University of Toronto · Academic Electronic Journal in Slavic Studies

Ralph Lindheim

The Cherry Orchard:
Chekhov's Praise of Folly¹

For a play, whose basic subject has been recognized by many as change, it is notable that the major characters of The Cherry Orchard remain unaffected by what they live through and experience no significant change. Many of the characters are told what they ought to do: Ranevskaia is told to renounce the lover who is robbing her blind; Gaev is told immediately in the first act that he should stop talking ("тебе надо молчать");² Trofimov is told to grow up, to do something substantial, anything substantial, even if it's only to grow a proper beard or to take a lover; and Lopakhin is urged to stop rushing about and to settle down with a good wife, Varia, by his side. But they fail to act on the freely offered advice. Moreover, they enter the play with high hopes--all see the orchard as somehow instrumental in changes they intend--but it is doubtful that their hopes will be realized. In fact, some even begin the play precluding the possibility of change, by demonstrating that they have not changed and cannot. Ranevskaia has spent many years away from Russia, but Varia clearly notes in Act I the absence of any change: "Мамочка такая же, как была, нисколько не изменилась. Если бы ей волю, она бы все раздала." There is in her a constant childish recklessness, including a fiscal irresponsibility prompting her to throw away money, much of which isn't even hers. She begins the last act with another display of impulsive generosity she can ill afford. And as always she relies on others like Lopakhin to supply her money and advice, but then cannot heed what they say or do for her. Her brother Gaev also cannot accept advice, and is an even greater child, with a sweet tooth and a passion for games, who relies on his servant to dress and undress him. And he leaves the play as he enters it, totally unprepared for his new position in a bank--for any responsible job, really--and headed for certain failure.

Lopakhin and Trofimov have changed before the play begins, but only superficially, only in appearance. Despite his prosperity the merchant has retained too much of his past. He recognizes he is still a peasant, albeit a rich one: "… вот богатый, денег много, а ежели подумать и разобраться, то мужик мужиком…" What he is not and will not be is a true master. It is, of course, significant that at the beginning of the play he oversleeps and thus greets his former mistress not at the station but in the house together with the other servants. Because of Lopakhin's own lack of confidence in his new role, his former masters often forget that he is no longer their peasant: they patronize him, they even try to marry him off to a woman of their choice, and of course they depend upon him as they depended on their peasants years before.

Trofimov, though he feels superior to the others and attempts to instruct them and to urge them to atone for the past through noble self-sacrifice and work, has himself done nothing in his life. He is not just a "вечный студент," but is, as we note at the end of the first act, impatient. Not only can he not wait to greet his former employer until the morning, as requested by Varia, but the second act concludes with his anger at Varia's interruption of his tête-à-tête with Ania. His impatient annoyance is later directed at Ranevskaia for her inability to admit what is undeniably clear and true to him, that she has a petty scoundrel and worse, a "ничтожество," for a lover. It is his immature virginal ignorance of life and love as well as his rush to judgment that Ranevskaia scores: "Вам двадцать шесть лет или двадцать семь, а вы все еще гимназист второго класса! … Надо быть мужчиной, в ваши годы надо понимать тех, кто любит. И надо самому любить… надо влюбляться!" It seems clear that his growth and development, like that of the others, has been stunted.

What radically separates these major figures from the clownish secondary characters of the play, with whom the first group are nevertheless twined in noteworthy ways, is that the major figures are all too conscious of their foolish weaknesses and how they threaten, if not obstruct, desired changes. Even the most ridiculous, Gaev, offers as early as the first act an amusing deflation of himself that nonetheless lays bare a pained awareness of his helplessness: "Да … (Пауза.) Если против какой–нибудь болезни предлагается очень много средств, то это значит, что болезнь неизлечима. Я думаю, напрягаю мозги, у меня много средств, очень много и, значит, в сущности ни одного."

The impression shared by most of the major characters that they are not what they appear or pretend to be, that they do not fit into their world comfortably, that they are helpless rather than helpful, that they are vulnerable to inexplicable impulses and powerful external forces is conveyed keenly by their affirmations. Lopakhin is a workaholic who urges others to work. But he busies himself to keep at bay powerful memories of the beatings he received from his drunken father (again, this is something he states in his first appearance on stage and repeats early in the second act and in his major third act monologue). He suspects that the ignorance and savagery of his past clouds his future and undermines his attempts to improve himself, to live a fuller life intellectually and emotionally. He reads and goes to the theatre but takes little away from these activities he comes to so late. And he toys with the idea of marriage only to suspect that he will never marry and have a family. Lopakhin is a man who will prosper but will never grow and flower.

