In his work \u201cThe Cherry Orchard\u201d, Anton Chekhov illustrates a population divided by a desire to cling to the Tsar\u2019s final vestiges of power and a desire to see social orders reformed to accommodate the emergence of a new middle class.<\/p>\n
The Liberation and the decline of the Tsar\u2019s power in Russia allowed for the reordering of social power and structures. As Lophakin explains, \u201cuntil a little while ago there had been nothing but gentry and peasants in the village, now villa residents have made their appearance.\u201d These \u201cvilla residents\u201d represent the new middle class \u2013 peasants who were no longer bound to their masters or who \u2013 like Lophakin \u2013 have become landowners and secured their own autonomy. Members of the old wealthy class, such as Madame Renevsky, are not ready to face social reordering: Madame\u2019s reluctance to sell her cherry orchard to make room for members of the middle class mirrors the reluctance of the gentry to facilitate changes in social structures, which necessitate a redistribution of power. Madame Ranevsky\u2019s cherry orchard symbolizes the power of the gentry and the Tsar, and without it, \u201c [her] life has no meaning.\u201d Her daughters, Barbara and Anya, are also members of the gentry but have more complex attitudes towards the potential for social change. Having lived abroad, Anya is unsure of her place in Russian social order, a fact that is represented in her ambivalence towards the orchard: she confides to Lophakin that she does not love it as much as she used to.<\/p>\n
Madame\u2019s servants represent the members of Russian society who, after the Liberation and the end of serfdom, are unsure of their places a social order that doesn\u2019t account for them.\u00a0 As Charlotte laments \u201cwho I am, or why I exist, is a mystery.\u201d Firs, the oldest servant, frequently invokes old traditions and laments the liberation; he is one of the few characters who represents the traditional peasant class. The others \u2013 including Lophakin, Trophimof, and Ephikhodof, – are more eager to see what further changes the Liberation bring about. \u00a0Even Lophakin, a former peasant who has become a wealthy landowner, does not find solidarity with members of the upper class. He cannot understand Madame\u2019s attachment to her orchard, nor can divorce himself from his past as a peasant and share in their frivolity and wastefulness. By buying and destroying the orchard, Lophakin made room for the villa owners, and thus, the new middle class. Indeed, it was people like Lophakin \u2013 those who were not peasants, not gentry, but members of a new and trepidatious middle class \u2013 who led the revolution and secured a place for themselves in the social order.<\/p>\n
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In his work \u201cThe Cherry Orchard\u201d, Anton Chekhov illustrates a population divided by a desire to cling to the Tsar\u2019s final vestiges of power and a desire to see social orders reformed to accommodate the emergence of a new middle … Continue reading