More Than Cherry Trees Blossom in Chekhov's the Cherry Orchard

As myriad societies and civilizations have exemplified, hope inspires change. In the early 1800s, all that the Russian commoners could do was hope, for they had little else. After a series of reforms, most importantly the Emancipation Declaration of 1861 that freed the serfs, the masses realized their discontent and began to do something about it. Hoping to lead a happier life free from the repressive elite and bureaucracy, Russian lower and middle classes entered into the emerging free-market economy, and thus began the social change that would eventually lead to an uprising analogous in many ways to the French Revolution. Anton Chekhov, an accomplished short story writer and playwright of the late nineteenth century, recognized this enduring class shift throughout his motherland and praised the work ethic of his fellow citizens, as Hugh Short affirms. “[Chekhov] was convinced of the need for unceasing striving, a belief that pervaded his life and work; and he had a faith that the future would bring a better life for humankind.” Evidently, the playwright was a proponent for improvement and embraced effort, even during his last year alive. In his final play, The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov auspiciously depicts this social change at the beginning of Twentieth Century Russia through three unique and different perspectives of the societal hierarchies of the time. In the microcosm of the Ranevsky estate, Chekhov portrays this bourgeois transformation through his exaggerated cast and overtly carefree elite. Facing financial hurdles, the Ranevsky family fails to pay the mortgage on the estate. Even as the monetary troubles mount, Liubov continues her relentless spending and wastrel habits. In contrast to the upper class extravagance, Trofimov dreams of equality and hopes that someday everybody will work hard together. He cannot even enjoy the orchard on which his ancestors have toiled because, as Sally Buckner states, he keeps “thinking of his peasant ancestors, to whom every tree must have been a symbol of oppression.” Even the scholar could not persuade the family to take action and keep their estate; they remain dormant. Although Gaev has plenty of schemes and ideas, he does not have the perseverance to carry them out successfully. Instead of working, he sits around making pool references and thinking about everybody else’s misconduct. Finally, after Lopakhin struggles incessantly to persuade Liubov and Gaev to lease parts of the estate as vacation spots, the former peasant buys the house and land with plans to do just that. The majestic and enormous cherry orchard that has been the prize of Liubov and of her ancestors thus changes hands once and for the final time. Each individual illustrates his own feelings about the sale of the estate and the destruction of the cherry orchard, and these characters culminate to create an overall understanding of the ongoing social change. Francis Fergusson asserts, “The characters all suffer the passing of the estate in different ways, thus adumbrating this change at a deeper and more generally significant level than that of any individual’s experience” (89). These idiosyncratic ideas permeate The Cherry Orchard and grant the reader a profound understanding of the changing times.
Just as the individuals in The Cherry Orchard illustrate their own thoughts on the passing of the estate, the well-defined social classes on the Ranevsky manor present further insight into the loss of the asset. All of Chekhov’s cast can be divided into three discrete groups: the lower class, consisting mostly of the servants; the middle class, made up of family friends; and the upper class, mainly the Gaev family. Each echelon illustrates a unique perspective on the series of events happening around the manor and cherry orchard. J. L. Styan agrees that Chekhov divides the people of the cherry orchard into classes and further argues that he does this “so that the orchard and its sale take on a different meaning for each group.” He continues, “These characters demonstrate the transition between the old and the new, bringing life to Chekhov’s idea of an evolving social structure.” Their reaction to the cherry orchard’s destruction, paired with their insights, lend distinctive viewpoints into the changing times taking place all over Russia.
Every class is vital to explaining the social changes in Russia, but the “servant” class illustrates its frustration most in its traditional role of society. Firs, Yasha, Dunyasha, Yepikhodov, and Charlotta are servants to the Gaev family and see no hopes of eclipsing this demeaning status, as much as many of them would like to. Their working conditions and deep-rooted identities cloud their hopes of reaching a higher status; therefore, the operational members on the estate do nothing to unite as they work blindly to sustain their jobs. Styan believes that as the servants are displaced from their home, they strain to achieve a new social status; however, for some, future security is uncertain. Nearly all of the working class hopes for better work, pay, and luxuries, but they are too nearsighted to acquire these things.
