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Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Act 1
Explanation and Analysis—Pure and Happy Childhood:
Toward the end of the first act, Madame Ranevsky remains overcome by emotion at being back in her childhood home. Drifting in and out of flashbacks in her dialogue, she apostrophizes her childhood and the cherry orchard. Although Madame Ranevsky seems to genuinely believe that nothing has changed, the audience finds her statements ironic, given that other characters have revealed that a great degree has changed since she was home last.
MADAME RANEVSKY [looking out into the garden]. Oh, my childhood, my pure and happy childhood! I used to sleep in this nursery. I used to look out from here into the garden. Happiness awoke with me every morning! and the orchard was just the same then as it is now; nothing is altered.
Throughout the first act, Madame Ranevsky and her brother Gayef participate in each other's childhood flashbacks. Exhilarated by her return to the estate and her reunion with her brother and other characters, Madame Ranevsky is only willing to recognize the extent to which things have remained the same—rather than the ways in which they have changed. Even if her comments are not marked by verbal irony, her self-delusion makes them seem ironic to the audience.
In fact, the play opens with immediate and overt signals about the changes that have taken place since Madame Ranevsky's childhood. In one of the first lines of the play, for example, Lopakhin reflects on his entrance into the bourgeoisie. He remembers that when he was fifteen and Madame Ranevsky was "still a slender young girl," she called him a "little peasant." Today he's a rich man. While his father was the serf of Madame Ranevsky's father, he is now in a position to buy the Ranevskys' estate from them. The change in Lopakhin's circumstances illustrates that the Russia of the play's setting has recently gone through significant socioeconomic changes. This sense of a new era looms in the background at all times, which makes the aristocratic Madame Ranevsky seem oblivious when she claims that "nothing is altered."
Additionally, Lopakhin is the bearer of bad news specifically as it relates to the cherry orchard, as he warns Madame Ranevsky and Gayef that it is "going to be sold to pay the mortgage." Madame Ranevsky hardly seems to hear what he says, answering his warnings with nostalgic outbursts about the glory of the past. She not only associates her childhood with the cherry orchard, but also associates the past with happiness. By calling her childhood "pure and happy," Madame Ranevsky implicitly identifies the present and future as corrupt and unhappy. At this point in the play, the praise Madame Ranevsky sings to the past is the only extent to which she acknowledges the bad shape her estate is in.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Something Will Happen:
Despite his enduring financial distress, Pishtchik always seems to come by money when he needs it. In the first act, he foreshadows that all will go well with him at the end of the play when he says that "something will happen." Although the audience struggles to believe that he will find a way out of his latest debt, the fourth act gives rise to situational irony when Pishtchik makes money off of the discovery of a special kind of clay on his land.
PISHTCHIK. I’ll find it somewhere. [Laughing.] I never lose hope. Last time I thought: ‘Now I really am done for, I’m a ruined man,’ when behold, they ran a railway over my land and paid me compensation. And so it’ll be again; something will happen, if not today, then to-morrow.
On one level, Pishtchik's line reveals an outlook worthy of admiration. Despite his pecuniary woes, he trusts that things will somehow work out for him. This relaxed, optimistic view serves as an alternative to the at times delusional, at times distressed attitude of the Ranevsky family. He repeatedly asks Madame Ranevsky to lend him money throughout the play, but always remains cheerful, no matter what her response is.
On another level, Pishtchik's laughing hopefulness makes him seem naïve. Rather than coming up with a reliable, steady source of income, the old man instead waits for things to "happen" to him. Through the character, Chekhov appears to critique aristocratic landowners for their lazy helplessness. When they fall upon hard times, people with old money lack the knowledge, tools, and energy to improve their situations. The wealth of the old landowning class contrasts with the wealth of the newly rich Lopakhin. Despite having a father who was born into serfdom, he has improved his situation such that he is more comfortable than the Ranevskys.
In the fourth act, after the audience has learned about the various ways in which the Ranevsky family and its employees will adjust to their new circumstances after the sale of the estate, Pishtchik shows up and pays off some of his debt. The characters and audience are surprised when he explains where the money came from:
A most remarkable thing! Some Englishmen came and found some sort of white clay on my land.
In the first act, Pishtchik declares that things always work out for him. This seemed naïve in the moment, but it turns out that he was foreshadowing this outcome. Although the audience was inclined to doubt that he would find a way to passively squeeze more money out of his land after the precipitous railroad scheme, Pishtchik was ironically right to believe that something would happen tomorrow. The discovery of the clay gives rise to situational irony, which offers some comic relief to the fourth act's largely somber, earnest mood.
