Literature Analysis: The Cherry Orchard

Title: The Cherry Orchard
Author:Chekhov

1. In the play the protagonist Ranevvskaya is in distress after having both her husband and son die, and now she's about to lose her home. After the two first tragedies occurred she moved from her home to Paris and has since then decided to return, five years later. She ended up broke and can't pay her mortgage now because her kind heart always forced her to help the less fortunate. Loaphin, the man her step daughter Varya is in love with, wants her to turn her cherry orchards into summer cottages so that she can gain some money, but she refuses. In the end Loaphin is the one who ends up tearing down her cherry orchards and buying her estate which she and and Gayeff, her brother, grew up in.

2.The theme of the novel is if you were once at the bottom you will emerge to the top if you seek it. Just as Loaphin used to be the son of the men that were "owned" by the estate, now he owned the estate and the ones which lived there became peasants.

3.The tone differs throughout the play from sarcastic, to craziness, and silly.

• In the first act Ranevskaya hallucinates her mother walking around the orchard, after not having lived there for five years. "Look, our dear mother is walking through the orchard-- In a white dress! (Laughing happily) It's she." She became a little crazy after dealing with her return.
• When Loaphin tried to make fun of Trofimoff he had an "agreement" with what Ranevskaya was saying. " How clever you are, Petya. -- (ironically) Terribly."
• Charlotta and her future lover, Pishtchik were funny outgoing characters. "That's all. (Throwing the robe at Pishtchik curtseying and running into the ballroom.)--(Hurrying after her): You littole rascal- What a girl! What a girl!" They enjoyed each others company and had a great time being silly. 

4.

• I observed the diction and found that I enjoyed reading the play specifically because of the diction. In the passage Loaphin said, "But why are you so peevish, you queer duck?" I think that humorous concepts like a "queer duck" helped make me want to continue reading.
• Another technique that grabbed my attention was allusion. In a scene Loaphin is talking to Varya as if she as Ophelia from the play Hamlet. He says,"Achmelia, get thee to a nunnery... Achmelia, Oh nymph, in thine orisons be all my sins remember'd." Since we just memorized Hamlet's famous soliloquy it was nice to be able to make a connection.
• Also throughout the play there are an endless number of metaphors from each character said to another. For example, Trofimoff said, "(Tenderly): My little sun! My spring!" They compared themselves to the prettiest happiest objects.
• The setting was an important corporation to the understanding of the play because it described the foreign place to me in Russia and let me adapt to their lifestyles. It allowed me to view the changes of environment that a person can go through from crossing over from one culture to another.
• The varying tone helped illustrate the moods that everyone was in in each scene. I could picture the illusive Gayeff muttering about random things that nobody understood. He was always so happy and cheerful. Unlike Varya who wouldn't stats moping around about how Loaphin hadn't proposed to her yet. There was a different aura given off from each character.

Tools That Change The Way We Think

"Back in 2004, I asked [Google founders] Page and Brin what they saw as the future of Google search. 'It will be included in people's brains,' said Page. 'When you think about something and don't really know much about it, you will automatically get information.'

'That's true,' said Brin. 'Ultimately I view Google as a way to augment your brain with the knowledge of the world. Right now you go into your computer and type a phrase, but you can imagine that it could be easier in the future, that you can have just devices you talk into, or you can have computers that pay attention to what's going on around them and suggest useful information.'

'Somebody introduces themselves to you, and your watch goes to your web page,' said Page. 'Or if you met this person two years ago, this is what they said to you... Eventually you'll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you the answer."

-From In the Plex by Steven Levy (p.67)





My Opinion: Technology's advancements over the years have evolved rapidly and only made "positive" changes to our society, or so it's often thought. Personally, I believe that having developed such a large amount of power to devices that we aren't experts with, is a scary concept to grasp. When I sit to try and start my homework I go off into the world of wonders that the internet provides for me and lose all my train of thought. It's somewhat mind-boggling how anyone can achieve any work while using technology. Although, it certainly does provide an easier strategy for us to make any progress, considering we can subtract any type of serious thought process that we would regularly need. It has gotten to such an extreme point that at times i'll sit in front of the screen hoping that my homework would do itself and that way I could be all the more lazy. It's not healthy for students, or anyone at that, to be leaving all the "hard" work for the computer, cellphone, etc. to do for them. Our brains are being cooped up because some people decide to use theirs a little too much and invent new stuff.
I think that our society isn't ready or responsible enough to handle all that's heading our way. If it were to continue on the path that we've been on, technology may form itself into the most powerful form of life. It's frightening to think that once we give them the power to do the thinking for us we're going to end up in a black pit of shame and failure.

Notes on Hamlet

Hamlet seemed, to me as a nice man that wanted to do the right thing and that felt as if he had no other choice but to get revenge for his dad's death. His character seemed genuine as he became involved with Ophelia's character and he fell in love. To me he seemed like the ideal man in distress but as the play continued, I started noticing that I had misjudged his character. He wasn't friendly or loving as he was in the beginning. Now he is just thinking of Claudius' death and making sure he goes to hell. He doesn't want to spare his soul, just as he didn't spare his father's soul. Even so, I think that he has taken everything to an extreme that is unhealthy for him. Instead of actually committing a terrible act, he should just unveil him to the people so they can see what kind of monster they are dealing with. I highly doubt he'll do that though, he has taken a turn for the worst and is determined to kill and sink Claudius to the ground. I think that Hamlet is going to make a dumb decision that will lead to an even dumber action and end up hurting him in the end.

