What does a drama writer need? Philosophy, dispassion, state thoughts of a historian, quick wits, liveliness of imagination, no prejudice of a favorite thought. Freedom.
A. S. Pushkin

By staging plays by A.P. Chekhov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater, K.S. Stanislavsky developed a new theatrical system, which is still called the “Stanislavsky system”. However, this original theater system appeared thanks to the new dramatic principles embodied in Chekhov's plays. It is not for nothing that a seagull is painted on the curtain of the Moscow Art Theater, reminiscent of the first play of the innovative playwright.

The main principle of Chekhov's dramaturgy is the desire to overcome the theatrical conventions that go back to the 18th century from the theater of classicism. Chekhov's words are known that everything on the stage should be like in life. The Cherry Orchard is based on the most common everyday event - the sale of an estate for debts, and not the struggle of feelings and duty, tearing the soul of a character, not a catastrophic clash of kings and peoples, heroes and villains. That is, the playwright renounces the outward attraction of the plot. It shows that the everyday state of a person is internally conflicted.

Chekhov strives to create in his plays not conditional theatrical heroes-carriers of the idea, but living, complex images of ordinary modern people. The image of the merchant Lopakhin can serve as proof. He is a sincere man, memory of good: he did not forget how affectionately Ranevskaya treated him when he was a boy. Lopakhin from pure heart offers her and Gaev his help in saving the estate - he advises breaking a cherry orchard into summer cottages. He constantly lends money to Lyubov Andreevna, although he is well aware that she will never repay these debts. At the same time, none other than Lopakhin buys a cherry orchard at auction and gives the order to cut down trees without waiting for the departure of the former owners. He does not even realize what kind of mental pain this can bring to Ranevskaya and Gaev. Another striking detail in the image of Lopakhin is his mention of a recent visit to the theater where he watched funny play(II). It can be assumed that the merchant means Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" (!), because later he teases Varya with phrases from this play. And at the same time, the hero remembers with admiration how his poppy fields, not forgetting to mention that he earned forty thousand that year selling poppies. Thus, in the soul of a merchant, lofty feelings, noble impulses, a craving for beauty, on the one hand, and at the same time business acumen, cruelty, and ignorance, on the other hand, are combined.

Chekhov refuses formal theatrical receptions. He excludes long monologues, as in ordinary life people are limited to phrases in dialogue. Instead of "aside" remarks, which in a classical play convey the hero's thoughts, the playwright develops special reception psychologism, which V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko called "undercurrent", or subtext. “Undercurrent” is, firstly, “the double sound of each character” and, secondly, a special construction of dialogue so that the viewer can understand what the characters are thinking about when discussing everyday issues. The above reasoning about the complex character of Lopakhin can serve as proof of the "double sounding of the protagonist". An example of a special construction of a dialogue is the explanation of Varya and Lopakhin in the fourth act. They should talk about their feelings, but they talk about foreign objects: Varya is looking for something among things, and Lopakhin shares his plans for the coming winter - a declaration of love did not work out.

If in plays before Chekhov the heroes manifest themselves mainly in actions, then in Chekhov they manifest themselves in experiences, which is why the “undercurrent” is so important in his plays. Ordinary pauses are filled with deep content in The Cherry Orchard. For example, after the failed explanation of Varya and Lopakhin, Ranevskaya enters the room, sees Varia crying and asks a short question: “What?” (IV). After all, tears can equally mean both joy and sorrow, and Lyubov Andreevna is waiting for an explanation. There is a pause. Varya is silent. Ranevskaya understands everything without words and is in a hurry to leave. In the last act, Petya Trofimov talks about his happy fate: “Humanity is moving towards the highest truth, towards the highest happiness that is possible on earth, and I am in the forefront!” To Lopakhin's ironic question: "Will you get there?" Petya replies with conviction: “I will. (Pause) I will reach or show others the way how to reach. The pause here shows that Petya does not accept the irony of the interlocutor, but speaks quite seriously, maybe not even for Lopakhin, but for himself.

Of particular importance in Chekhov's plays are theatrical techniques that were traditionally considered secondary: author's remarks, sound writing, symbols. The playwright in the first act describes in detail the scenery - the room where everyone is waiting for the arrival of Ranevskaya. Particular attention in the remark is given to the garden, which is visible through the closed window: cherry trees are strewn with white flowers. The reader and viewer have a sad premonition that all this beauty will soon die. In the remark before the second act, it is noted that telegraph poles and the outskirts of the city are visible from the garden in the distance. Apart from direct meaning, this scenery, as is often the case with Chekhov, acquires symbolic meaning: industrial age, new order they step on the “noble nest” of the Gaev-Ranevskys and, of course, crush it.