Trofimov, too, urges others on, in part, to compensate for a potentially crippling insecurity. It is his way of contending with doubts about his own abilities. Twice in the play we hear him hesitate, unable to affirm without qualification that he will reach the goals he so impatiently wants to attain. When Lopakhin, in the last act, asks whether he will reach his goal, Trofimov responds, "Дойду" but then continues after a significant pause, "Дойду, или укажу другим путь, как дойти."

Liubov' Ranevskaia not only attacks Trofimov for avoiding love, but has earlier berated her brother for strutting before the waiters at lunch and talking to them about the 1870s and the decadents. And then, moments later, she turns on Lopakhin, "Вам не пьесы смотреть, а смотреть бы почаще на самих себя. Как вы все серо живете, как много говорите ненужного." Doesn't she castigate these men for their insubstantiality, their immaturity, their colorless and worthless lives because she is so thoroughly oppressed by her own sins, as she calls them, by her own instability and wasted life? She counsels the others to take themselves in hand when she is deeply troubled by her inability to control herself and overcome her own proclivities. And, though appalled by the disaster of her own love life, she urges others to love or to marry. Doesn't she demand of them what she cannot achieve herself? She returns to her estate, as she declares in the first act, because it represents an ordered and stable life so different and distant from hers.

Sensing and fearing their own feebleness, their difficulties with love, their failure to act in the way they want to or ought to, all conceal the gnawing anxiety produced by their incompetence, indifference, impotence, falsity, emotional instability by demanding from others that they love, act and not talk, face the truth about their dreary lives and renovate them. They insist life be ordered, beautiful, consistent, purposeful and just, because they cannot face the fact that they are all too human--unpredictable, unstable, weak, and unlovely. Ashamed of their own frailties and failures, they pose and make hard, unrealistic, impatient demands of others to be what they themselves are not--to be inspiring leaders, ardent lovers, and honest, creative, caring and productive members of society. All this results in much talk, much posturing, much dreaming but no concrete action, no real change.

Yet we should beware concluding that these characters besotted with words, love, work, and a vision of an altered world do not change simply because they cannot change. It is also true to suggest that they will not change, for their illusions of pleasure, power, and prosperity sustain them and inspire them to go on rather than submit to the all too palpable futility of human existence, which so much in the play projects. Nature, instead of offering comfort and consolation, is shown to deny understanding and sympathy to its creatures. The famous sound of the broken string is an unsettling, unpleasant sound, yet another reminder of the indifference, if not hostility, of nature toward its creatures, especially when they speculate about the importance and impact of human beings. Time is properly sensed as a hostile inexorable force. Too many of the changes that do take place are not for the better. We are reminded of how people age, lose their looks and strength, and eventually die. And if some progressive change is to occur, its inadequacy and incompleteness can be too easily predicted. Lopakhin's scheme for tract-home cottages is, as Trofimov is aware, too characteristic of its developer, that is, basically armwaving: "И тоже вот строить дачи, рассчитывать, что из дачников со временем выйдут отдельные хозяева, рассчитывать так––это тоже значит размахивать… ." What good, the student really asks, will be served by more people owning homes, if these new property owners fail to become more enlightened, more socially aware, more compassionate and cultured? Lopakhin's arms are working, but faster than and not in full accord with his head.

The farce of the play is one more indication of how reality constantly mocks all the characters of the play. Their dignity and self-control are constantly at risk in their world. Some characters inexplicably voice odd sounds: Lopakhin in the first act "мычит" and Epikhodov in the last act momentarily loses his normal voice. Or they have trouble with things: Duniasha drops and breaks a piece of china in the first act, Ranevskaia drops her purse and the coins scatter, Trofimov famously falls downstairs offstage while Lopakhin returns from the auction of the estate to be greeted by a solid blow to the head--his entrance is literally met with slapstick--and Epikhodov squashes a hatbox in the last act. The farcical humor is not just physical. It is also verbal. Gaev frequently draws attention to himself with impromptu, embarrassing orations, whereas others, not just Epikhodov, are verbally challenged, finding it difficult to maintain coherence of thought or subject or tone. Both Varia in Act I and Ranevskaia in Act II, when she speaks of her "грехи," have trouble expressing themselves adequately and accurately because they cannot focus their minds on one emotion or thought or topic for any length of time.

Act III, from start to finish, is a brilliant string of incidents or episodes featuring the characters' inability or outright failure to maintain control and consistency over their bodies and brains and words and emotions. Varia begins the act dancing tearily with the stationmaster, but a very short moment later, when she enters with Trofimov, she responds to his teasing by angrily shouting "Облезлый барин." And then a second later she ponders, deep in thought, how money will be found to pay the musicians. Next is the sudden transition from composure to panic, when Simeonov-Pishchik realizes that the money he needs tomorrow has been lost. Only to express outrageously joyful relief when he finds it in the lining of his jacket.

