Old and new owners of the garden. Old and new owners of the cherry orchard (School essays)
The prototypes of Ranevskaya, according to the author, were Russian ladies who lived idly in Monte Carlo, whom Chekhov observed abroad in 1900 and at the beginning of 1901: “And what insignificant women ... [about a certain lady. – V.K.] “she lives here from nothing to do, she only eats and drinks ...” How many Russian women die here ”(from a letter by O. L. Knipper).
At first, the image of Ranevskaya seems to us sweet and attractive. But then it acquires stereoscopicity, complexity: the lightness of her turbulent experiences is revealed, the exaggeration in expressing feelings: “I can’t sit, I’m not able. (Jumps up and walks around in great agitation.) I won't survive this joy... Laugh at me, I'm stupid... My dear closet. (He kisses the closet.) My table ... "At one time, the literary critic D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky even stated, referring to the behavior of Ranevskaya and Gaev:" The terms "frivolity" and "emptiness" are no longer used here in a walking and general , and in a closer - psychopathological - sense, the behavior of these characters in the play is "incompatible with the concept of a normal, healthy psyche." But the fact of the matter is that all the characters in Chekhov's play are normal, ordinary people, only their ordinary life and everyday life are viewed by the author as if through a magnifying glass.
Ranevskaya, despite the fact that her brother (Leonid Andreevich Gaev) calls her a "vicious woman", oddly enough, inspires respect and love from all the characters in the play. Even the lackey Yasha, who, as a witness to her Parisian secrets, is quite capable of familiar treatment, does not come to mind to be cheeky with her. Culture and intelligence gave Ranevskaya the charm of harmony, sobriety of mind, subtlety of feelings. She is smart, able to tell the bitter truth about herself and about others, for example, about Petya Trofimov, to whom she says: “You have to be a man, at your age you need to understand those who love. And you have to love yourself... “I am higher than love!” You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a klutz.”
And yet in Ranevskaya much evokes sympathy. For all the lack of will, sentimentality, she is characterized by the breadth of nature, the ability for disinterested kindness. This attracts Petya Trofimov. And Lopakhin says about her: “She is a good person. Easy, simple man.
Ranevskaya's double, but a less significant personality, is Gaev in the play, it is no coincidence that he is presented in the list of characters by belonging to his sister: "Ranevskaya's brother." And he is sometimes able to say smart things, sometimes be sincere, self-critical. But the sister's shortcomings - frivolity, impracticality, lack of will - become caricatured by Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna only kisses the closet in a fit of tenderness, while Gaev makes a speech in front of him in "high style". In his own eyes, he is an aristocrat of the highest circle, as if Lopakhin does not notice and tries to put "this boor" in his place. But his contempt - the contempt of an aristocrat who ate his fortune "on candies" - is ridiculous.
Gaev is infantile, absurd, for example, in the following scene:
"Firs. Leonid Andreevich, you are not afraid of God! When to sleep?
GAYEV (Waving off Firs). I’ll undress myself, so be it.”
Gaev is another variant of spiritual degradation, emptiness and vulgarity.
It has been noted more than once in the history of literature, the unwritten "history" of the reader's perception of Chekhov's works, that he seemed to have a special prejudice towards the high society - towards noble, aristocratic Russia. These characters - landowners, princes, generals - appear in Chekhov's stories and plays not only empty, colorless, but sometimes stupid, ill-bred. (A. A. Akhmatova, for example, reproached Chekhov: “But how did he describe the representatives of the upper classes ... He did not know these people! He did not know anyone higher than the assistant to the head of the station ... Everything is wrong, wrong!”)
However, it is hardly worth seeing in this fact Chekhov's certain tendentiousness or his incompetence, the writer was not interested in the knowledge of life. This is not the point, not the social "registration" of Chekhov's characters. Chekhov did not idealize the representatives of any estate, any social group, he was, as you know, outside of politics and ideology, outside of social preferences. All classes “got it” from the writer, and the intelligentsia too: “I don’t believe in our intelligentsia, hypocritical, false, hysterical, ill-mannered, lazy, I don’t believe even when it suffers and complains, because its oppressors come out of its own depths” .
With that high cultural, moral, ethical and aesthetic exactingness, with that wise humor with which Chekhov approached man in general and his era in particular, social differences lost their meaning. This is the peculiarity of his "funny" and "sad" talent. In The Cherry Orchard itself, there are not only idealized characters, but also unconditionally positive heroes (this also applies to Lopakhin (“modern” Chekhov Russia), and to Anya and Petya Trofimov (Russia of the future).