The only servant delighted over the sale of the Ranevsky estate is Yasha, the young valet. He cannot wait to live in Paris and to free himself from the boredom of Russian life. Even though he engages in crude sexual engagements with Dunyasha, Yasha has no real feelings for her and eventutally leaves her behind to marry Yepikhodov, the poor clerk. Yasha shows no remorse and even considers himself part of the cultural elite even though he is far from it. In reality, he does little to help the family.
In contrast, his elder, Firs, is completely loyal to Gaev and his kin. The eighty-seven-year-old footman is a dying remnant of the antique social order, as he longs for the old days when he was an important servant on the orchard when “cherries were exported to Moscow” (290). To Firs, the large cherry orchard and lush estate represent “the flourishing economic system which secured class distinctions and social stability” (Lister). He is old enough to remember that serfs used to cultivate the cherry trees, but he is too naïve to accept that they are no longer doing so. Firs can be quirky, mumbling and carrying on in his isolated fantasy world, but his allegiance to the family is strong and sound. Once the family departs and leaves him behind, Firs remains stolid and unaltered. Sally Buckner concurs that Firs’s life now is aimless, and the old servant can now die peacefully. He is “alone . . . unaffected. Departure of the family was the end of this old servant’s life, for whatever it had been worth.” Firs never tires from serving his master, and, in fact, he worries for the man’s well-being before his own. He is the epitome of a faithful servant.
Unlike the servants, Chekhov’s diverse middle class has few things in common. Made up of Lopakhin, a successful merchant; Trofimov, a forty-year-old student; and Pishchik, an indebted family friend, this unlikely group has one connection: all three strive to disenfranchise their established positions in the social order. Through these characters, Chekhov exemplifies his “profound humanity” (Buckner), for they are not tragic in the normal sense of the word but they are instead visionaries and hard workers.
Chekhov, who had enjoyed fame and wealth long before writing The Cherry Orchard, loves the Russian public and shows his deep sympathy for the bourgeois in the play. Hence, that Lopakhin, a self-made merchant, comes into the possession of the estate is of no surprise. Even though he is not born wealthy and has little education, the hard-working businessperson rises to Russian elite. Nevertheless, at the top, he does not lose sight of his origins. Buckner points out, “[Lopakhin] had no illusion about himself; in fact, he realized that compared with these smooth-tongued and well-mannered aristocrats, he was still only a peasant.” Even though the merchant is as rich as his upper class friends are, he realizes that he is not one of them.
Despite Lopakhin’s wealth, he does not try to steal the Ranevsky estate from the Gaev family. With no initial intentions to buy the land, Lopakhin sincerely attempts to persuade the Gaev family to be sensible and to divide the estate into vacation villas. David Magarshack mentions that Lopakhin genuinely aims to save the estate for its owners, but after all is done, he is indeed the proprietor. The estate’s change in hands lends an irony apparent to Lopakhin, as he reflects upon his success in disbelief, “If my father and grandfather rose from their graves and looked at the whole affair and saw how their Yermolai . . . has bought an estate where they weren’t even allowed to enter the kitchen . . . the most beautiful spot in the world” (Chekhov 318). Lopakhin is not arrogant; he is simply dumbfounded and exuberant. He represents the core of the middle class: Lopakhin and many other hard-working people take advantage of the relatively new free market economy.