Related Themes:
Act 2
Explanation and Analysis—A Clever Fellow:
Early in the second act, Charlotte combines verbal irony with paradox as she ridicules Ephikhodof on her way off stage.
CHARLOTTE. That’s done. I’m off. [Slinging the rifle over her shoulder.] You’re a clever fellow, Ephikhódof, and very alarming. Women must fall madly in love with you. Brrr! [Going.]
Charlotte does not literally wish to compliment Ephikhodof, but instead uses verbal irony to insult him. Seemingly sick of listening to his music and reflections—or perhaps hurt that he isn't paying her any attention—she sarcastically calls him clever, alarming, and attractive. The final comment, that women must fall madly in love with him, seems aimed at taunting Ephikhodof for his unrequited love for Dunyasha, who literally stares at a mirror instead of noticing his advances.
Just before Charlotte delivers this line, Ephikhodof has taken a break from his guitar-playing to reveal that he always carries a revolver on him in case he decides to commit suicide. Charlotte's outburst can be interpreted in a number of ways, but it's possible that her disgust with Ephikhodof is a result of her hurt feelings.
The act opens with Charlotte delivering a monologue about her childhood and life while the other characters present on stage—Ephikhodof, Dunyasha, and Yasha—hardly seem to register that she's talking. Ephikhodof plays the guitar and sings some lines whose overall sentiment resembles Charlotte's thoughts, but he doesn't engage with her. Instead, the ensuing conversation between the characters revolves around the music and the experience of living abroad. Perhaps this is because they have heard it before; perhaps it's because they don't care about her. In either case, the play contains a great number of non-sequiturs, as Chekhov calls attention to the way in which people often neglect to listen to each other in conversations and instead prefer to talk about themselves. Charlotte seems bothered by the fact that Ephikhodof expresses emotions that run parallel to hers without responding to her.
Immediately after her ironic comments, Charlotte utters a paradox before exiting the stage.
These clever people are all so stupid; I have no one to talk to. I am always alone, always alone; I have no friends or relations, and who I am, or why I exist, is a mystery.
Like the verbal irony, the paradox is a criticism of the characters around her. By saying that the clever people are all stupid, she seems to be contradicting herself. However, her point is more that these people who are so convinced by their own cleverness are in fact stupid. This point adds meaning to her following lines. Although she isn't actually alone all the time, Charlotte's inability to take the characters around her seriously—and to feel like they're taking her seriously—makes her feel as though she's in constant isolation.
Related Themes:
Act 4
Explanation and Analysis—Something Will Happen:
Despite his enduring financial distress, Pishtchik always seems to come by money when he needs it. In the first act, he foreshadows that all will go well with him at the end of the play when he says that "something will happen." Although the audience struggles to believe that he will find a way out of his latest debt, the fourth act gives rise to situational irony when Pishtchik makes money off of the discovery of a special kind of clay on his land.
PISHTCHIK. I’ll find it somewhere. [Laughing.] I never lose hope. Last time I thought: ‘Now I really am done for, I’m a ruined man,’ when behold, they ran a railway over my land and paid me compensation. And so it’ll be again; something will happen, if not today, then to-morrow.
On one level, Pishtchik's line reveals an outlook worthy of admiration. Despite his pecuniary woes, he trusts that things will somehow work out for him. This relaxed, optimistic view serves as an alternative to the at times delusional, at times distressed attitude of the Ranevsky family. He repeatedly asks Madame Ranevsky to lend him money throughout the play, but always remains cheerful, no matter what her response is.
On another level, Pishtchik's laughing hopefulness makes him seem naïve. Rather than coming up with a reliable, steady source of income, the old man instead waits for things to "happen" to him. Through the character, Chekhov appears to critique aristocratic landowners for their lazy helplessness. When they fall upon hard times, people with old money lack the knowledge, tools, and energy to improve their situations. The wealth of the old landowning class contrasts with the wealth of the newly rich Lopakhin. Despite having a father who was born into serfdom, he has improved his situation such that he is more comfortable than the Ranevskys.
In the fourth act, after the audience has learned about the various ways in which the Ranevsky family and its employees will adjust to their new circumstances after the sale of the estate, Pishtchik shows up and pays off some of his debt. The characters and audience are surprised when he explains where the money came from:
A most remarkable thing! Some Englishmen came and found some sort of white clay on my land.
In the first act, Pishtchik declares that things always work out for him. This seemed naïve in the moment, but it turns out that he was foreshadowing this outcome. Although the audience was inclined to doubt that he would find a way to passively squeeze more money out of his land after the precipitous railroad scheme, Pishtchik was ironically right to believe that something would happen tomorrow. The discovery of the clay gives rise to situational irony, which offers some comic relief to the fourth act's largely somber, earnest mood.
Related Themes:
