Anton Chekhov ''Cherry Orchard''

                                                        

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                                                      Summary of Cherry Orchard

Cherry Orchard is a great drama written by Anton Chekhov. The drama starts in Russia in the early hours of a May morning. Although it is cold outdoors, we find out that the cherry trees are in bloom. In the chamber known as "the nursery" in the estate's main house, Yermolay Lopakhin, a family friend, and Dunyasha, a maid, wait for the estate's owner Ranevsky. Ranevsky has lived in Paris for the previous five years. Lopakhin feels split feelings regarding Ranevsky. He is grateful for her generosity in the past but also regrets her arrogant attitude toward him because of his peasant background. Soon, Ranevsky, her daughter Anya, who has been traveling with her since Easter that year, a young manservant named Yasha, and Charlotte who is Anya's instructor, who also brings her dog, arrive from Paris.
Her 87-year-old manservant Firs, her older but still youthful brother Leonid Gayev, and her adopted daughter Varya are also traveling with her. These three have remained in Russia and met Ranevsky at the station when she arrived back. Ranevksy shares her happiness and wonder at being back home, and Anya tells Varya about the plight that she discovered her mother in when she arrived in Paris and how she continues to spend money. The family's estate will be put up for sale on August 22 to settle their debts. Anya says that Ranevsky's decision to move to Paris was motivated by her sorrow over the losses of her son Grisha, who drowned a month after the death of her child, and her husband, who passed away six years earlier. Lopakhin raises concerns about the upcoming deal. Ranevksy suggests that they should divide the land into cottage-sized sections, build on them, and rent the cottages Because it would require destroying the cherished (and enormous) cherry orchard of the family, Gayev and Ranevsky reject the plan. Before he departs, Lopakhin tells them there will be no other option to save the orchard or he can give them a loan of 50,000 rubles to buy their land at auction if they change their minds. Then Ranevsky gives a loan to Boris Simeonov-Pischik, another poor landowner. When Peter Trofimov shows there, who was Grisha's tutor just before her son's drowning. Ranevsky has to relive painful recollections.

In the second act, the three young servants of the states were introduced who were in a love triangle. When Lapakhin was again discussing the topic of selling the land with other members of the family he got frustrated with Ranevsky's reluctant attitude because according to her it's a crime to destroy the orchard. Soon Trofimov comes and tells about the importance of work and the folly and incompetence of Russian intellectuals. Soon after a drunk man appears to tell about his poor condition and asks for some money and Ranevesky gave him gold coins.
Ranevsky hosts a celebration on the day of the auction in the Third Act. The visitors include several regional bureaucrats, including the stationmaster and a post office clerk. Charlotte performs several magic acts for the guests' amusement. Ranevsky suffers anxiously over the absence of Gayev and Lopakhin. Ranevsky worries that the orchard has been lost, that Gayev's alternatives have fallen through, and that the aunt in Yaroslavl may not have given them enough money to purchase it. She and Trofimov argue; he accuses her of being unable to face reality, and she characterizes him as odd for not having experienced love. Gayev and Lopakhin will soon be back from the auction. While in the final act, we see everyone leaving the place as it was auctioned and the orchard was about to be cut.


The Cherry Orchard is a comedy.
Even though Chekhov intended the play Cherry Orchard to be a comedy, producer Konstantin Stanislavsky insisted on staging it as a tragedy when it premiered on January 17, 1904. Chekhov struggled against this depiction, but most productions of the play nevertheless highlight the tragic elements. It could not be classified as a tragedy or a comedy, but rather as a blend of the two. In the play, there are equal amounts of tears and smiles. It appears to be a comedic masterpiece at first, but then it turns tragic. According to the definition of comedy, "The Cherry Orchard" is not a comedy because its ending is dismal, gloomy, and sorrowful rather than pleasing.
A tragedy, on the other hand, combines many of Aristotle's essential characteristics, such as the hero's upper-class origins and the catharsis of piety and terror. This topic does not include "The Cherry Orchard." Some critics have said that the play is about nothing except a privileged family losing their cherished cherry orchard and estate to a rising middle-class man. Even though Mrs. Ranevsky and her family suffered in the play, there is no catharsis of sentiments of piety and terror when viewing it. Mrs. Ranevsky does nothing to prevent her land from being auctioned off. Furthermore, she does not alter her lifestyle, to collect money by chopping cherry trees and erecting cottages, as Lopakhin suggested. Mrs. Ranevsky refuses to adjust to changes and maintains her old lifestyle; as a result, she meets misfortune, which is clearly justified in the eyes of the audience.

As Anton Chekhov said, he wrote a comic play so we can still find elements of comedy in it "The Cherry Orchard" is regarded as a comedy masterpiece. There are many dialogues and characters in the play that distinguish it as a comedy classic. For example, Gavyv's imagined billiard shots, his tribute to old bookcases, his addiction to candies, the actions of Simon Yepichodov's moniker twenty-to Disastrous events, the love triangle between Yepichodov, Dunyasha, and Yasha, which is purely for comic effect, the language of Peter Trofimove, Yasha's exchange with Dunyasha in orchard, Yasha's flirt with Duny Even so, the play is not purely comedic. The play's conclusion is not cheerful. Many of the characters, such as Simeonov-Pishchik, are half-comic, half-tragic. The play's producer, Konstantin Stanislavsky, describes it as a tragedy. He comments in his review of the play:

"It is neither a comedy nor a farce, as you wrote—it is a tragedy, even if you do hint at a means out into a better world in the final act”. Although Anton Chekhov refers to this piece as a comic comedy, most reviewers regard it as melancholy. The fundamental theme of this drama is the demise of the upper class and the rise of the middle class.

Several situations in the play indicate that the writer's viewpoints differ from those of common people, as he has referred to this play as a comedy. We can say that the play is more of a tragic-comedy than a pure comic. Anton Chekhov blended the ingredients of the two main genres of drama i.e. tragedy and comedy in a single play because the whole play is not comic or tragedy in fact it has elements of both genres.