Any society consists of specific people, they, in turn, are a reflection of this society, era and values ​​inherent in that time. People come up with ideologies and rules of life and they themselves are then forced to follow them. Inconsistency with his time always knocks a person out of society, while paying close attention of others to him. The problem of a person in society is raised by many poets, writers, playwrights. Let's consider how Chekhov solves this problem in the play "The Cherry Orchard".

Anton Pavlovich tried to reflect the social contradictions associated with changes in the economic structure.

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For example, Lopakhin is skillfully joining the new economic life of the country. The most important thing for him is to have money. Ermolai Alekseevich can be called a kind of businessman of that time. He knows how to handle the estate and the cherry orchard, is practical, knows how to manage the budget, make money. To get more profit, Lopakhin comes up with a plan: to cut down the garden and divide it into small plots that can be rented out. Such an enterprising businessman personifies a person who skillfully adapts to the conditions of the surrounding world, does not miss the opportunity to get better in a new society.

Lopakhin's opposite is Ranevskaya. Lyubov Andreevna, accustomed to a life of abundance and even luxury, cannot live within her means and, being completely in debt, still continues to live in grand style. Even when her only remaining estate was put up for sale, she still eats in restaurants, distributes tips. And when the servant had nothing to feed, he gives the gold to a passer-by. Ranevskaya does not understand that it is not enough for a nobleman to have some kind of external veneer; it is also necessary to use finances wisely and manage the estate. This requires a new time.

What do we see in the end? Ranevskaya is completely ruined, losing her cherry orchard, and Lopakhin is now rich, and he realizes that his fortune will soon increase. Yes, of course, we feel sorry for Lyubov Andreevna, but the time of the "Ranevskys" is gone, and people like her need to change in order to fully exist.

Society is sometimes cruel. To live well and with dignity in it, you need to try to be energetic, purposeful and, of course, progressive, because the world itself is changing every day, and we must correspond to it.

Updated: 2018-02-05

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PAST AND FUTURE IN THE PLAY "CHERRY GARDEN"

“The connection of times has fallen apart,” Hamlet realizes with horror, when in the Danish kingdom, having barely buried the sovereign, they play the wedding of the dowager queen and the brother of the deceased, when magnificent palaces of new life are erected on a newly filled grave. The most difficult thing is to grasp how this happens - the change of eras, the destruction of the old way of life. Then, decades later, historians will identify the turning point, but rarely do contemporaries realize what time is in the yard. And even less often, realizing, they will say, as Tyutchev said: "Blessed is he who visited this world in its fateful moments."

It's scary to live in “fateful moments”. It's scary, because people get lost in a misunderstanding why everything that has stood for centuries suddenly collapses, why the strong walls that protected grandfathers and great-grandfathers suddenly turn out to be cardboard decorations. In such an uncomfortable world, blown by all the winds of history, man seeks support: some in the past, some in the future. They do not look for support in their loved ones. The people around you are just as confused and overwhelmed. And yet a person is looking for the guilty who arranged all this. The guilty ones are most often those who are near: parents, children, acquaintances.

In The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov not only created images of people whose lives fell on a turning point, but captured time itself in its movement. The heroes of The Cherry Orchard are people caught in a tectonic split formed in time, forced to live, that is, to love and rejoice, in this crevasse of the circumstances of a great history. This destructive moment is the time of their only life, which has its own special private laws and goals. And they live above the abyss, are doomed to live. And the content of their life is the destruction of what was the life of previous generations.

“An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” Chekhov characterized Ranevskaya in his letters to Stanislavsky. What is her past? Her youth, family life, blooming and fruitful cherry orchard - it all ended several years ago, ended tragically. Ranevskaya is running from home, running from the cherry orchard, from her daughters, from her brother, from the river where her son drowned, from her whole previous life, from her past, which turned into an irreparable catastrophe. He runs to never return, runs to end his sinful and absurd life after the death of his son somewhere. But Ranevskaya returns to the house, where everyone loves her, where everyone is waiting for her and where everyone reproaches her for something: for depravity, for frivolity. Ranevskaya acutely feels this, accepts the justice of reproaches, constantly feels her guilt. But next to the feeling of guilt, alienation grows in her. And the further, the clearer it becomes that she is a stranger here.

In the list of characters, Ranevskaya is designated in one word: "landowner". But this is a landowner who never knew how to manage her estate, passionately loved it and could not keep it. Her escape from the estate after the death of her son, mortgage and re-mortgage of this estate ... Nominally - a landowner, in fact - a child of this cherry orchard, unable to save him from ruin and death. Returning to stay forever, Ranevskaya is only completing her previous life, making sure that it is impossible to enter the same river twice. All her hopes turned into a memorial service for her former life. The past has died, gone irrevocably. The homeland did not accept the prodigal daughter. The return did not take place. The ghostly Parisian life turns out to be the only reality. Ranevskaya leaves for France, and in Russia, in her cherry orchard, an ax is already knocking.

The future in the play belongs to Peta Trofimov and Anya. Lonely and restless, Petya wanders across Russia. Homeless, worn out, practically beggar. Petya lives in a different world than the other characters in the comedy. He lives in a world of ideas that exists in parallel with the real world. Ideas, grandiose plans, socio-philosophical systems - this is Petya's world, his element. Petya's relationship with the real world is very tense. He does not know how to live in it, for those around him he is absurd and strange, ridiculous and pathetic: "shabby gentleman", "eternal student." He cannot finish his course at any university, he is expelled from everywhere. He is out of tune with things, everything always breaks with him, gets lost, falls. But in the world of ideas, he soars. There everything turns out deftly and smoothly, there he subtly captures all the laws, deeply understands the hidden essence of phenomena, is ready and able to explain everything. And after all, all of Petya's arguments about the life of modern Russia are correct.

But now he undertakes to talk not about ideas, but about their real implementation. And immediately his speech begins to sound pompous and absurd: "All Russia is our garden ... Humanity is moving towards the highest truth, to the highest happiness that is possible on earth, and I am in the forefront!"

Petya thinks in the same shallow way about human relationships, about things that are not subject to logic, which contradicts the harmonious system of the world of ideas. How funny and vulgar his words sound: "We are higher than love!" For him, love - for the past, for a person, for home, love in general, this very feeling - is inaccessible. And that is why the spiritual world of Petit is flawed for Chekhov. And Petya, no matter how correctly he reasoned about the horror of serfdom and about the need to redeem the past with work and suffering, is as far from a true understanding of life as Gaev or Varya. It is no coincidence that Anya, a young girl, who still has no opinion of her own, is placed next to Petya. Of all the inhabitants and guests of the estate, only Anya managed to captivate Petya Trofimov with her ideas, she alone takes him absolutely seriously. And so they walk in pairs: Petya, hostile to the world of things, and young, who does not know life, Anya. And Petya's goal is clear and definite: "forward to the star."

Chekhov's comedy surprisingly captured the entire absurdity of Russian life at the end of the century, when the old had already ended and the new had not yet begun. Some heroes confidently go forward, leaving the cherry orchard without regret. Other heroes suffer painfully from the loss of the garden. For them, this is a loss of connection with their own past, with their roots, without which they only have to somehow survive the allotted years. The salvation of the garden lies in its radical reconstruction, but new life means, first of all, the death of the past.

Now, close to the new turn of the century, in the modern turmoil of the end of an era, the destruction of the old and frantic attempts to create a new one, "The Cherry Orchard" sounds to us quite different from what it sounded ten years ago. It turned out that the time of the action of Chekhov's comedy is not only the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. It is written about timelessness in general, about that vague predawn hour that fell on our lives, and determined our destinies.

AP CHEKHOV'S IMAGE OF NEW LIFE IN THE PLAY "CHERRY GARDEN"

The play "The Cherry Orchard" was created by Chekhov in 1903. Her problems were relevant for that time, she answered questions that worried Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century.

Chekhov showed in the play the death of the noble class as a result of the collapse of the economic foundations of the noble society and its spiritual crisis, the death that was historically natural. The remnants of the feudal-noble system and everyday life were supposed to collapse and inevitably collapsed under the pressure of capitalism. The Ranevsky and Gayevs were replaced by a new social force - the bourgeoisie, embodied in the image of the enterprising merchant-industrialist Lopakhin.

Lopakhin is a smart energetic businessman, a man of a new formation, who came out of the ranks of the serf peasantry. Huge energy, enterprise, wide scope of work - all these traits are characteristic of him. He is generally a kind, warm-hearted person, which is clear from his attitude to Ranevskaya. He offers a correct plan for saving Ranevskaya's estate, but she rejects this plan, considering it unworthy. Lopakhin is not devoid of an aesthetic feeling and admires the picture of a blooming poppy, but his sober practical mind is always aimed at business operations. He immediately says that he received forty thousand income from this poppy. Trofimov notes that Lopakhin has "thin, gentle fingers, like an artist ... a thin, gentle soul."

Lopakhin becomes the owner of the estate created by the labor of his ancestors. And here he triumphs, here the features of Lopakhin the money-grubber and Lopakhin the predator are manifested: “Let everything be as I wish! There is a new landowner, the owner of the cherry orchard! I can pay for everything! ”

Chekhov is worried about who is able to inherit the wealth of Russian life, the symbol of which is the luxurious cherry orchard and the Ranevskaya estate in the play. Lopakhin is incapable of rising to the level of understanding national interests. This buyer of manor houses is barbarously destroying a cherry orchard, which has no equal in Russia. Without suspecting it, he plays the role of a “beast of prey”, eating “everything that comes his way”.

But Ani's path to a new life is difficult. In character, she is in many ways similar to her mother. At the beginning of the play, Anya is careless, since she is used to living carefree, not thinking about tomorrow. But all this does not prevent Anya from breaking with her usual views and way of life. Her new views are still naive, but she forever says goodbye to the old house and the old world. Addressing her mother, Anya says: “Come with me, come, dear, from here, come! We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this, you will see it, you will understand, and joy, quiet, deep joy will descend on your soul, like the sun in the evening hour, and you will smile, Mom! ”

In this enthusiastic, full of deep feeling and poetry, Anya's exclamation is about a blooming, luxurious garden, into which the whole of Russia should turn.

"Hello, new life!" - these words at the end of the play even more convincingly prove the proximity of happiness, "whose footsteps are already audible."

Trofimov and Anya are young Russia, the Russia of the future, which is replacing the Russia of the Ranevskys and Lopakhins.

This is how the spirit of the liberation movement and Chekhov's passionate dream of a free man and a wonderful life were expressed in The Cherry Orchard.

The social significance of The Cherry Orchard lies in the fact that in this play Chekhov expressed confidence in the proximity of events that would turn Russia into a “new blooming garden”.

Chekhov's delusions consisted in the fact that, a little before 1905, he did not see the main revolutionary force - the proletariat, and he saw the future of Russia in the diverse intelligentsia.

TIME AND MEMORY IN THE PLAY "CHERRY GARDEN"

The play "The Cherry Orchard" was written in 1903, shortly before the death of A. P. Chekhov. Like any play, it is inhabited by various characters: among them are the main, secondary, episodic. They all say, suffer, rejoice. Each hero has his own face, clothes, habits, age, social status. But there is one hero on whom a lot depends, almost everything, and he is not even in the list of characters. The poet and playwright V. V. Kurdyumov, a contemporary of A. P. Chekhov, wrote about this hero: “... The main invisible character in Chekhov's plays, like | in many of his other works, the time is mercilessly passing away ”.

On stage, the play "The Cherry Orchard" runs for about three hours. The characters live five months of their lives during this time. And the action of the play covers a more significant period of time, which includes the past, present and future of Russia.

“Time does not wait,” - the words are repeatedly heard in the mouths of various characters, as well as in the subtext of the play. The heroes of the play constantly feel the lack of time. Ranevskaya, Gaev, Lopakhin, each in their own way, are worried about the impending sale of the estate. Lyubov Andreevna's neighbor, the landowner Simeonov-Pischik, is worried that he has nothing to pay the mortgages with tomorrow and, experiencing an acute shortage of time, is trying to borrow money. The play contains many remarks related to time: "What time is it?"

The main characters, the owners of the cherry orchard, having created for themselves the illusion of immobility of time, live by the current day, the current hour, the current minute, but, constantly being late, hopelessly lagged behind the present, stuck somewhere in the past.

The twenty-second of August, the day of the sale of the estate, is inexorably approaching. This date is causing an ever-increasing concern, but the matter does not go further than concern, people are inactive, trying to deceive the time, to forget. Even on the day of trading, a party is held in the estate: "... a Jewish orchestra is playing in the hall ... They are dancing in the hall ..."

And there is no doubt that nothing will happen except what is to happen. Life will move on, overstepping this date.

But the twenty-second of August is not only the day of the sale of the estate, it is also the starting point, in relation to which time is divided into past, present and future. Together with the lives of the heroes, the play also includes the movement of historical life: from the pre-reform period to the end of the 19th century.

Firs recalls the abolition of serfdom as a "misfortune", Trofimov speaks of the remnants of serfdom in a monologue about the cherry orchard, Gaev makes a speech about the bookcase's centennial service in the field of education. Three generations act in the play: Firs is eighty-seven years old, Gaev is fifty-one years old, Anya is seventeen years old.

The indissolubility of time personifies the poetic image of the cherry orchard, he remembers everything. According to Petit, "... from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk ... human beings are looking at you ..." The garden is a symbol not only of historical memory, but also of the eternal renewal of life. The play's future is unclear, full of secrets.

The lyrical and tragic realism of A.P. Chekhov opened the time in which they live to contemporaries, presented the heroes - the true children of a turning point. They do not accept ideals that have lost their vitality, but they also cannot live without ideals, painfully looking for them in the memory of the past or in passionate dreams of the future.

The creativity of A.P. Chekhov to the highest degree corresponded to his era, the very need of people to comprehend life, to be involved in the course of history to seek a reasonable goal of existence, means of changing the “awkward” life and ways to the future. This makes him especially close to our contemporaries.

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW OWNERS OF LIFE (Based on the play by A. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard")

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a master of short stories, a genius novelist and a great playwright. His plays "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", "Uncle Vanya", "The Cherry Orchard" do not leave the theaters to this day. Their popularity in our country and in the West is great.

Creativity A.P. Chekhov falls on the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century, when the feudal system was replaced by the capitalist formation, which made it possible to introduce new forms of economy.

However, representatives of the local nobility reluctantly entered into a new life. The conservatism of most of them, the inability to abandon the feudal methods of economic management, the inability to use the current situation led the landlord estates to ruin.

Against the background of the impoverishment of the nobility, a new stratum of society enters into the economic life of Russia, new people - entrepreneurs, “masters of life”.

In the play "The Cherry Orchard" this new master of life is Lopakhin, a smart, energetic businessman, industrialist. Against the background of the impractical, weak-willed nobles Ranevsky and Gayevs, who live more in the past than in the present, he is distinguished by tremendous energy, a wide scope of work, a thirst for education. He knows his place both in life and in society and does not lose his dignity anywhere.

While Lopakhin realizes the hopelessness of the situation of the owners of the cherry orchard and gives them practical advice, they compose pathetic hymns to the house and garden, talk to things - with a wardrobe, with a table, kiss them and are carried away by their thoughts into a sweet, carefree past, so irrevocably gone. In ecstasy, they do not hear and do not want to hear Lopakhin, none of them wants to talk about the inevitability of a catastrophe.

Lopakhin directly and simply calls a spade a spade ("... your cherry orchard is sold for debts ..."), is ready to help in trouble, but he has no common language with the Gaevs. His sober, realistic approach to reality seems to them "rudeness", offensive to their honor, a lack of understanding of beauty.

