Thank you Gaev

The first three acts of The Cherry Orchard are pretty much the same. There is a family with economical problems and they have to sell their cherry orchard. While this problem happens each character narrates to us their individual problems although they have no relation whatsoever to the other problem. The characters complicate themselves. Instead of looking for solutions they complain and complicate the selling of the orchard more than it is.

In act III the solution to the problem arrives but of course the characters don´t see it that way. Lyubov asks “is the cherry orchard sol?” and Lopahin, who had bought says “it is sold” (105). She was devastated since it only hit her in that moment that she had lost her orchard. The drama continues until Varya decides to look on the bright side and says, “A new life is beginning mamma”(112). Finally the character decide to leave the problem behind and forget about it. Chekhov makes this clear when Gaev says, yes, really, everything is all right now. Before the cherry orchard was sold, we were all worried and wretched, but afterwards, when once the question was settled conclusively, irrevocably, we all felt calm and even cheerful. I am a bank clerk now-I am financier-cannon off the red. And you Lyuba, after all, you are looking better, there´s no question of that” (112). The solution was the one they were avoiding all along.

Varya and Gaev experience anagnorisis. Like all the characters they were attached to the problem, but once it was sold and there was no other option they realized that was the key to pull them out id their depression. Since the play is absurd and monotonous, this is Chekhov making fun of us again. We often have problems and disagree with the solution that will be the best. Firs finishes the play with a line that I think is a little exaggerated but then again it´s Chekhov. He says, “life has slipped by as though I hadn’t lived”. That is anagnorisis again. And applies to the reality that Chekhov portrays. We often get to attached to our problems and we may end up like Firs “god for nothing”. (117)