Ranevskaya in the system of images of Chekhov's heroines
The play "The Cherry Orchard" became the swan song of A.P. Chekhov, occupying the stage of world theaters for many years. The success of this work was due not only to its subject matter, which is controversial to this day, but also to the images that Chekhov created. For him, the presence of women in the works was very important: “Without a woman, a story is like a machine without steam,” he wrote to one of his acquaintances. At the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in society began to change. The image of Ranevskaya in the play "The Cherry Orchard" became a vivid caricature of the emancipated contemporaries of Anton Pavlovich, whom he observed in large numbers in Monte Carlo.
Chekhov carefully worked out each female image: facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms, speech, because through them he conveyed an idea of the character and feelings that possess the heroines. Appearance and name also contributed to this.
The image of Ranevskaya Lyubov Andreevna has become one of the most controversial, and this is largely due to the actresses playing this role. Chekhov himself wrote that: “It is not difficult to play Ranevskaya, you just need to take the right tone from the very beginning ...”.
Her image is complex, but there are no contradictions in it, since she is true to her internal logic of behavior.
Ranevskaya's life story
The description and characterization of Ranevskaya in the play "The Cherry Orchard" is given through her story about herself, from the words of other characters and the author's remarks. Acquaintance with the central female character begins literally from the first lines, and the story of Ranevskaya's life is revealed in the very first act. Lyubov Andreevna returned from Paris, where she had lived for five years, and this return was caused by the urgent need to resolve the issue of the fate of the estate put up for auction for debts.
Lyubov Andreevna married "a barrister, a non-nobleman ...", "who made only debts", and also "drank terribly" and "died from champagne." Was she happy in this marriage? Unlikely. After the death of her husband, Ranevskaya "unfortunately" fell in love with another. But her passionate romance did not last long. Her young son died tragically, and feeling guilty, Lyubov Andreevna leaves forever abroad. However, her lover went after her "ruthlessly, rudely", and after several years of painful passions "he robbed ... abandoned, got together with another", and she, in turn, tries to poison herself. Seventeen-year-old daughter Anya comes to Paris for her mother. Oddly enough, but this young girl partly understands her mother and pities her. Throughout the play, the sincere love and affection of the daughter are visible. Having stayed in Russia for only five months, Ranevskaya immediately after the sale of the estate, taking the money intended for Anya, returns to Paris to her lover.
Characteristics of Ranevskaya
On the one hand, Ranevskaya is a beautiful woman, educated, with a subtle sense of beauty, kind and generous, who is loved by others, but her shortcomings border on vice and therefore are so noticeable. “She is a good person. Light, simple,” says Lopakhin. He sincerely loves her, but his love is so unobtrusive that no one knows about it. Almost the same thing is said by her brother: “She is good, kind, glorious ...” but she is “vicious. It is felt in her slightest movement. Absolutely all the characters speak of her inability to manage money, and she herself understands this very well: “I have always overspent money without restraint, like crazy ...”; “... she has nothing left. And my mother doesn’t understand! ”says Anya,“ My sister has not yet lost the habit of overspending money, ”Gaev echoes her. Ranevskaya is used to living without denying herself pleasures, and if her relatives try to cut down on their expenses, then Lyubov Andreevna simply does not succeed, she is ready to give her last money to a random passerby, although Varya has nothing to feed her household.
At first glance, Ranevskaya's feelings are very deep, but if you pay attention to the author's remarks, it becomes clear that this is only an appearance. For example, while waiting in excitement for her brother from the auction, she sings a lezginka. And this is a vivid example of her whole being. She, as it were, distances herself from unpleasant moments, trying to fill them with actions that can bring positive emotions. The phrase that characterizes Ranevskaya from The Cherry Orchard: “You don’t have to deceive yourself, you need to look the truth straight in the eye at least once in your life,” says that Lyubov Andreevna is out of touch with reality, stuck in her world.