"Who Was Shakespeare"

William Shakespeare was born in 1564, and baptized April 26th 1564. It is believed that he was born the 23rd three days before his baptism.He was the third child of John and Mary Shakespeare out of seven. From all seven, five survived to adulthood. William's father was said to be a town official of Stratford and a local businessman who dabbled in tanning, leatherwork and whittawering which is working with white leather to make items like purses and gloves. John also dealt in grain and sometimes was described as a glover by trade.The evidence proves William existed but not that he was a playwright nor an actor nor a poet. In fact recently some academics who call themselves the Oxfords argue that Stratford's celebrated playwright did not write any of the plays attributed to him. They suggest that he was merely a businessman and propose several contenders for authorship, namely an Edward de Vere.


We don't really know much that is concrete proof of who William Shakespeare was because of the lack of records that had anything worth knowing. We believe that we know, he was and author, playwright, and poet, but we can't say we know for sure. I personally believe that he was all of those because of the context within his plays. He seems like he was at some point betrayed, love struck, and thinking of life or lack of it after death. Those are all mutual feelings between the works that have been written by him, assuming that what we have been taught is correct.

I think that as soon as students hear the name "Shakespeare" they either whine, get upset, or are frightened by the thought. His works have been written in such a foreign diction to us that we dread having to interpret it ourselves and getting it wrong. The worst part of this situation is that we will never really know what the true meaning behind his words was. When reading it as a class and stopping to discuss and interpret the scenes, the play Hamlet isn't difficult to comprehend. But once we are set loose to figure out the meaning on our own, the diction presents itself as a problem. I did learn to understand his famous soliloquy and I wouldn't have been able to do that before.

http://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/biography/shakespeare_biography.htm

" To Facebook or Not to Facebook"

I usually log onto my Facebook account worry-free. I mean it has always had privacy settings available for the user that's supposed to give us control over our profile, right? Isn't that supposed to comfort us? Apparently that's all it really does. Facebook has given us the impression that  we have control over our settings and users that can view our profile. However, they happen to exclude the fact that they are like our own personal virus/hacker that explores all of our account and exploits the users.It's no longer the friendly network of connections with the friends once it starts being manipulated by a machine.
They are detecting what we 'like" and expect to make a comfortable environment for us to agree and deceive us of the reality. In the real world, we won't all see eye-to-eye. Instead we will debate, argue, and have plenty disagreements on our points of view. This molded world that's constructed to fit our personal character is giving us the wrong impressions that will only ultimately backfire on all the users who are vulnerable to the Facebook corporation. Being gullible can be the weakness least fit to survive in the world of Facebook.
My opinion changed dramatically after having read the article, "Why Facebook is After Your Kids". They gave us numbers and ages which gives the full effect of what really is going on and to what extremes it has gotten to. Now I see that we are seen as an object in the eyes of  Facebook. We're being sold as if we were any possession that has a price to it.

"(Don't) Be Hamlet"

Sometimes hardships and dilemmas send people to the border of insanity. This can eventually affect their abilities to make wise decisions and allow them to contemplate committing suicide. Hamlet was a living (figuratively speaking) example of such a scenario. In his soliloquy he describes his pain and frustrations on not being able to end his life fearing that he would go against God's will and at the same time if he were to continue with his life he might end up murdering his uncle/step-dad, which would end as a sin as well. From my point of view, I believe that in committing suicide he would only end up letting Claudius get his way. It's be a smarter, much wiser decision to actually keep his life and not be so cowardice.

Hamlet is not able to fully function because of the complexity of his situation. His dad just died, his uncle/step-dad is an evil man whom is to blame for his father's death and he's trying to satisfy God and not become a sinner. In his mind no choice would necessarily be the "easy way out". For him, if he decides to end with his life God will look down on him and not let him enter heaven, instead he'd be in a world of emptiness and nothingness. He expresses this by saying, "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come/ When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,/ Must give us pause." He isn't sure about what awaits him after he's dead and gone. On the other hand he's debating on keeping his life, knowing that if he does he'll end up murdering Claudius.

From my perspective, Hamlet would be a fool to commit suicide. He would not only let himself down, he would let his father down as well. He must remember why he is contemplating suicide instead of acting on that thought. His father's death won't be avenged or brought out to the public, if he does decide to kill himself. I think that in order to let his dad's soul rest in peace, he must stop thinking such ridiculous thoughts and actually do something that would help his cause. Hamlet doesn't have to kill the man, just let the public know what a wicked man he is and by that alone he could gain more than he ever imagined. He'd be the "bigger" man that the plebeians look up to.

Hamlet's considerations are dramatic and pointless. Instead of wasting his time on thinking about death he must help resolve the death of his father, that he so much admired. I think that all the actions that took place after his dad's murder, have driven him off the charts and turned him into a slightly psychotic man. That is why he is not capable of making wise decisions and is just trying to find an easy escape.