What attracts and alarms in the old and new owners of the "Cherry Orchard" Chekhov. The old owners of the cherry orchard Old and new owners of the cherry orchard

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The "old" owners of the cherry orchard are Gaev and Ranevskaya. The garden itself and the entire estate have belonged to them since childhood. The cherry orchard for them is just a memory of the past.

According to the story, Ranevskaya is a kind, interesting, charming, carefree woman, her flaw is indecision, because of which she does not know how to manage her estate and her life at all. It is because of this quality that she loses the garden and hopes that someone else will save it.

Gaev did not show himself better. The author says about the hero: "a fool" and constantly shows his inability to make vital and everyday decisions. The fate of the cherry orchard in his hands is destructive, and it is certainly not he who is able to save a piece of his estate.

Under the image of the garden, Chekhov depicts Russia, and under the above-described heroes - the average man in the street, living their lives perishable and senselessly.

Lopakhin became the "new" owner. The writer speaks of him extremely positively - he says that he is very "decisive". This hero is a storehouse of the best qualities gathered in one person: energetic, active, decisive. The only, as it seems to many, "minus" of Lopakhin is his position in life - "time is money." But it is thanks to this that the hero looks at the cherry orchard as his future property, which he is ready to defend and defend. For him, there are no beautiful poppies and the scent of cherries - for him this is just the territory that he needs.

Updated: 2017-10-30

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The play "The Cherry Orchard" was created by Chekhov in 1903. Its main theme is the death of a noble nest as a result of the collapse

economics and psychology of the nobility. The characters and moods of the class leaving the historical stage are embodied in the play in the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev.

Before us is a typical "noble nest", a manor house surrounded by an old cherry orchard. “What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky! .. "- Ranevskaya, the heroine of the play, says enthusiastically.

This noble nest is living out its last days. The estate is not only mortgaged, but also re-mortgaged. Soon, in case of non-payment of interest, it will go under the hammer. What are these last owners of the cherry orchard, who live more in the past than in the present?

In the past, it was a wealthy noble family that went to Paris on horseback and at whose balls were danced by generals, barons, admirals. Ranevskaya had a success even in the south of France, in Menton.

The past reminds Ranevskaya of a blossoming cherry orchard, which is to be sold for debts.

Lopakhin offers the owners of the estate a sure way to save the estate: to break the cherry orchard into plots and lease them out for summer cottages.

But from the point of view of their lordly concepts, this means seems to them unacceptable, offensive for honor and family traditions. It contradicts their noble aesthetics. “Dacha and summer residents - it's so vulgar, I'm sorry,” Ranevskaya arrogantly declares to Lopakhin in a lordly manner. The "poetry" of the cherry orchard and its "noble past" obscures life from them and deprives them of practical calculation. Lopakhin correctly calls them "frivolous, non-business, strange people."

Lack of will, unsuitability, romantic enthusiasm, instability of the psyche, inability to live characterize, first of all, Ranevskaya. The personal life of this woman was unsuccessful. Having lost her husband and son, she settled abroad and spends money on a man who deceived and robbed her.

Life never taught her anything. After the sale of the cherry orchard, she again leaves for Paris, nonchalantly declaring that the money sent by her aunt will not last long.

At first glance, there are many good features in Ranevskaya's character. She is outwardly charming, loves nature and music. This, in the opinion of others, is a sweet, "kind, glorious" woman, simple and direct.

In essence, Ranevskaya is selfish and indifferent to people. While her domestic servants “have nothing to eat”, Ranevskaya wastes money left and right and even arranges a ball that no one needs.

Her life is empty and aimless, although she speaks a lot about her tender love for people, for the cherry orchard.

Her brother Gaev is the same as Ranevskaya, a weak-willed, useless person in life. All his life he lived on the estate doing nothing. He himself admits that he ate his fortune on candy. His only "occupation" is billiards. He is all immersed in thinking about various combinations of billiard moves: "... yellow in the middle ... Doublet in the corner!"

His "business" connection with the city is expressed only in the purchase of anchovies and Kerch herrings.

In contrast to his sister, Gaev is somewhat rude. The lordly arrogance towards others is felt in his words "who?" and "boor", and in the remarks: "And here it smells of patchouli" or "Get away, my dear, you smell like chicken", thrown at the address of either Lopakhin or Yasha.

