Contrasting Economic Value Systems in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard

Their reluctance of leasing the property may also be understood when considering the structure of the former economic system in Russia.  The landed-gentry of the former aristocratic classes grew up on estates where serfs - through labour or quit-rent - provided a steady, if not always sufficient, source of income as well as a host of other domestic services.  Serfdom, because one rarely paid for peasant labour and often took its costs for granted, thus minimized and obscured the need for rational economic calculation. Before the shift to commercialism took place in Russia, the Ranevskys - like many other landed-gentry families - had always been depended on others for their well-being.  Never having learned the worth of money, the gentry are like children – incapable of acting when faced with an important decision.  The Ranevskys had simply inherited an already established economic structure, which greatly diminished the need for major alterations in management.  Thus, when faced with a major decision regarding the future of their assets, Gayef and Madame Ranevsky find themselves at a loss of what to do – incapable of making a decision.  This is evidenced when Madame Ranevsky asks, “Well, what are we to do?”  and when she retains Lopakhin from leaving: “No, don’t go. Stay here, there’s a dear! Perhaps we shall think of some way.”   Both Gayef and Madame Ranevsky are oblivious to the full extent of the economic threat awaiting them; they do not understand the new economic forces at work and therefore, cannot bring themselves to accept the decision they must make.  

On the other extreme, Lopakhin - the archetypal entrepreneur and a self-made man - stands in stark contrast to Gayef and Madame Ranevsky.  He knows exactly how to maximize profits, how to take advantage of the new economic opportunities in Russia, and is most willing to offer his expertise to his former employers. Recognizing the potential of the estate's riverside property now made easily accessible to the nearby town's growing population by the railroad, Lopakhin conjures up a comprehensive plan of real estate development that would solve the gentry's fiscal problems for decades. However, his "perfect" resolution meets with disdain and incomprehension from both Gayef and Madame Ranevsky.  Upon hearing their hopes of receiving money from their aunt, he exclaims:

“Excuse me, but in all my life I never met anybody so frivolous as you too, so crazy and unbusinesslike!  I tell you in plain Russian your property is going to be sold and you don’t seem to understand what I say.”

Their inability, literally, to understand the language of the new economic forces is given clear expression in the play by Lopakhin.  It is as if they live in two different worlds and belong to two different paradigms of economic thinking; they talk past one another and never truly converse.  Lopakhin sees the practicality of the business plan, which would secure the Ranevskys a good and stable source of income, and at the same time, sustained ownership of the property.  The Ranevskys, however, are unable to place aside the prejudices of the old economic value system, which prevents them from seeing past the vulgarity and crudeness of villa residents.  When Madame Ranevsky retains Lopakhin from leaving, he responds: “What’s the good of thinking?” .  Lopakhin, the archetypical entrepreneur, does not understand their hesitance – recognizing the profits to be made and the benefits that would arise from such a business venture.

On the other hand, one must also remember that Lopakhin's so-called solution entails the destruction of exactly what the Ranevskys wanted to save: the cherry orchard, the last powerful symbol of a value system not based on “profit-driven” economies.  Nevertheless, one recognizes that Lopakhin does in fact care about the deeply symbolic nature of the cherry orchard and does propose to destroy its memory.  He is, nevertheless a self-made man whose family were serfs on the Ranevsky estate before the liberation.  His insistence on leasing the villas however, is rooted his love for his former employers.  He states, “I shall either cry, or scream, or faint.  I can’t stand it! You’ll be the death of me…”.  His reaction suggests that he is also implicated emotionally in Madame Ranevsky and Gayef’s difficulty and cares deeply about the future of the estate.  His suggestion represents a valid compromise given the situation, in contrast to selling the property to the millionaire, which would most likely result in the complete loss and destruction of something that is wrought with so much meaning for all of them.

