The Cherry Orchard

“LOPAKHIN. You’re too sensitive, Dunyasha. You dress just like a lady, and you do your hair like one too. You oughtn’t. You should know your place.”

Here, Lopakhin scolds Dunyasha for dressing and behaving like a lady instead of a servant. For centuries, social roles and rules were fixed, and it would have been unthinkable for servants to dress like ladies, as Dunyasha does. However, the emancipation of the serfs introduced greater social mobility into Russian society. Sometimes, this creates confusion as identity becomes more complex and less tied to people’s positions in society.

“LUBOV. My dear nursery, oh, you beautiful room…I used to sleep here when I was a baby. [Weeps] And here I am like a little girl again.”

The nursery is an important symbol of Lubov’s attachment to the past. After more than 50 years, it remains completely unchanged, while the outside world has changed a great deal. Lubov’s inability to accept these changes and face the tragedies she has experienced manifests in childlike innocence and naivete. Just like the room, she is unchanged and holds the same worldview she did as a young girl.

“ANYA. She’s already sold her villa near Mentone; she’s nothing left, nothing. And I haven’t a copeck left either; we only just managed to get here. And mother won’t understand! We had dinner at a station; she asked for all the expensive things, and tipped the waiters one rouble each. And Charlotta too. Yasha wants his share too—it’s too bad.”

In this passage, Anya describes how her mother continues to live her lavish lifestyle even though her money has run out. Lubov’s generosity shows that she is kind-hearted and well-intentioned; however, her generosity comes from a place of assumed wealth, privilege, and superiority that no longer exists. Her inability to accept this new reality and adjust her lifestyle leads to her and her family’s downfall.

“LOPAKHIN. My father was the serf of your grandfather and your own father, but you—you more than anybody else—did so much for me once upon a time that I’ve forgotten everything and love you as if you belonged to my family…and even more.”

Lopakhin and Lubov have known each other all their lives; however, their relationship is complicated due to the landowner-serf dynamic between their families. Lopakhin suggests that Lubov’s kindness to him made him forget the exploitation of his ancestors, and he loves her like family. However, as the play progresses, it becomes clear that this past is still more present than Lopakhin believes.

“LOPAKHIN. I want to say something very pleasant, very delightful, to you. […] As you already know, your cherry orchard is to be sold to pay your debts, and the sale is fixed for August 22; but you needn’t be alarmed, dear madam, you may sleep in peace; there’s a way out. Here’s my plan. Please attend carefully! Your estate is only thirteen miles from the town, the railway runs by, and if the cherry orchard and the land by the river are broken up into building lots and are then leased off for villas you’ll get at least twenty-five thousand roubles a year profit out of it.”

Initially, there doesn’t seem to be anything self-serving about Lopakhin’s plan. He cares about Lubov, is concerned about her plight, and genuinely thinks his plan will help her. His plan also indicates how much Russian society has changed. The new railroad shows the modernization taking place, and the plan to divide the estate into lots for the construction of villas speaks to the growing middle class that is in need of such homes.

“LOPAKHIN. The only remarkable thing about the orchard is that it’s very large. It only bears fruit every other year, and even then you don’t know what to do with them; nobody buys any.”

The orchard illustrates the excess and inefficiency of the aristocracy’s lifestyle. Taking up a huge amount of space, the cherry orchard serves no purpose except to be aesthetically pleasing and show off the wealth of one family. However, after the emancipation, power and wealth is no longer concentrated in the hands of the few. The members of the growing middle class demand their own comfortable homes, so land must be allocated more fairly and used more efficiently.

“LOPAKHIN. Up to now in the villages there were only the gentry and the labourers, and now the people who live in villas have arrived. All towns now, even small ones, are surrounded by villas. And it’s safe to say that in twenty years’ time the villa resident will be all over the place. At present he sits on his balcony and drinks tea, but it may well come to pass that he’ll begin to cultivate his patch of land, and then your cherry orchard will be happy, rich, splendid.”