The sounds play in the play important role. This is a sad waltz at the ball, which Ranevskaya for some reason arranged just on the day of the auction; the sound of billiard balls indicating Gaev's favorite game; the sound of a broken string, disturbing the peace and charm of a summer evening in the park. He unpleasantly struck Lyubov Andreevna, and she hurried home. Although Lopakhin and Gaev give a very real explanation for the strange sound (the bucket in the mine broke off, or maybe the bird is screaming), Ranevskaya perceives it in her own way: her habitual life. Symbolic, of course, is the knock of an ax at the end of the play: the cherry orchard, the beauty of the earth, will be destroyed, as Lopakhin promised.

Even the details in the play are symbolic and significant. Varya always appears on stage in a dark dress and with a bunch of keys on her belt. When Lopakhin declares at the ball that he has bought the estate, Varya throws the keys at his feet, thereby showing that he is giving the whole household to the new owner. The end of the play becomes a sad symbol of the end of manor Russia: everyone leaves the house, Lopakhin locks front door until spring, and the sick Firs appears from the distant rooms - the last guardian " noble nest". The old man lies down on the sofa and, as the remark says, “freezes” (IV), it becomes clear: this is the death of local Russia, along with its most faithful guardian.

Before Chekhov, plays were usually built on one cross-cutting event, around one intrigue, with one or two main characters. The play showed the clash of these heroes, striving for opposite goals (for example, Chatsky and famous society in the comedy by A.S. Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”). Fate was decided in traditional conflict actors, the victory of one over the other was depicted, and in The Cherry Orchard the main event (the sale of the estate at auction) was generally behind the scenes. The play presents a “smoothed” plot, which is difficult to divide into supporting elements(starting point, climax, etc.). The pace of action slows down, the play consists of successive scenes that are loosely connected to each other.

Such a “weakened” plot is explained by the fact that instead of traditional external conflicts Chekhov portrays internal conflict situations unfavorable for the characters. Main conflict develops in the souls of the characters and does not consist in a specific struggle for the garden (there is practically none), but in the dissatisfaction of the characters with their lives and themselves, in the inability to combine dream and reality. So after buying cherry orchard Lopakhin does not become happier, but exclaims in despair: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change” (III). There are no main characters in Chekhov's play; the blame for the disorder of life, according to the playwright, lies not with individual people, but with all together. The Chekhov Theater is an ensemble theater where central images, and episodic.

Chekhov's dramatic innovation also manifested itself in unusual genre plays, in the interweaving of dramatic and comic. "The Cherry Orchard" is a lyrical philosophical comedy, or " new drama”, as M. Gorky defined it in the article “On Plays” (1933). The Cherry Orchard combines dramatic pathos (the author clearly regrets that the garden is dying, the fate of many heroes is collapsing) and comic pathos (nude - in the images of Epikhodov, Simeonov-Pishchik, Charlotte, etc.; hidden - in the images of Ranevskaya, Gaev , Lopakhin, etc.). Outwardly, the heroes are inactive, but behind this passive behavior the subtext is hidden - a complex internal action-thinking of the characters.

Summing up what has been said, it must be emphasized once again that Chekhov's dramaturgy is innovative in the full sense of the word, and The Cherry Orchard is last play, in which the author expressed his own dramatic principles in the most vivid way.

Chekhov does not show events that capture the imagination of the reader-spectator, but recreates everyday situations in which he discovers the deep, philosophical content contemporary Russian life. The heroes of the play have complex, contradictory characters and therefore cannot be unambiguously attributed to either positive or negative characters. negative characters as is often the case in life. Chekhov does not use a clear composition, long monologues, replicas "aside", the unity of action, but replaces them with the free construction of the play, actively uses the technique of "undercurrent", which allows the character and inner experiences of dramatic characters to be most reliably described.