Lopakhin has his own understanding of beauty: "We will set up summer cottages, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here."

The old world - the Gaevs and Ranevskys, Simeonovs-Pischiks, Firs, keepers of past traditions, and Charlottes, indispensable governesses, and lackeys, servants - are leaving the scene of life. He leaves because he is untenable, already ridiculous and ridiculous. “By my honor, I swear what you want, the estate will not be sold! (Excitedly.) I swear by my happiness! ” - says Gaev. But he does nothing, hoping either for the money of the Yaroslavl aunt, or for Anya's marriage. They do not understand the seriousness of their situation and continue to lead a careless way of life, provoking a fair reproach from Lopakhin: “... I have never met such frivolous people as you, gentlemen, who are not businesslike, strange”.

Lack of will, inability, inability to live, carelessness characterize these gentlemen. They are behind the times and must give up their home and their garden, their place to the new masters of life, sober, practical, smart and businesslike. “... Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, deepest horizons, and, living here, we ourselves should really be giants ...” Lopakhin's philosophy: work is the basis of life. “When I work for a long time, tirelessly, then my thoughts are easier, and it seems that I also know why I exist. And how many, brother, there are people in Russia who exist for an unknown reason. " He is able to feel beauty, admires the picture of a blooming poppy. According to Trofimov, he has "thin, gentle fingers, like an artist ... a thin, gentle soul." He understands that "with a pork snout in a kalashny row ..." he climbs. But with what triumph he says: “The cherry orchard is mine now! My! (Laughs.) My God, gentlemen, my cherry orchard! .. "

A new owner of a garden, a house, and all such gardens and houses, and this whole life has come. “If my father and grandfather would get up from the graves and look at the whole incident, how their Yermolai, the beaten, illiterate Yermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, how this same Yermolai bought an estate, which is not more beautiful in the world! I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I am asleep, it only seems to me, it only seems ... "

What is the future of Lopakhin? Probably, having become even more rich in the years remaining before the revolution, he will contribute to the economic prosperity of Russia, become a patron of the arts. Maybe he will use his own money to build schools and hospitals for the poor. There were many such in the life of Russia: the Morozovs, Mamontovs, Ryabushinsky, Alekseevs, Soldatenkov, Tretyakovs, Bakhrushins. And today entrepreneurs, business people could play a significant role in the country's economy. But their behavior, disregard for spirituality, culture, striving only for personal enrichment can lead to a decline in the spiritual forces of society, to the decline of the state, their ability to destroy, without thinking about the future, a beautiful cherry orchard - a symbol of Russia in Chekhov - can lead to sad consequences ...

THE IMAGE OF THE DECISION OF THE NOYALITY IN THE PLAY BY A.I. CHEKHOVA "CHERRY GARDEN"

The theme of "The Cherry Orchard" is the theme of the death of old noble estates, their transfer into the hands of the bourgeoisie and the fate of the latter in connection with the appearance on the arena of public life in Russia of a new social force - the progressive intelligentsia. The play shows the inevitability of the departure from the historical stage of the nobility - an already strengthened, unadapted class. The central place in the play is occupied by the images of the noble landowners Ranevskaya and Gaev. They are descendants of the wealthy owners of a magnificent estate with a beautiful cherry orchard. In the old days, their estate brought income, on which his idle owners lived. The habit of living by the labors of others, not caring about anything, made Ranevskaya and Gayev people unadapted for any serious activity, weak-willed and helpless.

The deadline for the sale of the mortgaged estate is approaching. Gaev and Ranevskaya are perplexedly looking for ways of salvation, counting either on the help of a rich Yaroslavl aunt, or on a loan against a bill, but resolutely reject the solution proposed by Lopakhin: to break the cherry orchard into plots and lease them to summer residents. This means seems to them unacceptable, offensive to their honor and family traditions, contrary to their class ethics. The poetry of the cherry orchard, everything connected with it, obscures life and the requirements of practical calculation. “Dacha and summer residents - it’s so vulgar, sorry,” Ranevskaya says to Lopakhin. These words can be interpreted as disgusting and arrogant. However, on the other hand, what the cherry orchard was for Ranevskaya and the summer residents are really incompatible and vulgar. And this, unfortunately, cannot be understood by Lopakhin, a representative of the emerging bourgeoisie (he calls Ranevskaya and Gaev “frivolous, non-businesslike, strange people”). Lopakhin is an energetic, corpse-loving person, kind, intelligent in his own way, not devoid of even a certain aesthetic feeling. However, he, the new owner of the cherry orchard and the former serf of the Gayevs, is a predator ... And Chekhov sees that people like Lopakhin are replacing the “noble nests”. And if the representatives of the nobility in the play lack a sense of reality, practicality, then such as Lopakhin - an intelligent and sensitive soul. And therefore the author “does not give” the future of Russia into their hands. Their role, according to Chekhov, should be unambiguous: “Just as in terms of metabolism, you need a predatory animal that eats everything that comes in its way, so you are needed,” says Trofimov to Lopakhin.

The Russia of the future is presented in the play as Petya Trofimov and Anya. Petya Trofimov is a representative of the so-called working, progressive intelligentsia, thinking, feeling and at the same time not devoid of common sense and practicality. He believes in the future of Russia, won by labor, and infects with his faith Anya, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Ranevskaya. “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this, you will see it, you will understand ...” - Anya says to her mother. According to Chekhov, Anya and Petya Trofimov is a young Russia, the Russia of the future, which will replace the Russia of the Gaevs and Lopakhins.

Surprisingly, Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard" is very consonant with our time. And now everyone is “expecting” the arrival of some “third” force, which would combine intelligence, intelligence, decency and the ability for active transformations, while denying the Lopakhins' spiritual rudeness and the silence, confusion of people like Gaev and Ranevskaya.

RUSSIA IN THE PLAY OF A. P. CHEKHOV "CHERRY GARDEN"

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a great citizen of Russia. In many of his works, we see our Motherland through his eyes! Before moving on to the topic of my essay, I would like to tell you what kind of person Anton Pavlovich was. He called my main enemies lies, hypocrisy and arbitrariness. The entire writer was filled with hard, systematic work. Having lived forty-four years, he wrote more than two hundred works of prose and drama, built schools, participated in the creation of hospitals and libraries. He worked as a doctor during the cholera epidemic, and received up to a thousand sick peasants in the villages every year. I am very attracted by the features inherent in Chekhov: decency, humanity, intelligence and love of life. Anton Pavlovich elevated inspirational work and healthy human relations to the absolute. Reading Chekhov's works is easy and interesting. One of my favorite books of the writer is the play "The Cherry Orchard". "The Cherry Orchard" is considered the summit of Chekhov's work. The play reflects such a socio-historical phenomenon of the country as the degradation of the "noble nest", the moral impoverishment of the nobility, the growth of feudal relations into capitalist ones, and behind this - the emergence of a new, ruling class of the bourgeoisie. The theme of the play is the fate of the motherland, its future. “All Russia is our garden”. The past, present and future of Russia seems to rise from the pages of the play "The Cherry Orchard". The representative of the present in Chekhov's comedy is Lopakhin, the past - Ranevskaya and Gaev, the future - Trofimov and Anya.

Starting from the first act of the play, the rot and worthlessness of the owners of the estate - Ranevskaya and Gaev - are exposed.

Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya, in my opinion, is a rather empty woman. She sees nothing around her, except for love interests, strives to live beautifully, carefree. She is simple, charming, kind. But her kindness turns out to be purely external. The essence of her nature is in selfishness and frivolity: Ranevskaya distributes gold coins, while poor Varya, out of “economy, feeds everyone with milk soup, in the kitchen the old people are given one pea”; arranges an unnecessary ball when there is nothing to pay debts with. Remembers the lost son, speaks of maternal feelings, love. And she herself leaves her daughter in the care of a disorderly uncle, does not worry about the future of her daughters. She resolutely tears up the telegrams from Paris, at first without even reading them, and then goes to Paris. She is saddened by the sale of the estate, but rejoices at the possibility of going abroad. And when he speaks of love for the motherland, he interrupts himself with the remark: “However, you have to drink coffee.” For all her weakness, lack of will, she has the ability for self-criticism, for disinterested kindness, for a sincere, ardent feeling.

Gayev, Ranevskaya's brother, is also helpless and lethargic. In his own eyes, he is an aristocrat of the highest circle, he is hindered by “coarse” smells. He does not seem to notice Lopakhin And tries to put “this boor” in his place. In Gaev's language, vernacular is combined with lofty words: after all, he loves liberal rhetoric. His favorite word is “whom”; he is addicted to billiard terms.

The present of Russia in Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" is presented by Lopakhin. In general, his image is complex and contradictory. He is decisive and compliant, calculating and poetic, truly kind and unconsciously cruel. These are many facets of his nature and character. Throughout the play, the hero constantly repeats about his origin, saying that he is a man: “My father, it is true, was a man, but here I am in a white vest and yellow shoes. With a pork snout in a kalash row ... Just now he is rich, there is a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, then a man is a man ... a fist-shopkeeper. Lopakhin himself says: "... my deceased father - he was then here in the village in a shop ..." And he himself is at the moment a very successful businessman. According to him, one can judge that things are going very well with him and he does not have to complain about his life and his fate in relation to money. In his image, one can see all the features of an entrepreneur, a businessman who personifies the present state of Russia and its structure. Lopakhin is a man of his time, who saw the real chain of development of the country, its structure and was drawn into the life of society. He lives for today.

Chekhov notes the kindness of the merchant, his desire to become better. Ermolai Alekseevich remembers how Ranevskaya stood up for him when his father offended him in childhood. Lopakhin recalls this with a smile: “Don't cry, he says, little man, he will heal before the wedding ... (Pause.) Little man ...” He sincerely loves her, willingly lends Lyubov Andreyevna money, not expecting to ever get it. For her sake, he endures Gaev, who despises and ignores him. The merchant strives to improve his education, to learn something new. At the beginning of the play, he is shown with a book in front of the readers. Regarding this, Ermolai Alekseevich says: “I have read a book here and did not understand anything. I read and fell asleep. "

Ermolai Lopakhin, the only one in the play, busy with business, leaves for his merchant needs. In one of the conversations about this you can hear: “I have to go to Kharkov now, at five o'clock in the morning”. He differs from others in his vitality, hard work, optimism, assertiveness, practicality. One he offers a real plan to save the estate.

Lopakhin may seem like the clear opposite of the old owners of the cherry orchard. After all, he is a direct descendant of those whose faces "look from every cherry tree in the garden." And how can he triumph after buying a cherry orchard: “If my father and grandfather stood up from their coffins and looked at the whole incident, how their Ermolai, the beaten, illiterate Ermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, like this same Ermolai bought the estate where grandfather and the father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I am dreaming, it only seems to me, it only seems to me ... Hey, musicians, play, I wish to listen to you! Come all to watch how Yermolai Lopakhin has enough ax in the cherry orchard, how the trees will fall to the ground! We will set up summer cottages, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here ... Music, play! ” But this is not so, because in place of something ruined it is impossible to build something beautiful, joyful and happy. And here Chekhov also reveals the negative qualities of the bourgeois Lopakhin: his desire to get rich, not to miss his profit. He nevertheless buys Ranevskaya's estate himself and himself implements his idea of ​​organizing summer cottages. Anton Pavlovich showed how acquisition gradually cripples a person, becoming his second nature. “Just as in terms of metabolism, a predatory beast is needed that eats everything that comes its way, so you are needed,” Petya Trofimov explains to the merchant about his role in society. And yet Ermolai Alekseevich is simple and kind, from the heart offers help to the “eternal student”. It is not for nothing that Petya also likes Lopakhin - for his thin, delicate fingers, like an artist's, for his “thin, gentle soul”. But it was he who advises him “not to wave his hands”, not to get carried away, imagining that everything can be bought and sold. And Yermolai Lopakhin the further, the more he learns the habit of "waving his arms." At the beginning of the play, this is not yet so pronounced, but at the end it becomes quite noticeable. His confidence that everything can be viewed in money is increasing and is becoming more and more his feature.

The story of Lopakhin's relationship with Varya does not evoke sympathy. Varya loves him. And he seems to like her, Lopakhin understands that his offer will be her salvation, otherwise she will go to the housekeeper. Ermolai Alekseevich is going to take a decisive step and does not take it. It is not entirely clear what prevents him from proposing to Varya. Either this is the absence of true love, or this is his excessive practicality, or maybe something else, but in this situation he does not evoke sympathy for himself.

Delight and merchant arrogance after the purchase of Ranevskaya's estate are inherent in him. Having acquired a cherry orchard, he solemnly and boastfully announces this, cannot refrain from praise, but the tears of the former mistress suddenly shake him. Lopakhin's mood changes, and he says with bitterness: "Oh, it would be more likely that all this would go away, sooner our awkward, unhappy life would change somehow." Triumph that has not yet faded away is combined with self-mockery, merchant daring - with spiritual awkwardness.

Another feature of it does not make a good impression. First of all, this is his indelicacy, the desire for the fastest profit. He starts cutting trees even before the former owners left. It is not in vain that Petya Trofimov tells him: “Indeed, really, there is not enough tact ...” The chopping of the cherry orchard is stopped. But as soon as the former owners left the estate, the axes rattled again. The new owner is in a hurry to turn his idea into business.

The representatives of the future of Russia are Trofimov and Anya. Pyotr Trofimov looks at many life phenomena correctly, is able to captivate with a figurative, deep thought, and under his influence, Anya quickly grows spiritually. But Petya's words about the future, his calls to work, to be free like the wind, to go forward are vague, they are too general, dreamy. Petya believes in “the highest happiness,” but he does not know how to achieve it. It seems to me that Trofimov is the image of the future revolutionary.

The Cherry Orchard was written by Chekhov during the pre-revolutionary unrest. The writer strongly believed in the coming of a better future, in the inevitability of a revolution. He considered the younger generation of Russia to be the creators of a new, happy life. In the play "The Cherry Orchard" these people are Petya Trofimov and Anya. The revolution has come to pass, a "bright future" has come, but it did not bring "the highest happiness" to the people.

The hero of the comedy Lopakhin is closer to me. With his work, perseverance and diligence, he achieved his goal - he bought an estate where “grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen”. He became a rich, respected person. Of course, there are also negative character traits in him: the desire for profit, the habit of “waving his hands”. But Lopakhin strives to improve his education, learn something new. Unlike Petya Trofimov, Yermolai Alekseevich's word does not differ from his deed. With his thirst for enrichment, he was left with compassion for his neighbor. In Lopakhino, I like optimism, hard work, a sober view of things.

All of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, in my opinion, was reflected in Chekhov's play. And now you can find such impractical people who have lost the ground under their feet, like Ranevskaya and Gaev. Idealists like Petya Trofimov and Ana are also alive, but it is quite difficult to meet people like Chekhov's Lopakhin: modern entrepreneurs very often lack those attractive personality traits that I liked about this hero. Unfortunately, in our society, “Yasha's lackeys” are coming to the fore with every day. There is not a word about this hero in my essay, since I am limited by the time of examination work. I could say a lot about him and about other characters in Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard", since this work provides inexhaustible material for thinking about the fate of Russia.