The more famous and familiar rapid transitions from one emotion to its opposite occur in the middle of the act and at the end. Ranevskaia's long conversation with Trofimov begins with her plea for understanding and kind words and tokens of pity: "Спасите меня, Петя. Говорите же что–нибудь, говорите… ." And a few lines later she begs, "Пожалейте меня, хороший, добрый человек." But when the response she wants is not forthcoming, she immediately demands the opposite, "не говорите мне ничего, не говорите." And a few seconds later she angrily tongue-lashes him: "вы просто чистюлька, смешной чудак, урод … ." But, of course, she immediately retracts her words and alters her tone when he runs off in indignation, "Петя, погодите! Смешной человек, я пошутила! Петя!" With his fall comes a rapid oscillation in the reactions to it heard offstage: Ania and Varia's shocked cry of horror is immediately followed by their laughter. And of course we should not forget the gamut of transitions in Lopakhin's monologue at the end of the act: here is yet another opportunity for an actor to display great flexibility, for he must rapidly pass from triumphant pride to anger at his father to sorrow at the plight of the former owners and then to a deeply felt anguish at the absurd and painful social and historical process which all, even he the apparent winner, must endure. But then, with yet one more twist, one more display of inconsistency, Lopakhin leaves the stage proclaiming loudly and crudely, as he almost knocks over a candelabra, "За все могу заплатить!" Even if his final words have an ironic coloration, he concludes by giving voice to his peasant mentality, with its crude belief in the power of money.

It is also unfortunately significant that the secondary figures are granted a success that eludes the main figures. The oafs and clowns are too often the successful darlings of fate. Firs ends the play in the house rather than in the hospital, a fate he would have certainly wished for himself if he had been asked. Pishchik always manages to save his estate at the last moment. Yasha has no problem with women; he kisses Duniasha just seconds after he meets her, whereas Lopakhin throughout the play has trouble simply conversing with Varia, whom he has known for many years. And let's not forget that Yasha gets his wish and returns happily to his beloved France. Epikhodov, unbelievably, is appointed manager of Lopakhin's new property, which does not say much for the merchant's judge of character and ability. And silly little Duniasha, unlike Ranevskaia, has a choice of lovers. The maid's selection is admittedly limited, but she does have a choice, whereas Ranevskaia has a millstone around her neck that will only drag her down.

In the world of Chekhov's play thinking human beings are always close to the brink of despair, and it would be all too easy for any of them to give up hope. It would be all too easy to stop posing, strutting, talking, hoping, waiting for change, and even dreaming of some escape from what they know or have known. It would be easy to surrender all their illusions and collapse. But Chekhov's characters don't. Their foolish masks and inadequate pretensions, so easily seen through and punctured, are not discarded. Firstly, because their illusions are not simply foolish delusions; they contain a modicum of truth and value. Passion may be disastrous for Ranevskaia, but is she entirely wrong when she counsels Trofimov to let himself go, to allow himself to be swept away by passion? Can Trofimov acquire the wisdom and understanding he pretends to possess without the experience of impulsive and even imprudent behavior?³ And, secondly and most importantly, the characters are not just compromised by their refusal to adjust or alter their impractical commitments to love, talk, work, and radicalism. They are not simply deflated by their folly. In the last act Trofimov, once again laughable as he hunts for his galoshes, refuses to take money from Lopakhin, because the acceptance of such a handout could signify his cooptation by the society he denounces and renounces. Though the money might cushion the failure he will inevitably suffer--upon his return to university he will of course do everything to insure his suspension or expulsion--it is such a cushion, any cushion, that he rejects, for the failure that is predictably in store for him stirs and stimulates him. Frustration and hardship may irritate and upset this impatient little man, but they also can galvanize him, as they do all the major characters of the play.

Rather than accommodating themselves to and making their peace with a reality that will certainly diminish them, rather than submitting to the frightening pace of time and the overwhelming force of other external powers and processes that clearly demonstrate the irrelevance of human beings, rather than admitting and coming to terms with their weakness and instability and impotence, they, in effect, refuse to face the facts, refuse to act sensibly. To the end and beyond they continue to act foolishly, heeding the absurd call of their illusions. Failure may give them a moment's pause and even momentarily overwhelm them--think here of the final embrace of Gaev and Ranevskaia, when they attempt to subdue their tears, followed by Gaev's collapse, which is marked by his last words, only "Сестра моя" repeated four times. Yet he exits with the help of his sister, bloodied but not broken. Throughout the play they hold on, hoping against hope, expecting a miracle to happen, the estate to be saved, Lopakhin to propose, Russia to grow and prosper, when the only miraculous things in the play are Sharlotta's parlor tricks ("фокусы"). And, when some of these expectations are not realized, they are convinced that all is for the best and that the future will be better. Gaev is to be a financier, Trofimov an agitator and organizer among the students, Lopakhin has a train to catch that will carry him to his next business deal, and Ranevskaia, prior to her return to her lover in Paris, can rest easy, now that the estate has been sold at auction and its burden taken from her shoulders. Their folly, projecting their strengths as well as reflecting their weaknesses, is and apparently will continue undiminished. And it seems that their foolish inflexibility contributes to their resiliency.⁴