Here, Lopakhin speaks again about the changes in society. The population is shifting, and more people have money to spend. He understands, too, that this is just the beginning. The middle class will continue to grow, and the demand for villas will increase. While Lubov sees the cherry orchard as rich and splendid now, Lopakhin sees its possibility of creating more opportunities for more individuals as its true wealth.

“LUBOV. [Looks out into the garden] Oh, my childhood, days of my innocence! In this nursery I used to sleep; I used to look out from here into the orchard. Happiness used to wake with me every morning, and then it was just as it is now; nothing has changed. [Laughs from joy] […] If only I could take my heavy burden off my breast and shoulders, if I could forget my past!”

Lubov is always running from her tragedies and problems. In her childhood home, she retreats into her idealized days of childhood innocence, trying to forget the sorrows of her adulthood. For her, the orchard is a symbol of this pure, childish happiness.

“LOPAKHIN. You must excuse my saying so, but I’ve never met such frivolous people as you before, or anybody so unbusinesslike and peculiar. Here I am telling you in plain language that your estate will be sold, and you don’t seem to understand.”

Lopakhin initially tries to help Lubov save her estate by suggesting that she divide it and lease the lots for villas. However, she refuses to hear out the idea, and she changes the subject or ignores Lopakhin when he tries to discuss the estate’s impending sale. Eventually, Lopakhin becomes frustrated with Lubov’s resistance. This passage also indicates the generational nature of Lubov and Gaev’s wealth. They have never had to make their money or learn to manage it, so they strike Lopakhin as being “unbusinesslike.”

“FIERS. And when the Emancipation came I was already first valet. Only I didn’t agree with the Emancipation and remained with my people.”

Here, Fiers, the aging servant, remarks on the emancipation of the serfs. Although he gained his freedom during the reform, it also meant that he would lose the only way of life he had ever known. Rather than face the changing world, Fiers continues to live in the past, fulfilling his duties as if the emancipation never happened.

“FIERS. […] Rather. The peasants kept their distance from the masters and the masters kept their distance from the peasants, but now everything’s all anyhow and you can’t understand anything.”

Prior to the Emancipation Reform, social classes were clearly separated, and movement between classes was impossible. This lack of social mobility made for easily defined identities. Now, as classes mix and individuals from lower classes climb the social ladder, identity becomes more complex and confusing for Fiers.

“TROFIMOV. Perhaps you are right from your point of view, but if you take the matter simply, without complicating it, then what pride can there be, what sense can there be in it, if a man is imperfectly made, physiologically speaking, if in the vast majority of cases he is coarse and stupid and deeply unhappy? We must stop admiring one another. We must work, nothing more.”

Trofimov voices the philosophical ideas of the play. He outlines the social changes in Russian society and anticipates the upcoming revolutionary movements. Most often, Trofimov argues for the importance of hard work, suggesting the need for everyone, even the aristocracy, to roll up their sleeves to make the country better.

“ANYA. What have you done to me, Peter? I don’t love the cherry orchard as I used to. I loved it so tenderly, I thought there was no better place in the world than our orchard.”

As the youngest member of her family and the representative of the new generation, Anya begins to recognize the troubling aspects of her family’s past. Sparked by Trofimov’s revolutionary ideas, she sees the cherry orchard differently. She understands that its beauty represents a darker past when serfs toiled on these lands.

“TROFIMOV. All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful, there are many marvellous places in it. [Pause] Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn’t something human look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every stalk? Don’t you hear voices…?”

Here, Trofimov outlines the dark history that the beautiful cherry orchard disguises. Comparing it to all of Russia, he indicates how the country has been built on the oppression and exploitation of the peasants. Now, the ghosts of the serfs haunt the orchard, which becomes a symbol of their forced labor.

“TROFIMOV. So far we’ve gained nothing at all—we don’t yet know what the past is to be to us—we only philosophize, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka. For it’s so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted labour. Understand that, Anya.”

Again, Trofimov reiterates the importance of hard work. He argues that people have made no real progress in Russia because they have not yet come to terms with the past. In order to move forward, they must stop romanticizing the past and invest in true work.

“LUBOV. What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing.”