 

As shown above, the dialogue between the decaying aristocratic family and Lopakhin, the wealthy former serf, illustrates many of the important social issues at work in the play.  The problem facing the Ranevskys is characteristic of the large majority of the former landed-gentry, clearly illustrating their inability to adapt to their changing society.  Left without the stability of the former economic system, many were unable to cope with the changing reality and became impoverished. The lack of correspondence between Gayef and Madame Ranevsky (symbolically representing the former land-owning class) and Lopakhin (epitomizing the entrepreneur, a self-made man) is indicative of the socio-economic impact caused by the growing entrepreneur-driven commercialism.  A century ago, Chekhov realized that the choice between an unproductive but still beautiful and renowned cherry orchard, and tawdry if profitable real estate development was not easy.  The change between the former economic value system and the new, profit driven commercialism presented a fundamental conflict of values for many, and continues to be all the more meaningful for today’s audience.

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The landed gentry class - symbolically represented by the Ranevskys - is crumble being replaced by the active, self-made merchants - embodied by Lopakhin, who will transform the cherry orchard into commercial property later on in the play.  

He was showing life as he saw it during the social and philosophical milieu of his day.

Principles of analyzing a passage

Chekhov's Message

As a dramatist, and from all reports as a man, Chekhov had no final solution to the problems of life. Mistaken critics sometimes insist that his plays bear the message: "men must work to be happy." But look at the characters in his play who put forth that message: the drunken, boorish steward Borkin in Ivanov; the overworked, burnt-out Astroff and the contemptible professor in Vanya; the silly, ineffectual Baron in Three Sisters; and the fatuous perpetual student in The Cherry Orchard. This hardly sounds like a cast of characters a playwright would conceive to represent his own serious solutions.

Quite simply, Chekhov did not have a message. He was showing life as he saw it during the social and philosophical milieu of his day. His characters are carefully composed amalgams of the gentry and provincials of his time. Each one rings perfectly true as a character. Inherent in many of the ironic satiric characterizations is an implied criticism of certain human and class weaknesses. But it is not a specific human or a specific class. Chekhov's detached and observant eye looked with gentle amusement and genuine sympathy on the fault-riddled characters he created. He did not judge them. He did not offer suggestions on how to improve them. This is why Chekhov's major plays end neither happily nor wholly tragically. He did not presume to have the answers to the questions he posed.

The Cherry Orchard portrays the social climate of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, when the aristocrats and landowning gentry were losing their wealth and revealed themselves to be incapable of coping with their change in status. Many Socialist Soviet critics in Russia after the Revolution of 1917 tried to interpret this as an indictment of Russian society at the turn of the century; however, it is unlikely that Chekhov meant this play as an attack on the society of which he was so much a part. Though intended as a comedy, the tragedy of the situation in which Mrs. Ranevsky and her family find themselves is derived primarily from their inability to adapt to their new social and personal responsibilities. No longer able to live on the labor provided by the serfs (slaves) who worked the land, many wealthy landowners, like Mrs. Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard, lost their fortunes and their estates.

Lopakhin insists on the subject of the cherry orchard; there is a millionaire interested in the property. Gayef and Madame Ranevsky discuss the prospect of their wealthy aunt sending them money, but Lopakhin is scandalized to hear the amount they expect; it is no where near enough to pay the interest on the mortgage. Lopakhin insists that they build villas and sell them to save themselves financially;

 Lopakhin tries to persuade Madame Ranevsky and Gayef to sell their property as villas, and they will have none of it. The siblings hesitate for two reasons. In Act I, they explained that their estate and cherry orchard are too important to be torn down; at this moment, in Act II, they condemn the idea of dealing with villa residents as "vulgar." This exchange between the decaying aristocratic family and Lopakhin, the wealthy former serf, illustrates many of the important social issues at work in the play. Now that the serfs have been freed, the older upper class no longer has an economic position with such long-term security. However, Madame Ranevsky and Gayef appear incapable of taking any economic threat seriously. It is interesting that the prospect of having villa residents is so distasteful to them. Villa residents would not come from old money, as Madame Ranevsky and Gayef do, but would rather come from the nouveau rich created by the rearrangement of the Russian classes. Madame Ranevsky and Gayefs' resistance to Lopakhin's suggestions therefore illustrates their inability to adapt to their changing society; they continue to think themselves somehow above their problems and above having to depend on people from common families. The intrigue of the play revolves around whether or not they can overcome this current blindness to their necessity to adapt.

