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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
The Cherry Orchard is set on Madame Ranevsky's estate in the Russian countryside. The first act takes place in the nursery at dawn, the second act takes place outside near the titular cherry orchard during the early evening, and the third act takes place in the sitting-room and drawing-room at night. Like the first act, the fourth act takes place in the nursery, but the room has been stripped of decorations and furniture. The stage directions note "A feeling of emptiness" at the start of this final act. Over the course of the play, the setting's movement between spaces makes the audience acquainted with the estate before the family leaves it for good at the end of the play. Starting in May and ending in October, the play roughly spans half a year.
The cherry orchard represents the declining aristocracy, and many of the conversations in the play revolve around its legacy, future, and significance. Different characters have different relationships to the orchard. While Madame Ranevsky and Gayef associate it with happiness and childhood purity, Lopakhin associates it with business opportunities, Firs associates it with productive labor, Trophimov associates it with Russia's dark past, and Anya associates it with adolescent disillusionment. Throughout the final act, the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down can be heard in the background of the characters' conversations. In fact, this sound even outlasts their conversations. After all of the characters, besides Firs (who seems to be dead), have left the stage, the final stage directions indicate that "Silence ensues, broken only by the stroke of the axe on the trees far away in the cherry orchard."
Chekhov situates the play in a specific moment in the history of Czarist Russia: the characters, plot, and mood are significantly shaped by the sweeping social and political changes of the turn of the century. Madame Ranevsky's return to her estate, as well as the cherry orchard's impending sale, is a direct result of the decline of the aristocratic class in the late 19th century. Through her, Gayef, and Pishtchik, Chekhov depicts the unsustainable lifestyle, outdated worldview, and waning influence of this class. Lopakhin, whose father was born a serf and who is a self-made man, represents the new Russian middle class. Trophimof represents the intellectual, idealist left. In the fourth act, when all of the characters present their plans for the future, Chekhov seems to suggest that the sale of the estate was a necessary, perhaps even positive, development.
Related Themes:
