hero of “The Bride” Sasha - researchers have repeatedly noted that these images are very close, that the roles of Petya and Sasha in the plot are similar: both of them are needed to captivate the young heroines into a new life. But the constant, intense interest with which Chekhov peered into this type that appeared in the era of timelessness, returning to him in various works, led to the fact that from secondary and episodic heroes, in the last play he became a central hero - one of the central ones.

Lonely and restless, Petya wanders around Russia. Homeless, worn out, practically a beggar... And yet he is happy in his own way: he is the freest and most optimistic of the heroes of The Cherry Orchard. Looking at this image, we understand: Petya lives in a different world than the other characters in the comedy - he lives in a world of ideas that exists in parallel with the world of real things and relationships. Ideas, grandiose plans, social and philosophical systems - this is Petya’s world, his element. Such a happy existence in another dimension interested Chekhov and made him look more and more closely at this type of hero.

Petya's relationship with the real world is very tense. He does not know how to live in it, for those around him he is absurd and strange, ridiculous and pitiful: “a shabby gentleman,” “an eternal student.” He cannot complete his course at any university - he is expelled from everywhere for participating in student riots. He is not in harmony with things - everything always breaks, gets lost, falls. Even poor Petya’s beard isn’t growing! But in the world of ideas he soars! There everything turns out deftly and smoothly, there he subtly grasps all the patterns, deeply understands the hidden essence of phenomena, and is ready and able to explain everything. And all of Petya’s arguments about the life of modern Russia are very correct! He truly and passionately speaks about the terrible past, which still vividly influences the present and does not let go of its convulsive embrace. Let us remember his monologue in the second act, where he convinces Anya to take a fresh look at the cherry orchard and at her life: “To own living souls - after all, this has reborn all of you, who lived before and are now living...” Petya is right! Something similar was passionately and convincingly argued by A.I. Herzen: in the article “The Meat of Liberation” he wrote that serfdom poisoned the souls of people, that no amount of decrees can abolish the most terrible thing - the habit of selling one’s own kind... Petya speaks of the necessity and inevitability of redemption: “It’s so clear to start living in present, we must first redeem our past, put an end to it, and it can only be redeemed through suffering, only through extraordinary, continuous labor.” And this is absolutely true: the idea of repentance and atonement is one of the purest and most humane, the basis of the highest morality.

But then Petya begins to talk not about ideas, but about their real embodiment, and his speeches immediately begin to sound pompous and absurd, the entire system of beliefs turns into simple phrase-mongering: “All of Russia is our garden,” “humanity is moving toward the highest truth, toward the highest happiness.” , which is only possible on earth, and I am in the forefront! "

Petya speaks just as shallowly about human relationships, about what is not subject to logic, what contradicts the harmonious system of the world of ideas. Remember how tactless his conversations with Ranevskaya are about her lover, about her cherry orchard, which Lyubov Andreevna longs for and cannot save, how funny and vulgar Petya’s famous words sound: “We are above love!..” For him, love is for the past, to a person, to a home, love in general, this very feeling, its irrationality, is inaccessible. And therefore Petya’s spiritual world is flawed and incomplete for Chekhov. And Petya, no matter how correctly he reasoned about the horror of serfdom and the need to atone for the past through labor and suffering, is just as far from a true understanding of life as Gaev or Varya. It is no coincidence that Anya is placed next to Petya - a young girl who does not yet have her own opinion about anything, who is still on the threshold of real life.

Of all the inhabitants and guests of the estate, only Anya managed to captivate Petya Trofimov with his ideas; she is the only one who takes him absolutely seriously. “Anya is, first of all, a child, cheerful to the end, not knowing life and never crying...” Chekhov explained to the actors at rehearsals. So they walk in pairs: Petya, hostile to the world of things, and the young, “not knowing life” Anya. And Petya has a goal - clear and definite: “forward - to the star.”

