History of creation
Writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Literary scholars believe that the play is autobiographical. The plot of the work is built around a bankrupt noble family forced to sell the family estate. Chekhov happened to find himself in a similar situation, so he knew first-hand the experiences of his heroes. The mental state of each character was familiar to the writer, as a person faced with the need to leave his home. The narrative is permeated with subtle psychologism.
The innovation of the play lay in the fact that its characters were divided not into positive and negative characters, not into main and secondary ones. These were people of the past, present and future, whom the writer classified according to their worldview. Lopakhin was a representative of the present, although sometimes there is a feeling that he could also lay claim to the position of a man of the future.
Anton Chekhov in the garden
Work on the work was carried out from 1901 to 1903. Chekhov was seriously ill, but completed the play, and in 1904 the premiere of a theatrical production based on a new plot took place on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater.
"The Cherry Orchard"
The biography and fate of Ermolai Alekseevich Lopakhin is closely connected with the life of the Ranevskaya family. The hero's father was a serf to Father Ranevskaya and lived in small trade. The young lady showed sympathy for the young man, who was constantly bombarded by his father, and he talks about this, recalling the story of life in serfdom. Ranevskaya’s attitude excited the consciousness of Ermolai Lopakhin. He liked the caress of an attractive girl, but he understood that there was an abyss between them based on slavery. Even the meaning of the hero’s surname and name suggests that he is intended for a completely different society.
Ranevskaya (scene from the theater)
Lopakhin became rich by becoming a merchant and was able to change his fate. He made himself and, despite the lack of proper education, became one of the people, of which he is incredibly proud. Although he admits that books are empty for him, and his handwriting has never acquired a noble appearance. The former serf achieved everything through hard work; his whole life consists of work. Lopakhin is in a hurry all the time, looking at his watch, waiting for a new meeting. He knows how to manage his own time and finances, unlike the Ranevskaya family.
Lopakhin more than once starts a conversation about the cherry orchard, offering help. He easily parts with money by lending money, but in the case of the estate being sold, something else is involved: Lopakhin loves Ranevskaya. He acts nobly, offering to buy the garden and rent it out as summer cottages, although he could have quietly bought it for his own use.
Lyubov Ranevskaya and Ermolai Lopakhin in the theater
Lopakhin demonstrates business qualities that are surprising for a former serf. He is practical and calculating, but does not use his talents against those close to him. At the same time, some characters give an unflattering description of the hero, believing that Lopakhin is pursuing the possibility of a profitable deal.
Throughout the action, the conversation repeatedly comes up about Lopakhin's marriage to Vara. Ermolai does not marry the girl not because of the lack of a dowry, but because of the issue of cutting down the garden. Varya sees in the groom only a businessman for whom the wedding can be beneficial as a deal. Incoherent dialogues between the characters make it clear that there is no mutual understanding between them. The love for Ranevskaya, warming in Lopakhin’s heart, does not allow him to think about other women. The hero proposes to Varya solely at the request of his beloved.
Illustration for the book “The Cherry Orchard”
In the play, each character loses something along with The Cherry Orchard. Lopakhin loses faith in love, realizing that the image of a simple man is forever attached to him in Ranevskaya’s perception. Having bought Ranevskaya’s garden at auction, he, a representative of the future, the owner of an estate where his family was in service, falls into euphoria. But, having acquired the garden, he did not achieve the fulfillment of a dream that remained unattainable. Ranevskaya leaves Russia, going to Paris, and Lopakhin is left alone with the estate where he spent his youth.
At the end of the play, Ermolai Alekseevich talks about his awkward life. It becomes obvious to him that everything he strived for turned out to be empty. He realizes how many people in his country exist aimlessly and do not understand what they live for.
Still from the film “The Cherry Orchard”
The author's attitude towards Lopakhin is not as negative as that of other characters in the play. Chekhov considers Lopakhin a “klutz” and justifies the hero with a lack of education and upbringing. Many of Lopakhin’s actions indicate that, despite his business acumen, the man is not distinguished by simple forethought. He is late for the train to meet Ranevskaya. Wanting to help her out of trouble, he buys a garden. He decides to ask Varya to marry and immediately forgets about it.
The image of Lopakhin has been incredibly relevant in recent decades. This is a “hero of our time”, skillfully building a business, but callous in soul. A person incapable of perception and thinking exclusively about his own self-realization through material wealth. Ermolai Lopakhin presents with his description an anti-portrait of Chekhov. A sensitive writer, whose works are full of philosophical meaning and tragedy, is the complete opposite of the son of serfs who has made it into the people.
A businessman with the soul of an artist
Chekhov said that Lopakhin’s role in the work is central, that the whole play will fail if it fails. He wrote that Ermolai Alekseevich is a merchant, but a decent person in every sense; he must behave decently, “no tricks,” and intelligently. At the same time, Chekhov warned against a petty, simplified understanding of the image of Lopakhin. He is a successful businessman, but he has the soul of an artist. His thoughts about Russia sound like declarations of love. Lopakhin's words are reminiscent of Gogol's lyrical digressions in Dead Souls. It is to this hero that the most heartfelt words spoken about the cherry orchard in the play belong: “an estate that is not more beautiful in the world.”
Chekhov introduced features characteristic of some Russian entrepreneurs of the early 20th century into the image of Lopakhin, a merchant, but at the same time an artist at heart. We are talking about such names that left their mark on Russian culture as Savva Morozov, Shchukin, Tretyakov, and the publisher Sytin.