These people, accustomed to living carelessly without working, cannot comprehend even the tragedy of their situation. Ranevskaya and Gaev lack genuine, deep feelings. AM Gorky subtly notes that "tearing" Ranevskaya and her brother are people "selfish, like children, and flabby, like old people. They were late in time to die and whine, not seeing anything around them, not understanding anything. "

Both Ranevskaya and Gaev, in essence, do not like their homeland and live only with personal feelings and moods. Ranevskaya passionately exclaims: “Viditbog, I love my homeland, I love it dearly,” and at the same time irresistibly rushes to Paris. They have no future. These are the last representatives of the degenerating nobility. In the play "The Cherry Orchard" Chekhov brought this gallery of images to the end.

The main themes of the play "The Cherry Orchard", written in 1904, are: the death of a noble nest, the victory of an enterprising merchant-industrialist over the moribund Ranevskaya and Gayev, and the theme of the future of Russia associated with the images of Petya Trofimov and Anya.

Farewell to the new, young Russia with the past, with the moribund, aspiration for the future of Russia - this is the content of The Cherry Orchard.

Russia of the past, obsolete in the play, is represented by the images of Ranevskaya and Gaev. The cherry orchard is dear to both heroes, dear as a memory of childhood, youth, prosperity, an easy and graceful life. They cry over the loss of the garden, but it was they who ruined it, gave it under the ax. However, they remained true to the beauty of the cherry orchard, and therefore they are so insignificant and funny.

Ranevskaya - in the past, a wealthy noblewoman, who had a dacha even in the south of France in Menton, the owner of an estate "there is nothing more beautiful in the world." But with her lack of understanding of life, her inability to adapt to it, her lack of will and frivolity, the hostess brought the estate to complete ruin, to the point that the estate was to be sold at auction!

Lopakhin, an enterprising merchant-industrialist, offers the owners of the estate a way to save the estate. He says that all you need to do is set up a cherry orchard for summer cottages. But although Ranevskaya sheds streams of tears about the loss of her garden, although she cannot live without him, she nevertheless refuses Lopakhin's offer to save the estate. Selling or renting out plots of the garden seems unacceptable and offensive to her. But auctions take place, and Lopakhin buys the estate himself.

And when the "trouble" struck, it turned out that there was no drama for the mistress of the cherry orchard. Ranevskaya returns to Paris to her ridiculous "love", to which she would have returned anyway, despite all her words that she cannot live without her homeland. The drama selling the cherry orchard is not at all a drama for its owner. This happened only because Ranevskaya did not have any serious experiences at all. She can easily move from a state of concern, anxiety to cheerful animation. It happened this time too. She quickly calmed down and even declared to everyone: "My nerves are better, it's true."

And what is her brother, Leonid Andreevich Gaev? He is much smaller than his sister. He is able to say simple, sincere words, realizing with shame his own vulgarity and stupidity. But Gaev's shortcomings reach caricature proportions. Remembering the past, Ranevskaya kisses her favorite wardrobe. Gaev, on the other hand, delivers a speech to him. Gaev is a miserable aristocrat who spent his fortune on candy.

The failure of the noble liberal intelligentsia in the past determined the dominance in the present of people like Lopakhin. But in fact, Chekhov associates future prosperity with the younger generation (Petya Trofimov and Anya), it is they who will have to build a new Russia, plant new cherry orchards.

The play "The Cherry Orchard" is Chekhov's last work. In the eighties, Chekhov conveyed the tragic situation of people who have lost the meaning of their lives. The play was staged at the Moscow Art Theater in 1904. The twentieth century is approaching, and Russia is finally becoming a capitalist country, a country of factories, plants and railways. This process accelerated with the emancipation of the peasantry by Alexander II. The features of the new relate not only to the economy, but also to society, the ideas and views of people are changing, the old system of values is being lost.

Old and new owners of the cherry orchard (Based on the play by A. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard")

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W. Shakespeare

In one of the books devoted to the work of A.P. Chekhov, I read that the image of Hamlet helped him to understand a lot in the appearance of his contemporaries. Literary critics have paid a lot of attention to this issue, but I will note what struck me in the play The Cherry Orchard, this “swan song” of the great playwright: like the Danish prince, Chekhov's heroes feel lost in the world, bitter loneliness. In my opinion, this applies to all the characters in the play, but above all to Ranevskaya and Gaev, the former owners of the cherry orchard, who turned out to be “superfluous” people both in their own home and in life. What is the reason for this? It seems to me that every hero of the play "The Cherry Orchard" is looking for a life support. For Gaev and Ranevskaya, she is the past, which cannot be a support. Lyubov Andreevna will never understand her daughter, but Anya will never really understand her mother's drama. Lopakhin, who dearly loves Lyubov Andreevna, will never be able to understand her disdain for the "practical side of life", but Ranevskaya does not want to let him into the world of her feelings: "My dear, forgive me, you do not understand anything." All this carries a special drama in the play. “An old woman, nothing in the present, everything in the past,” Chekhov characterized Ranevskaya in his letter to Stanislavsky.