“FAMILY THOUGHT” IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE (Based on the play “The Cherry Orchard” by A. Chekhov)

According to N. Berdyaev, “a family is a source of life and a refuge for its members”. This is "a world with certain laws, a hierarchy, which for someone can turn into a heavy burden, but at the same time ensures universal well-being." For centuries, the family has been the strongest link in society, a means by which traditions have been preserved and the experience of generations transmitted. This is probably why in many works of Russian literature “family thought” is the leading one. These are “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy, “Fathers and Sons” by I. S. Turgenev, some dramas by A. Ostrovsky, stories and plays by A. P. Chekhov.

In the novel by Alexander Pushkin "Eugene Onegin", references to the protagonist's family help to understand the origins of his character. It is possible that the tragedy of the “superfluous person” has its roots in an unhappy childhood.

No one can live without their home, without warm relationships with loved ones. The family is a kind of model of society, therefore, the future fate of the state depends on what happens to it at a difficult and critical time. AP Chekhov showed this talentedly and accurately in the play "The Cherry Orchard".

The difficult situation in the house reveals all the shortcomings and difficulties of communication hidden by time. The wasteful life of the owners of the estate leads to a crisis in the relationship. But this situation did not develop in the family right away. From the dialogues of the characters, you can guess that the former life was happy: all relationships were built on respect and reverence for each other. And even a hundred-year-old wardrobe, a symbol of a bygone era, according to Gaev, “maintained vigor in generations of the clan, faith in a better future and fostered the ideals of goodness and social consciousness”. The author himself emphasized that "in the past, family relationships were excellent."

What has changed in the lives of the heroes with the advent of new times? Why are Ranevskaya and Gaev, Petya and Anya so unhappy?

For the first time we meet Lyubov Andreevna at the moment when she arrives at her native estate from Paris. It seems that Ranevskaya is kind, loving her family, charming and affectionate. She speaks affably with all household members, glad of every thing in the house. But is she sincere? Only towards the end of the play are the true qualities of her character fully recognized. In my opinion, this is an empty and completely worthless person. Yes, Lyubov Andreevna is kind, but always at the expense of others. Can give a gold coin to a vagabond, and households are starving. She forgets about the devoted Firs, abandons her daughters. Her family life did not take place due to frivolity and idleness. She doesn't seem to repent. Soon she will be pulled to Paris by "courier". She will go with the money sent by the “child” and squander it with the “Wild Man”. Family and home are not for her.

Maybe her brother is happy? No. Gaev is also lonely. Middle-aged, but helpless as a child, he cannot live without Firs's supervision. “You go away, Fiers. So be it, I'll undress myself, ”he says. Leonid Andreevich loves to play billiards, show off in front of loved ones, go to the city “twenty miles away”. Gaev talks about an imaginary service in a bank, but, having lived to be fifty-one years old, he did not start a family, he has no children. Just before parting with his sister, the hero suddenly realizes the emptiness of life: “Everyone is abandoning us. Varya leaves ... we don't need each other. "

Perhaps the future of the younger generation will turn out differently? Petit's purpose in life is vague. He only has a presentiment of "happiness." And what purpose can we talk about if the “eternal student” absolutely does not know life, is afraid of it. Just like Gaev and Ranevskaya, this man hides behind beautiful words or closes his eyes “in horror”. Even Varya notices that he is not a couple to his sister, and does not want their union. Considering himself close to the Ranevsky family, Petya acts ugly in relation to these people. He has no serious thoughts, because he cannot truly love, create a family, arrange his home.

Perhaps the "educated" Yasha, who has seen Europe, traveling with Ranevskaya, is able to live happily? Doubtful. A person who does not have any higher values ​​in life cannot create a prosperous family.

The old foundations of life are disintegrating. Parting will surely come, and after it death, therefore, probably, the sound of a “broken string” is heard. And the youngest, barely blossoming heroes seem to be ready to disappear and die too. Time is running out. But there is in The Cherry Orchard something from Chekhov's unconscious foreboding of the impending fateful end: “I feel like I’m not living here, but falling asleep or leaving”. Throughout the play, the motive of elusive time stretches. Past family relationships cannot be returned. “Once you and I, sister, slept in this room, and now I'm fifty-one years old, oddly enough,” says Gaev. There will no longer be a room where in the old days there was happiness, home comfort and well-being. These people are so fragmented and fragmented that they cannot save their hearth. At the end of the play, there is a feeling that life ends for everyone. And this is no coincidence. Chekhov judges severely, he wants to be heard: “Yes, if you love your garden, beauty, at least something to save it from the ax, take responsibility for the family hearth, and do not just shed tears of affection over them. ... Wake up from carelessness when trouble is on the doorstep! "

I think now the situation of Chekhov's play is easily recognizable. Modern "estates" have fallen into disrepair, overgrown with debts, and the auctions for them have already been announced. Family hearths have been destroyed, generations are disunited and do not want to understand each other. What will happen to today's “cherry orchard”? We are again faced with the same questions as at the beginning of the century before Chekhov's heroes. It depends on who will become the owner of everything, who will preserve family traditions and roots, whether we will live better tomorrow ...

"CHERRY GARDEN" by A. P. CHEKHOV - A PIECE ABOUT UNHAPPY PEOPLE AND TREES

The reader, even not very attentive, will surely be struck by the fact that there is practically not a single happy person in Chekhov's play.

Ranevskaya comes from Paris to repent of her sins and find last peace in her native estate. She made her final plans based on the parable of the Prodigal Son. But, alas, she failed to do this: the estate is sold under the hammer. Ranevskaya has to return to Paris to old sins and new problems.

Faithful servant Firs is buried alive in a boarded-up house. Charlotte fearfully awaits the onset of a new day, because she does not know how to continue to live in it. Varya, disillusioned with Lopakhin, is hired to new owners. It is difficult to call even Gayev successful, although he gets a place in the bank, but knowing his abilities and capabilities, one cannot be sure that he will become a good financier. Even the trees in the garden, according to Ani, are flawed, because they are defiled by the slave past and, therefore, doomed to the present, in which there is no place for beauty, in which practicality prevails.

But, according to Chekhov, tomorrow should still be better, happier than today. The author pins his hopes in this regard with her and Petya Trofimov, but they are unlikely to come true, for Petya is an “eternal student” at thirty and, as Ranevskaya sarcastically notes, does not have “even a mistress” and is hardly capable of any anything real in life other than eloquence.

I want to emphasize that the heroes of the play have absolutely no idea why they are unhappy. Gaev and Ranevskaya, for example, tend to think that the reasons for their misfortunes are hidden in evil fate, in unfavorable circumstances - in everything except themselves, although this would be a more correct guess.

The most energetic figure - Lopakhin, a businessman, a clever entrepreneur is also included in this mystical circle of unhappy, flawed people. After all, his grandfather was once a serf on this estate. And no matter how swagger Lopakhin, showing his takeoff, the reader and the viewer cannot get rid of the feeling that he is swaggering more from powerlessness to dissociate himself from this slave garden, which even already non-existent will remind Lopakhin, from which he went to the riches ... He advises to cut down the garden, divide it into plots and lease these plots for summer cottages. He advises doing this in search of a way out of the vicious circle of misfortunes. “And then your garden will be happy, rich, luxurious,” he declares.

"What nonsense!" - interrupts Lopakhina Gaev, who is sure that there can be no talk of happiness when there is neither a blossoming garden nor a cozy old house.

Criticism of Lopakhin's advice goes, as they say, automatically, the Gaevs do not even take the trouble to ponder the essence of the matter and understand Lopakhin's project. Lopakhin responds by accusing them of frivolity.

Lyubov Andreevna is confused. She is already ready for anything: to turn to her aunt, whom she hates, for help, to determine her brother's service by acquaintance, even to borrow money from her former serf Lopakhin. But she does not want and cannot give up her noble traditions. For the Gaevs, "summer cottages and summer residents are so common ...". They are beyond that. They are noble, intelligent, well-mannered, educated. But they, due to reasons and circumstances beyond their control, have lagged behind the times and now must give up their place, their garden and home to the new masters of life.

The old world of the nobility leaving the scene of life, colored with disappointment, is complemented by the lackey - the ham Yasha, and the stupid clerk Epikhodov.

“That’s the end of life in this house,” says Lopakhin, hinting that the future is still his. But he is wrong. Of all the characters in the play, only Anya can be sure of the future. She says to Ranevskaya: “We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this” - she is not just trying to console her mother, but, as it were, trying to imagine the future. She inherited the best traits from her mother: emotional sensitivity and sensitivity to beauty. At the same time, she is determined to change, remake life. She dreams of the time when the whole way of life will change, when life, not trees, will turn into a blooming garden, giving people joy and happiness. She is even ready to work and sacrifice for such a future. And in her enthusiastic speeches, I heard the voice of the author of the play, who tells us, revealing the secret of his work: trees are not to blame for the misfortunes of people, and people, unfortunately, can, but do not always want to make themselves and the trees around them happy.

A GENTLE SOUL OR A PREDATORY BEAST? (The image of Lopakhin in the play by A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard")

After all, this is not a merchant in the vulgar sense of the word. We must understand this.

A. P. Chekhov

When creating the play "The Cherry Orchard" A. P. Chekhov paid great attention to the image of Lopakhin as one of the central images of the comedy. In revealing the author's intention, in resolving the main conflict, it is Lopakhin who plays a very important role.

Lopakhin is unusual and strange; he has caused and is causing bewilderment of many literary scholars. Indeed, Chekhov's character does not fit into the framework of the usual scheme: a rude, uneducated merchant destroys beauty without thinking about what he is doing, caring only about his own profits. The situation for that time was typical not only in literature, but also in life. However, if even for a moment you imagine Lopakhin as such, the entire carefully thought-out system of Chekhov's images collapses. Life is more complicated than any scheme, and therefore the proposed situation can by no means be Chekhovian.

Among the Russian merchants, people appeared who clearly did not correspond to the traditional concept of merchants. The duality, contradiction, and internal instability of these people are vividly conveyed by Chekhov in the image of Lopakhin. Lopakhin's contradiction is especially acute because the position is extremely ambivalent.

Ermolai Lopakhin is the son and grandson of a serf. To his memory until the end of his life, probably, the phrase that Ranevskaya said to the boy beaten by his father was engraved in his memory: “Don't cry, little man, he will heal before the wedding ...” He feels like an indelible stigma from these words: “Little man ... My father, true, there was a peasant, but I was in a white vest, yellow shoes ... and if you think about it and figure it out, then a peasant is a peasant ... ”Lopakhin suffers deeply from this duality. He destroys the cherry orchard not only for the sake of profit, and not so much for her. There was another reason, much more important than the first — revenge for the past. He destroys the garden, knowing full well that this is "an estate better than which there is nothing in the world." And yet Lopakhin hopes to kill the memory, which against his will always shows him that he, Yermolai Lopakhin, is a “man”, and the ruined owners of the cherry orchard are “gentlemen”.

With all his might, Lopakhin seeks to erase the line separating him from the “masters”. He is the only one who appears on stage with a book. Although later he admits that he did not understand anything about her.

Lopakhin has his own social utopia. He very seriously regards summer residents as a huge force in the historical process, designed to erase this very line between “muzhik” and “gentlemen”. It seems to Lopakhin that by destroying the cherry orchard, he brings a better future closer.

Lopakhin has the features of a predatory beast. But the money and the power acquired with them (“I can pay for everything!”) Crippled not only people like Lopakhin. At the auction, a predator wakes up in him, and Lopakhin finds himself in the grip of merchant passion. And it is in the excitement that he turns out to be the owner of the cherry orchard. And he cut down this garden even before the departure of its previous owners, not paying attention to the insistent requests of Anya and Ranevskaya herself.

But the tragedy of Lopakhin is that he is not aware of his own “animal” beginning. Between his thoughts and actual deeds lies the deepest abyss. Two people live and struggle in it: one - “with a fine, delicate soul”; the other is a “beast of prey”.

To my greatest regret, the winner is most often the predator. However, Lopakhino attracts a lot. His monologue surprises and deafens: "Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and, living here, we ourselves must be truly giants ..."

Yes, full! Is it Lopakhin ?! It is no coincidence that Ranevskaya is trying to lower the pathos of Lopakhin, to lower him “from heaven to earth”. Such a “little man” surprises and frightens her. Lopakhin is characterized by ups and downs. His speech can be amazing, emotional. And then - breakdowns, failures, testifying that there is no need to talk about Lopakhin's true culture (“Every ugliness has its own decency!”).

Lopakhin has an aspiration, a real and sincere thirst for spirituality. He cannot live only in the world of profits and cash. But how to live differently, he also does not know. Hence his deepest tragedy, his overstrain, a strange combination of rudeness and gentleness, bad manners and intelligence. Lopakhin's tragedy is especially clearly visible in his monologue at the end of the third act. The author's remarks deserve special attention. At first, Lopakhin leads a completely businesslike story about the course of the auction, he is frankly happy, even proud of his purchase, then he himself is embarrassed ... He smiles affectionately after Varya leaves, is gentle with Ranevskaya, bitterly ironic towards himself ...

“Oh, it would be more likely that all this would pass, it would sooner change somehow our awkward, unhappy life ...” And then: “There is a new landowner, the owner of the cherry orchard! I can pay for everything! ”

Yes, full, for everything?

Will Lopakhin ever understand all his guilt before Firs, boarded up in his house, before the destroyed cherry orchard, before his homeland?

Lopakhin cannot be either a “gentle soul” or a “beast of prey”. These two contradictory qualities coexist in him at the same time. The future does not promise him anything good precisely because of his duality and contradiction.

"DISADVANTAGES" IN THE PLAY BY D., P. CHEKHOV "CHERRY GARDEN"

The vast majority of people are deeply unhappy.

A. P. Chekhov

The artistic world of Chekhov is infinitely complex, multifaceted, devoid of any one-liner. All the imperfection of life was open to the writer, the deep tragedy of human existence was understandable. Therefore, it is natural that the play “The Cherry Orchard” includes the theme of “nonsense”. Chekhov portrays unhappy, suffering people. The circle of "idiot" is quite wide, although the word "idiot" is used in the play in relation to only four characters: Yasha, Dunyasha, Petya Trofimov, Firs ...

Lackey Yasha dreams only of a brilliant Parisian life and, of course, is not aware of his spiritual squalor. But this distortion and coarseness of the Russian man is one of the manifestations of the very “nonsense” that old Firs felt so subtly.

The fate of the governess Charlotte Ivanovna is one more variation on the theme of “nonsense”. Her confession is permeated with hopeless loneliness and longing: "... When my father and mother died, one German mistress took me to her and began to teach me ... But where I am from and who I am - I don't know ..."

The clerk Epikhodov has a very eloquent nickname - “twenty-two misfortunes”. Indeed, Epikhodov's love was rejected, the claims to education have no basis. Chekhov accurately conveys the vague dissatisfaction of a clerk with life: “I am a developed person, but I just can’t understand the direction of what I, in fact, want to live or shoot myself.”

The elderly lackey Firs also belongs to the "idiots". Before us is a faithful slave who considers the abolition of serfdom a misfortune. Dignity did not awaken in this person, spiritual emancipation did not occur. We see how touching 87-year-old Firs cares about Gaev. The more terrible and hopeless is the ending of the play ...

Let us now turn to the images of the former owners of the cherry orchard. Ranevskaya and Gaev are "idiots" in the full sense of the word. They have long lost their sense of reality and are hoping for the unlikely help of a rich Yaroslavl aunt, rejecting a completely feasible plan to save the estate. The tragedy of these people is not that they went bankrupt, but in the crushing of their feelings, in the loss of the last reminder of childhood - the cherry orchard.