The play by A. N. Ostrovsky “Thunderstorm”, written in 1859, is considered in Russian literature as a social drama and as a tragedy. Some critics even introduced a concept that unites these two genres - everyday tragedy.
But in order to more accurately define the genre of "Thunderstorm", it is necessary to understand the essence of the dramatic and tragic.
Drama in literature work of art generated by contradictions real life of people. Usually it is created under the influence of external forces or circumstances. The life of people in dramatic situations is often under the threat of death, which are guilty of external forces independent of people. The definition of genre also depends on the assessment of the main conflict in the work. The article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” shows that the main conflict of “Thunderstorm” is the conflict between Kabanikha and Katerina. In the image of Katerina, we see a reflection of spontaneous protest younger generation against the constraining conditions of the “dark kingdom”. Doom main character is the result of a collision with a tyrant mother-in-law. From this point of view, this work can be called a social drama. It is noteworthy that the author himself called his work a drama.
But Ostrovsky's play can also be perceived as a tragedy. What is a tragedy? The tragic genre is characterized by an insoluble conflict between the personal aspirations of the hero and the laws of life. This conflict takes place in the mind of the main character, in his soul. The hero of the tragedy often struggles with himself, experiencing deep suffering. Seeing the main conflict in the soul of the heroine herself, her death as the result of a collision of two historical eras (let us note that this image was perceived in this way by Ostrovsky's contemporaries), the genre of Thunderstorms can be defined as a tragedy. Ostrovsky's play differs from classic tragedies that his hero is not a mythological or historical character, not a legendary person, but a simple merchant's wife. At the center of the narrative, Ostrovsky places a merchant family and family problems. Unlike classical tragedies, in The Thunderstorm private life ordinary people is the subject of tragedy.
The events in the play take place in the small Volga town of Kali-nova, where life is still largely patriarchal. The action of the drama takes place before the reform of 1861, which in many respects had a revolutionary influence on the life of the Russian provinces. Residents of Kalinov, who is not far away from the village, still live in Domostroy. But Ostrovsky shows that the patriarchal way of life begins to collapse in front of the eyes of the inhabitants. The youth of the city does not want to live according to "Domostroy" and has long ceased to adhere to patriarchal orders. The boar, the last guardian of this dying way of life, herself feels its near end: “It’s good, whoever has elders in the house, they keep the house while they are alive. What will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will stand, I don’t know.”
Looking at the relationship between his son and daughter-in-law, Kabanikha understands that everything is changing: “They don’t really respect elders nowadays ... I have long seen that you want freedom. Well, wait, live in the wild when I'm gone...”
Kabanikhi has no doubts about the correctness of the patriarchal orders, but there is also no confidence in their inviolability. Therefore, the more acutely she feels that people do not live in the Domostroev way, the more fiercely she tries to observe the form of patriarchal relations. Kabanikha stands only for the rite, she tries to preserve only the form, and not the content of the patriarchal world. If Kabanikha is the guardian of the patriarchal form of life, then Katerina is the spirit of this world, its bright side.
According to Katherine's stories about former life we see that it comes from the ideal patriarchal domostroevsky world. main meaning her former world - the love of all for all, joy, admiration for life. And before Katerina was a part of just such a world, she did not need to oppose herself to it: She is truly religious, connected with nature, with folk beliefs. She draws knowledge about the environment from conversations with wanderers. “I lived, I didn’t grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild,” she recalls. But in the end, Katerina still turns out to be a slave of this patriarchal world, its customs, traditions, and ideas. The choice has already been made for Katerina - they have been passed off as a weak-willed, unloved Tikhon. Kalinovsky world, his dying patriarchal way of life broke the harmony in the soul of the heroine. “Everything seems to be from under captivity,” she conveys her attitude. Katerina enters the Kabanov family, ready to love and honor her mother-in-law, expecting her husband to be her support. But Kabanikha does not need the love of her daughter-in-law at all, she only needs an external expression of humility: “They will not be afraid of you, and even more so. What will be the order in the house? ”
Katerina understands that Tikhon does not match her ideal husband. The relationship between her and her husband is no longer Domostroevsky, because Tikhon is characterized by the idea of ​​mercy and forgiveness. And for Katerina, this feature, according to the house-building laws, is a disadvantage (Tikhon is not a husband, not the head of the family, not the owner of the house). Thus, her respect for her husband collapses, the hope of finding support and protection in him.
Gradually, a new feeling is born in Katerina's soul, which is expressed in the desire for love. But at the same time, this feeling is perceived by Katerina as an indelible sin: “How, girl, do not be afraid! .. I’m not afraid to die, but when I think that suddenly I will appear before God the way I am here with you ... What a sin- then! Terrible to say!” Katerina perceives her love for Boris as a violation of the rules of Domostroy, a violation of the moral laws in which she was brought up. Katerina perceives betrayal of her husband as a sin in which one must repent "to the grave." Without forgiving herself, Katerina is not able to forgive another for indulgence towards her. “His caresses are worse than beatings,” she says of Tikhon, who forgave her and was ready to forget everything. tragic conflict Katerina is insoluble with herself. For her religious consciousness, the thought of a perfect sin is unbearable. Feeling the bifurcation of her inner world, the heroine already in the first act says: “Out of longing, I will do something with myself!” Feklusha with tales that “people with dog heads” got their appearance as a punishment for infidelity, and the old lady, predicting youth and beauty “whirlpool”, thunder from the sky and a picture of fiery hell for Katerina mean almost terrible “ end times”, “end of the world”, “judgment seat of God”. The soul of a woman is torn to pieces: “The whole heart is torn! I can't take it anymore!" The culmination of both the play and the heroine's mental anguish comes. Along with the external, the internal action also develops - the struggle in Katerina's soul flares up more and more. Repenting in public, Katerina takes care of the purification of the soul. But the fear of Gehenna continues to possess her.
Having repented, relieving her soul, Katerina nevertheless arbitrarily leaves this life. She cannot live by violating those moral laws that have been laid down in her since childhood. Her strong and proud nature cannot live with the consciousness of sin, having lost her inner purity. She doesn't want to justify herself. She judges herself. She doesn’t even really need Boris, his refusal to take her with him will not change anything for Katerina: she has already ruined her soul. Yes, and the Kalinovites are merciless to Katerina: “To execute you, so your sin will be removed, and you live and suffer from your sin.” The heroine of Ostrovsky, seeing that no one will execute her, eventually executes herself - she throws herself off a cliff into the Volga. It seems to her that she repays herself for sins, but only God can repay for sins, but she herself renounces God: “The light of God is not dear to me!”
Thus, if we consider central conflict plays as a conflict in the soul of the heroine, then “Thunderstorm” is a tragedy of conscience. With death, Katerina gets rid of the pangs of conscience and the oppression of an unbearable life. The patriarchal world is dying, and with it his soul is dying (in this respect, the image of Katerina is symbolic). Even Kabanikha understands that nothing can save the patriarchal world, that it is doomed. To the public repentance of the daughter-in-law, the open rebellion of the son is added: “You ruined her! You! You!"
The moral conflict taking place in the soul of Katerina exceeds in depth the social and domestic and socio-political conflicts (Katerina is the mother-in-law, Katerina is “ dark kingdom”). As a result, Katerina is not fighting with Kabanikha, she is fighting with herself. And Katerina is being destroyed not by her silly mother-in-law, but by a turning point, giving rise to a protest against old traditions and habits and a desire to live in a new way. As the soul of the patriarchal world, Katerina must perish with it. The struggle of the heroine with herself, the impossibility of resolving her conflict are signs of tragedy. The genre originality of Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm" lies in the fact that the social drama, written by the author and characterized by Dobrolyubov, is also a tragedy in the nature of the main conflict.