What's in the past? Youth, family life, a blossoming cherry orchard - it was all over. Her husband died, the estate fell into decay, a new painful passion arose. And then the irreparable happened: the son of Grisha died. For Ranevskaya, a sense of loss was combined with a sense of guilt. She runs away from home, from memories, that is, trying to abandon the past. However, there was no new happiness. And Ranevskaya takes a new step. She returns home, tears up a telegram from her lover: Paris is over! However, this is just another return to the past: to your pain, to longing, to your cherry orchard. But at home, where five “Parisian years” were waiting for her faithfully, she is a stranger. Everyone condemns her for something: for frivolity, for love for a villain, for a coin given to a beggar.

In the list of characters, Ranevskaya is designated in one word: "landowner". But this landowner never knew how to manage her estate, she could not save her beloved cherry orchard from death. The role of the landowner has been “played out”.

But Ranevskaya is also a mother. However, this role is also in the past: Anya is leaving for a new life, where there is no place for Lyubov Andreevna, even gray Varya managed to settle down in her own way.

Returning to stay forever, Ranevskaya is only completing her past life. All her hopes that she will be happy at home (“God knows, I love my homeland, I love it dearly, I could not look from the carriage, I was crying”) that would be removed “from my shoulders ... a heavy stone” are in vain. The return did not take place: she is superfluous in Russia. Neither the generation of modern “business people”, nor the romantic youth, all looking to the future, can understand it. Returning to Paris - albeit imaginary, but still salvation, although it is a return to yet another past. And in Ranevskaya's favorite cherry orchard, an ax knocks!

Gaev is another character that can be classified as “extra people”. Leonid Andreevich, an elderly man who has already lived most of his life, looks like an old boy. But after all, all people dream of preserving a young soul! Why is Gaev sometimes annoying? The fact is that he is simply childish. It was not youth with its romance and rebellion that he retained, but helplessness, superficiality.

The sound of billiard balls, like a favorite toy, can instantly heal his soul (“Doublet ... yellow in the middle ...”).

Who is the real master of life in this world?

Unlike the former owners of the cherry orchard, whose feelings are directed to the past, Lopakhin is all in the present. “Ham”, - Gaev unambiguously characterizes him. According to Petya, Lopakhin has a "thin and gentle soul", and "fingers, like an artist." Interestingly, both are right. And in this rightness lies the paradox of the image of Lopakhin.

“A peasant is a peasant”, despite all the wealth that he has earned by sweat and blood, Lopakhin is constantly working, is in constant business fever. The past (“My dad was a man .., he didn't teach me, he just beat me drunk ...”) echoes in him with stupid words, inappropriate jokes, falling asleep over a book.

But Lopakhin is sincere and kind. He takes care of the Gayevs, offering them a project of salvation from ruin.

But it is here that a dramatic conflict ensues, which does not lie in class antagonism, but in the culture of feelings. Saying the words “demolish”, “cut down”, “clean”, Lopakhin does not even imagine the emotional shock he is throwing his former benefactors.

The more actively Lopakhin acts, the deeper the gap between him and Ranevskaya becomes, for whom the sale of the garden means death: “If you really need to sell, then sell me and the garden”. And in Lopakhino, a feeling of some kind of deprivation, incomprehensibility is growing.

Let us recall how vividly the former and new masters of life are manifested in the third act of the play. Lopakhin and Gaev left for the city for the auction. And the house is fun! A small orchestra plays, but the musicians have nothing to pay. The fate of the heroes is decided, and Charlotte shows tricks. But then Lopakhin appears, and under the bitter cry of Ranevskaya his words are heard: “I bought it! .. Let everything as I wish! .. I can pay for everything! ...”. The “master of life” instantly turns into a boor who boasts of his wealth.

Lopakhin did everything to save the owners of the cherry orchard, but he lacked the elementary mental tact to preserve their dignity: after all, he was in such a hurry to clear the “past” from the site for the “present”.

But Lopakhin's triumph is short-lived, and now in his monologue something else is heard: "Oh, it would be more likely that all this would pass, it would sooner change somehow our awkward, unhappy life."

So the life of the cherry orchard ended under the “sound of a broken string, fading and sad”, and the immortality of the “sad comedy” of the great Russian playwright began, exciting the hearts of readers and viewers for a hundred years.