Chekhov's irony is brilliant. His comedy amazingly captured all the absurdity of Russian life at the end of the century, when the old was over and the new had not yet begun. Some heroes confidently, in the forefront of all humanity, step forward - towards the star, leaving the cherry orchard without regret. What to regret? After all, all of Russia is our garden! Other heroes painfully experience the loss of the garden. For them, this is the loss of a living connection with Russia and their own past, with their roots, without which they can only somehow live out the allotted years, already forever fruitless and hopeless... The salvation of the garden lies in its radical reconstruction, but new life means, first of all, the death of the past, and the executioner turns out to be the one who most clearly sees the beauty of the dying world.

Based on materials:

Kataev V.B. Chekhov's literary connections. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1989.
Monakhova O.P., Malkhazova M.V. Russian literature of the 19th century. Chekhov about literature. M., 1955

A.P. Chekhov. Play “The Cherry Orchard” (1903)

Innovation of Chekhov's dramaturgy

It has become common to hear the expression “Chekhov’s theater”. Indeed, Chekhov's plays are recognizable by their muted conflicts, the author's special intonation of inspired sadness, and the depth of the “undercurrent.”

Features of the conflict. The main category of drama is conflict, but in Chekhov's plays there are no direct clashes, no direct confrontation between the characters. All the characters are more or less kind, considerate, and all treat each other favorably. Conflicts are muted, the reasons for the misfortune of Chekhov's heroes do not lie on the surface. Chekhov reflects the hidden drama of the most ordinary life: “Let everything on stage be as complex and at the same time as simple as in life. People have lunch, they only have lunch, and at this time their happiness is formed and their lives are shattered.”

Chekhov's dramas are permeated by an atmosphere of general trouble, which is intensified by the feeling of general loneliness. With mutual participation and even love, people cannot get through to each other, “everything is in pieces.” These words spoken by Firs become one of the main motifs of the play “The Cherry Orchard”: everything and everyone is “in pieces.” Anya, for example, sincerely and tenderly loves her mother, understands that she has no right to condemn her for anything, but at the end of the play, Ranevskaya’s restrained sobs are drowned out by Anya’s cheerful voice: she is no longer with her mother, and it is unlikely that she will ever be with her , although I didn’t love her any less. Petya Trofimov tries to find words of sympathy, but says the wrong thing, causing Ranevskaya to exclaim: “But we need to say it differently, differently.” Lopakhin, who wants to help Ranevskaya save the estate, who loves her “like his own, more than his own,” triumphs after buying the cherry orchard: “Come everyone to watch how Ermolai Lopakhin will hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees will fall to the ground!” And then, with reproach and tears, he says to Ranevskaya: “My poor, good one, you won’t bring me back now.” Everyone is “apart”, everyone suffers, loves, rejoices or despairs individually.

Chekhov's heroes feel their constant, deep-seated unhappiness, but cannot understand its true reasons. “I’m still waiting for something, as if the house was about to collapse above us,” “I’ve definitely lost my sight, I can’t see anything,” Ranevskaya says in alarm. There are auctions in the city, the estate is being sold at auction, and an orchestra is playing in the garden and people are dancing in the hall. Ranevskaya understands the incompatibility of these events, but does not refuse the inappropriate ball, which resembles a feast during the plague. It seems that everything is happening against her will, regardless of her desires, as if some unknown forces are guiding events and destinies, connecting and separating people. Time itself becomes such a force in the play “The Cherry Orchard” - the time of the border, ruthless and wise at the same time. The drama of Ranevskaya and Gaev is deeper than simple ruin; their drama is that time leaves them no hope, that their Russia is irretrievably leaving, and there is no place for them in the new one. The fate of a person in the flow of time - this is how one can define the main theme of the play.

"Undercurrent". Another innovative feature of Chekhov’s dramaturgy is subtext, “undercurrent.” If in a traditional drama the hero is revealed only through action and words, then Chekhov’s heroes, in addition, also through the hidden meaning of words and actions, intonation, gestures, even pauses. In Chekhov's plays, the important thing is the invisible subtext, which consists of statements that have a hidden meaning, do not convey direct information, but only signal that intense internal work is taking place in the hero's soul. The “undercurrent” of Chekhov’s plays is a dialogue not only of words, but also of feelings, moods, and unspoken thoughts.