Genre originality of Chekhov's plays

Chekhov was not destined to write a novel, but the “new drama” became a genre that synthesized all the motifs of his novels and short stories. It was in it that Chekhov's concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, were most fully realized.

At first glance, Chekhov's dramaturgy is a kind of historical paradox.

Indeed, at the turn of the century, in the period of a new social upsurge, when a premonition of a “healthy and strong storm” was brewing in society, Chekhov created plays in which there were no bright heroic characters, strong human passions, and people lose interest in mutual clashes, in a consistent and uncompromising struggle.

Why so? I think because, if Gorky writes at that time about people of active action, who, in their opinion, know how and what to do, then Chekhov writes about people who are confused, who feel that the old way of life has been destroyed, and the new that is coming to replace it more terrible, like everything unknown.

Longing, fermentation, restlessness become a fact of people's daily existence. It is on this historical soil that the “new Chekhov drama” with its own peculiarities of poetics that violate the canons of classical Russian and Western European drama.

First of all, Chekhov destroys the “through action”, the key event that organizes the unity of the plot. classical drama. However, the drama does not fall apart, but is assembled on the basis of a different, internal unity. The fates of the characters, with all their differences, with all their plot independence, “rhyme”, echo each other and merge into a common “orchestral sound”.

With the disappearance through action in Chekhov's plays, the classical one-hero character, the concentration of the dramatic plot around the main, leading character, is also eliminated. The usual division of heroes into positive and negative, main and secondary is destroyed, each leads his own part, and the whole, as in a choir without a soloist, is born in the consonance of many equal voices and echoes.

Themes Chekhov's plays resonate with the multifaceted themes of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". He wrote about the dominance in life of stupidity, frank egoism, about the “humiliated and offended”, about human relationships, about love, about the formation of a person in society, about moral experiences. Starting with Gogol, in the literature of the 19th century, “laughter through tears”, sympathetic laughter, quickly replaced by sadness, was established. Chekhov's laughter in plays is exactly like that.