Trofimov further illustrates Chekhov’s compassion, for he is a freethinker and revolutionary. The “eternal student” sees a stable, working class in which everyone participates (Chekhov 303), and he loathes Anya’s ancestors who have killed serfs to build the miraculous orchard. Trofimov’s charismatic discourse captures Anya, as he verbalizes his firm beliefs. He states, “To begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can be done only by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted work” (Chekhov 307). The scholar’s utopian idealism contrasts with Lopakhin 's practicality and materialism just as the fundamentals of socialism conflict with those of capitalism. Short and Buckner emphasize the differences between Trofimov and Lopakhin and the paradox to which the two fall prey. Lopakhin works hard for money and, therefore, cannot plan far into the future. The merchant who has struggled to attain his present position his whole life cannot comprehend the family’s inflexible stance. He longs to persuade the Gaev family to save the estate and to destroy the orchard, unable to realize what is lost from the destruction. Trofimov, on the other hand, speaks exquisitely about the need to build for the future, but he does nothing about it. The two clash twice in the play about their divergent values, and it is apparent when Trofimov rebuffs Lopakhin’s generous loan that the scholar’s idealism is in pathetic contrast with the merchant’s maturity and rationality. Chekhov does not foresee revolution, but he does offer a reasonable assessment of Marxism and the conflicting ideals of his era.
As he presents the middle class affectionately, Chekhov sees a brighter future for them all. Pishchik always thinks that he can find ways to pay back loans and credit, but he constantly falls short. Some Englishmen find white clay on his land, and miraculously, he can now pay off all his loans. The landowner firmly believes in waiting for something good to come along, especially after he comes into his fortune; consequently, his advice to Gaev is to do just that. Yet waiting will not pay off the mortgage on the Ranevsky estate nor buy it back from the auctioneer.
As the middle class progresses up the rungs of the societal ladder, there is nowhere left to go but off the top for the aristocracy. Gaev, Liubov, Anya, and Varya have to sell the estate and leave Russia because they can no longer afford to live there. That the Ranevsky family leaves Russia behind signals the end of an era. The upper class is aware of everything going on around it, but its inadaptability and unwillingness to change with the times forces the group to step off as the Parisian elite. Short asserts that even though these highborn citizens recognize that they are a dying breed, “they seem helpless to do anything about it. They are fast being replaced by the rising merchant class.” Only forward thinking and malleability can help the aristocrats save their highly esteemed manor, but they have neither of these attributes.
Gaev and Liubov hold the cherry orchard to be of great significance. When initially confronted with the idea of cutting down the orchard, Gaev proudly argues, “The orchard is mentioned in the Encyclopedia” (Chekhov 290), as if it would be a crime to destroy something of such importance. As much as the family thinks it would do anything to save the estate, it remains idle. Not only do the owners ignore the orchard’s practical use, but they also stay in denial of their financial state of affairs. Sally Buckner argues, “Madame Ranevsky and her family have done nothing with their plot of land, which was once a grand and famous estate. Even the cherry orchard has become more dream than reality . . . to the family the orchard continues to symbolize their former grandeur.” They do not want to let the last morsel of wealth escape them, for that would finalize their financial demise.
The head of the family, Leonid Gaev, does not want to give up the land for this reason; thus, he spends a considerable amount of time deliberating over means to come into wealth quickly to avoid selling the estate. He thinks about inheriting wealth from Aunt Yaroslavl, but she refuses to give them much. He ponders Anya’s marriage into a wealthy family, but he does not wish to force anyone upon his niece. Upon every scenario, Gaev finds a dead end; he has not even thought about working himself until he has already lost the estate. Styan agrees that the billiard player will “never do a day’s useful work,” for the thought that Gaev himself might do something never occurs to him; he goes on “playing billiards and munching candy as he has done all his life.”
In contrast, Liubov sees the estate and the cherry orchard aesthetically, for it was her own home growing up. All she thinks about is the past; therefore, she cannot look to the future. Liubov’s spendthrift habits are a direct result of her reluctance to change, and she cannot comprehend the consequences of her actions. Styan points out that “when Mme Ranevsky gives away her purse to the peasants at her door, we see in the gesture her failure to be realistic about her financial circumstances as well as her paternalistic affection for all the orchard stood for in the past.” Peta Tait further explains that more than guilt for her personal failings attributes to Liubov’s dilemma over selling the orchard. “Selling the estate would betray the emotions that constitute her sense of self . . . a sense imbibed by her through memories of place and denoting expressions of interiority” (92). Losing the estate is like losing part of her soul; she grew up with the orchard as her friend and always believed it would be there as a safety net to fall back on.