“Oh, my garden! After a dark, rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not left you ... ”- with these words, Ranevskaya welcomes the garden after a long separation, a garden without which she“ does not understand her life ”, with which linked her childhood and youth. And it seems that Lyubov Andreevna loves her estate, and cannot live without it, but she does not try to make any attempts to save it, thereby betraying it. For most of the play, Ranevskaya hopes that the issue of the estate will be resolved by itself, without her participation, although it is her decision that is the main one. Although Lopakhin's proposal is the most realistic way to save him. The merchant foresees the future, saying that it is quite possible that "the summer resident ... will take care of the household, and then your cherry orchard will become happy, rich, luxurious", because at the moment the garden is in a state of disrepair, and does not bring any benefit, nor nailed to its owners .
For Ranevskaya, the cherry orchard meant her inseparable connection with the past and her ancestral attachment to the Motherland. She is part of him, just as he is part of her. She realizes that the sale of the garden is an inevitable payment for a past life, and this can be seen in her monologue about sins, in which she realizes them and takes them upon herself, asking the Lord not to send big trials, and the sale of the estate becomes their kind of atonement: “My nerves better… I sleep well.”
Ranevskaya is an echo of the cultural past, thinning literally before our eyes and disappearing from the present. Perfectly aware of the perniciousness of her passion, realizing that this love is pulling her to the bottom, she returns to Paris, knowing that "this money will not last long."
Against this background, love for daughters looks very strange. The adopted daughter, who dreams of going to a monastery, gets a job as a housekeeper to her neighbors, since she does not have at least a hundred rubles to donate, and her mother simply does not attach any importance to this. The native daughter Anya, left at the age of twelve in the care of a careless uncle, in the old estate is very worried about the future of her mother, and is saddened by the imminent parting. "... I will work, help you..." - says a young girl who is not yet familiar with life.
The further fate of Ranevskaya is very unclear, although Chekhov himself said that: "Only death can calm down such a woman."
Characteristics of the image and description of the life of the heroine of the play will be useful for students of grade 10 when preparing an essay on the topic “The Image of Ranevskaya in the play “The Cherry Orchard” by Chekhov”.
Artwork test
"The Cherry Orchard" is the last work of A.P. Chekhov, which completed his creative biography, his ideological and artistic searches. This play embodies the new stylistic principles worked out by the writer, new methods of plot construction and composition.
Having started work on the play in March 1903, Chekhov sent it to the Art Theater in October, on the stage of which the first performance of The Cherry Orchard took place on January 17, 1904. The premiere of the performance coincided with the writer's stay in Moscow, with his name day and birthday, and the theater actors arranged a solemn celebration of their beloved playwright.
Consider one of the main images of the play - the image of Ranevskaya.
The action of the play, as the author informs in the very first remark, takes place on the estate of the landowner Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. This is a real “noble nest”, with a cherry orchard surrounded by poplars, with a long alley that “goes straight, straight, like an outstretched belt” and “glitters on moonlit nights”.
The Cherry Orchard is a symbolic image in the play. He brings together very different characters, each of which has his own idea of him. But the cherry garden will separate all the characters at the end of the play.
The Cherry Orchard as a beautiful home for Ranevskaya exists only in her beautiful past. It is associated with the memory of childhood, of youth.
Ranevskaya appears in her house, where she has not been for five years. And this is her last, farewell visit to the Motherland. The heroine comes from abroad, from a man who robbed her, but whom she still loves very much. At home, Ranevskaya thought to find peace. Nature itself in the play seems to remind her of the need for spiritual renewal, beauty, and the happiness of human life.
Ranevskaya, devastated by love, returns to her estate in the spring. In the cherry orchard - "white masses of flowers", starlings sing, the blue sky glistens over the garden. Nature is preparing for renewal - and hopes for a new, clean, bright life awaken in Ranevskaya's soul: “All, all white! O my garden! After a dark, miserable autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not abandoned you. If only I could remove a heavy stone from my chest and shoulders, if only I could forget my past!”