The semantic content of the author's remark. The author's longing for a more spiritual, meaningful, beautiful life is palpable not only in the characters' dialogues, but even in the author's remarks. For example, the first and last acts of the play “The Cherry Orchard” take place in the same room – the nursery. However, if in the first act the author’s remark creates a feeling of cheerfulness, freshness, joy, then in the last act it will be October instead of May, instead of an organized and in its own way beautiful human life there will be emptiness, instead of cherry blossoms there will be the sound of an ax on wood. You can also recall one more remark - the sound of a broken string, fading and sad, which is heard as if from the sky. It's like a clot of anxiety accumulated in the souls of the heroes.

The system of images in the play “The Cherry Orchard”

Chekhov's innovation is also noticeable in the depiction of the characters' characters. Unlike traditional drama, with its characters outlined quite clearly and more straightforwardly than in the epic, the heroes of Chekhov’s plays are complex and ambiguous personalities.

Ranevskaya. Each of the characters in the play has their own cherry orchard, their own Russia. For Ranevskaya, the cherry orchard is her youth, memories of her closest and beloved people - her mother, her deceased son. No one feels the spirituality and beauty of the cherry orchard like Ranevskaya: “What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky! O my garden, the angels of heaven have not abandoned you.” The cherry orchard became for Lyubov Andreevna her happiness, her life; to destroy the orchard means for her to destroy herself. Throughout the play, we feel the feeling of anxiety growing in Ranevskaya. She feverishly tries to hold back the uncontrollable, feeling the joy of meeting the cherry orchard, and immediately remembers that the auction is coming soon. The peak of tension is the third action, when she rushes about, prays for salvation, says: “I’ve definitely lost my sight, I can’t see anything. Take pity on me. My soul is heavy today... My soul trembles from every sound, but I can’t go to my room, I’m scared alone in silence.” And all this - against the backdrop of an absurd ball, so inopportunely started by Ranevskaya herself. Tears in her eyes are mixed with laughter, albeit sad and nervous. She seems lost: what to do, how to live, what to rely on? Ranevskaya has no answer to any of these questions. Chekhov’s heroine lives with a feeling of an imminent catastrophe: “I’m still waiting for something, as if the house was about to collapse above us.”

Chekhov's heroes are ordinary people, there is no ideality in Lyubov Andreevna either: she is delicate, kind, but her kindness does not bring happiness either to herself or to those around her. By hasty intervention, she ruins Varya’s fate, leaves for Paris, forgetting to make sure that her request to place Firs in the hospital is really fulfilled, as a result, the sick old man remains abandoned. In Ranevskaya, as in almost every person, both the bright and the sinful are combined. There is artistic truth in the fact that Chekhov shows how time passes through the destinies of the most ordinary people, how the divide between two eras is reflected in everyone.

Gaev. Gaev is a “superfluous man” of the late 19th century; he calls himself “a man of the eighties.” He really lingered in the past; the present is incomprehensible and painful to him. Faced with something new and unusual, Gaev is childishly perplexed: for some reason we must endure Lopakhin’s presence, his interference in their lives, we must decide something, while he is not capable of any decision. All of Gaev’s projects for saving the garden are naive and impracticable: “It would be nice to receive an inheritance from someone, it would be nice to marry Anya to a very rich man, it would be nice to go to Yaroslavl and try your luck with Aunt Countess.” In Gaev’s imagination, some general appears who can give “on a bill of exchange,” to which Ranevskaya immediately responds: “He’s delusional, there are no generals.” The only thing Gaev is capable of is making lengthy speeches in front of the “respected closet” and playing billiards. However, constant anxiety lives in him, the feeling of mental discomfort does not leave him. The state is “spent on lollipops”, life is passing, an obscure service in the bank lies ahead, so it is no coincidence that his last remark is accompanied by the remark “in despair”.

Lopakhin. The “borderline” is also palpable in Lopakhin’s state of mind, who, it would seem, is protected from the ruthlessness of time; on the contrary, time helps him. Lopakhin combines “predator” and “tender soul”. Petya Trofimov will say: “I, Ermolai Alekseich, understand that you are a rich man, you will soon be a millionaire. Just as in terms of metabolism we need a predatory beast that eats everything that comes in its way, so we need you,” but the same Petya will later remark: “You have thin, delicate fingers, like an artist, you have thin, delicate fingers.” soul".

