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.