But the past does not allow itself to be forgotten, since Ranevskaya herself lives with a sense of the past. She is the creation of a noble culture, which disappears before our eyes from the present, remains only in memories. A new class takes its place, new people - the emerging bourgeois, businessmen, ready to do anything for the sake of money. Both Ranevskaya and the garden are defenseless against the threat of death and ruin. When Lopakhin offers her the only real means to save the house, Ranevskaya replies: "Dachas and summer residents - it's so vulgar, I'm sorry."
It turns out that, on the one hand, Ranevskaya does not want to cut down the garden, as it is a symbol of her happy youth, her aspirations, hopes. Yes, besides, the garden in the spring is simply magnificent in its color - it's a pity to cut down such beauty because of some dachas. But, on the other hand, the author shows us Ranevskaya's indifference to the fate of the cherry orchard, and to the fate of loved ones. All her spiritual strength, energy was absorbed by love passion, which gradually enslaved the will of this woman, drowned out her natural responsiveness to the joys and misfortunes of the people around her.
Emphasizing the feeling of Ranevskaya's indifference, Chekhov shows us the attitude of the heroine towards the telegrams from Paris. This ratio is directly dependent on the degree of threat hanging over the garden. In the first act, while they are only talking about the possibility of selling, Ranevskaya "tearing the telegram without reading it." In the second act, the buyer is already known - Ranevskaya reads and tears the telegram. In the third act, the bidding took place - she confesses that she decided to go to Paris to the man who robbed and abandoned her. In Paris, Ranevskaya is going to live on the money that her grandmother sent to buy the estate.
The heroine completely forgot all the insults caused to her by her former lover. In Russia, she leaves everyone to the mercy of fate. Varya, the adopted daughter of Ranevskaya, is forced to become a housekeeper to the Ragulins. Lyubov Andreevna does not care about her fate at all, although she made an attempt to marry Varya to Lopakhin. But this attempt was unsuccessful.
Ranevskaya is impractical, selfish, careless. She forgets about Firs, the servant who has worked for them all his life. She does not like the life of her daughters - neither Ani nor Varya, forgetting about them in the heat of her passion. It is not known for what whim, Ranevskaya arranges a ball, while auctions are going on in the city, although she herself understands the inappropriateness of what is happening: “And the musicians came inopportunely, and we started the ball inopportunely ... Well, nothing ... (Sits down and cries softly) ".
But, at the same time, the heroine is kind, sympathetic, her sense of beauty does not fade. She is ready to help everyone, ready to give the last money. So, Ranevskaya gives the last gold to the drunkard. But this also shows its impracticality. She knows that at home Varya feeds everyone with milk soup, and the servants with peas. But such is the nature of this heroine.
The image of Ranevskaya is very contradictory, one cannot say whether she is good or bad. In the play, this image is not unambiguously regarded, since it is a living, complex and contradictory character.
Consider Chekhov's stories. Lyrical mood, piercing sadness and laughter... Such are his plays - unusual plays, and even more so seemed strange to Chekhov's contemporaries. But it was in them that the "watercolor" of Chekhov's colors, his penetrating lyricism, his piercing accuracy and frankness, manifested itself most vividly and deeply.
Chekhov's dramaturgy has several plans, and what the characters say is by no means what the author himself hides behind their remarks. And what he hides, perhaps, is not at all what he would like to convey to the viewer ...
From this diversity - the difficulty with the definition of the genre. For example, a play
As is known from the very beginning, the estate is doomed; the heroes are also doomed - Ranevskaya, Gaev, Anya and Varya - they have nothing to live on, nothing to hope for. The exit proposed by Lopakhin is impossible for them. Everything for them symbolizes the past, some old, wonderful life, when everything was easy and simple, and they even knew how to dry cherries and send carts to Moscow ... But now the garden has grown old, harvest years are rare, the method of preparing cherries is forgotten ... Constant trouble is felt behind all the words and deeds of the heroes ... And even the hopes for the future expressed by one of the most active heroes - Lopakhin - are unconvincing. The words of Petya Trofimov are also unconvincing: “Russia is our garden”, “we have to work”. After all, Trofimov himself is an eternal student who cannot in any way start any serious activity. Trouble and in how relations develop between the characters (Lolakhin and Varya love each other, but for some reason do not get married), and in their conversations. Everyone talks about what interests him at the moment, and does not listen to others. The heroes of Chekhov are characterized by tragic "deafness", so the important and the petty, the tragic and the stupid get in the way in the dialogues.
