The lyrical comedy "Cherry Orchard" is one of the most striking and famous dramatic works of the twentieth century. Immediately after it was written by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, a brief summary of which we will present to you, was staged at the Moscow Art Theater. And to this day, this play does not leave the Russian stages.
The plot of the play is based on the fact that Lyubov Ranevskaya, together with her daughter Anna, is returning from Paris to sell the family estate. Moreover, the heroine and her brother, Gaev, grew up in this place and do not want to believe in the need to part with him.
Their acquaintance, the merchant Lopakhin, is trying to offer a profitable enterprise for cutting down the garden and renting out space for summer cottages, which Ranevskaya and Gaev do not want to hear about. Lyubov Andreevna has ghostly hopes that the estate can still be saved. While she spent all her life making money, the cherry orchard seems to her a higher value. But it is not possible to save him, since there is nothing to pay debts. Ranevskaya was aground, and Gayev "ate the estate on candy." Therefore, at the auction, Lopakhin still buys a cherry orchard and, intoxicated by his abilities, shouts about it at a family ball. But he regrets Ranevskaya, who is brought to tears by the news of the sale of the estate.
After that, cutting down the cherry orchard and parting of the heroes with each other and with the old life begins.
We have given here the main plot line and the main conflict of this play: the “old” generation, which does not want to say goodbye to the cherry orchard, but at the same time can not give it anything, and the “new” generation, full of radical ideas. Moreover, the estate itself represents Russia, and it was precisely for the image of the country modern to him that Chekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard. A brief summary of this work should show that the time of landlord power is passing, and nothing can be done about it. But there is a replacement for him. The "new time" is coming - and it is not known whether it will be better or worse than the former. The author leaves the ending open, and we do not know what fate awaits the estate.
The author’s moves are also used in the work, allowing a deeper understanding of the atmosphere of Russia of the time that Chekhov saw it. The Cherry Orchard, a brief summary of which gives an idea of the main problems of the play, at first is a pure comedy, but closer to the end, elements of tragedy appear in it.
Also in the play there is an atmosphere of "general deafness", which is even emphasized by the physical deafness of Gaev and Firs. Characters speak for themselves and for their own sake, not listening to others. Therefore, replicas can often sound not as the answer to the question, but as thinking the character out loud, which most fully demonstrates the qualities that Chekhov endowed him with. The Cherry Orchard, an analysis of which has been undertaken repeatedly, is also deeply symbolic, and each hero is not a specific person, but a generalized characteristic type of representatives of the era.
To understand this work, it is important to look at it deeper than just the sequence of actions. This is the only way to hear what Chekhov wanted to say. The Cherry Orchard, its summary, plot and symbolism illustrate the author’s view on the changes in Russia of that time.