Lopakhin’s Russia is the kingdom of the “summer resident,” the Russia of the entrepreneur, but Lopakhin does not feel complete spiritual harmony in such a Russia. He yearns, dreams of giant people who should live in the Russian expanses, and after buying the cherry orchard he bitterly says to Ranevskaya: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” It is not surprising that his words: “There is a new landowner, the owner of the cherry orchard,” is accompanied by a remark “with irony.” Lopakhin is a hero of the new era, however, even this time does not give a person the fullness of happiness.

The younger generation – Petya and Anya. It would seem that Petya Trofimov sees happiness, he enthusiastically says to Anya: “I have a presentiment of happiness, Anya, I already see it.” He speaks just as enthusiastically about “a bright star that burns there in the distance” and on the way to which you just need to bypass “everything small and illusory that prevents a person from being free and happy.”

Petya and Anya are focused on the future, they say goodbye to the old Russia without regret: “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this.” However, Petya is a dreamer who still knows very little about life; according to Ranevskaya, he has not yet had time to “suffer” his beliefs. He does not have a clear program for how to get to this “bright star”; he only knows how to talk beautifully about it. The only life program that Petya offers to Anya: “Be free like the wind!”

The only thing Petya could do was to arouse in Anya’s soul sympathy for herself, a desire for a new life. However, Chekhov emphasizes that Anya is “first of all a child who does not fully know or understand life.” It is unknown what Anya’s desire to change her life will lead to, leaving the “cherry orchard” forever, so it is hardly worth asserting that it is in Anya that Chekhov shows the possible future of Russia.

Who is the future of Russia - this question remained unanswered in the play, because the time of the turn does not provide final knowledge about the future, only assumptions are possible about what it will be like and who will become its hero.

The image of the garden in the play "The Cherry Orchard" is ambiguous and complex. This is not just part of the estate of Ranevskaya and Gaev, as it might seem at first glance. This is not what Chekhov wrote about. The Cherry Orchard is a symbolic image. It signifies the beauty of Russian nature and the life of the people who raised it and admired it. Together with the death of the garden, this life also perishes.

A center that unites characters

The image of the garden in the play “The Cherry Orchard” is the center around which all the characters unite. At first it may seem that these are just old acquaintances and relatives who, by chance, gathered at the estate to solve everyday problems. However, it is not. It is no coincidence that Anton Pavlovich united characters representing various social groups and age categories. Their task is to decide the fate of not only the garden, but also their own.

Gaev and Ranevskaya’s connection with the estate

Ranevskaya and Gaev are Russian landowners who own an estate and a cherry orchard. This is brother and sister, they are sensitive, smart, educated people. They are able to appreciate beauty and feel it very subtly. That’s why the image of the cherry orchard is so dear to them. In the perception of the heroes of the play “The Cherry Orchard”, he personifies beauty. However, these characters are inert, which is why they cannot do anything to save what is dear to them. Ranevskaya and Gaev, for all their spiritual wealth and development, are devoid of responsibility, practicality and a sense of reality. Therefore, they cannot take care not only of loved ones, but also of themselves. These heroes do not want to listen to Lopakhin’s advice and rent out the land they own, although this would bring them a decent income. They think that dachas and summer residents are vulgar.

Why is the estate so dear to Gaev and Ranevskaya?

Gaev and Ranevskaya cannot rent out the land because of the feelings connecting them with the estate. They have a special relationship with the garden, which is like a living person to them. Much connects these heroes with their estate. The Cherry Orchard seems to them to be the personification of bygone youth, a past life. Ranevskaya compared her life to a “cold winter” and a “dark stormy autumn.” When the landowner returned to the estate, she again felt happy and young.

Lopakhin's attitude to the cherry orchard

The image of the garden in the play “The Cherry Orchard” is also revealed in Lopakhin’s attitude towards it. This hero does not share the feelings of Ranevskaya and Gaev. He finds their behavior illogical and strange. This person is surprised why they do not want to listen to seemingly obvious arguments that will help find a way out of a difficult situation. It should be noted that Lopakhin is also capable of appreciating beauty. The cherry orchard delights this hero. He believes that there is nothing more beautiful in the world than him.