After all, in The Cherry Orchard, as in human life, tragic circumstances (material difficulties, the inability of the characters to act), dramatic (the life of any of the characters) and comic (for example, Petya Trofimov's fall from the stairs at the most stressful moment) are mixed. Discord is visible everywhere, even in the fact that the servants behave like masters. Fiers says, comparing the past and the present, that "everything is fragmented." The existence of this person seems to remind the young that life began long ago, even before them. It is also characteristic that he is forgotten on the estate...
And the famous "sound of a broken string" is also a symbol. If a stretched string is readiness, determination, efficiency, then a broken string is the end. True, there is still a vague hope, because the neighboring landowner Simeonov-Pishchik was lucky: he is no better than the others, and they found clay from him, then the railway passed ...
Life is both sad and fun. She is tragic, unpredictable - this is what Chekhov says in his plays. And that is why it is so difficult to define their genre - after all, the author simultaneously shows all aspects of our life...
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, like other writers, was interested in the Essay on the theme of human happiness, love, harmony. In most of the writer's works: "Ionych", "Gooseberries", "About Love" - the heroes fail in love. They cannot make up their own happiness, let alone others. In the story "The Lady with the Dog" everything is different. When Gurov and Anna Sergeevna part, she returns to her city of S., and he returns to Moscow. “Some month will pass, and Anna Sergeevna, it seemed to him, will be covered in a fog in his memory and only occasionally will he dream with a touching smile, like others dreamed. But more than a month passed, a deep one set in, and everything was clear in his memory, as if he had parted with Anna Sergeevna only yesterday. And the memories warmed up more and more. Here is a twist in the development of the plot. Does love not weaken? does not perish from a collision with life, does not turn out to be untenable. On the contrary, it evokes in Gurov an aversion to a drowsy, philistine prosperous existence, a desire for a different, new life. The familiar environment causes the hero almost squeamish disgust. He clearly sees the hypocrisy and vulgarity of those around him. "- Dmitry Dmitritch! - What? - And just now you were right: sturgeon with a smell! These words, so ordinary, for some reason suddenly angered Gurov, seemed to him humiliating and unclean. What wild manners, what faces! What senseless nights, what uninteresting days! A frantic game of cards, gluttony, drunkenness, constant talk all about one thing ... a short, wingless life ... and you can’t leave, as if you are sitting in a madhouse or in prison companies. What a storm and range of feelings love creates in Gurov! Its cleansing power is beneficial. It never occurs to the writer to condemn the characters for a "sinful feeling." They are both married, breaking their vows. But the reader understands the author's idea that life without love is even more sinful. Anna Sergeevna and Gurov love each other - this is their consolation, an incentive to live, because every person has the right to happiness. “Anna Sergeevna and he loved each other like very close, dear people ... it seemed to them that fate itself had destined them for each other, and it was not clear why he was married, and she was married ... And it seemed that more a little - and the solution will be found, and then a new, wonderful life will begin; and it was clear to both that the end was still far away and that the most complex and difficult was just beginning. This is an almost romantic story by Chekhov the realist about love, its great power and purity. Reading the story, you understand that only with a loved one can you understand all the beauty of the world, feel the fullness of life and that it is necessary to protect this
Ranevskaya in the system of images of Chekhov's heroines
The play "The Cherry Orchard" became the swan song of A.P. Chekhov, occupying the stage of world theaters for many years. The success of this work was due not only to its subject matter, which is controversial to this day, but also to the images that Chekhov created. For him, the presence of women in the works was very important: “Without a woman, a story is like a machine without steam,” he wrote to one of his acquaintances. At the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in society began to change. The image of Ranevskaya in the play "The Cherry Orchard" became a vivid caricature of the emancipated contemporaries of Anton Pavlovich, whom he observed in large numbers in Monte Carlo.