Striving for the truth of life, for naturalness, he created plays not purely dramatic or comedic, but rather complex shaping. In them, the dramatic is realized in an organic mixture with the comic, and the comic is manifested in an organic interweaving with the dramatic. a convincing example of this is the play "The Cherry Orchard". “I didn’t get a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce,” wrote Chekhov himself.

Indeed, we must admit that the basis of the play is by no means a dramatic, but a comedic beginning. First of all, positive images, which Trofimov and Anya are, are shown not at all dramatic, in their inner essence they are optimistic. Secondly, the owner of the cherry orchard, Gaev, is also portrayed mainly comically. The comic basis of the play is clearly visible, thirdly, in the comic-sotyric depiction of almost all the minor characters: Epikhodov, Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha. "The Cherry Orchard" includes explicit Vaudeville motifs, expressed in jokes, tricks, jumps, dressing up Charlotte.

But contemporaries perceived Chekhov's new work as a drama. Stanislavsky wrote that for him "The Cherry Orchard" is not a comedy, not a farce, but first of all a tragedy. And he put The Cherry Orchard” in such a dramatic way.

Chekhov opened up new possibilities for portraying character in drama. It is revealed not in the struggle to achieve the goal, but in the experience of the contradictions of being. The pathos of action is replaced by the pathos of reflection. Chekhov's "subtext", or "undercurrent", unknown to the classical drama, appears. The heroes of Ostrovsky are wholly and completely realized in the word, and this word is devoid of ambiguity, firmly and firmly, like granite. In Chekhov's heroes, on the contrary, the meanings of the word are blurred, people can't fit into a word and can't exhaust themselves with a word. Something else is important here: the hidden emotional subtext that the characters put into words. Therefore, the call of the three sisters “To Moscow! To Moscow!" by no means meant Moscow with its specific address. These are vain, but persistent attempts of the heroines to break into a different life with different relationships between people. The same in the Cherry Orchard.

In the second act of the play, in the back of the stage, Epikhodov passes - the living embodiment of awkwardness and misfortune. The following dialogue appears:

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...

Anya (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...

Gaev. The sun has set, gentlemen.

Trofimov. Yes.

They talk formally about Epikhodov and the sunset, but in essence about something else. The souls of the heroes, through fragments of words, sing about the disorder and absurdity of their entire unfinished, doomed life. With outward inconsistency and incoherence of the dialogue, there is a spiritual inner rapprochement, to which some kind of cosmic sound responds in the drama: “Everyone is sitting, thinking. Silence. All you can hear is Firs mumbling softly. Suddenly there is a distant sound, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading sad.

To depict the drama of his heroes, Ostrovsky does not take the smooth course of ordinary life, but, as it were, breaks an event out of it. For example, the story of Katerina's death is an event that shocked the inhabitants of Kalinov, revealing the tragic doom of her position.

In Chekhov, the drama lies not only in events, but also in the usual everyday monotony everyday life. The play “Uncle Vanya” depicts the life of Serebryakov’s village estate in all its everyday life: people drink tea, walk, talk about current affairs, worries, dreams and disappointments, play the guitar… in the lives of Uncle Vanya and Sonya and, therefore, are not decisive for the content of the drama, although a shot was fired on the stage. The drama of the situation of the heroes is not in these random episodes, but in the monotony and hopeless way of life for them, in the useless waste of their strengths and abilities.

An important event that changes the lives of the characters rarely occurs, and those that do occur are often taken away by Chekhov from the action. For example, Treplev's suicide in The Seagull, or the duel in The Three Sisters. In an unchanging life, people rarely find happiness - it is difficult for them to do this, because. To do this, you need to overcome immutability and routine. Not everyone can do it. But happiness always coexists with separation, death, with "something" that interferes with it in all Chekhov's plays.

Chekhov's dramas are permeated by an atmosphere of general unhappiness. They don't have happy people. Their heroes, as a rule, are not lucky either in big or small: they all turn out to be failures in one way or another. In The Seagull, for example, there are five stories failed love, in The Cherry Orchard, Epikhodov with his misfortunes is the personification of the general inconsistency of life, from which all heroes suffer.

With rare exceptions, these are people of the most common professions: teachers, officials, doctors, etc. The fact that these people are not distinguished by anything other than the fact that their life is described by Chekhov allows us to assume that the life that Chekhov's heroes lead is lived by the majority of his contemporaries.