However, Lopakhin is a practical and active person. Unlike Ranevskaya and Gaev, he cannot just admire the cherry orchard and regret it. This hero strives to do something to save him. Lopakhin sincerely wants to help Ranevskaya and Gaev. He never ceases to convince them that they should rent out both the land and the cherry orchard. This must be done as soon as possible, since the auction will be soon. However, the landowners do not want to listen to him. Leonid Andreevich can only swear that the estate will never be sold. He says he won't allow the auction.

New owner of the garden

Nevertheless, the auction still took place. The owner of the estate is Lopakhin, who cannot believe his own happiness. After all, his father and grandfather worked here, “were slaves”, they weren’t even allowed into the kitchen. The purchase of an estate for Lopakhin becomes a kind of symbol of his success. This is a well-deserved reward for many years of work. The hero would like his grandfather and father to rise from the grave and be able to rejoice with him, to see how much their descendant has succeeded in life.

Negative qualities of Lopakhin

The cherry orchard for Lopakhin is just land. It can be bought, mortgaged or sold. This hero, in his joy, did not consider himself obliged to show a sense of tact towards the former owners of the purchased estate. Lopakhin immediately begins to cut down the garden. He did not want to wait for the former owners of the estate to leave. The soulless lackey Yasha is somewhat similar to him. He completely lacks such qualities as attachment to the place in which he was born and raised, love for his mother, and kindness. In this respect, Yasha is the complete opposite of Firs, a servant who has unusually developed these feelings.

Relation to the garden of the servant Firs

In revealing it, it is necessary to say a few words about how Firs, the oldest of everyone in the house, treated him. For many years he faithfully served his masters. This man sincerely loves Gaev and Ranevskaya. He is ready to protect these heroes from all troubles. We can say that Firs is the only one of all the characters in The Cherry Orchard endowed with such a quality as devotion. This is a very integral nature, which is fully manifested in the servant’s attitude towards the garden. For Firs, the estate of Ranevskaya and Gaev is a family nest. He strives to protect it, as well as its inhabitants.

Representatives of the new generation

The image of the cherry orchard in the play “The Cherry Orchard” is dear only to those characters who have important memories associated with it. The representative of the new generation is Petya Trofimov. The fate of the garden does not interest him at all. Petya declares: “We are above love.” Thus, he admits that he is not capable of experiencing serious feelings. Trofimov looks at everything too superficially. He does not know real life, which he is trying to remake based on far-fetched ideas. Anya and Petya are outwardly happy. They thirst for a new life, for which they strive to break with the past. For these heroes, the garden is “all of Russia,” and not a specific cherry orchard. But is it possible to love the whole world without loving your home? Petya and Anya are losing their roots in their quest for new horizons. Mutual understanding between Trofimov and Ranevskaya is impossible. For Petya there are no memories, no past, and Ranevskaya deeply experiences the loss of the estate, since she was born here, her ancestors also lived here, and she sincerely loves the estate.

Who will save the garden?

As we have already noted, it is a symbol of beauty. Only people who can not only appreciate it, but also fight for it can save it. Active and energetic people who replace the nobility treat beauty only as a source of profit. What will happen to her, who will save her?

The image of the cherry orchard in Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" is a symbol of the home and the past, dear to the heart. Is it possible to boldly move forward if the sound of an ax is heard behind you, destroying everything that was previously sacred? It should be noted that the cherry orchard is and it is no coincidence that such expressions as “hitting a tree with an ax”, “trampling a flower” and “cutting off the roots” sound inhumane and blasphemous.

So, we briefly examined the image of the cherry orchard as understood by the characters in the play “The Cherry Orchard.” Reflecting on the actions and characters of the characters in Chekhov’s work, we also think about the fate of Russia. After all, it is a “cherry orchard” for all of us.