Chekhov carefully worked out each female image: facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms, speech, because through them he conveyed an idea of the character and feelings that possess the heroines. Appearance and name also contributed to this.
The image of Ranevskaya Lyubov Andreevna has become one of the most controversial, and this is largely due to the actresses playing this role. Chekhov himself wrote that: “It is not difficult to play Ranevskaya, you just need to take the right tone from the very beginning ...”.
Her image is complex, but there are no contradictions in it, since she is true to her internal logic of behavior.
Ranevskaya's life story
The description and characterization of Ranevskaya in the play "The Cherry Orchard" is given through her story about herself, from the words of other characters and the author's remarks. Acquaintance with the central female character begins literally from the first lines, and the story of Ranevskaya's life is revealed in the very first act. Lyubov Andreevna returned from Paris, where she had lived for five years, and this return was caused by the urgent need to resolve the issue of the fate of the estate put up for auction for debts.
Lyubov Andreevna married "a barrister, a non-nobleman ...", "who made only debts", and also "drank terribly" and "died from champagne." Was she happy in this marriage? Unlikely. After the death of her husband, Ranevskaya "unfortunately" fell in love with another. But her passionate romance did not last long. Her young son died tragically, and feeling guilty, Lyubov Andreevna leaves forever abroad. However, her lover went after her "ruthlessly, rudely", and after several years of painful passions "he robbed ... abandoned, got together with another", and she, in turn, tries to poison herself. Seventeen-year-old daughter Anya comes to Paris for her mother. Oddly enough, but this young girl partly understands her mother and pities her. Throughout the play, the sincere love and affection of the daughter are visible. Having stayed in Russia for only five months, Ranevskaya immediately after the sale of the estate, taking the money intended for Anya, returns to Paris to her lover.
Characteristics of Ranevskaya
On the one hand, Ranevskaya is a beautiful woman, educated, with a subtle sense of beauty, kind and generous, who is loved by others, but her shortcomings border on vice and therefore are so noticeable. “She is a good person. Light, simple,” says Lopakhin. He sincerely loves her, but his love is so unobtrusive that no one knows about it. Almost the same thing is said by her brother: “She is good, kind, glorious ...” but she is “vicious. It is felt in her slightest movement. Absolutely all the characters speak of her inability to manage money, and she herself understands this very well: “I have always overspent money without restraint, like crazy ...”; “... she has nothing left. And my mother doesn’t understand! ”says Anya,“ My sister has not yet lost the habit of overspending money, ”Gaev echoes her. Ranevskaya is used to living without denying herself pleasures, and if her relatives try to cut down on their expenses, then Lyubov Andreevna simply does not succeed, she is ready to give her last money to a random passerby, although Varya has nothing to feed her household.
At first glance, Ranevskaya's feelings are very deep, but if you pay attention to the author's remarks, it becomes clear that this is only an appearance. For example, while waiting in excitement for her brother from the auction, she sings a lezginka. And this is a vivid example of her whole being. She, as it were, distances herself from unpleasant moments, trying to fill them with actions that can bring positive emotions. The phrase that characterizes Ranevskaya from The Cherry Orchard: “You don’t have to deceive yourself, you need to look the truth straight in the eye at least once in your life,” says that Lyubov Andreevna is out of touch with reality, stuck in her world.
“Oh, my garden! After a dark, rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not left you ... ”- with these words, Ranevskaya welcomes the garden after a long separation, a garden without which she“ does not understand her life ”, with which linked her childhood and youth. And it seems that Lyubov Andreevna loves her estate, and cannot live without it, but she does not try to make any attempts to save it, thereby betraying it. For most of the play, Ranevskaya hopes that the issue of the estate will be resolved by itself, without her participation, although it is her decision that is the main one. Although Lopakhin's proposal is the most realistic way to save him. The merchant foresees the future, saying that it is quite possible that "the summer resident ... will take care of the household, and then your cherry orchard will become happy, rich, luxurious", because at the moment the garden is in a state of disrepair, and does not bring any benefit, nor nailed to its owners .