The "old" owners of the cherry orchard are Gaev and Ranevskaya. The garden itself and the whole estate belong to them from childhood. The cherry orchard for them is just a memory of the past.
According to the story, Ranevskaya is a kind, interesting, charming, carefree woman, her flaw is indecision, because of which she does not know how to manage the estate and her life at all. It is because of this quality that she loses the garden and hopes that someone else will save it.
Did not show himself better and Gaev. About the hero, the author says: "stupid" and constantly shows his inability to make vital and everyday decisions. The fate of the cherry orchard in his hands is destructive, and he is definitely not able to save a piece of his estate.
Under the image of the garden, Chekhov depicts Russia, and under the heroes described above - the average inhabitants, transiently and meaninglessly living their lives.
Lopakhin became the "new" owner. The writer speaks very positively about him - he says that he is very "decisive". This hero is a storehouse of the best qualities collected in one person. Energetic, active, decisive. The only, as it seems to many, Lopakhin's "minus" is his position in life - "time is money." But precisely because of this, the hero looks at the cherry orchard as his future property, which he is ready to defend and defend. For him, there are no beautiful poppies and the fragrance of cherries - for him this is just the territory that he needs.
Updated: 2017-10-30
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Old and new owners of the cherry orchard (Based on the play by A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard")
The connection of times has broken...
W. Shakespeare
In one of the books devoted to the work of A.P. Chekhov, I read that the image of Hamlet helped him understand a lot in the guise of his contemporaries. Literary critics have paid much attention to this issue, but I will note what struck me in the play “The Cherry Orchard”, this “swan song” of the great playwright: like the Prince of Denmark, Chekhov’s heroes feel lost in the world, bitter loneliness. In my opinion, this applies to all the characters in the play, but above all to Ranevskaya and Gaev, the former owners of the cherry orchard, who turned out to be “superfluous” people both in their own home and in life. What is the reason for this? It seems to me that every hero of the play "The Cherry Orchard" is looking for a life support. For Gaev and Ranevskaya, it is the past, which cannot be a support. Lyubov Andreevna will never understand her daughter, but after all, Anya will never truly realize the mother's drama. Lopakhin, who passionately loves Lyubov Andreevna, will never be able to understand her dismissive attitude towards the “practical side of life”, but Ranevskaya also does not want to let him into the world of her feelings: “My dear, forgive me, you don’t understand anything.” All this brings a special drama to the play. “An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” Chekhov described Ranevskaya in his letter to Stanislavsky.
What's in the past? Youth, family life, a blooming cherry orchard - all this is over. The husband died, the estate fell into decay, a new painful passion arose. And then the irreparable happened: Grisha's son died. For Ranevskaya, the feeling of loss was combined with guilt. She runs away from home, from memories, that is, she tries to abandon the past. However, new happiness did not happen. And Ranevskaya takes a new step. She returns home, tears up a telegram from her lover: it's over with Paris! However, this is just another return to the past: to your pain, to longing, to your cherry orchard. But at home, where five “Parisian years” were faithfully waiting for her, she is a stranger. Everyone condemns her for something: for frivolity, for love for a scoundrel, for a coin given to a beggar.
In the list of characters, Ranevskaya is designated with one word: “landowner”. But this landowner never knew how to manage her estate, she could not save her beloved cherry orchard from destruction. The role of the landowner has been “played out”.
But after all, Ranevskaya is also a mother. However, this role is also in the past: Anya leaves for a new life, where there is no place for Lyubov Andreevna, even the gray Varya managed to get settled in her own way.
Returning to stay forever, Ranevskaya only completes her past life. All her hopes that she would be happy at home (“God knows, I love my homeland, I love dearly, I couldn’t look out of the car, I kept crying”), that “a heavy stone would be removed from my shoulders” are in vain. The return did not take place: in Russia it is superfluous. Neither the generation of today's "business people" nor the romantic youth, all aspiring to the future, can understand it. The return to Paris - albeit imaginary, but still a salvation, although this is a return to another past. And in Ranevskaya's favorite cherry orchard, an ax is knocking!
Gaev is another character that can be categorized as "superfluous people". Leonid Andreevich, a middle-aged man who has already lived most of his life, looks like an aged boy. But after all, all people dream of saving a young soul! Why is Gaev sometimes annoying? The thing is, he's just plain stupid. He did not preserve youth with its romance and rebelliousness, but helplessness, superficiality.
The sound of billiard balls, like a favorite toy, can instantly heal his soul (“Double... yellow in the middle...”).
Who is the real master of life in this world?