Chekhov's innovation as a playwright lies in the fact that he deviates from the principles of classical drama and reflects not only problems by dramatic means, but also shows the psychological experiences of the characters. Chekhov's dramaturgy conquered theater stage almost all countries of the world. And in our country there is no major artist theater, cinema, who did not name Chekhov among his teachers. And in confirmation of this, Chekhov's "Seagull" is depicted on the curtains of the Moscow Art Theater.

Similar abstracts:

The play is perceived by us as a sharp denunciation of the social ulcers of society, exposing those people whose thoughts and actions are far from moral standards behavior.

Continuing and deepening the best traditions of the dramaturgy of critical realism, Chekhov strove to ensure that his plays were dominated by the truth of life, unadorned, in all its usual, everyday life.

The plays by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" and A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard" are different both in terms of problems, and in mood, and in content, but artistic functions landscapes in both plays are similar.

The play The Cherry Orchard was written by Chekhov in 1903. This time went down in history as pre-revolutionary. During this period, many progressive writers tried to comprehend the existing state of the country.

Nobility in A.P. Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a great Russian writer and playwright, whose plays invariably arouse admiration from audiences all over the world. The originality of Chekhov's plays is in the new relationship between external and internal action. The external action of Chekhov's plays is everyday, about...

The end of Chekhov's life came at the beginning of a new century, new era, new moods, aspirations and ideas. Such is the inexorable law of life: what was once young and full of strength becomes old and decrepit, giving way to a new, young and strong life.

Peculiarities of Chekhov's dramaturgy, aesthetics of plays, their genre variety. Chekhov's dramaturgy contemporary theater, the possibility of new interpretations.

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.

All representatives of the nobility are shown by Chekhov in the play as incapable of independent existence.

This work amazed contemporaries with the originality of the genre, novelty and freshness. The originality of the comedy is dictated by the era in which it was created and which found such a vivid embodiment in this brilliant poem.

What was this era? She represents the frontier transition period, the change of centuries. Ekaterina's age with its conservative social consciousness and the psychology of an inhabitant who adheres to old views, the old order, which ensures their peaceful existence, was leaving in the past. bright representative"the past century" is in the comedy Pavel Afanasyevich Famusov. He is the most consistent

and fiercely defends the ideology of his age.

The century of Catherine's favorites is being replaced by the "current century". New public consciousness awakened Patriotic War 1812. There are hopes for changes, for the abolition of serfdom, for the freedom and independence of the individual.

Alexander Andreyevich Chatsky is represented in the comedy as a supporter of the new century and social reforms.

The genre originality of the play lies in the fact that it combines the features of the fading Enlightenment classicism and the signs of a new, realistic art. In comedy, the basic rule of classicism is observed - principle of three unity The unity of place and time lies in the fact that the action takes place in one day and takes place in Famusov's house. The principle of unity of action exists only formally: there is a love triangle: Sofia - Mochalin - Chatsky. The play retains the “role system” traditional for classicism. The plot is based on love triangle. Famusov plays the role of a gullible father who is unaware of his daughter's love. Lisa plays the role of 2 soubretki ”- a servant who helps lovers. But the roles are not maintained to the end, as was customary in classicism, but are filled with a new, living meaning. For example. Famusov and Lisa also act as reasoners. A departure from tradition is the fact that Chatsky is a reasoner and a hero - a lover at the same time, moreover, in the role of a hero - a lover, he is defeated. Molchalin fits the role of a stupid lover, but it is unusual that the heroine prefers him to the smart Chatsky. Thus, it can be argued that the traditional scope of roles in comedy has been expanded. There is no happy ending in comedy, as was customary in classicism. Each of the heroes: Sophia and Chatsky - gets his own "million of torment".

Griboedov endows his heroes with " speaking names", which is also a feature of classicism. For example, the surname "Famusov" comes from English word"famous". In this surname, the typical character of the hero is emphasized. His house is a model of lordly Moscow in miniature. "Wordless" Molchalin is consistent with his last name.

The image of Chatsky embodies the features of a romantic personality. Before us is a lone hero, forever challenging the world and forever suffering defeat from him. An ardent young man, passionately in love with Sophia, has the gift of eloquence, a sharp, mocking, caustic mind.

The originality of comedy lies in the fact that two conflicts are closely intertwined in it - social and love. Let's see how the action of the play develops.

After three years wanderings Chatsky returns to Moscow to Famusov's house and is amazed at the beauty of Sophia and her coldness towards him. All the forces of the hero's soul are spent on resolving the "mystery" of Sophia. But gradually love conflict develops into a public one when Famusov puts forward conditions for Chatsky under which he can claim the hand of Sophia:

First of all, I would say: don’t be blissful,

Name, brother, do not manage by mistake,

And, most importantly, go and serve.