For Ranevskaya, the cherry orchard meant her inseparable connection with the past and her ancestral attachment to the Motherland. She is part of him, just as he is part of her. She realizes that the sale of the garden is an inevitable payment for a past life, and this can be seen in her monologue about sins, in which she realizes them and takes them upon herself, asking the Lord not to send big trials, and the sale of the estate becomes their kind of atonement: “My nerves better… I sleep well.”
Ranevskaya is an echo of the cultural past, thinning literally before our eyes and disappearing from the present. Perfectly aware of the perniciousness of her passion, realizing that this love is pulling her to the bottom, she returns to Paris, knowing that "this money will not last long."
Against this background, love for daughters looks very strange. The adopted daughter, who dreams of going to a monastery, gets a job as a housekeeper to her neighbors, since she does not have at least a hundred rubles to donate, and her mother simply does not attach any importance to this. The native daughter Anya, left at the age of twelve in the care of a careless uncle, in the old estate is very worried about the future of her mother, and is saddened by the imminent parting. "... I will work, help you..." - says a young girl who is not yet familiar with life.
The further fate of Ranevskaya is very unclear, although Chekhov himself said that: "Only death can calm down such a woman."
Characteristics of the image and description of the life of the heroine of the play will be useful for students of grade 10 when preparing an essay on the topic “The Image of Ranevskaya in the play “The Cherry Orchard” by Chekhov”.
Artwork test
Before us is a play with the prosaic title "The Cherry Orchard". I wonder what the author meant by the cherry orchard? “The whole of Russia is our garden,” says one of the characters in the play, Petya Trofimov.
Interestingly, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov himself grew a garden in Melikhovo. In Crimea, the writer, next to his house on a high elevation, laid out a southern garden, which became his brainchild. He raised him according to a well-thought-out plan and created him as a work of art.
The cherry orchard in the play is the embodiment of all that is beautiful, the personification of beauty and poetry. This is one of the characters in the play. He appears in her constantly, as if reminding of himself. Introduced into the replicas of the characters, the garden becomes a participant in the action.
The magnificent Chekhov garden is connected in the play with the fates of three generations: past, present and future. Thus, Chekhov very widely pushes the time captured in his play. The garden itself embodies past culture and beauty. This is how Ranevskaya and Gaev perceive him. For them, it is associated with childhood. According to Ranevskaya, “happiness woke up” with her every morning when she looked out of the window at these trees.
For Lopakhin, the garden is wonderful only as a good “location”. According to him, “the only remarkable thing about this garden is that it is very large.” For him, this is a business commercial site. He believes that cherry “now does not bring income”, another thing is a poppy field! He is about to cut down the old cherry orchard, and now the threat hangs over the trees like a sword of Damocles.
Lopakhin feels himself the master of life. “Come, everyone, to watch Yermolai Lopakhin hit the cherry orchard with an ax, how the trees fall to the ground!” How much cynicism and courage are in these words! “We will set up summer cottages!” he says. At the end of the play, the threat is set in motion: an ax is knocking, trees are falling.
Indifference to what is happening is felt in the words of Petya Trofimov. He approaches the eternal human value - beauty - from a narrow class position and begins to denigrate the cherry orchard, seeing for some reason behind each tree a tortured serf slave. “The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it,” he soothes Anya.
Only Anya, bright, tender and enthusiastic, aspiring to the future, is ready to plant a new garden more beautiful than the previous one. She alone is worthy of the beauty that lies in the cherry orchard.
The play presents, as it were, two worlds: the world of dreams and the world of reality. Ranevskaya and Lopakhin live in different worlds. Therefore, they do not hear each other. Lyubov Andreevna lives in dreams, she is all in her love, in her fantasies. It’s as if she’s not here: part of her remained in Paris, despite the fact that at first she doesn’t even read messages from there, and part returned to this house, to this garden, but not today, but to the one that she remembers from childhood . From her shell, filled with the pink ether of dreams, she sees life, but cannot feel it for what it really is. Her phrase: “I know, they wrote to me”, referring to the death of the nanny, her attitude towards Varvara is not at all cruelty, not indifference. It’s just that Ranevskaya is not here, she is in her own world.