Like Erasmus, who announced in the prefatory letter to The Praise of Folly that his work was a light trifle, written when he was on the road and away from his library simply to amuse himself and his friend and future host, Thomas More,⁵ so Chekhov, too, insisted that in The Cherry Orchard he had written a light, frothy, quickly paced farcical entertainment--no matter how directors like Stanislavky presented the play or, to be precise, parts of it as a teary tragedy. What lay behind their insistence on the apparent triviality and joviality of their creations is, I believe, a similar strategy. Both attempted, first of all, to ward off humorless interpreters, especially those all too eager to see their own attitudes and concerns in all the artists they study. Of course, neither Erasmus nor Chekhov suggested that their humorous works were without serious meaning. Certainly Erasmus's character, Folly, alerts her listeners to what lies behind her amusing words: she says, "I am telling you what at first blush may seem silly and absurd but is true many times over."⁶ And the major characters in Cherry Orchard--and occasionally some of the secondary figures--drop their farcical manner and impress the audience with the lyrical intensity and purity of their emotions, with the shrewdness of their insights into themselves and others, and with their acute understanding of the world. Yet both Erasmus and Chekhov underplayed the seriousness of their works, inviting their audiences to relax, unwind, sit comfortably in their reading chairs or theatre seats and suspend the impulse to reduce the content of what they are reading or seeing to a simplified set of unnuanced thoughts and reflections. Because they forestalled their audience's reflex action to lay bare the truth behind the mask, the greater irony⁷ of their works, the irony generated by the defense of folly by characters, who hold onto rather than relinquish their folly, has more time to percolate and resonate. And thus a larger, broader, more reflective spectrum of responses to these characters, who come to be seen as far from simply foolish, and to the truth of the mask has time to emerge and be explored.

This paper was first read at the Chekhov Centenary Conference at Colby College on October 7, 2004.
All quotations from The Cherry Orchard come from A. P. Chekhov, Sobranie sochinenii. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1963, vol. 9.
Permit me to anticipate somewhat my conclusion by quoting a passage from Erasmus's Praise of Folly, in which Folly, in her own way, argues that folly promotes understanding and even wisdom:

The Praise of Folly

Chekhov's main characters resemble the figures in a cartoon described in Walter Kerr's Tragedy and Comedy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. The cartoon, as I freely embroider what I vaguely recall, depicts a huge prison, whose walls are made of the thickest possible stone. And in this prison there appears to be only one huge cell, with the ceiling 25 feet from the floor and with only two tiny windows at the very top of the walls letting in only a minimal amount of light. There is also only one small door to the cell, located midway up one wall, a door that can only be reached by a moveable stairway that must be lowered to the floor of the cell. And in the pit, on the floor of the cell, are two emaciated hairy figures, their hands and feet chained to the floor. It is evident that they cannot move a muscle. But in the murk and gloom of the prison cell, in the most oppressive conditions imaginable, one prisoner is saying to the other, "Now, here's my plan."
The prefatory letter begins: "Coming out of Italy a while ago, on my way to England, I did not want to waste in idle talk and popular stories all the hours I had to sit on horseback, but chose at times to think over some topics from the studies we share in common, or to enjoy my memories of friends--and I had left some here in England who were wholly learned and gracious. Among them you, More, came first to mind. Thus, absent as I was, I found delight in the memory of the absent you in much the same way as, being present, I used to enjoy the society of the present you; and may I be shot if anything more pleasant than that has ever befallen me in life! So because I thought that by all means something ought to be done about it, and the time seemed hardly suitable for serious intellectual effort, I was pleased to have some sport with a eulogy of folly." Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, p. 1.
Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, p. 47.
For an elegant treatment of the irony of Erasmus, see Walter J. Kaiser, Praisers of Folly: Erasmus, Rabelais, Shakespeare. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.

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Ralph Lindheim

The Cherry Orchard: Chekhov's Praise of Folly1

The Cherry Orchard:
Chekhov's Praise of Folly¹