Materialism reigns supreme it lords the orchard with mighty hand, and in the frenzy of its triumph believes itself in control of the bodies and souls of men. With the greed of rich returns, Lopakhin cries, 'Lay the ax to the cherry orchard, come and see the trees fall down! We'll fill the place with villas.' On the ruins of romanticism and aristocratic ease there rises commercialism, its iron hand yoking nature, devastating her beauty, and robbing her of all radiance. If only my father and my grandfather could rise from their graves and see the whole affair, how their Yermolai, their flogged and ignorant Yermolai, who used to run about barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolai had bought a property that hasn't its equal for beauty anywhere in the whole world! I have bought the property where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they weren't even allowed into the kitchen.Ī new epoch begins in the cherry orchard. LOPAKHIN: Just think of it! The cherry orchard is mine! Mine! Tell me that I'm drunk tell me that I'm off my head tell me that it's all a dream!. He the owner - he who had risen from the serfs of the former master of the orchard! He is in ecstasy over his newly acquired possession. The merchant Yermolai Lopakhin buys the place. The cherry orchard is heavily mortgaged and as romance and sentiment cannot liquidate debts, the beautiful estate falls into the cruel hands of commercialism. It is a paternalism that takes no account of the freedom and happiness of the people - the romanticism of a dying class. You have upheld the courage of succeeding generations of human kind you have upheld faith in a better future and cherished in us ideals of goodness and social consciousness.īut the social consciousness of Gayef and of his sister is of a paternal nature: the attitude of the aristocracy toward its serfs. Your silent summons to profitable labor has never weakened in all these hundred years. GAYEF: Beloved and venerable cupboard honor and glory to your existence, which for more than a hundred years has been directed to the noble ideals of justice and virtue. They are expressed in the Ode to an Old Family Cupboard: The same feeling and reverence is entertained by her brother Leonid Gayef. She is devoted to it because of the memory of her ancestors and because of the many tender ties which bind her to the orchard. She loves it for its romanticism: nightingales sing in the orchard, accompanying the wooing of lovers. Ranevsky, the owner of the cherry orchard, an estate celebrated far and wide for its beauty and historic traditions, is deeply attached to the family place. In this play he depicts three stages of social development and their reflex in literature. The Cherry Orchard is Anton Chekhov's prophetic song. The following essay on The Cherry Orchard was originally published in The Social Significance of the Modern Drama.

The orchard chekhov