It is customary to assert that Gaev, Ranevskaya's brother, is, as it were, a distorted image of her. There is an obvious "stretch" in this. He is simply on the border of these two worlds. He is not an idle dreamer, but, apparently, his existence is not quite real if at his age they say about him “young-green”.
But Lopakhin is, perhaps, the only person from reality. But everything is not so simple. Lopakhin combines both reality and dream. But his “dreams” lead to action: the memory of all the good that Ranevskaya did for him makes him look for a way out of the situation in which they found themselves. But the case ends with the purchase of a cherry orchard.
It seems very accurate to compare the director Efros, who, while working at the Taganka Theater on this performance, said that all the heroes of the play are children playing in a minefield, and only Lopakhin, a serious person, warns of danger, but the children captivate him with their game, he is forgotten, but soon remembers again, as if waking up. Only he alone constantly remembers the danger. One Lopakhin.
The question of the relationship between dreams and reality in the play The Cherry Orchard was also reflected in the debate about the genre. It is known that Chekhov himself called the play a comedy, but Stanislavsky staged it as a drama. And yet we listen to the opinion of the author. Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" is rather a sad thought about the fate of Russia than a revolutionary appeal, as they sometimes try to present it.
There are no ways of reorganizing life, no specific actions in the play. It is generally accepted that Chekhov saw the future of Russia in the images of Trofimov and Anya. But the owners of the garden are the hereditary nobles Gaev and Ranevskaya. This garden has been in their family for many, many years. And the author is deeply sympathetic to these people, despite their idleness and idleness. And here the question of the ambiguity of the play arises.
Take at least the image of the mistress of the garden - Ranevskaya. It is known that Chekhov worked on this role with great enthusiasm and intended it for the actress O. L. Knipper, his wife. This image has always caused conflicting rumors and has become one of Chekhov's mysteries. In response to a question about how this image should be played, Chekhov replied: “Fingers, fingers in rings; she grabs at everything, but everything falls out of her hands, and her head is empty. This is the key to the image, proposed by the author himself.
Ranevskaya has such wonderful character traits as kindness, devotion to the feeling of love. She fusses about the arrangement of her adopted daughter Varya, pities the servant Firs, gives her wallet to the peasants who came to say goodbye to her. But sometimes this kindness is simply the result of the wealth that she possesses and which reveals itself in the sparkling of the rings on her fingers. She herself admits to her extravagance: “I have always littered with money without restraint, like crazy.”
Ranevskaya does not bring her concern for people to its logical end. Varya is left without a livelihood after the sale of the estate and is forced to go to strangers. Firs remains in the locked house because Lyubov Andreevna forgot to check if he was sent to the hospital.
Ranevskaya is characterized by frivolity, a quick change of feelings. So, she turns to God and prays to forgive her sins, but at the same time she offers to arrange a “party”. The duality of experiences also affects Russia. She tenderly relates to her homeland, to the cherry orchard, to her old house with huge windows, into which naughty branches climb. But the feeling is unstable. As soon as she receives a telegram from a former lover who robbed her, she forgets the offense and goes to Paris. It seems that Ranevskaya is deprived of an inner core. Her frivolity and carelessness lead to the fact that the garden is sold, the estate goes into the wrong hands.
Will Lopakhin become the new owner? It is clear that before us is a representative of a new class, and this class is ousting the ancestral nobles from Russian life. Lopakhin both attracts and frightens Chekhov. The writer makes it clear that Lopakhin is only a temporary master of life. He introduces himself as a grateful friend to Ranevskaya, and he himself begins to cut down the garden even before she leaves. No, he is not the owner of the cherry orchard, but only its temporary owner
"The Cherry Orchard" is Chekhov's last play, his "swan song". In the play, the cherry orchard connected all the main characters and became a symbol of the beautiful, unchanging and indestructible. It has become a symbol of the country. Russia. True, until the writer's dream came true, that all of Russia would be a garden. But it depends on us whether it remains a dream or comes true.