But the young man aptly retorts: I would be glad to serve, it is sickening to serve. A verbal duel begins between representatives different centuries, everyone defends his position and does not intend to give up. Famusov's fussiness in front of Colonel Skalozub irritates Chatsky: he suspects an opponent. Chatsky does not believe Sofya, who paints Molchalin in the best light, takes this as a mockery.

In the ball scene, the social and love conflict culminates. Sophia, offended by Chatsky's harsh review of the object of her love, deliberately spreads slander about Chatsky's madness. Society unites in the fight against the "freethinker".

Thus, the originality of the genre of A. Griboedov's play lies in the fact that it combines the traditional features of classicism and romanticism and at the same time is a work of a new direction - critical realism.

The genre nature of The Cherry Orchard has always been controversial. Chekhov himself called it a comedy - "a comedy in four acts" (although a special type of comedy). M. Gorky called this work " lyrical comedy". Quite often the play is defined as "tragicomedy", "ironic tragicomedy".

Chekhov wrote: "I did not come out with a drama, but a comedy, in places even a farce." The author denied the characters of The Cherry Orchard the right to drama: they seemed to him incapable of deep feelings. K.S. Stanislavsky, in his time (in 1904), staged a tragedy, with which Chekhov did not agree.

In the play there are tricks of a booth, tricks (Charlotta Ivanovna), blows with a stick on the head, after pathetic monologues, farcical scenes follow, then a lyrical note appears again ... closet"), funny, inappropriate replicas and out of place answers, comic situations arising from a misunderstanding between the characters.

Chekhov's play is both funny and sad and even tragic at the same time. There are many crying people in it, but these are not dramatic sobs, and not even tears, but only the mood of faces. Chekhov emphasizes that the sadness of his heroes is often superficial, that their tears hide the usual for the weak and nervous people tearfulness.

Combination of comic and serious - distinguishing feature Chekhov's poetics, starting from the first years of his work.

Play conflict.

The external plot of the "Cherry Orchard" - change of owners of the house and garden, sale family estate for debts. At first glance, the play clearly indicates the opposing forces that reflect the alignment of social forces in Russia at that time: old, noble Russia (Ranevskaya and Gaev), entrepreneurs gaining strength (Lopakhin), young, future Russia (Petya and Anya). It would seem that the clash of these forces should give rise to the main conflict of the play.

Characters focused on major event in their life - at the sale of the cherry orchard, scheduled for August 22. However, the viewer does not become a witness of the sale of the garden itself: the seemingly climactic event remains outside the scene.

social conflict in the play is not relevant, not social status actors is the main thing. Lopakhin - this "predator"-entrepreneur - is depicted not without sympathy (like most of the characters in the play), and the owners of the estate do not resist him. Moreover, the estate, as it were, turns out to be in his hands, against his will. It would seem that in the third act the fate of the cherry orchard is decided, Lopakhin bought it. Moreover, the denouement of the external plot is even optimistic: “Gaev (cheerfully). In fact, everything is fine now. Before the sale of the cherry orchard, we all worried, suffered, and then, when the issue was finally resolved, irrevocably, everyone calmed down, even cheered up ... I'm a bank employee, now I'm a financier ... yellow in the middle, and you, Lyuba, like - no way, you look better, that's for sure."

However, the play does not end, the author writes the fourth act, in which nothing new seems to be happening. But the motif of the garden resounds here. At the beginning of the play, the garden, which is in danger, attracts the whole family, gathered after a five-year separation. But no one is allowed to save him, he is no more, and in the fourth act everyone leaves again. The death of the garden led to the breakup of the family, scattered all the former inhabitants of the estate around the cities and villages. Silence sets in - the play ends, the motif of the garden falls silent. This is the external plot of the play.

Behind everyday episodes and details, one can feel the movement of the “undercurrent” of the play, its second plan. Chekhov's theater is built on semitones, on reticence, on the "parallelism" of questions and answers without genuine communication. It has been noted that the main thing in Chekhov's dramas is hidden behind the words, concentrated in the famous pauses: in The Seagull, for example, there are 32 pauses, in Uncle Vanya - 43, in The Three Sisters - 60, in The Cherry Orchard - 32. There was no such "silent" dramaturgy before Chekhov. Pauses largely form the subtext of the play, its mood, create a feeling of intense expectation, listening to the underground rumble of impending upheavals.

