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Essay about The Cherry Orchard

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The Cherry Orchard: Critical Analysis

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov is about a Russian family that is unable to prevent its beloved estate from being sold in an auction due to financial problems. The play has been dubbed a tragedy by many of its latter producers. However, Chekhov labeled his play a farce, or more of a comedy. Although this play has a very tragic backdrop of Russia's casualty-ridden involvement in both World Wars and the Communist Revolution, the characters and their situations suggest a light-hearted tone, even though they struggle against the upcoming loss of the orchard. Apathy and passivity plague the characters and contribute often to the comic side of things. Sometimes, however, …show more content…

Gayev, Mrs. Ranevsky's brother, continues to spit out billiard shots as the conversation continues, after which he weeps over the nursery's bookcase. Pishchik, a neighbor who is also in financial struggle, grabs Mrs. Ranevsky's pills out of her hand and swallows them all for no apparent reason. Again in this scene Firs mutters to himself as he trails off of the conversation taking place. The characters, it seems, are being warmed up for some sort of comic routine.
Yet through this dialogue, unpleasant truths spring forth. The mortgage has not been paid in a while due to Mrs. Ranevsky being broke. And while Mrs. Ranevsky was in Paris, Varya has not been paying the mortgage. This is somewhat tragic because the estate is now going to be lost because of Mrs. Ranevsky and Varya not being able to pay off the estate's debts. When Lopakhin proposes his idea the family finds it impractical and Gayev even calls the idea 'utter nonsense'; (Chekhov 226-296). Pishchik also reveals that he too is going to be losing his estate due to an unpaid mortgage. Looking for a loan from Mrs. Ranevsky, he is denied. This is the first instance of tragedy.
The character's actions, moreover, are the comical focus in the play. It seems as though Chekhov gives the characters an awareness of their faults, and their actions reinforce these faults, as though the characters had forgotten them. For

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