The play dramatically reveals the clash of two fundamentally different economic value systems, the one rooted in the Russian institution of serfdom, the other drawn from western, profit-seeking capitalism.

A century ago, as The Cherry Orchard was being created, Russia was in the midst of one of its periodic crises of transition. Powerful forces for change battered Russia's traditional, agrarian-based government and society. Educated Russians led by the intelligentsia demanded a share in government and relief for the oppressed masses; ethnic minorities fought against the state's attempts at Russification and for greater national self-expression; women challenged traditional gender roles and joined the ranks of revolutionaries and professionals. But most relevant for Chekhov's audience was the profound upheaval in Russia's socioeconomic structure. While the emancipation of the serfs had occurred over forty years earlier, two of its most fundamental consequences reached critical proportions only at the turn of the century: the land hunger and increasing impoverishment of the peasants and the growing impoverishment of the land-owning gentry. Equally crucial, as the rural economy declined, capitalism and industrialization made great strides; Russia experienced one of Europe's most rapid surges of industrial growth in the 1890s.

It is, of course, these last two developments - the decline of the gentry and the rise of entrepreneurial capitalism - that figure most prominently in The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov brilliantly portrays the landed gentry's failure to cope with the economic realities of early twentieth-century Russia, their inability, literally, to understand the language of the new economic forces, given such clear expression in the play by Lopakhin, the peasant turned businessman. To be fair, he understands them no better. It is as if they live in two different worlds and belong to two different paradigms of economic thinking - they talk past one another and never truly converse. The play dramatically reveals the clash of two fundamentally different economic value systems, the one rooted in the Russian institution of serfdom, the other drawn from western, profit-seeking capitalism.

A significant portion of the landed gentry, epitomized in the play by Ranevskaya, her brother Gayev and their neighbour Simeonov-Pishchik, grew up on estates where serfs, through labour or quit-rent, provided a steady, if not always sufficient, income and a host of other domestic services. Serfdom, because one rarely paid for peasant labour and often took its costs for granted, minimized and obscured the need for rational economic calculation.. The cherry orchard is a luxury that only serfdom made possible.

Dependent on others for their well-being, never having learned the "value of money," the gentry are like children. They expect their financial salvation to come in the form of a windfall: a gift from a wealthy relative, a winning lottery ticket, the marriage of Anya to a rich husband, a loan from a friend. Indeed, Simeonov-Pishchik is saved by outside intervention, the discovery of porcelain-suitable clay on his property, a resource, of course, to be developed by others. Lopakhin stands in stark contrast. The archetypal entrepreneur, a self-made man whose family actually were serfs on the Ranevskaya estate, he knows exactly how to maximize profits, to take advantage of the new economic opportunities in Russia and is most willing to offer his expertise to his impoverished gentry friends. Recognizing the potential of the estate's riverside property now made easily accessible to the nearby town's growing population by that great symbol of modern industrialization, the railroad, Lopakhin sets out a comprehensive plan of real estate development that should solve the gentry's fiscal problems for decades. This "perfect" solution meets with disdain and incomprehension. The gentry cannot adapt to these new economic forces and may well not really understand them. On the other hand, one must also remember that Lopakhin's so-called solution entails the destruction of exactly what the gentry wanted to save: the cherry orchard, the last powerful symbol of a value system not based on bottom-line economies.

But before one joins Lopakhin in dismissing these outmoded values and their "feckless" proponents, one should note that the cherry orchard won the region a place in the Encyclopedia and that Lopakhin's obsession with profit distracts him from what seems an optimal match with Varya and even leads him to begin cutting down the orchard before its previous owners have left. A century ago, Chekhov knew that the choice between even an unproductive but still beautiful and renowned cherry orchard and tawdry if profitable real estate development was not simple. With the full-scale triumph of the "bottom liners" today, how much more meaningful is his humanist portrayal of this fundamental conflict of values for the present-day audience.

On the other hand, one must also remember that Lopakhin's so-called solution entails the destruction of exactly what the gentry wanted to save: the cherry orchard, the last powerful symbol of a value system not based on bottom-line economies.

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