Here, Trofimov tells Lubov that she must face the truth that the estate will be sold. Her response indicates the depth of the deception she has built for herself. She has spent so long running from reality that she no longer understands what is true and what is not.

“LUBOV. I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather too, I love this house. I couldn’t understand my life without that cherry orchard, and if it really must be sold, sell me with it!”

Before the emancipation, serfs belonged to parcels of land and were sold along with estates. Here, Lubov makes an insensitive allusion to that history. Having just spent the past five years in France, she has the freedom to come and go from the estate as she likes, unlike the serfs who were once enslaved to it. Lubov risks losing her estate only through her pride and unwillingness to accept change.

“FIERS. I’m not well. At our balls some time back, generals and barons and admirals used to dance, and now we send for post-office clerks and the Station-master, and even they come as a favour.”

Here, Fiers complains about the changing state of the world. The estate’s parties used to be grand affairs full of important people, but now only commoners attend. This passage also shows how the decline of the estate coincides with the decline of Fiers’s health. He is physically sickened by the changes in society.

“YASHA. What’s the good of talking about it, you see for yourself that this is an uneducated country, with an immoral population, and it’s so dull.”

After his time in France, Yasha is unimpressed with Russia. His assessment is similar to Trofimov’s, who complains that the country has “gained nothing at all” (50). However, instead of getting to work as Trofimov suggests, Yasha is eager to leave and return to France.

“LOPAKHIN. The cherry orchard is mine now, mine! [Roars with laughter] My God, my God, the cherry orchard’s mine! Tell me I’m drunk, or mad, or dreaming…[Stamps his feet] Don’t laugh at me! If my father and grandfather rose from their graves and looked at the whole affair, and saw how their Ermolai, their beaten and uneducated Ermolai, who used to run barefoot in the winter, how that very Ermolai has bought an estate, which is the most beautiful thing in the world! I’ve bought the estate where my grandfather and my father were slaves, where they weren’t even allowed into the kitchen. I’m asleep, it’s only a dream, an illusion…It’s the fruit of imagination, wrapped in the fog of the unknown.”

In the most climactic moment of the play, Lopakhin announces that he has bought the cherry orchard. His achievement is full of symbolic importance, revealing the social mobility possible in the changing country. For generations, his family was enslaved to the land he now owns. The accomplishment is so great that Lopakhin can hardly believe it is real.

“ANYA. The cherry orchard is sold, we’ve got it no longer, it’s true, true, but don’t cry mother, you’ve still got your life before you, you’ve still your beautiful pure soul…Come with me, come, dear, away from here, come! We’ll plant a new garden, finer than this, and you’ll see it, and you’ll understand, and deep joy, gentle joy will sink into your soul, like the evening sun, and you’ll smile, mother! Come, dear, let’s go!”

Here, Anya comforts her mother after the orchard’s sale. Now that they have let go of the past, she suggests that they will be able to build a new, more beautiful future. Lubov still has life and opportunity ahead of her. Anya’s idea of building a new garden, “finer than this,” takes its cue from Trofimov’s idea of hard work being necessary to build a new, majestic Russia that is free from the oppression of the past. Anya is glad to be liberated from the dark past the cherry orchard represents so she can, with her own hard work, build something even better.

“TROFIMOV. I’m a free man. And everything that all you people, rich and poor, value so highly and so dearly hasn’t the least influence over me; it’s like a flock of down in the wind.”

As Trofimov takes his leave, Lopakhin offers to give him money, which Trofimov declines. His claim to be above things like love and money suggests the necessity to let go of societal expectations to be truly free. Although there is increased opportunity for social mobility in this new Russia, Trofimov argues that clinging to conventional markers of achievement continues to limit society.

“GAEV. Yes, really, everything’s all right now. Before the cherry orchard was sold we all were excited and we suffered, and then, when the question was solved once and for all, we all calmed down, and even became cheerful. I’m a bank official now, and a financier.”

With the orchard sold, the characters are more at peace. The fear and uncertainty of change are revealed to be worse than the change itself. Members of the upper class, like Gaev and Lubov, still have opportunities to live comfortably.