Comedy "The Cherry Orchard" Character system The comedy of The Cherry Orchard is inherent in the very structure of the play. Each character is absorbed in his own truth,” immersed in his experiences and does not notice those around him: their pain, their melancholy, their joys and hopes. Each of the characters is, as it were, playing his own one-man show. These one-man shows make up the action, which is so complex in sound. This is at the same time and polyphony (polyphony, a specially organized choir of independent voices), and dissonance, an uncoordinated, discordant sound, where each voice strives to be the only one.Where does this self-absorption of the heroes of “The Cherry Orchard" come from? What prevents them from hearing each other: after all, they are all close people, trying to help, support and receive support from each other? Let us pay attention: each of the characters confesses, but in the end all these confessions turn out to be addressed to the audience, and not to their partners on stage.

At some point, the confessor realizes that he cannot explain the most important thing. So, Anya will never understand her mother’s drama, and Andreevna herself will never understand her passion for Petya’s ideas. What “doesn’t allow” the characters in the play to see each other? The fact is that, according to the author’s plan, each of them is not only a person, but also a performer of a certain socio-historical role: what can be called a “hostage of History.” A person can, to a certain extent, adjust his personality and his relationships with others. But he cannot change his role, no matter how alien it may be to him.

The discrepancy between the hero’s inner essence and the socio-historical role that he is forced to play is the dramatic essence of “The Cherry Orchard.” “An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” is how Chekhov characterized Ranevskaya in his letters to Stanislavsky, who staged the play. .

What's in her past? Her youth, family life, blooming and fruit-bearing cherry orchard - all this ended several years ago, ended tragically. The husband died, the estate fell into disrepair, and a new tormenting passion arose.

And then the irreparable happened: Grisha died - drowned in the river. The death of a son is the worst tragedy. For Ranevskaya, the horror of loss was combined with a feeling of guilt: infatuation with her lover, absorption in love, it seems to her, alienated her from her son.

Perhaps the absurd death could have been prevented? Perhaps Grisha's death is a punishment for her, her mother, for her inadmissible passion? And Ranevskaya runs away from home - from the cherry orchard, from her daughters, from her brother, from that river where her son drowned - from her entire previous life, from her past, which turned into an irreparable disaster. She runs so as never to return, she runs in order to end her sinful and absurd life somewhere - after the death of the boy. Ranevskaya ends up in Paris. The acute pain dulled, the first wave of despair subsided. Ranevskaya was saved by love.

Feelings for a person unworthy of her, for a scoundrel... But is it really given to us to choose whom to love? Yes, he is a scoundrel, her last lover, he robbed and abandoned her, and then returned again - again a beggar. And Lyubov Andreevna knows everything about him, understands everything - and does not want to know or remember it. For the feeling itself is valuable, because for her there is nothing in life higher than love.

Nothing of the past has been forgotten. The terrible wound has not healed and will never heal. The connection with one’s home and loved ones becomes more and more elusive. It is increasingly impossible to become “one of our own” in Paris, or to return to the cherry orchard... The illusory nature, the absurdity of existence, homesickness, the feeling of guilt in front of our daughter and stepdaughter - for leaving them, for wasting their fortune - Lyubov Andreevna is tormented. And now, before our eyes, a decisive step is taken: Ranevskaya returns home. She tears up telegrams from her lover, tears them up without reading: she’s finished with Paris!

She is happy: “I want to jump, wave my arms... God knows, I love my homeland, I love it dearly, I couldn’t watch from the carriage, I kept crying.” “If only I could take the heavy stone off my chest and shoulders, if only I could forget my past!” Ranevskaya returns to the house where everyone loves her, where they are waiting for her - and have been faithfully waiting for her for five “Parisian” years. And where everyone condemns her for something: for “viciousness”, for frivolity...

No one wants to accept her as she is; they love her, condemning and laughing. And Ranevskaya herself acutely feels this, accepts the justice of the reproaches, and constantly feels guilty.

But along with the feeling of guilt, alienation grows in her: why does everyone demand from her something that she cannot give, why do they expect her to change, to become what others want her to be, to stop being herself?! The further we go, the clearer it becomes: she is a stranger here. Each of you, of course, has encountered funny situations and linguistic absurdities in various publications and in the speech of others. A section has been opened specifically for such language incidents. Send us your finds. We are waiting for your letters