The sufferings of Ranevskaya and Gaev are completely sincere, although they take on a somewhat farcical form. Ranevskaya's life is not devoid of drama: her husband dies, her seven-year-old son Grisha dies tragically, her lover abandons her ... Lyubov Andreevna, by her own admission, cannot fight her feelings even when she realizes that she has been deceived by her beloved. In the heroine's excessive concentration on her own experiences, there is a lot of selfishness, detachment from other people's suffering and deprivation. Ranevskaya talks about the death of the old nanny over a cup of coffee. In turn, the memories of the deceased Anastasia do not prevent Gaev from getting the coveted box of candies ...

Anya, Varya, Petya Trofimov are also deeply unhappy in the play "The Cherry Orchard". Of course, the suffering of the young is not so conspicuous. Petya, 27, is an idealist and a dreamer, but he is also subject to the inexorable passage of time. "How ugly you have become, Petya, how old you are!" - says Varya. Trofimov considers himself “above love”, but it is love that he lacks. “You are not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you are a fool,” Ranevskaya guesses exactly the reason for Petya's disorder in life.

Yermolai Lopakhin should also be referred to as "idiots" in the play "The Cherry Orchard". Petya Trofimov is right when he speaks of his “gentle soul”. The duality of Lopakhin is the tragic contradiction of his image. In his relationship with Varya, the hero is extremely constrained and timid. He is, in essence, as lonely and unhappy as those around him.

The play "The Cherry Orchard" ends with the sad word "idiot", which is uttered by the forgotten by all Firs. There is a lot behind this word ... Chekhov is far from empty accusation. The dream of a decent human life coexists in the work with compassion for the unfortunate, suffering people who are looking for the "higher truth" and still cannot find ...

"CHERRY GARDEN" - DRAMA, COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?

The play "The Cherry Orchard" was written by A. P. Chekhov in 1903. Not only the socio-political world, but also the world of art felt the need for renewal. A.P. Chekhov, being a talented person who showed his skill in short stories, enters drama as an innovator. After the premiere of the play "The Cherry Orchard", a lot of controversy flared up among critics and spectators, among actors and directors about the genre features of the play. What is “The Cherry Orchard” from the point of view of the genre - drama, tragedy or comedy?

While working on the play, A. P. Chekhov in letters spoke about its character as a whole: “What came out of me was not a drama, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce ...” In letters to Vl. A.P. Chekhov warned I. Nemirovich-Danchenko that Anya should not have a “crying” tone, so that in general there should not be “many crying” in the play. The production, despite the resounding success, did not satisfy A.P. Chekhov. Anton Pavlovich expressed dissatisfaction with the general interpretation of the play: “Why is my play so persistently called a drama on posters and in newspaper advertisements? Nemirovich and Alekseev (Stanislavsky) in my play see positively not what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that both of them have never read my play carefully. " Thus, the author himself insists that The Cherry Orchard is a comedy. This genre did not at all exclude the serious and sad from A.P. Chekhov. Stanislavsky obviously violated Chekhov's measure in the ratio of the dramatic to the comic, the sad to the funny. The result was a drama where A.P. Chekhov insisted on a lyrical comedy.

One of the features of The Cherry Orchard is that all the characters are presented in a dual, tragicomic light. The play contains purely comic characters: Charlotte Ivanovna, Epikhodov, Yasha, Firs. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov makes fun of Gayev, who “lived his fortune on candy”, over the sentimental Ranevskaya and her practical helplessness, which was not for her age. Even about Petya Trofimov, who, it would seem, symbolizes the renewal of Russia, A. Chekhov sneers, calling him "an eternal student." Petya Trofimov deserved this attitude of the author with his verbosity, which A.P. Chekhov did not tolerate. Petya gives monologues about the workers who "eat disgustingly, sleep without pillows", about the rich who "live on debt, at someone else's expense," about a "proud man." At the same time, he warns everyone that he is "afraid of serious conversations." Petya Trofimov, doing nothing for five months, repeats to others that “we have to work”. And this is with the hardworking Vara and the businesslike Lopakhin! Trofimov does not study, because he cannot study and support himself at the same time. Petya Ranevskaya gives a very sharp but precise characterization of “spirituality” and “tact” by Trofimov: “... You have no purity, but you are just a neat girl”. A.P. Chekhov speaks with irony about his behavior in remarks. Trofimov now cries out “with horror”, then, gasping with indignation, cannot utter a word, then he threatens to leave and cannot do it in any way.

A.P. Chekhov has certain sympathetic notes in the image of Lopakhin. He is doing everything possible to help Ranevskaya keep the estate. Lopakhin is sensitive and kind. But in double illumination, he is far from ideal: there is business winglessness in him, Lopakhin is not able to get carried away and love. In a relationship with Varya, he is comical and awkward. The short-term celebration associated with the purchase of a cherry orchard quickly gives way to feelings of despondency and sadness. Lopakhin utters a significant phrase with tears: "Oh, it would be more likely that all this would pass, sooner our awkward, unhappy life would change somehow." Here Lopakhin directly touches the main source of drama: it is not concluded in the struggle for a cherry orchard, but in dissatisfaction with life, which is experienced in different ways by all the characters in the play. Life goes on absurdly and awkwardly, bringing neither joy nor happiness to anyone. Not only for the main characters this life is unhappy, but also for Charlotte, lonely and unnecessary to anyone, and for Epikhodov with his constant failures.

Determining the essence of the comic conflict, literary scholars argue that it rests on a discrepancy between appearance and essence (sitcom, comedy of characters, etc.). In “the new comedy of A. P. Chekhov, the words, deeds and actions of the heroes are in just such a discrepancy. The inner drama of each turns out to be more important than the external events (the so-called “undercurrents”). Hence the “tearfulness” of the characters, which is not at all tragic. Monologues and remarks “through tears” speak, most likely, of excessive sentimentality, nervousness, and sometimes even irritability of the characters. Hence the all-pervading Chekhovian irony. It seems that the author, as it were, asks the audience, and the readers, and himself: why do people waste their lives so mediocrely? Why are they so frivolous about loved ones? Why is it so irresponsible to waste words and vitality, naively believing that they will live forever and there will be an opportunity to live life completely, anew? The heroes of the play deserve both pity and merciless "laughter through tears invisible to the world."

Traditionally, in Soviet literary criticism, it was customary to “group” the heroes of the play, naming Gaev and Ranevskaya as representatives of Russia's “past”, Lopakhin as its “present”, and Petya and Anya as the “future”. It seems to me that this is not entirely true. In one of the stage versions of the play "The Cherry Orchard", the future of Russia turns out to be in such people as the lackey Yasha, who looks to where power and money are. A. P. Chekhov, in my opinion, is not without irony here either. After all, a little more than ten years will pass, and where will the Lopakhins, Gaevs, Ranevskys and Trofimovs end up when the Jacob will decide on their trial? With bitterness and regret, A.P. Chekhov is looking for a Man in his play and, it seems to me, does not find him.

Certainly, the play "The Cherry Orchard" is a complex and ambiguous play. That is why the attention of directors from many countries is riveted to it, and four productions were presented at the penultimate theater festival in Moscow. Controversy about the genre has not subsided to this day. But do not forget that A.P. Chekhov himself called the work a comedy, and I tried in the composition to prove, as far as possible, why this is so.

WHY A. P. CHEKHOV INSISTS THAT “CHERRY GARDEN” IS “COMEDY, IN LOCATIONS EVEN FARS”

Despite the fact that the play "The Cherry Orchard" was perceived by many of Chekhov's contemporaries, in particular by Stanislavsky, as a tragic work, the author himself believed that "The Cherry Orchard" was "a comedy, sometimes even a farce."

First of all, if we proceed from the definition of the genre, then the following elements are characteristic of tragedy: a special, tragic state of the world, a special hero and an insoluble conflict between the hero and the world around him, which ends with the death of the hero or the collapse of his moral ideals. Thus, "The Cherry Orchard" cannot be called a tragedy, for the characters of the play: frivolous, sentimental Ranevskaya, inactive, not adapted to life Gaev, "who spent his entire fortune on candies", Lopakhin, "who can buy everything" and considers himself a "peasant, a fool and an idiot, "- ambiguous, contradictory, presented ironically, with all their weaknesses and shortcomings and do not pretend to be called special, titanic personalities. Their fate, in particular the fate of Ranevskaya, who “always littered with money” and whose husband “died from champagne”, does not evoke deep sympathy and pain. In addition, the change of eras and historical forces, the departure of the nobility from the historical scene, from political, economic and cultural life / and the triumph of a new social group, the Russian bourgeoisie, are viewed by Chekhov as natural and logical phenomena that do not seem tragic. That is why the state of the world in the play cannot be called special, tragic.

Gaev and Ranevskaya, whose time is irretrievably running out, whose world is crumbling when everything “went to hell” for them, do not try to fight for their property, save themselves from ruin and impoverishment, and finally resist the bourgeoisie, which dominates society and gained power thanks to money ... These heroes try to get away from solving problems, hope that everything will be resolved somehow by itself, take their position lightly. So, Ranevskaya, when Lopakhin tries to explain to her how to save the estate and save the cherry orchard, says that “with him (Lopakhin ) still more fun, "and Gaev does not take any decisive action, but only promises to" come up with something. " The work does not contain any conflicts, struggles of ideas, opinions, clashes of characters, which makes the play as close as possible to everyday life, “where people do not shoot every minute, hang themselves, declare their love, say smart things”, where there are no too sharp conflicts and tragedies ...

So, "The Cherry Orchard" is "a comedy, sometimes even a farce." It must be said that all Chekhov's comedies are unique. So, for example, the comedy "The Seagull" tells about the broken fates of Treplev and Zarechnaya. It can be assumed that Chekhov called his works "comedy" in the sense in which Honore de Balzac called the cycle of novels "The Human Comedy", when the concept of "comedy" implies a sad, ironic look at the field of human lives. But, despite the fact that "The Cherry Orchard" is an emotionally two-sided play, because both the funny and the sad are intertwined in it, the comic turns out to be stronger. So, the heroes often cry, but tears are an expression of true sadness only when Ranevskaya speaks with Petya Trofimov about her drowned son, after Vary's failed conversation with Lopakhin, and, finally, in the finale, when Gaev and Ranevskaya leave the estate forever.

The play contains many farcical scenes, such as Charlotte's tricks, Epikhodov's mistakes, Gaev's inappropriate remarks (“doublet in the corner”, “croise in the middle”), Petya’s fall, Lopakhin’s remark that “Yasha drank all the champagne” .. Often, Ranevskaya and Gayev appear before us too detached from life, sentimentally tender, and Ranevskaya, kissing “her own locker,” and also Gayev, constantly sucking candy and making a speech to the “respected closet,” look comical.

But all this does not negate the ambiguous, in many respects sad ending of the play. Ranevskaya, saying goodbye to the house, to the “gentle, beautiful garden”, is saying goodbye at the same time to her past, her youth, her happiness. Her future appears to be sad, as well as the future of Gaev: the ruined Ranevskaya leaves for Paris to her “keeper”, and Gaev is going to work in a bank, but, not adapted to life, inactive and impractical, he, as Lopakhin predicts, “will not sit still, very lazy ... ”. And at the same time, Anya, saying goodbye to her old life, aspires, like Petya Trofimov, like the author himself, to "a bright star that burns in the distance." Thus, to a better future, to goodness, to "the highest truth and highest happiness."

"CHERRY GARDEN" A. P. CHEKHOV AS A COMEDY

About The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov wrote: “It was not a drama that came out for me, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce.” Outwardly, the events mentioned in the play are dramatic. But Chekhov managed to find such an angle of view that the sad turned into a comic. The characters he brings to the stage are not capable of serious, dramatic experiences. They are strange, funny, like everything that is done by them. But since for Chekhov there are no simply “heroes”, but there are people, the author involuntarily sympathizes with the “idiots” of the past. They cannot be other than they are. The comedy came out in a special way - lyrical, sad, at the same time acutely social, accusatory. Chekhov's smile is subtle, sometimes imperceptible, but nevertheless merciless, the comedic sound of "The Cherry Orchard" in the presence of acutely dramatic situations constitutes its genre originality.

Let's try to understand the hidden comedy of the play, its “hidden” laughter, which is more often sad than cheerful; consider how the dramatic becomes funny under the pen of an artist.

It is always difficult to understand and appreciate the comic. The comedy of The Cherry Orchard is not in the events, but in the actions and conversations of the characters, in their awkwardness and helplessness. “Think, gentlemen, think,” says Lopakhin, warning against trouble. And now it turns out that gentlemen do not know how to think - they have not learned. From here, in fact, the comedy begins. At critical moments, Gaev thinks about how to send the “yellow” to the middle, and Ranevskaya goes over her “sins” in her memory. They behave like children. “Dear cabinet,” says Gaev, but does nothing to ensure that this cabinet is not sold under the hammer. With the same "respect" he treats the garden, and his sister, and his past. "Much and inappropriate" says. In front of the closet - it is possible, but in front of the servant ?! Ranevskaya is outraged by this, and not that her brother is talkative and stupid. Gaev says he suffered for his beliefs. Here is one of them: "Why work, you will die anyway." For such a "conviction" he really suffered. It is characteristic that Chekhov makes Gayev and Lopakhin say the same word: Gayev sends the “clean” to the corner, and Lopakhin earns forty thousand “clean”. As you can see, there is a difference here, and no small one.

Lackey Yasha cannot “without laughing” hear Gayev. Doesn't Chekhov also try to evoke the same attitude towards Leonid Andreyevich in the reader, in whose speeches there is no more sense than in Firs's “muttering”? Many of Gaev's remarks end with ellipsis. He is constantly cut off, although he is the eldest in the house. For Chekhov, everything matters: what the character is talking about, and how he does it, and how and what he is silent about. Gaev's silence (sometimes he manages to keep quiet) does not make him more mature and serious. Here, too, he theoretically “puts” the ball, but ends up putting his family estate at the feet of the “muzhik”. Drama? If yes, then comic. “You are still the same, Lenya,” notes Ranevskaya. This does not refer to Gaev's appearance, but to his childish manners. He could have said the same about his sister. Railways, telegraph poles, summer residents appeared, and gentlemen are still the same as half a century ago. Now they are trying to hide in the "nursery" from life, from its cruel blows.

Ranevskaya recalls her drowned son, “crying quietly”. But the reader cannot get emotional, he is definitely hindered by the author, who, in response to Ranevskaya's remark: “The boy died, drowned ... For what? For what?" introduces a discordant interruption: “Anya is sleeping there, and I speak loudly, making a noise.” And then: “Well, Petya? Why are you so ugly? Why did you get old? " And the dramatic did not work out, because it is not clear what worries Lyubov Andreevna more: a drowned boy, sleeping Anya or Petya, who has grown old. "

Chekhov achieves the comic effect by various means. About Pischik, for example, Firs says: “They were with us on the saint, they ate half a bucket of cucumbers ...” Half a bucket was no longer eaten, but ... Not without reason, after Firs’s remark, Lopakhin jokingly throws: “What a breakthrough”.

The semantic subtext is of great importance. Ranevskaya, according to her, was “drawn” to Russia, to the Motherland, but in reality she “barely got there,” that is, forcedly returned, after she was robbed, thrown. Soon she will also be “pulled” to Paris ... by “courier”. She will go with the money sent to the “child” and, of course, squander it with the “wild man”.