These siblings ignore Lopakhin’s pleads to cut down the cherry orchard to keep the house, but they do nothing to change its destiny. Just like aristocracy all over Russia at the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the Ranevsky estate had fallen to the hands of the middle class. To Anya, this means living in Paris and the beginning of a new life. To her adopted older sister, Varya, this means a position as housekeeper on a nearby estate after a dead-end relationship with Lopakhin (Buckner). The lives of the young upper class change only slightly because of leaving the estate, much unlike the deep scars left in the archaic Liubov and Gaev. Whether affected or not, the family departs from Russia and leaves Lopakhin in charge of the estate. The social classes shift in the wake of the changing economic and political backdrop.
The three social classes in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard tender distinct analyses of such shifting times in the early 1900s. When everyone leaves the cherry orchard upon being destroyed, they also leave Firs to die alone. In the final monologue, Firs mutters the following words that echo as a coda to the entire play: “Life has slipped by as though I hadn’t lived” (Chekhov 328). The ailing valet has lost sight of what has happened to him much like the Gaev family has become blind to the inevitable sale of the estate. Firs lies motionless, and he is alone; nobody recognizes that he even exists. This significant death symbolizes the end of tradition and old Russia, which fosters in new ideas and paves the way to revolution.
Works Cited
Buckner, Sally. "The Cherry Orchard." Masterplots, Revised Second Edition (1996). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 22 February 2008. <www.ebscohost.com>.
Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard (1923). Five World Plays. Ed. V. Louise Higgins and Walter Kerr. Trans. Jennie Covan. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1964. 282-328.
Fergusson, Francis. "Francis Fergusson on the Suffering of Change in The Cherry Orchard." Bloom 's Major Dramatists: Anton Chekhov. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2000. 88-90.
Lister, Rachel. "Literary Contexts in Plays: Anton Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard." Literary Contexts in Plays: Anton Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard (2007). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 25 January 2008. <www.ebscohost.com >.
Magarshack, David. "Criticism by David Magarshack." DISCovering Authors. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Bronze. Gale. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 22 February 2008. <www.galegroup.com>.
Short, Hugh. "Anton Chekhov." Critical Survey of Drama, Second Revised Edition (2003). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 25 January 2008. <www.ebscohost.com >.
Styan, J. L. "His Chekhov." DISCovering Authors. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Bronze. Gale. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 22 February 2008. <www.galegroup.com>. Tait, Peta. "Performative Acts of Gendered Emotions and Bodies in Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard." Modern Drama. Vol. 43. Num. 1. London: Routledge, 2000. 87-95.

Cited: Buckner, Sally. "The Cherry Orchard." Masterplots, Revised Second Edition (1996). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 22 February 2008. <www.ebscohost.com>. Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard (1923). Five World Plays. Ed. V. Louise Higgins and Walter Kerr. Trans. Jennie Covan. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1964. 282-328. Fergusson, Francis. "Francis Fergusson on the Suffering of Change in The Cherry Orchard." Bloom 's Major Dramatists: Anton Chekhov. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2000. 88-90. Lister, Rachel. "Literary Contexts in Plays: Anton Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard." Literary Contexts in Plays: Anton Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard (2007). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 25 January 2008. <www.ebscohost.com >. Magarshack, David. "Criticism by David Magarshack." DISCovering Authors. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Bronze. Gale. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 22 February 2008. <www.galegroup.com>. Short, Hugh. "Anton Chekhov." Critical Survey of Drama, Second Revised Edition (2003). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 25 January 2008. <www.ebscohost.com >. Styan, J. L. "His Chekhov." DISCovering Authors. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Bronze. Gale. Wyomissing Area Jr/Sr High School. 22 February 2008. <www.galegroup.com>. Tait, Peta. "Performative Acts of Gendered Emotions and Bodies in Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard." Modern Drama. Vol. 43. Num. 1. London: Routledge, 2000. 87-95.