Unlike the previous owners of the cherry orchard, whose feelings are directed to the past, Lopakhin is all in the present. “Ham,” Gaev unequivocally characterizes him. According to Petya, Lopakhin has a “thin and tender soul”, and “fingers, like an artist”. Interestingly, both are right. And in this correctness lies the paradox of Lopakhin's image.
“A man is a man”, despite all the wealth that he earned with sweat and blood, Lopakhin continuously works, is in a constant business fever. The past (“My dad was a man ... he didn’t teach me, but only beat me drunk ...”) echoes in him with stupid words, inappropriate jokes, falling asleep over a book.
But Lopakhin is sincere and kind. He takes care of the Gaevs, offering them a project to save them from ruin.
But it is precisely here that a dramatic conflict begins, which lies not in class antagonism, but in the culture of feelings. Saying the words “demolish”, “cut down”, “clean”, Lopakhin does not even imagine what emotional shock he plunges his former benefactors into.
The more actively Lopakhin acts, the deeper the gulf becomes between him and Ranevskaya, for whom the sale of the garden means death: “If you really need to sell it, then sell me with the garden.” And in Lopakhin, a feeling of some deprivation, incomprehensibility is growing.
Let us recall how clearly the former and new masters of life appear in the third act of the play. Lopakhin and Gaev left for the city for auction. And fun in the house! A small orchestra is playing, but there is nothing to pay the musicians. The fate of the heroes is decided, and Charlotte shows tricks. But then Lopakhin appears, and under the bitter lamentation of Ranevskaya, his words are heard: “I bought! .. Let everything be as I wish! .. I can pay for everything!...”. The “master of life” instantly turns into a boor who boasts of his wealth.
Lopakhin did everything to save the owners of the cherry orchard, but he did not have enough elementary spiritual tact to preserve their dignity: after all, he was in such a hurry to clear the area for the “present” from the “past”.
But Lopakhin’s triumph is short-lived, and now something else is heard in his monologue: “Oh, if only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.”
So the life of the cherry orchard ended under the “sound of a broken string, fading and sad”, and the immortality of the “sad comedy” of the great Russian playwright began, exciting the hearts of readers and viewers for a hundred years now.
The main themes of the play The Cherry Orchard, written in 1904, are: the death of a noble nest, the victory of an enterprising merchant-manufacturer over the obsolete Ranevskaya and Gaev, and the theme of the future of Russia, associated with the images of Petya Trofimov and Anya.
The parting of the new, young Russia with the past, with the obsolete one, the aspiration for tomorrow in Russia - this is the content of The Cherry Orchard.
The Russia of the past, which is becoming obsolete in the play, is represented by the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev. For both heroes, the cherry orchard is dear, dear as a memory of childhood, youth, prosperity, an easy and elegant life. They cry about the loss of the garden, but it was they who ruined it, gave it to the axe. At the same time, they remained true to the beauty of the cherry orchard, and therefore they are so insignificant and ridiculous.
Ranevskaya - in the past, a wealthy noblewoman, who even had a dacha in the south of France in Menton, the owner of an estate, "there is nothing more beautiful in the world." But with her misunderstanding of life, her inability to adapt to it, her lack of will and frivolity, the hostess has brought the estate to complete ruin, to the point that the estate will be sold at auction!
Lopakhin, an enterprising merchant-manufacturer, offers the owners of the estate a way to save the estate. He says that all you need to do is lay out a cherry orchard for dachas. But although Ranevskaya sheds tears about the loss of her garden, although she cannot live without it, she still refuses Lopakhin's offer to save the estate. Selling or renting garden plots seems to her unacceptable and offensive. But the bidding goes on, and Lopakhin buys the estate himself.
And when the "trouble" struck, it turned out that there was no drama for the hostess of the cherry orchard. Ranevskaya returns to Paris to her ridiculous "love", to which she would have returned anyway, despite all her words that she cannot live without a homeland. The drama with the sale of the cherry orchard is not at all a drama for its owner. This happened only because Ranevskaya did not have any serious experiences at all. She can easily move from a state of concern, anxiety to a cheerful revival. That is what happened this time as well. She quickly calmed down and even declared to everyone: "My nerves are better, it's true."
And what is her brother, Leonid Andreevich Gaev? He is much smaller than his sister. He is able to say simple, sincere words, realizing with shame his own vulgarity and stupidity. But Gaev's shortcomings reach caricature proportions. Remembering the past, Ranevskaya kisses her favorite closet. Gaev makes a speech before him. Gaev is a miserable aristocrat who ate his fortune on candy.
The failure of the noble liberal intelligentsia in the past determined the dominance of people like Lopakhin in the present. But in fact, Chekhov associates future prosperity with the younger generation (Petya Trofimov and Anya), it is they who will have to build a new Russia, plant new cherry orchards.
