Reading Notes W10: The Cherry Orchard, Part X

Anton Chekhov, “The Cherry Orchard” (845-862)

Anton Chekhov:

·         1860-1904

·         “Tolstoy was looking for heroes, and Chekhov refuses to give us any, avoiding the conventional focus on a single protagonist in favor of a constellation of characters, each of whom-even the most minor-can lay claim to a separate life and perspective” (845).

·         He was born in a Russian seaport town of Tanganrog, 1860.

·         He developed two techniques as a writer. One is close attention to detail that he obtained from his medical training. Another is brevity that he obtained as a humor writer.

·         Russian was full of large social inequalities, fast-paced economic change, and rising political instability at this time.

·         “Chekhov stood up for oppressed and marginalized groups, and yet his plays often steered clear of strong political and moral messages” (848).

“The Cherry Orchard”:

·         “…is to see the cast as an ensemble, with no one character claiming the heroic center. In such productions, Chekhov offers us representatives from many social groups, all comically misguided but all sympathetic as well” (848). By having not just one character be the lead, we see the stories of many different characters and get to see how things play out in their eyes instead of just one characters eyes. This is how I see this as going.

·         First off reading this, we see talk about marriage. For example, “Yepikhodov proposed the day after Easter! He wants to marry me!” (852) and Varya, did he propose yet? [Varya shakes her head no.] But you know he loves you” (853). This re-occurrence makes me see marriage as a possible theme.

·         We know the time by: “It’s freezing this morning-it must be in the thirties-and the cherry blossoms are out already. I cannot abide the climate here” (851). This helps us readers keep track of where we are at in the story, season-wise.