“Come with me,” Anya says to her mother after the sale of the estate. If Ranevskaya had gone! There would be a dramatic turn of the theme: a new life, difficulties, hardships. A new comedy: life has taught nothing to this eccentric, selfish woman, who, however, is not devoid of many positive features. But all this perishes in her monstrous frivolity and selfishness. Ranevskaya will not say: finally, you have to be business-like and sober. She will say something else: "We must fall in love." To Pischik's requests for a loan of money, she easily replies: "I really have nothing." “Nothing” worries Anya, Varya, finally, Lopakhin, but not Ranevskaya and Gaev. Lyubov Andreevna constantly loses her wallets. Even if Lopakhin's plan had been adopted, it would have changed nothing: the gentlemen “litter” with money. Ranevskaya's husband died of champagne, he "drank terribly." And gentlemen do everything "scary": they drink terribly, fall terribly in love, talk terribly, terribly helpless and frivolous ...

This is how the comicism of absurdity, strange eccentricity arises. It contains the origins of hidden laughter. The life of such people did not turn into a drama, and therefore a comedy "came out". The well-known idea that history repeats itself twice: once as a tragedy, the second as a farce, can be illustrated on the characters of the play "The Cherry Orchard".

INNOVATION A. P. CHEKHOV (Based on the play "The Cherry Orchard")

Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" appeared in 1903, at the turn of the century, when not only the socio-political world, but also the world of art began to feel the need for renewal, the emergence of new plots, heroes, techniques of artistic creativity. Chekhov, being a talented person, has already shown his skill as an innovator in short stories, and enters into drama as a person striving to form new artistic positions.

He proceeds from the idea that in real life people do not quarrel, reconcile, fight and shoot as often as it happens in modern plays. Much more often they just walk, talk, drink tea, and at this time their hearts break, destinies are built or destroyed. Attention is focused not on the event, but on the inner world of the heroes, mood, feeling, thoughts. This gave birth to Chekhov's technique, which is now commonly called semantic subtext, “undercurrent,” “iceberg theory”.

“On stage everything should be as simple and as complicated as in life” (Chekhov). Indeed, in the works of A.P. Chekhov we see not an image of life itself, as it was with A.N. Ostrovsky, but an attitude towards it.

The main idea of ​​Chekhov in creating a new play could not but be reflected in the features of the dramatic work in its usual sense (setting, development of the action, etc.). The plot is new, the plot is missing. For Chekhov, the plot is the fate of Russia, and the plot is just a chain of events. We can say that Chekhov's play is based not on intrigue, but on mood. In the composition of the work, this special lyrical mood is created by the heroes' monologues, exclamations (“Goodbye, old life!”), Rhythmic pauses. Even the landscape of the cherry orchard in bloom is used by Chekhov to convey the nostalgic sadness of Ranevskaya and Gaev for the old serene life.

Chekhov's details are also interesting: the sound of a broken string, as shading and reinforcing the emotional impression, props, replicas, and not just the landscape, as in Ostrovsky. For example, the telegram that Ranevskaya received at the very beginning of the play is, as it were, a symbol of the old life. Receiving it at the end of the play, Ranevskaya thereby cannot give up her old life, she returns there. This detail (telegram) helps to assess Chekhov's attitude to Ranevskaya, who could not step into a new life.

The lyrical mood of the play is also connected with the peculiarity of its genre, which the author himself defined as “lyric comedy”. Defining the genre of the play, it should be noted that Chekhov does not have a positive hero, the presence of which was characteristic of the works of his predecessors.

In Chekhov's play there is no unambiguous assessment of the characters' characters. For example, Chekhov's Charlotte Ivanovna is both comic and at the same time tragic hero. But in the play there is only one hero whom the author ruthlessly assesses - this is Yasha. "The Cherry Orchard" is a comedy of old outdated types of people who have outlived their time. Chekhov sadly laughs at his heroes. Over old Gayev, "who lived his fortune on candy", to whom even more "ancient" Firs habitually advises which "trousers" to wear, over Ranevskaya, who swore her love for her Motherland and immediately left back to Paris, until her lover changed her mind about returning ... Even about Petya Trofimov, who, it would seem, symbolizes the renewal of Russia, Chekhov sneers, calling him "an eternal student."

Chekhov's desire to show a wide social background of the events taking place in the play leads to the fact that he portrays a large number of off-stage characters. All the people who were once associated with the estate, as it were, surround it, influence the life of real-life characters (Lopakhin's father, Ranevskaya's parents, her husband and son, Parisian lover, Ani's aunt, whom they are going to turn to for money, etc.) etc.).

The undoubted artistic merit of the play can be considered the most simple, natural and individualized language of the characters. Gaev's enthusiastic speeches, the repetitions of some words that make his speech melodic, his billiard terms, the amusing remarks of Charlotte Ivanovna, the restrained language of the “lackey from a good house” Firs, the merchant talk of Lopakhin individualize the characters, testify to the talent of their creator.

But Chekhov's innovation at that time was far from obvious to his contemporaries, since the viewer, brought up on the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Ostrovsky, could not comprehend Chekhov's drama. For a long time, the author tried to convince both actors and directors that his play is a comedy, not a tragedy. This is Chekhov's innovation, that he has no external conflict, his conflict is internal. It is based on the discrepancy between the inner state of mind and the surrounding reality.

The artistic originality of the play "The Cherry Orchard" helps us understand why Chekhov's plays are still interesting, relevant, and also why their author is called one of the founders of the "new theater".

"CHERRY GARDEN" - COMEDY OF THE EPOCH

“The connection of times has fallen apart,” Hamlet realizes with horror, when in the Danish kingdom, having barely buried the sovereign, they play the wedding of the dowager queen and the brother of the deceased, when magnificent palaces of “new life” are erected on the newly filled grave. The most difficult thing is to grasp how this happens - the change of eras, the destruction of the old way of life, the emergence of new forms. Then, decades later, historians will identify the “tipping point,” but rarely do contemporaries realize what time is in the yard. And even less often, realizing, they will say, as Tyutchev said: "Blessed is he who visited this world in its fateful moments."

Living in “fateful moments” is scary. It's scary, because people get lost in a misunderstanding: why suddenly everything that has stood for centuries collapses, why does the strong walls that protected grandfathers and great-grandfathers suddenly turn out to be cardboard decorations? In such an uncomfortable world, blown by all the winds of history, man seeks support - some in the past, some in the future, some in mystical beliefs. They do not look for support in their neighbors - those around them are just as confused and stunned. And yet a person is looking for the “guilty”; who "arranged it all?" Those who are to blame are most often those who are near: parents, children, acquaintances. They did not protect it, they missed it ... Ah, the eternal Russian questions: "Who is to blame?" and "what to do?"

In The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov not only created images of people whose lives fell on a turning point, but captured time itself in its movement. The course of history is the main nerve of comedy, its plot and content. The heroes of The Cherry Orchard are people caught in a tectonic split formed in time, forced to live, that is, to love and rejoice, in this crevasse of the circumstances of a great history. This destructive moment is the time of their only life, which has its own special private laws and goals. And they live above the abyss - are doomed to live. And the content of their time is the destruction of what was the life of generations.

Chekhov's hero, as always, plays a secondary role in his own life. But in The Cherry Orchard, the heroes are victims not of unfortunate circumstances and their own lack of will, but of the global laws of history. The active and energetic Lopakhin is as much a hostage of time as the passive Gaev.

The play is built on a unique situation that has become a favorite for all new drama of the 20th century - this is a threshold situation. Nothing of the kind is happening yet, but there is already a feeling of an edge, an abyss into which a person must fall.

It is ridiculous to argue, like Petya Trofimov, about the historical necessity in a situation of someone's personal grief. It is scary, like Blok, to justify the destruction of the family nest, where the life of generations took place, from the class point of view. This reasoning is primarily immoral.

One of Chekhov's main convictions is that no one is given to know the whole truth, everyone sees only a part of it, taking his incomplete knowledge for the fullness of the truth. And to be self-absorbed by this truth, to stand unshakably on one's own, - for Chekhov, this looks like a common destiny, an irreplaceable feature of human existence. This - in the immutability and unshakable fidelity of each of his essence - is the basis of the comedy of the play, no matter how serious or sad the consequences and complications may turn out to be such constancy for its carriers and for those around.

ARTISTIC PICTURE "CHERRY GARDEN"

Chekhov's plays seemed unusual to contemporaries. They differed sharply from the usual dramatic forms. They lacked the seemingly necessary set-ups, climaxes and, strictly speaking, dramatic action as such. Chekhov himself wrote about his plays: “People are just having dinner, wearing jackets, and at this time their fates are being decided, their lives are being destroyed”. There is a subtext in Chekhov's plays that takes on special artistic significance. How is this subtext conveyed to the reader, viewer? First of all, with the help of the author's remarks. Such an increase in the meaning of the remarks, the expectation of reading the play leads to the fact that in Chekhov's plays there is a convergence of the epic and dramatic principles. Even the place where the action takes place sometimes has a symbolic meaning. "The Cherry Orchard" opens with an expressive and lengthy remark, in which we find the following remark: "The room, which is still called the nursery." It is impossible to stage this remark, and it is not designed for stage implementation and does not serve as an indication to the director of the play, but in itself has an artistic meaning. The reader, namely the reader, immediately has the feeling that time in this house has stood still, delayed in the past. The heroes have grown up, and the room in the old house is still "children's". On stage, this can only be conveyed by creating a special atmosphere, a special mood, an atmosphere that would accompany the entire action, creating a kind of semantic background. This is all the more important because in the future in the play a dramatic motive of the passing, elusive time will appear several times, which leaves the heroes behind. Ranevskaya addresses her nursery, her garden. For her, this house, this garden is her precious, pure past, it seems to her that her late mother is walking in the garden. But it is important for Chekhov to show the impossibility of returning to a happy past, and the fourth act of the play takes place in the same nursery, where the curtains on the windows, paintings from the walls have now been removed, furniture is arranged in one corner, and suitcases lie in the middle of the room. The heroes leave, and the image of the past disappears without being transformed into the present.

With the help of remarks, Chekhov conveys the semantic nuances of the dialogues of the characters, even if the remark contains only one word: "pause". Indeed, the conversations in the play are unliving, often interrupted by pauses. These pauses give the conversations of the characters in The Cherry Orchard a kind of chaos, incoherence, as if the hero does not always know what he will say in the next minute. In general, the dialogues in the play are very unusual in comparison with the plays of Chekhov's predecessors and contemporaries: they rather resemble the dialogues of the deaf. Everyone talks about his own, as if not paying attention to what his interlocutor says. So, Gaev's remark that the train was two hours late, unexpectedly entails the words of Charlotte that her dog also eats nuts. Everything seems to contradict the laws of drama developed by the entire world dramatic realistic literature. But, naturally, Chekhov has a deep artistic meaning behind this. Such conversations show the originality of the relationship between the characters in the play, in general the originality of Chekhov's images. In my opinion, each character in The Cherry Orchard lives in his own closed world, in his own system of values, and it is their discrepancy with each other that comes to the fore in the play, the author emphasizes.

The fact that Lyubov Andreevna, who is threatened by the sale of her estate at the auction, gives money to the first person he meets, is Chekhov only designed to demonstrate her extravagance as a character trait of an eccentric mistress or to testify to the moral rightness of the thrifty Varya? From Wari's point of view, yes; from the point of view of Ranevskaya - no. And from the point of view of the author, this is generally evidence of the inability of people to understand each other. Lyubov Andreevna does not at all strive to be a good housewife, in any case Chekhov does not depict this desire and does not condemn the heroine for his absence. He generally speaks of something else, which lies outside the boundaries of economic practice and has nothing to do with it. Lopakhin's advice, smart and practical, is unacceptable to Ranevskaya. Is Lopakhin right? Undoubtedly. But Lyubov Andreevna is also right in her own way. Is Petya Trofimov right when he tells Ranevskaya that her Parisian lover is a scoundrel? He’s right, but his words don’t make any sense to her. And Chekhov does not at all set himself the goal of creating the image of a stubborn and headstrong woman who does not listen to anyone's advice and ruins her own home and family. For this, the image of Ranevskaya is too poetic and charming. Apparently, the reasons for the disagreements between people lie in Chekhov's plays not at all in the practical field, but in some other sphere.

The change in the subject of conversations in the play could also be puzzling. There seems to be no logical connection between successive conversing groups. So, in the second act, Petya and Anya come to replace those talking about the meaning of life of Ranevskaya, Gaev and Lopakhin, people who are far from what worries the elders, worries them. Such a "mosaic" of scenes is due to the originality of the system of images and dramatic conflict in Chekhov. As a matter of fact, there was no dramatic conflict in the usual sense in Chekhov's plays, the action was not based on the confrontation of characters, and the characters ceased to be divided into “good” and “bad”, “positive” and “negative”. In The Cherry Orchard, perhaps only Yasha is written out clearly ironically, while the rest do not fit into the traditional categories of negative characters. Rather, each character is unhappy in his own way, even Simeonov-Pischik, but those characters on whose side the author's sympathy is still not unambiguously “positive”. Ranevskaya's address to her children's room sounds genuinely sad, Chekhov does not allow him to rise to a truly tragic sound, neutralizing the tragic beginning with Gaev's comic appeal to the closet. Gayev himself is ridiculous in his pompous and ridiculous monologues, but at the same time he is sincerely touching in his fruitless attempts to save the cherry orchard. The same - "funny and touching" - can be said about Pet Trofimov.

The same trait makes the hero attractive, funny and pathetic. This is perhaps the trait that unites them all, regardless of their external position. The intentions, the words of the heroes are wonderful, the results are at odds with the intentions, that is, they are all to some extent “fools”, to use Firs's word. And in this sense, not only comic significance is acquired by the figure of Epikhodov, who, as it were, concentrates in himself this general “nonsense”. Epikhodov is a parody of each character and at the same time a projection of everyone's misfortunes.

Here we come to the symbolism of the "Cherry Orchard". If Epikhodov is a collective image, a symbol of the actions of each character, then the general symbol of the play is a falling into the past, breaking life and the inability of people to change it. That is why the room is so symbolic, which is “still called the children's room”. Even some of the characters are symbolic. Charlotte, for example, who does not know her past and is afraid of the future, is symbolic among people who are losing their place in life. People are unable to turn the tide in their favor, even in small things. This is the main pathos of the play: the conflict between the heroes and life, breaking their plans, breaking their fates. But in the events that take place in front of the audience, this is not expressed in the fight against any intruder who has set himself the goal of destroying the inhabitants of the estate. Therefore, the conflict in the play goes into subtext.

All attempts to save the estate were in vain. In the fourth act, Chekhov introduces the sound of an ax knocking on wood. The Cherry Orchard, the central image of the play, grows into an all-encompassing symbol that expresses the inevitable death of a departing, decaying life. All the characters in the play are to blame for this, although they are all sincere in their striving for the best. But the intentions and results diverge, and the bitterness of what is happening is able to suppress even the joyful feeling of Lopakhin, who found himself in a struggle, in which he did not strive to win. And only Firs remained to the end devoted to that life, and that is why he was forgotten in the boarded-up house, despite all the worries of Ranevskaya, Varya, Ani, Yasha. The guilt of the heroes before him is also a symbol of the universal guilt for the death of the beautiful, which was in the outgoing life. The play ends with Firs's words, and then only the sound of a broken string and the clatter of an ax cutting down a cherry orchard is heard.

TIME AND PLACE IN THE PIECES OF A. P. CHEKHOV

The magical meaning of time and place in Chekhov's plays has not yet been studied deeply enough, therefore it would be extremely interesting to discover some patterns of the participation of time and space in Chekhov's drama. The dramatic kind of literature itself limits the possibilities of expressing the author's position, therefore, Chekhov's “voice” in his works is not only the plot, composition or characters of the heroes, but also the place and time that have a specific meaning in life for each human character.