The play "The Cherry Orchard" is Chekhov's last work. In the eighties, Chekhov conveyed the tragic situation of people who have lost the meaning of their lives. The play was staged at the Art Theater in 1904. The twentieth century is coming, and Russia is finally becoming a capitalist country, a country of factories, factories and railways. This process accelerated with the liberation of the peasantry by Alexander II. The features of the new relate not only to the economy, but also to society, the ideas and views of people are changing, the old system of values is being lost.
My life, my youth
my happiness, goodbye!
A. P. Chekhov
Chekhov, unlike many of his predecessors, does not have a central character around whom the plot would be built. All characters are given in a complex interaction, and none of them, except for Yasha, can be unambiguously characterized. The image of Ranevskaya is especially complicated.
Chekhov never for a moment lets the reader forget about the difficult situation in which Gaev and Ranevskaya found themselves. Their family estate is mortgaged. All deadlines have passed, but Gaev has not returned the money taken on bail. The estate has become the property of the bank and will be sold at auction.
Lyubov Andreevna is loved by all the characters: relatives, Lopakhin, and servants. And she seems to love everyone too. Her affectionate smile, gentle words are addressed to everyone without exception, even to the room: "Children's, my dear, beautiful room ..." Subtly, carefully and unobtrusively, already at the beginning of the play, Chekhov makes his own adjustments to our perception of this sweet and charming woman. The further, the more. In the same first act, Lyubov Andreevna exclaims with emotion: “God knows, I love my homeland, I love dearly, I couldn’t look out of the carriage, I kept crying ... However, I must drink coffee.” With all the kindest attitude towards Ranevskaya, you feel how such a sharp and unexpected transition to coffee involuntarily reduces the pathos of her lofty speeches. And after that comes another significant episode. To the words of Gaev that the nanny had died, Lyubov Andreevna, drinking coffee, remarks: “Yes, the kingdom of heaven. They wrote to me." The dryness of the heroine in this episode is striking: for the nursery, she found warmer words.
Ranevskaya's mood changes almost instantly. She either cries, or laughs, or acutely feels the impending threat, or flatters herself with groundless hopes for a miraculous salvation. Very important in this regard is the scene of the ball in the third act, arranged at the insistence of Ranevskaya on the day of the auction. Her thoughts all the time there, in the city, at the auction, she cannot forget about the fate of the cherry orchard for a minute, but she speaks aloud about something else, optional, accidental. This is the whole Ranevskaya.
Her frivolity affects her personal life as well. How could she love such an unworthy man, leaving her twelve-year-old daughter for him? However, justice requires admitting that in love Ranevskaya behaves nobly: when her chosen one fell ill, she “did not know rest day or night for three years.” And now “he is sick, he is lonely, unhappy, and who will look after him there, who will keep him from making mistakes, who will give him medicine in time?” As you can see, Lyubov Andreevna is not thinking about herself. She rushes to help, as they rush, without hesitation, to the perishing. Will she save him? Most likely not, just as they did not save Gaev and the cherry orchard.
Lopakhin kept wondering: why are they so indifferent to the fate of the estate, why are they not doing anything, why are they in no hurry to cut down the cherry orchard and get a lot of money at the same time? “Forgive me, I have never met such frivolous people like you, gentlemen, such unbusinesslike, strange people,” he says.
Yes, they are non-business people. Is it good or bad? The behavior of Gaev and Ranevskaya seems strange to Lopakhin from the standpoint of sober calculation. Indeed, why did they never accept his proposal? For Lopakhin, the destruction of the cherry orchard is reasonable and expedient, because it is profitable. But he cannot understand in any way that in this case the benefit is not of decisive importance for Ranevskaya and Gaev. material from the site
The former owners of the cherry orchard have one undeniable advantage that elevates them above all other characters: they understand what a cherry orchard is, they feel their involvement in beauty, firmly aware that beauty is not for sale. And yet they did not save the cherry orchard. And we are very sorry for Ranevskaya and her brother, who are losing everything. At the very end of the play, we see an amazing scene. Lyubov Andreevna and Gaev were left alone. “They were definitely waiting for this, throwing themselves on each other’s necks and sobbing restrainedly, quietly, afraid that they would not be heard.” Gaev in despair repeats only two words: “My sister, my sister!” The Cherry Orchard personified youth, purity, happiness for them. What lies ahead for them? It is unlikely that Gaev will be able to work. And Ranevskaya will very quickly spend the money sent by her grandmother. What will happen next? It's scary to imagine. That is why, knowing that they themselves are to blame for everything, we still feel sorry for them and weep with them.