The final assessment that Petya Trofimov gives to his seemingly antagonist is very significant. The characterization of Lopakhin’s image given by this character is ambiguous. As we have already said, he compared it to a predatory beast. But at the same time, Petya Trofimov tells Lopakhin that he still loves him: like an artist, he has delicate, thin fingers and a vulnerable soul.
Film adaptations
The first film adaptation of the play by Russian playwright Chekhov was made in Japan in 1936 by director Morato Makoto. The characters were modernized to match current Japanese images. In 1959, director Daniel Petri shot the film “The Cherry Orchard,” in which Martin Hirte played the role of Lopakhin. In the 1973 production by Jan Bull, the image of Lopakhin was absent, and in the Soviet film adaptation of 1976, Yuri Kayurov appeared in the role of the merchant in Leonid Kheifetz's teleplay.
Vysotsky plays in the play “The Cherry Orchard”
Richard Eid in 1981 directed Bill Paterson as Lopakhin, and in the 1983 Soviet film by Igor Ilyinsky, Yermolai was played by Viktor Korshunov. Anna Chernakova, who directed the film “The Cherry Orchard” 10 years later, invited Alexander Feklistov to play the role of Lopakhin. The image of the merchant in the television film by Sergei Ovcharov in 2008 went to Roman Ageev. The most famous performer of this role on the theater stage was Vladimir Vysotsky.
Lopakhin and Ranevskaya
The characterization of Lopakhin from The Cherry Orchard would be incomplete without an analysis of the relationship between these two characters. The fact is that Ranevskaya, when Lopakhin was still a “boy” with his nose bloody from his father’s fist, took him to the washstand and said: “He’ll heal before the wedding.” Ranevskaya's sympathy, in contrast to her father's fist, was perceived by Lopakhin as a manifestation of femininity and tenderness. Lyubov Andreevna, in fact, did what a mother was supposed to do. Perhaps it is she who is involved in the fact that this merchant has such a “subtle, gentle soul.” But it is precisely this characteristic of Lopakhin in the play “The Cherry Orchard” that makes the image of the merchant we are interested in contradictory. Ermolai Alekseevich kept this love and gratitude in his soul, this wonderful vision. So, in the first act, he tells Lyubov Andreevna that she once did so much for him, and that he loves her “more than his own.” This is the characteristic of Ranevskaya and Lopakhin, their relationship.
Lopakhin’s words in the first act are a “confession” of Ermolai Alekseevich’s first, long-standing love, filial gratitude, and bright love for a beautiful vision that does not require anything in return and is not obligatory to anything.
Quotes
Lopakhin is beautiful by the fact that he does not forget his place. Like any person who has not seen a prosperous life, he is proud of what he managed to achieve without patronage and help. For him, the main expression of success is material wealth:
“My father, it’s true, was a man, but here I am in a white vest and yellow shoes.”
Illustration for the play “The Cherry Orchard”
The hero understands how valuable an education he did not receive would be in his current situation. He also feels that he lacks the ability to understand the world that he is so eager to get into, where he wants to be accepted as “one of his own”:
“My dad was a man, an idiot, he didn’t understand anything, he didn’t teach me, he just beat me when he was drunk, and that was all with a stick. In essence, I’m just as much of a blockhead and an idiot. I haven’t studied anything, my handwriting is bad, I write in such a way that people are ashamed of me, like a pig.”
Lopakhin's main achievement is that he manages to understand: the life he strives for is worthless. Money doesn't bring him pleasure. Owning a cherry orchard makes him understand that his dreams turned out to be empty, the pleasure from their fulfillment is doubtful. Work becomes the main life credo for the hero:
“When I work for a long time, tirelessly, then my thoughts are lighter, and it seems as if I also know why I exist. And how many people, brother, are there in Russia who exist for no one knows why.”
What separates Lopakhin and Varya?
Apparently, the point is not that the groom is a businessman incapable of showing love. It is in this spirit that Varya explains to herself their relationship. She believes that he simply has no time for her, since Lopakhin has a lot to do. Probably, Varya is not a match for this hero after all: he is a broad-minded person, an entrepreneur, a person of great scope and at the same time an artist at heart. Varin’s world is limited by economy, housekeeping, and keys on his belt. This girl, moreover, is homeless and has no rights even to the now ruined estate. Lopakhin, for all the subtlety of his soul, lacks tact and humanity in order to bring clarity to their relationship.
The dialogue of the characters described in the second act does not clarify anything at the textual level in the relationship between Varya and Lopakhin. But it becomes clear at the subtext level that these people are infinitely distant. The characterization of the hero Lopakhin allows us to judge that with Varya he would hardly have found his happiness. Ermolai Alekseevich had already decided that he should not be with this girl. Here Lopakhin plays the role of the provincial Hamlet, who decides for himself the famous question: “To be or not to be?” And he decides: “Okhmelia, go to the monastery...”.
What separates Varya and Lopakhin? Perhaps the relationship of these heroes is determined largely by the motive of the fate of the cherry orchard, their attitude towards it? Varya, like Firs, worries about the fate of the estate and garden. And Lopakhin “sentenced” him to cutting down. Thus, the death of the cherry orchard comes between the heroes.
But, probably, there is another reason, which is not formulated in the play (like many other things, sometimes the most important thing in Anton Pavlovich) and lies in the sphere of the subconscious. This is Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya.