The heroes of Chekhov's plays are almost all unanimous in their attitude to these categories: they proclaim their dependence on place and time. For example, three sisters from the play of the same name are looking for the meaning of life, that is, the sources of happiness, and they find it precisely in time and in a certain place: “Sell a house, end everything here and in Moscow ...”

Women see Moscow as the promised land; it occupies the main positions in their past and, most importantly, in the future. The heroine of another Chekhov's play, Ranevskaya, also has a clear “enchanted” place - the cherry orchard, which is connected with her past as tightly as Moscow is with the future of the Prozorov sisters. The important thing is that the most wonderful Chekhovian heroes live not only in the implied place, but also in surreal time. Nobody wants to live in the present, nobody can live in the present. Three sisters grab onto time, like a saving straw, trying to rely on memories: “Father died exactly one year ago, just on that day ... Father received a brigade and left Moscow with us eleven years ago ...” One of the heroes “Three Sisters” rants about the future, and his voice merges in a chorus with other, Chekhov's heroes: “In two or three hundred, finally a thousand years, a new, happy life will come”. Compare with Petya's words in The Cherry Orchard: “I anticipate happiness, Anya, I already see it ...”

The scary thing is that the heroes are trying to deceive the time, appoint ghostly dates in order to reach after them, or, conversely, freeze in a moment from the past. This is what Arkadina from The Seagull is trying to do in order to stay young; recalls Ranevskaya's childhood, trying to isolate herself from the near future.

The heroes are missing out on time: disappears into the haze and, finally, the rosy future in Moscow disappears for three sisters; the cherry orchard is sold - its time is coming to an end.

To designate the borderline between living and dead time, reality and unreality of existence, Chekhov uses elusive, but apt details. Chebutykin from “Three Sisters” breaks the clock and says “Shattered!” It is not the clock that shatters to smithereens, but the time that the heroes counted for themselves. Now it is clearly visible that the Prozorov house stands on a special dial, along the edge of which time runs, fencing off, like barbed wire, this place from the rest of the space.

The time by which a person lives is symbolically represented at the end of the play "The Seagull", when Dr. Dorn, having heard the shot, suggests: "A bottle of ether has burst." The man is exhausted like ether, his time burst like a bottle. In The Cherry Orchard, the sound of tearing time is not even veiled by a symbol: “Suddenly a distant sound is heard, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad”. Time is running out, people feel it, but no one fights with it, except, perhaps, Lopakhin and Natasha. These people have saddled fate and time with place in the first place. Lopakhin took possession of the main place in The Cherry Orchard - the cherry orchard itself - and immediately separated from the rest of the characters, gaining time and place. Natasha captured the Prozorovs' house, the space where other heroes languish.

Everybody is looking for a place, searching for a "corner" for the soul, for the cause has always been occupied by the heroes of the Russian drama: from Chatsky, who is fleeing "out of Moscow," to three sisters striving for Moscow. Ranevskaya flees to Paris, back to the cherry orchard and again to Paris. In Paris, she lives in a cramped, smoky apartment that gives a feeling of fullness.

For the heroes of Chekhov's plays, emptiness is one of the most oppressive sensations. Masha in Three Sisters is afraid of emptiness in her memory: Nina Zarechnaya says the words from Treplev's play: “Empty, empty, empty. Scary, scary, scary ”. The remark in the last scene of "The Cherry Orchard" reads: "The stage is empty." The stage is empty not only in the last episode, throughout the entire action the scene was filled only with things that played the role of people (for example, a wardrobe), and people characterized by the immobility of things (for example, Firs). In general, Firs is the only person who is not looking for a saving place. He got so accustomed to it that he himself became a place, which is why he was abandoned, like the entire space of a cherry orchard is thrown, which, together with the old servant, will go “under the ax,” that is, into the past. Having put themselves in dependence on place and time, people unconditionally entrust their fate to them, not noticing that the place is subject to time, and time has already cracked in the present, which means that it is unlikely to last until the future.

It seems to me that Chekhov revealed to us the tragedy of his heroes by showing this fatal dependence. Spatial and temporal dimensions should not dominate a person, life should not be measured in hours and years, a place should not be a guarantor of happiness; a person must simply not allow inner emptiness and spiritual timelessness.

SYMBOLS OF THE PIECE "CHERRY GARDEN"

The play "The Cherry Orchard" was written by Chekhov shortly before his death. It is impossible to imagine a person who would not know this play. In this touching work, Chekhov seems to say goodbye to the world, which could have been more merciful and more humane.

Studying the work of Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard", I would like to note one feature of his characters: they are all ordinary people, and none of them can be called a hero of their time, although almost every one of them is a symbol of the time. The landowner Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev, Simeonov-Pishchik and Firs can be called a symbol of the past. They are burdened by the legacy of serfdom, under which they grew up and were brought up, these are the types of leaving Russia. They do not imagine a different life, like Firs, who cannot imagine life without masters. Firs considers the liberation of the peasants a misfortune - "the peasants are with the gentlemen, the gentlemen are with the peasants, and now everything is in disarray, you will not understand anything." The symbol of the present is associated with the image of Lopakhin, in which two principles are fighting. On the one hand, he is a man of action, his ideal is to make the earth rich and happy. On the other hand, there is no spiritual principle in it, and in the end the thirst for profit takes over. Anya, the daughter of Ranevskaya and the eternal student Trofimov, was a symbol of the future. They are young and the future belongs to them. They are obsessed with the idea of ​​creative work and liberation from slavery. Petya urges you to drop everything and be free like the wind.

So who is the future? For Petya? For Anya? For Lopakhin? This question might have been rhetorical if history had not provided Russia with a second attempt at solving it. The end of the play is very symbolic - the old owners leave and forget the dying Firs. So, the logical ending: inactive consumers in the social sense, a servant - a lackey who served them all his life, and a cherry orchard - all this irrevocably goes into the past, to which there is no turning back. History cannot be returned.

I would like to note the cherry orchard as the main symbol in the play. Trofimov's monologue reveals the symbolism of the garden in the play: “All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it. Think, Anya: your grandfather, great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serf owners who owned living souls, and really from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk, human beings do not look at you, can you really not hear voices ... living souls, because it has reborn all of you who lived before, and are now living, so your mother, you, uncle no longer notice that you are living on debt at someone else's expense, at the expense of those people whom you do not let farther than the front door .. . ”Around the garden, all the action takes place, the characters of the heroes and their fates are highlighted on its problems. It is also symbolic that the ax brought over the garden caused a conflict between the heroes and in the souls of most of the heroes the conflict is not resolved, just as the problem is not solved after the cutting down of the garden.

On the stage "The Cherry Orchard" is about three hours. The characters live for five months during this time. And the action of the play covers a more significant period of time, which includes the past, present and future of Russia.

SYMBOL OF THE CHERRY GARDEN IN THE PLAY BY A. P. CHEKHOV

The end of Chekhov's life came at the beginning of a new century, a new era, new moods, aspirations and ideas. Such is the inexorable law of life: someone who was once young and full of strength becomes old and decrepit, giving way to a new - young and strong life ... Death and dying are followed by the birth of a new one, disappointment in life is replaced by hopes, the expectation of changes ... Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" reflects precisely such a turning point - a time when the old has already died, and the new has not yet been born, and now life has stopped for a moment, has subsided ... Who knows, maybe this is the calm before the storm ? Nobody knows the answer, but everyone is waiting for something ... He waited in the same way, peering into the unknown, and Chekhov, anticipating the end of his life, waited for the entire Russian society, suffering from uncertainty and being at a loss. One thing was clear: the old life was irrevocably gone, and another was coming to replace it ... What would it be, this new life? The characters in the play belong to two generations. The kingdom of cherry orchards ends with the poetry of sad memories of a past brilliant life, forever silenced. An era of action and change will soon begin. All the heroes of the play anticipate the onset of a new life, but some await it with apprehension and uncertainty, while others - with faith and hope.

Chekhov's heroes do not live in the present; the meaning of their life lies for them either in their idealized past, or in an equally idealized bright future. What happens “here and now” does not seem to bother them, and the tragedy of their situation is that everyone sees the purpose of his being outside of life, outside of the “cherry orchard” that personifies life itself. The Cherry Orchard is the eternal Present that ties together the past and the future in the eternal movement of life. The ancestors of the Ranevskys worked in this garden, whose faces look at Petya and Anya “from every leaf, from every branch in the garden”. The garden is something that has always existed, even before the birth of Firs, Lopakhin, Ranevskaya, it embodies the highest truth of life, which Chekhov's heroes cannot find. The garden blooms in spring, bears fruit by autumn; dead branches give new fresh shoots, the garden is filled with the smell of herbs and flowers, birdsong, life is in full swing here! On the contrary, the life of its owners stands still, nothing happens to them. There is no action in the play, and the characters only do that they spend precious time of their life in conversations that do not change anything in it ... “The Eternal Student” Petya Trofimov mercilessly attacks human vices - idleness, laziness, passivity - and encourages to activity, to work, preaching "the highest truth." He claims that he will certainly find for himself and show others “the way how to reach” it, to this highest truth. But in life he does not go further than words and in fact turns out to be a "fool" who cannot complete the course and who everyone makes fun of because of his absent-mindedness.

Anya, whose soul has sincerely opened up to Petya's free aspirations, exclaims enthusiastically: "We will plant a new garden, more luxurious than this." She easily renounces the past and happily leaves her home, for she has a “bright future” ahead of her. But this new life, which Petya and Anya are so awaiting for, is too illusory and uncertain, and they themselves, without realizing it, pay a dear price for it!

Ranevskaya is also full of vague and vague hopes. She cries at the sight of the nursery, utters pompous monologues about her love for her homeland, but nevertheless sells the garden and leaves for Paris to the man who, according to her, robbed and abandoned her. The garden, of course, is dear to her, but only as a symbol of her faded youth and beauty. She, like all the other characters in the play, cannot understand that no myth that a person creates for himself in order to overcome the fear of emptiness and chaos - no myth will fill life with true meaning. The sale of the garden is only a visible solution to the problems, and there is no doubt that the rushing soul of Ranevskaya will not find peace in Paris, and the dreams of Petit and Anya will not come true. “All Russia is our garden,” says Petya Trofimov, but if he so easily refuses what connects him with the past, if he is not able to see the beauty and meaning in the present and does not fulfill his bright dream here and now, in this garden, then and then, in the future, he will hardly find meaning and happiness.

Lopakhin, who lives by the laws of practicality and profit, also dreams of the end of his “awkward unhappy life”. He sees a way out of the situation in buying a garden, but when he acquires it, he appreciates in it “only that it is big” and is going to cut it down in order to build summer cottages on this place.

The Cherry Orchard is the semantic and spiritual center of the play, it is the only stable and unchanging living organism true to itself, in which everything is subject to the strict order of nature and life. Cutting down the garden, the ax falls on the most sacred that remained of the Chekhovian heroes, on their only support, on what connected them with each other. For Chekhov, the most terrible thing in life was to lose this connection - the connection with ancestors and descendants, with humanity, with Truth. Who knows, maybe the Garden of Eden served as a prototype for the cherry orchard, which was also abandoned by a person who was flattered by deceptive promises and dreams?

A. P. CHEKHOV - SHAKESPEARE OF THE XX CENTURY

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was tormented by moral problems all his life. Ethics - this pinnacle of philosophy - permeates all of his work.

Oleg Efremov

Chekhov is sometimes called Shakespeare of the 20th century. And indeed it is. His drama, like Shakespeare's, played a huge pivotal role in the history of world drama.

Of course, the innovation of Chekhov's drama was prepared by the searches and discoveries of his great predecessors, the dramatic works of Pushkin and Gogol, Ostrovsky and Turgenev, on whose good strong tradition he relied. Chekhov brilliantly showed how, in a vulgar environment, any human feeling becomes shallow, distorted, how human souls are mutilated, how feelings turn into absurdity, how weekdays kill holidays. The playwright laughed at human absurdity, life collisions, but he did not kill the person himself with laughter.

New times were coming. Russia was on the verge of agonizing change. And Chekhov, like no one else, felt it. The birth of Anton Pavlovich's mature drama is associated with this new atmosphere of social life.

“The Seagull” is a play about people of art, and about the throes of creativity, and about restless, restless young artists, and about the smug-fed older generation, striving to maintain the positions won. This is a play about love, about unrequited feelings, about mutual misunderstanding, about the cruel disorder of personal destinies. Finally, this is a play about the painful search for the true meaning of life. All the characters in the play are equally significant. And everyone is equally unhappy. Contacts between them are broken, each exists on its own, alone, unable to understand the other. That is why the feeling of love is so especially hopeless here: everyone loves, but everyone is unloved. Nina can neither understand nor fall in love with Treplev, he does not notice Masha's devoted, patient love. Nina loves Trigorin, but he leaves her. Arkadina, with the last of her strength, keeps Trigorin near her, although there has been no love between them for a long time. Polina Andreevna constantly suffers from Dorn's indifference, Medvedenko's teacher - from Masha's callousness ...

The inability to understand each other turns into indifference and callousness. So, heartlessly betrays Trepleva Nina Zarechnaya, rushing after Trigorin in search of “noisy glory”. The whole play is imbued with the vexation of the spirit of the heroes, anxieties of mutual misunderstanding, unshared feelings, and general dissatisfaction. Even the most seemingly prosperous person - the famous writer Trigorin - is not satisfied with his fate, doubts his own talent and secretly suffers. Far from people, he will silently sit with fishing rods by the river, and then suddenly break through in a truly Chekhovian monologue, and it will become clear that even this person is also, in essence, unhappy and lonely.

The Seagull symbol stands for a motive of an eternal disturbing flight, a stimulus for movement, a rush into the distance. Only through suffering does Nina Zarechnaya come to the simple idea that the main thing is “not fame, not shine,” not what she once dreamed of, but “the ability to endure”.

There are practically no events in the play "Uncle Vanya". The most notable incident is the arrival of the capital's professorial couple Serebryakovs in an old neglected estate, where Uncle Vanya and niece Sonya habitually live and work. Walking on the grass and talking about the loss of the meaning of life coexist with worries about mowing, memories of the past are interspersed with a glass of vodka and the strumming of a guitar.

It would seem that a peaceful and calm course of life, but what passions are raging in the souls of the heroes. In the slow-motion rhythm of the summer village everyday life, gradually, from within, drama is brewing. On a sultry stormy night, during insomnia, when Voinitsky suddenly clearly understands how stupidly he “missed” his life, throwing it at the feet of the bloated idol Serebryakov, whom he considered a genius for twenty-five years.

The insight and "rebellion" of Uncle Vanya mean at the same time the painful process of breaking the old authorities in Russian reality.

How to live the rest of your life, now endure the "test of everyday life", now, when a person is deprived of the purpose and meaning of life, a "general idea"? And what to do when the idol turns out to be false? How to start a “new life”? This is the true "extra-event" drama of Voinitsky. This is a drama of an "impersonal" character, because Serebryakov, after all, is not the whole point. The fact is that the whole old world is collapsing, collapsing, and its cracks are passing through the human soul.

His last play, The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov completed on the threshold of the first Russian revolution, in the year of his early death. The title of the play is symbolic. And indeed, thinking about the death of the old cherry orchard, about the fate of the inhabitants of the ruined estate, he mentally imagined “all Russia” at the end of the eras. The point is not only the sale of the estate and the arrival of a new owner: all of old Russia is leaving, a new century begins. Chekhov is ambivalent about this event. On the one hand, the historical demolition is inevitable, the old noble nests are condemned to extinction. The end is coming, soon there will be neither these faces, nor these gardens, nor manors with white columns, nor abandoned chapels. On the other hand, death, even inevitable, is always tragic. Because the living dies, and the ax knocks not on dry trunks.