The motive of loneliness, misunderstanding, confusion is the leading motive of the play. He determines the mood, the attitude of all the characters, for example, Charlotte Ivanovna, who asks herself first of all: "Who am I, why am I unknown." Cannot find the “right direction” Epikhodov (“twenty-two misfortunes”): “... I just can’t understand the direction of what I really want, to live or shoot myself.” Firs understood the previous order, “and now everything is in disarray, you won’t understand anything.” And even the pragmatic Lopakhin only sometimes “seems” that he understands why he lives in the world.

Misunderstanding, the focus of each character in the play solely on their own experiences appear with particular clarity in the following dialogue:

Lyubov Andreevna. Who's smoking disgusting cigars here...

Gaev. Here railway built, and it became convenient. We went to the city and had breakfast... yellow in the middle! I'd like to go to the house first, play one game...

Lopakhin. Only one word! (Pleading.) Give me an answer!

GAYEV (yawning). Whom?

LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (looks in her purse). Yesterday there was a lot of money, and today there is very little ... "

There is no dialogue, replicas are random, the present seems unsteady, and the future is unclear and disturbing. A.P. Skaftymov comments: “Chekhov has many such “random” remarks, they are everywhere, and the dialogue is constantly torn, broken and confused in some apparently completely extraneous and unnecessary trifles. It is not the objective meaning that is important in them, but the well-being of life. Everyone speaks (or is silent, and silence becomes more eloquent than words) about his own, and this own turns out to be inaccessible to others.

For Ranevskaya and Gaev, Lopakhin's proposal to give the estate for dachas, cutting down the old cherry orchard, seems basely "material", vulgar: "Dachas and summer residents - it's so vulgar, sorry," replies Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. Those 25 thousand annual income that Lopakhin promises them cannot compensate the owners for something very important - the memory of the dear past, the beauty of the garden. For them, demolishing a house and cutting down a garden means losing their property. According to A.P. Skaftymov, “all the faces of the play have something emotionally dear inside, and for all of them it is shown by Chekhov as equally inaccessible to everyone around.”

Each character has something that drowns out the pain of parting with the cherry orchard (or the joy of acquisition). After all, Ranevskaya and Gaev could easily avoid ruin, for this it was only worth renting out a cherry orchard. But they refuse. On the other hand, Lopakhin, after acquiring a cherry orchard, will not escape despondency and sadness. He suddenly addresses Ranevskaya with words of reproach: “Why, why didn’t you listen to me? My poor, good, you will not return now. And in tune with the whole course of the play, the moods of all the characters, Lopakhin utters his famous phrase: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.” The life of all the heroes is absurd and awkward.

The reason for the discord, the source of the conflict, is not in the struggle for the cherry orchard, but in the general dissatisfaction with life, according to A. P. Skaftymov: “ Life is going and in vain quarrels with everyone for a long time, day after day. The bitterness of the life of these people, their drama, therefore, does not consist in a special sad event, but precisely in this long, ordinary, gray, one-color, everyday everyday state.

But, unlike the classical drama of the 19th century, the culprit of suffering and failure in the play is not personified, not named, it is not one of the characters. And the reader turns his questioning gaze beyond the scene - into the very device, the "addition" of life, in the face of which all the characters turn out to be powerless. The main conflict of Chekhov's plays - "bitter dissatisfaction with the very composition of life" - remains unresolved.

Chekhov, in his plays, and with the greatest force in The Cherry Orchard, expressed the moods of the turn of the era, when the rumble of impending historical cataclysms was clearly felt. It is symptomatic that in the same 1904, when The Cherry Orchard was staged, a poem by the symbolist poet Z. Gippius, close in emotional sensation to reality, was written, in which dissatisfaction with modernity and knowledge of the upcoming changes were extremely expressively expressed.

In the play, everyone lives in anticipation of an inevitable impending catastrophe: parting not with a cherry orchard, but with a whole thousand-year era - a thousand-year way of Russian life. And no one knows yet, but already has a presentiment that under the ax of Lopakhin not only the garden will die, but also much of what is dear to both Ranevskaya and Lopakhin, and to those who believed that “everything will be different” - Anya and Petya Trofimov. Before such a future, the plot conflict of The Cherry Orchard turns out to be illusory.

Chekhov's creativity rightly called an encyclopedia of spiritual quests of its time, in which there was no general idea. In one of his letters, Chekhov wrote about his epoch of timelessness: “We have neither immediate nor distant goals, and in our soul there is even a rolling ball. We have no politics, we do not believe in revolution, there is no God, we are not afraid of ghosts, and I personally am not even afraid of death and blindness ... has its own good goals hidden from us and was not sent without reason ... "

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