The play begins with the arrival of Ranevskaya to her old family estate, with a return to the cherry orchard, which is all in bloom outside the window, to people and things familiar from childhood. Their childhood passed here, their parents lived here, their grandfathers and great-grandfathers lived here. But there is no money, idleness and laziness do not give an opportunity to improve matters, everything goes as it goes. The loss of the cherry orchard for Ranevskaya and Gaev is not only the loss of money and fortune. They never cared about their daily bread, they are brought up that way. This is reflected in the lordly carelessness, and the frivolity of people who have never known labor, did not know the price of a penny and how it gets. But this also reveals their amazing lack of mercy, contempt for mercantile interests. And therefore, when Lopakhin offers them, in order to save themselves from debts, to lease the cherry orchard for summer residences, Ranevskaya dismisses them with contempt: “Summer cottages and summer residents - it’s so vulgar, sorry.”

The estate is sold. "I bought!" - the new owner triumphs, rattling with keys. Ermolai Lopakhin bought an estate, where his grandfather and his father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. He is already ready to grab the cherry orchard with an ax. But at the highest moment of the triumph, this "intelligent merchant" unexpectedly feels the shame and bitterness of what had happened: "Oh, it would be more likely that all this would pass, it would sooner change somehow our awkward, unhappy life." And it becomes clear that for yesterday's plebeian, a man with a gentle soul and thin fingers, buying a cherry orchard is, in essence, an “unnecessary victory”.

So Chekhov makes one feel the fluidity, the temporality of the present: the arrival of the bourgeoisie is an unstable, transitory victory. The present is, as it were, blurred from both the past and the future. Old people, like old things, are huddled in a heap, they stumble over them, not noticing them.

Through all the dramatic works of A.P. Chekhov, there is a single, multifaceted and many-sided theme - the theme of the search for the meaning of life of the Russian intelligentsia at the beginning of the century.

Favorite Chekhov's heroes - Treplev, Nina Zarechnaya, Astrov, Uncle Vanya, Sonya, Ranevskaya - these are people of a special breed, a special warehouse. Intelligents who are able to go beyond their time, they become heroes of transpersonal consciousness, for whom the search for the meaning of life and truth is more important than practical goals and the struggle for them.

SEARCH FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE AND HAPPINESS IN THE WORKS OF A. P. CHEKHOV.

If every man on a piece of earth would do everything he can, how beautiful the earth would be on sha.

A. P. Chekhov

The search for the meaning of life is the lot of every thinking and conscientious person. Therefore, our best writers have always looked for an artistic solution to this eternal question. Today, when old ideals have tarnished and new ones are gaining their place, these problems have become perhaps the most important. But we cannot say with complete certainty that many people have found this meaning of life. It would be glad to know that everyone was looking for him and are looking for him. Only each person sees the meaning of life in his own way. It seems to me that the meaning of life is in love for those who surround you and for the work that you do. And in order to love people and your work, you need to love everyday little things, see joy in them, try to improve something around you and inside yourself every minute. In my opinion, Chekhov teaches us exactly this. He himself, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was a man whose life was filled with hard work. He was compassionate towards people, afraid of lies, was a frank, gentle, polite, well-mannered person.

A sign of the spiritual culture of a person is the readiness for self-sacrifice and self-sacrifice. Chekhov was always ready to help people. He treated the sick while working as a doctor. But healing the souls of people turned out to be more difficult and more important. Chekhov could not help but become a writer! In his plays and stories, we see the life of ordinary people, everyday life. People close to the author are people of ordinary destiny. These are intellectuals looking for the meaning of life.

Discussing the topic of finding the meaning of life in the works of Chekhov, it is necessary to dwell on his last play "The Cherry Orchard". It closely intertwines the past, present and future of all of Russia.

Ranevskaya says goodbye to the garden, as if parting with her past, idle, wasteful, but always free from calculations, vulgar mercantile interests. She is not sorry for the money wasted, she does not know the price of a penny. Ranevskaya is worried about this unhappy, awkward life. Even the last ball that the heroine starts, this world on the rubble of the past, carries the main goal of life - the desire to observe a joyful moment, overcome despair, forget about the bad, find joy in every minute, rise above chaos and misfortune.

Petya Trofimov is full of thoughts about the future. He infects Anya with his dreams. They believe in the coming joy, freedom, love.

Ermolai Lopakhin sees the meaning of life in the acquisition of real estate, in the mastery of what his grandfather and father could not even dream of, since they were slaves. And he achieved his goal, became the owner of a cherry orchard. But I did not become happier when I realized that this was an “unnecessary victory”, that its owners are not sad about the loss of the garden, that there are completely different values.

Each of the characters in the play is looking for his own path to the future. The theme of the "cherry orchard" is the theme of personal involvement in beauty, in nature, calling for the search for the meaning of life.

The heroine of the story "Jumping" Olga Ivanovna Dymova is not looking for the meaning of life. For her, her whole life is a strip of pleasure, dancing, laughter. All the people around her serve only to give her pleasure. Only when she loses Dymov does the realization of his singularity come, and even then not for long. I do not want her to believe that there will no longer be a carefree and idle life.

For the loving Olga Ivanovna Dymov, happiness lies in satisfying all the whims of his wife, cherishing her and enduring everything for her good. A timid, intelligent person sacrifices everything without thinking about himself. He works, heals people, endures adversity for the sake of the cause, for the sake of duty. He cannot do otherwise, because he loves people.

“Free and deep thinking, which seeks to comprehend life, and complete contempt for the stupid vanity of the world - these are two benefits, higher than which man has never known,” - says Dr. Ragin in the story "Ward No. 6" to his patient. "The peace and contentment of a person is not outside of him, but in himself ... a thinking person is distinguished by the fact that he despises suffering, that he is always content." Ivan Dmitrievich Gromov thinks differently. For him, life is an opportunity to respond to pain with screams and tears, to meanness with indignation, and abomination with disgust.

The result of their disputes is sad: one day in the hospital was enough for Ragin to collapse his theory.

In the story “The Bride” Sasha convinces the main character Nadia to go to study, leaving her home, her usual way of life, her groom, to show everyone that this “motionless, gray, sinful life” has bothered her. He paints in front of Nadya magnificent pictures, horizons that a new life will open to her: “wonderful gardens, fountains”. Like Trofimov, Sasha believes in a wonderful future, and his faith convinces Nadia. Both of them see the meaning of life in striving for the best, when "there will be no evil, because everyone will know what he lives for."

In the story "House with a Mezzanine" Lida Volchaninova follows the ideas of populism, seeing this as her calling. Chekhov shows us a progressively thinking girl who seeks the meaning of life in helping the sick, in teaching illiterate children, in caring for the poor.

Love for a small, simple person is the meaning of the life of Lida Volchaninova, Nadia, Gromov, Dymov and other Chekhov's heroes. Finally, in the "little trilogy" we see Ivan Ivanovich, a seeker, reflecting on his fate. He urges: “... do not calm down! While you are young ... do not get tired of doing good! .. If there is a meaning and purpose in life, then this meaning is not in our happiness, but in something more reasonable and great. Do good! ”

Rebelling against a passive outlook on life, Chekhov reveals to his readers faith in the Russian intelligentsia, faith in every decent person who can withstand the blows of fate and rise above his time in the eternal search for the highest meaning of life.

On the example of Belikov (“The Man in a Case”) Chekhov shows that convinced defenders of obscurantism often emerged from among the intelligentsia, indifferent and passive. According to the writer, this is natural: whoever does not fight for the new, for the just, sooner or later will become a jealous of the obsolete, inert. In the image of Belikov, Chekhov gave a symbolic type of person who himself is afraid of everything and keeps everyone around him in fear. Belikov's words became a classic formula of cowardice: "No matter how something happens."

You never cease to be amazed at the modernity of Chekhov's stories, their topicality, relevance. Aren't there even now such Belikovs among us, for whom the opinion of others, fear for their own actions is more important than personal convictions?

There are no identical characters, there are no absolutely identical destinies. It seems that people go somewhere all together, from birth to death, following a similar path. But it only seems to be. Each person goes his own way. In search of his own meaning in life, he chooses his friends, profession, destiny. It is very difficult and not everyone succeeds. Many give up, retreat, changing their beliefs. Some die in an unequal struggle against difficulties and vicissitudes of fate. Only the one in whom a good heart beats, who is able to understand his neighbor and help the weak, achieves happiness. Happiness is the comprehension of the meaning of life. Happiness is the need and ability to do good. The immortal, humble and kind Chekhov teaches us this. This is what life itself teaches us. The sooner we understand the need to do good, the faster we achieve happiness. Sometimes, unfortunately, too late a person realizes that his moral ideals were wrong, that he was looking for the meaning of life in the wrong place.

It is good if such a person has time to understand this when there is still time to change something, fix it. To read and re-read Chekhov means to hasten to do good!

"THE WRITER IS NOT A JUDGE, BUT ONLY AN IMPARTIAL WITNESS TO LIFE" (A.P. Chekhov)

Since ancient times, every artist has been faced with the question of whether to depict what exists or what should (or should not) exist; and in the first case, one more - why do we need such an artist. He portrayed a bull on the wall of a cave, he was hit with spears and was actually killed on the hunt. Gradually, the question was replaced by another - whether an artist has the right not to correct the vices of his fellow tribesmen, not to point out to them their shortcomings. (Being a literate person and knowing how everything happened in the past, he easily noticed inconsistencies.) But who gave him the opposite right - to be a judge, to go against society? Each author had to look in his own way for a way out of the mechanical state: he could go together or run counter to society, express himself directly, hide the author's position or do without it; could choose from existing types of literature; finally, he could give up creativity altogether. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov took the intermediate path between “saving” and “not saving”, between edification and rejection, the most true way, because “Russian literature has always been a truth-seeker”.

In the original version of "Tolstoy and Thin", for example, the action took place in the office of a fat man, who, not being the boss of the thin man and being friendly to him in his soul, is nevertheless forced to "scold" him, because that is how it should be. In the classic version, the action takes place at a train station, where, in principle, passengers are equal. And it is difficult to say whether this work is ridiculed of a social system in which vulgarity and rank-worship so penetrated into souls, or souls, into which vulgarity and rank-worship could penetrate. It is no coincidence that even at the very end of “Ionych” the doctor is “alone”. “He lives bored, nothing interests him ..... love for Kitty was his only

joy and probably the last. " If he could have vulgarized completely, he would probably be happy, like Ivan Petrovich Turkin, who “has not aged, has not changed at all and still makes jokes and tells jokes”. It is impossible to deduce morality from “Ionych”; like most of Chekhov's works. Here his plays are especially characteristic - with an airy, imperceptible and unnecessary plot. The arrival of Ranevskaya was completely unnecessary for the sale of her estate.

Chekhov conveys the atmosphere of the old noble "nests", regretting that all this will disappear, but realizing the inevitability of the end of the cherry orchard and the layer of Russian culture associated with it. It is the dramatic form that is deliberately chosen that minimizes the direct expression of the author's position. Like music, Chekhov's drama affects primarily and especially the feeling; and when you start to analyze, nothing is clear. The image of Lopakhin is especially complex. “Predator” buying a garden, at the beginning of the comedy, worried, awaits the arrival of the owners, in the middle - tries to give advice (to which Ranevskaya replies that the summer residents are good), and then gets angry at the workers who began to cut down before the owners left. The images of Ani and Petit are images of an interrogative future. There are actually comic characters - the “enlightened” servant Yash (who has learned that “ordinary” people cannot understand him; he may be parodying Petya Trofimov) and Boris Borisovich Simeonov-Pishchik, who lives on random income and continues the theme of inability in a farcical sense nobility.

"... Truth is one." Let me call aesthetics such a truth, following Yu. V. Leont'ev. Its opposite will be vulgarity (according to Merezhkovsky, “what went into use”). Of course, such an interpretation would represent only one of the possible "truths." Then Ranevskaya behaves beautifully - despite her plot characteristics (she comes from Paris and leaves in the finale there, to her lover, being already an elderly lady, from the land where her son died) - if the author was a moralist, he would have scolded this heroine no less than a thick thin one in the original version of the story. Treplev and, perhaps, Prishibeev are beautiful in their own way. The vulgar pole includes Chervyakov (“Death of an official”), thin, Nikolai Ivanovich Chimsha-Himalayan, who called his possession Himalayan; heroes like Trigorin definitely cannot be placed anywhere. Trigorin, calling his recordings a “literary storeroom,” laughs at himself, and his very image is an auto parody of Chekhov. “A cloud like a piano was floating,” may pass for a formula for the unnaturalness of modern life, but I have found such a formula. Chekhov, like Trigorin, had many notebooks; his relationship with Nina is an autobiographical motive. Therefore, Trigorin can be classified as one of the “aesthetic” heroes. Lopakhin's dispute with Ranevskaya and Gaev is a dispute between aesthetic truths: a talented entrepreneur who was once flogged in this garden, and useless, beautiful-hearted owners. This dispute is so complex that it never happens on the event plane - the bearer of one truth cannot hear another truth.

The reader, if he is able to penetrate the action of Chekhov's airy drama and his complex short story, is forced to think independently, dividing the characters according to his criteria. (For example, sincerely sympathizing with the crushed Chervyakov and the “special person” Belikov - or resenting them, who let the vulgarity into their souls.) Therefore, the novel - showing an unchanging hero in different situations or his long consistent change with the constant presence of the Author - was impossible for Chekhov.

"All Russia is our garden" (the image of Russia in the play by A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard")

The play "The Cherry Orchard" is a kind of poem about the past, present and future of Russia. The theme of the Motherland is an internal cross-cutting theme of this, according to the author's definition, comedy. We can say that this work is one of the most difficult in the dramatic heritage of A.P. Chekhov. In this play, elements of parody, drama and even tragedy are intertwined, organically merged. The author needed all this in order to recreate the image of Russia as fully as possible. The heroes of The Cherry Orchard embody a certain hypostasis of this image. Ranevskaya, Gaev - the past, Lopakhin - one of the most controversial characters - both the past and, to a certain extent, the present, Anya - the future.

The owners of the cherry orchard see neither the beauty of the past, nor the beauty of the future. Lopakhin and people like him are also far from this beauty. Chekhov believed that new people would come, who would plant new, immeasurably more beautiful gardens, turn the whole earth into a magical garden.

In the play there is also a constant Chekhovian sadness, a sadness about beauty dying in vain. We can say that it contains variations on the favorite theme of A.P. Chekhov. This is the motive of beauty, which contradicts itself, beauty, in which there is a lie, hidden ugliness. It seems to me that in this play the author, to a certain extent, develops L. Tolstoy's idea that "there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth." For A.P. Chekhov, it is important that beauty must merge with truth, only then will it be true. And that magical garden, about which Anya speaks, is a symbol of beauty, merged with truth. The author is convinced that this is inevitable, which is why the sadness in The Cherry Orchard is light. Many critics believe that the play is permeated with a feeling of farewell to the passing of life, with everything good and disgusting that was in it, but also with a joyful greeting to the new, young.

Ranevskaya and Gaev, the owners of the beautiful cherry orchard, do not know how to preserve it, take care of it. For the author, the garden is a symbol of Russia, a beautiful and tragic country. Both Lyubov Andreevna and her brother are kind, in their own way sweet, absolutely impractical people. They feel the beauty, the magical charm of the cherry orchard, but they, according to the author, are empty people, people without a homeland. All their arguments that the estate must be saved, that they cannot live without a cherry orchard, a house with which so many joyful and tragic memories are associated, lead nowhere. It seems that they are already internally accustomed to the loss of the estate. Ranevskaya reflects on the possibility of returning to Paris, Gaev, as it were, tries on the position of a bank clerk.

They even feel some relief when a "catastrophe" occurs, they can no longer worry, not "bother". Gaev's words are indicative: "Indeed, now everything is fine. Before the sale of the cherry orchard, we all worried, suffered, and then, when copying was prohibited, the issue was finally resolved, irrevocably, everyone calmed down, even cheered up." Lyubov Andreevna confirms this: "My nerves are better, it is true," although when the first news about the sale of the cherry orchard comes, she declares: "I am going to die now." In our opinion, Chekhov's remark is extremely important. Hearing Yasha's laugh in response to her words, Ranevskaya asks him with slight annoyance: "Well, why are you laughing? What are you happy about?" But, it would seem, the laughter of the footman should have shaken her in the same way as the laughter at the grave of a loved one would have shaken, because she "is about to die." But there is no horror, no shock, there is only "slight annoyance". The author emphasizes that neither Gaev nor Ranevskaya are capable of not only serious actions, but even deep feelings. The new owner of the cherry orchard, Lopakhin, is too closely connected with the past to personify the future. But, as it seems to me, he by no means fully represents the present of Russia in the play. Lopakhin is a complex and contradictory nature. He is not only "a predatory animal that eats everything that comes his way," as Petya Trofimov says about him. He tries to improve life in his own way, thinks about the future, Lopakhin offers his own program. As an intelligent and observant person, he seeks to benefit from them not only for himself. So, for example, this hero believes that “until now there were only gentlemen and men in the village, but now there are also summer residents, it may happen that on his one tithe he will take care of the economy, and then your cherry orchard will become happy, rich, luxurious ... ".

Chekhov wrote about him like this: "Lopakhin is, it is true, a merchant, but a decent man in every sense." Of course, Lopakhin is by no means devoid of attractiveness, with his passion for work, it would be necessary to do a real and great job, he has a truly creative scope. It is this character who says: "... Lord, you gave us huge forests, vast fields, the deepest horizons, and, living here, we ourselves should really be giants ...". And Lopakhin has to do not at all beautiful things, for example, buy a cherry orchard from bankrupt owners. However, this character is not devoid of an understanding of the beautiful, is able to understand that he has acquired "an estate, which is the most beautiful in the world," to realize what his act means to others. He experiences both delight, and drunken daring, and sadness at the same time.

Seeing Ranevskaya's tears, Lopakhin says with anguish: "Oh, it would sooner all go away, sooner our awkward, unhappy life would change somehow." If he were a "beast of prey," something "necessary for metabolism," would he be able to utter such words, experience such feelings? The image of Lopakhin, therefore, contains a certain duality. He simultaneously experiences sorrow about the past, tries to change the present, and thinks about the future of Russia.

In our opinion, the present reflects in the play the image of Petya Trofimov, although it would seem that it is turned into the future. Yes, there is a certain social movement behind this hero, it is clearly felt that he is not at all alone. But his role is, apparently, to show others the unattractiveness of life, to help them realize the need for change, to say "goodbye, old life!" After all, it is by no means accidental that it is not Petya Trofimov, but Anya who says: "Hello, new life!" It seems that there is only one image in the play that could harmoniously merge with the beauty of the cherry orchard. Namely, Anya is the personification of spring, the future. This heroine was able to understand the essence of all Petya's speeches, to realize that, as Chekhov wrote, everything has long become old, obsolete and everything is just waiting for the wrong end, or the beginning of something young, fresh. "She goes forward to change her life, turn the whole of Russia into a blooming garden.

A.P. Chekhov dreamed of the imminent prosperity of Russia, and reflected this dream in the play "The Cherry Orchard". However, in this work, in our opinion, there is no unambiguous ending. On the one hand - the joyful music of the affirmation of a new life, on the other - the tragic sound of a broken string "fading and sad", and then - "silence sets in, and you can only hear how far away in the garden they are knocking on a tree with an ax."

In this work A.P. Chekhov's subtle lyrics and poignant satire are included. "The Cherry Orchard" is both a merry and a sad, eternal play about the motherland, passionately beloved by the author, about its coming prosperity. That is why more and more generations of readers will turn to it.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow in the play by A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard" (Composition)

The past gazes with passion
into the future
A. A. Blok

Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" was written during the period of the social upsurge of the masses in 1903. She opens us another page of his multifaceted work, reflecting the complex phenomena of that time. The play amazes us with its poetic power, dramatism, we perceive it as a sharp denunciation of the social ulcers of society, the exposure of those people whose thoughts and actions are far from moral norms of behavior. The writer vividly shows deep psychological conflicts, helps the reader to see the display of events in the souls of the heroes, makes us think about the meaning of true love and true happiness. Chekhov easily takes us from our present to the distant past. Together with his heroes we live next to the cherry orchard, see its beauty, clearly feel the problems of that time, together with the heroes we try to find answers to difficult questions. It seems to me that the play "The Cherry Orchard" is a play about the past, present and future not only of its heroes, but of the country as a whole. The author shows the collision of representatives of the past, the present and the future inherent in this present. Lopakhin denies the peace of Ranevskaya and Gaev, Trofimov - Lopakhin. I think that Chekhov managed to show the justice of the inevitable departure from the historical arena of such seemingly harmless persons as the owners of the cherry orchard. So who are they, the owners of the garden? What connects their life with his existence? Why is the cherry orchard dear to them? Answering these questions, Chekhov reveals an important problem - the problem of a passing life, its worthlessness and conservatism.
Ranevskaya is the mistress of the cherry orchard. The cherry orchard itself serves as a "noble nest" for her. Without him, life for Ranevskaya is unthinkable, her whole fate is connected with him. Lyubov Andreevna says: “After all, I was born here, my father and mother, my grandfather lived here. I love this house, I don’t understand my life without the cherry orchard, and if it’s so much to sell, then sell me along with the garden ”. It seems to me that she is suffering sincerely, but soon I understand that she is really not thinking about the cherry orchard, but about her Parisian lover, to whom she decided to go again. I was simply amazed when I learned that she was leaving with the money sent to Anna by her Yaroslavl grandmother, leaving without thinking that she was appropriating other people's funds. And this, in my opinion, is selfishness, but some kind of special, giving her actions the appearance of good nature. And this, at first glance, is so. It is Ranevskaya who cares most of all about the fate of Firs, agrees to lend money to Pischik, it is her that Lopakhin loves for his once kind attitude towards him.
Gaev, Ranevskaya's brother, is also a representative of the past. He, as it were, complements Ranevskaya. Gaev speculates abstractly about the public good, about progress, philosophizes. But all this reasoning is empty and absurd. Trying to console Anya, he says: “We will start to charge the interest, I am convinced. By my honor, whatever you want, I swear the estate will not be sold! I swear to the vengeance by happiness! " I think, Gaev, he himself does not believe in what he says. I cannot help but say about the lackey Yasha, in whom I notice a reflection of cynicism. He is outraged by the “ignorance” of those around him, speaks of his impossibility to live in Russia: “Nothing can be done. It is not for me here, I can’t live.… I saw enough of ignorance - it will be with me ”. In my opinion, the yasha turns out to be a satirical reflection of his masters, their shadow.
At first glance, the loss of the Gayevs and the Ranevskaya estate can be explained by their carelessness, but soon I am dissuaded by the activities of the landowner Pishchik, who is doing his best to maintain his position. He is used to the fact that money itself regularly goes into his hands. And suddenly everything is broken. He is desperately trying to get out of this situation, but his attempts are passive, like Gaev and Ranevskaya. Thanks to Pischik, I realized that neither Ranevskaya nor Gaev are capable of any kind of activity. Using this example, Chekhov convincingly proved to the reader the inevitability of a departure into the past of noble estates.
The energetic gayevs are replaced by the clever businessman and cunning businessman Lopakhin. We learn that he is not of a noble estate, which he boasts a little: "My father, it is true, was a man, but I am in a white vest, in yellow shoes." Realizing the complexity of Ranevskaya's situation, he proposes to her a project for the reconstruction of the garden. In Lopakhin one can clearly feel that active vein of a new life, which will gradually and inevitably push into the background a meaningless and worthless life. However, the author makes it clear that Lopakhin is not a representative of the bubbling; he will exhaust himself in the present. Why is that? It is obvious that Lopakhin is guided by the desire for personal enrichment. Petya Trofimov gives him an exhaustive description: “You are a rich man, you will soon be a millionaire. That's how, in terms of metabolism, you need a predatory animal that eats everything that comes its way, so you are needed! ” Lopakhin, the buyer of the garden, says: "We will set up summer cottages, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here." This new life seems to him almost the same as the life of Ranevskaya and Gaev. In the image of Lopakhin, Chekhov shows us how predatory capitalist entrepreneurship is inhuman in nature. All this involuntarily prompts us to think that the country needs completely different people who will do other great things. And these other people are Petya and Anya.
With one fleeting phrase, Chekhov makes it clear what Petya is. He is an “eternal student”. In my opinion, that says it all. The author reflected in the play the rise of the student movement. That is why, I believe, the image of Petya appeared. Everything in him: both liquid hair and unkempt appearance - it would seem, should cause disgust. But that doesn't happen. On the contrary, his speeches and actions cause even some sympathy. One can feel how the actors of the play are attached to him. Some treat Petya with light irony, others with undisguised love. After all, it is he who is the personification of the future in the play. In his speeches, one can hear a direct condemnation of a dying life, a call for a new one: “I will get there. I will get there or show others the way to get there. " And he points out. He points it out to Anya, whom she loves dearly, although she skillfully hides it, realizing that another path is destined for him. He tells her: “If you have the keys to the farm, then throw them into the well and leave. Be free as the wind. " Petya evokes deep thoughts in Lopakhin, who in his soul envies the conviction of this "shabby master", which he himself lacks so much.
At the end of the play, Anya and Petya leave, exclaiming: “Goodbye, old life. Hello new life. " Everyone can understand these words of Chekhov in their own way. What new life was the writer dreaming of, how did he imagine it? For all it remained a mystery. But one thing is always true and right: Chekhov dreamed of a new Russia, a new cherry orchard, a proud and free personality. Years pass, generations change, and Chekhov's thought continues to disturb our minds, hearts and souls.

Features of Chekhov's drama

Before Anton Chekhov, the Russian theater experienced a crisis, it was he who made an invaluable contribution to its development, breathing new life into it. The playwright snatched small sketches from the everyday life of his characters, bringing the drama closer to reality. His plays made the viewer think, although there were no intrigues, open conflicts, but they reflected the inner anxiety of a turning point in historical time, when society froze in anticipation of imminent changes, and all social strata became heroes. The apparent simplicity of the plot introduced the stories of the characters before the events described, making it possible to speculate about what would happen to them after. In such an amazing way the past, present, and future were mixed in the play "The Cherry Orchard" by connecting people not so much from different generations as from different eras. And one of the "undercurrents" characteristic of Chekhov's plays was the author's reflection on the fate of Russia, and the theme of the future took center stage in "The Cherry Orchard".

Past, present and future on the pages of the play "The Cherry Orchard"

So how did the past, present and future meet in the pages of the play "The Cherry Orchard"? Chekhov, as it were, divided all the characters into these three categories, depicting them very vividly.

The past in the play "The Cherry Orchard" is presented by Ranevskaya, Gaev and Firs - the oldest character in the whole action. They are the ones who most of all talk about what happened, for them the past is a time in which everything was easy and beautiful. There were gentlemen and servants, each had its own place and purpose. For Firs, the abolition of serfdom was the greatest grief, he did not want will, remaining on the estate. He sincerely loved the family of Ranevskaya and Gaev, remaining faithful to them until the very end. For the aristocrats Lyubov Andreevna and her brother, the past is the time when they did not have to think about such base things as money. They enjoyed life, doing what brings pleasure, being able to appreciate the beauty of immaterial things - it is difficult for them to adapt to the new order, in which material values ​​replace highly moral values. For them, it is humiliating to talk about money, about ways of earning it, and Lopakhin's real proposal to lease land occupied by an essentially useless garden is perceived as vulgarity. Unable to make decisions about the future of the cherry orchard, they succumb to the flow of life and simply float through it. Ranevskaya with her aunt's money, sent for Anya, leaves for Paris, and Gaev goes to serve in the bank. The death of Firs at the end of the play is very symbolic, as if saying that the aristocracy as a social class has outlived its usefulness, and there is no place for it, in the form in which it was before the abolition of serfdom.

Lopakhin became the representative of the present in the play "The Cherry Orchard". “A man is a man,” as he says about himself, who thinks in a new way, who knows how to make money using his mind and flair. Petya Trofimov even compares him with a predator, but with a predator with a subtle artistic nature. And this brings Lopakhin a lot of emotional experiences. He is well aware of all the beauty of the old cherry orchard, which will be cut down at his will, but he cannot act otherwise. His ancestors were serfs, his father owned a shop, and he became a "white vest," having amassed a considerable fortune. Chekhov put special emphasis on the character of Lopakhin, because he was not a typical merchant, whom many treated with disdain. He made himself, paving the way with his work and desire to be better than his ancestors, not only in terms of financial independence, but also in education. In many ways, Chekhov correlated himself with Lopakhin, because their genealogies are similar.

Anya and Petya Trofimov personify the future. They are young, full of strength and energy. And most importantly, they have a desire to change their lives. But, that's just, Petya is a master of talking and reasoning about a wonderful and just future, but he doesn't know how to expose his speeches into action. This is what prevents him from graduating from university or at least somehow arranging his life. Petya denies all attachments - be it a place or another person. He captivates naive Anya with his ideas, but she already has a plan for how to arrange her life. She is inspired and ready to "plant a new garden, even more beautiful than the previous one." However, the future in Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" is very uncertain and vague. In addition to educated Ani and Petit, there is also Yasha and Dunyasha, and they, too, are the future. Moreover, if Dunyasha is just a silly peasant girl, then Yasha is a completely different type. The Gayevs and Ranevsky are replaced by the Lopakhins, but the Lopakhins will also have to be replaced by someone. If you recall the history, then 13 years later, after writing this play, it was just such Yash who came to power - unprincipled, empty and cruel, not attached to anyone or anything.

In the play "The Cherry Orchard" the heroes of the past, present and future were gathered in one place, but they are not united by an inner desire to be together and share their dreams, desires, and experiences. The old garden and the house keep them, and as soon as they disappear, the connection between the characters and the time they reflect is severed.

Link of times today

Only the greatest creations are capable of reflecting reality even many years after their creation. So it happened with the play "The Cherry Orchard". History is cyclical, society develops and changes, moral and ethical norms are also subject to rethinking. Human life is not possible without memory of the past, in inaction in the present, and without faith in the future. One generation is replaced by another, some build, others destroy. So it was in the days of Chekhov, and so it is now. The playwright was right when he said that "All Russia is our garden," and it depends only on us whether it will bloom and bear fruit, or whether it will be cut down to the very roots.

The author's reasoning about the past, present and future in comedy, about people and generations, about Russia makes people think about it in our days. These thoughts will be useful for 10 grades when writing an essay on the topic "Past, present, future in the play" The Cherry Orchard ".

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