The Cherry Orchard

Background

The Cherry Orchard was Anton Chekhov's last play. It opened at the Moscow Art Theatre on 17 January 1904 (Old Style), and Chekhov died that July. It is set in rural Russia around the turn of the twentieth century, about forty years after serfdom ended in 1861. Old landowning families were losing money and influence while merchants and businessmen rose. Chekhov, who was also a doctor, wrote the play while ill with tuberculosis. He called it a comedy, though many productions have played it as a tragedy. The story uses one family's goodbye to show a whole society changing.

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

Act 1: The Nursery (a May morning before dawn)

It is May and the cherry trees are in flower. Ranevskaya arrives at her estate after five years in Paris, with her seventeen-year-old daughter Anya. Lopakhin, who has stayed up to meet them, reminds the family that the estate will be auctioned on 22 August unless they act. His plan is to divide the land into plots for summer visitors. Gaev waves it away and imagines that a rich aunt or a loan will save them. Ranevskaya looks around the old nursery and weeps, remembering her young son Grisha, who drowned years ago. Why it matters: the whole problem is set out in one morning, and so is the family's habit of not listening.

Act 2: The Field (a summer evening)

Near an old chapel at sunset, the household talks while the orchard stands in the distance. Lopakhin presses his plan again and says time is short. Ranevskaya hears him, but her mind drifts to her old spending habits and to a lover in Paris who keeps sending telegrams. She even hands a gold coin to a passing stranger. Trofimov, the eternal student, gives a speech saying Russia must face its past and work for a better future, and Anya is deeply moved. Then everyone hears a distant sound like a breaking string, which slowly dies away. Nobody can explain it. Why it matters: the deadline is closing in, and the strange sound hints that something is ending.

Act 3: The Ball (22 August)

On the day of the auction, Ranevskaya throws a dance in the drawing room, though the family can hardly afford it. She waits nervously for her brother Gaev and Lopakhin, who have gone to town. Trofimov tells her to face the truth about the estate, and she lashes out at him. Gaev returns exhausted and silent. Lopakhin follows, flushed with excitement, and announces that he has bought the estate himself. The son of a serf now owns the land where his father and grandfather were not even allowed into the kitchen. While Ranevskaya weeps, he calls for the band to keep playing. Why it matters: the man who offered the rescue is the buyer, and the family's delay has cost them everything.

Act 4: The Departure (October)

It is October. Trunks are piled in the empty nursery and the family is leaving. Lopakhin has long been expected to propose to Varya, but when they are finally alone he finds an excuse and walks away. Anya is hopeful and ready to start a new life, encouraged by Trofimov. Varya takes a job as a housekeeper on another estate. Ranevskaya and Gaev share a last moment in the bare room, then go. Why it matters: each person leaves in a different direction, so the family that once shared one house is scattered.

Act 4, final scene: The Locked House

Firs, the old servant, is accidentally left behind in the locked house and lies down to rest. The sound of the breaking string returns, followed by axes at work on the trees. Why it matters: the ending lets sound, not speech, show an era closing.

Characters

• Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya: the owner of the estate, charming, generous and careless with money. She has just returned from Paris, where she lived after her son's death and a failed love affair. She loves the orchard as a symbol of her childhood, but cannot make the hard choice that would save it.
• Leonid Gaev: her brother, a talkative aristocrat who falls back on billiard terms in emotional moments. He promises to save the estate with schemes and loans, but depends on others for anything practical.
• Yermolai Lopakhin: a successful merchant whose father and grandfather were serfs on the estate. Practical and hardworking, he offers a real plan to save the family. He still feels gratitude to Ranevskaya, and an uneasy pride about how far he has come.
• Anya: Ranevskaya's seventeen-year-old daughter. Hopeful and easily inspired, she follows Trofimov's ideas about a new life and faces the loss of the orchard with more courage than the older generation.
• Varya: Ranevskaya's adopted daughter, aged twenty-four, who runs the household and keeps the keys. Everyone expects her to marry Lopakhin, but it never happens. She is serious, anxious and tired of carrying the family's problems.
• Pyotr Trofimov: a “perpetual student” who once tutored Ranevskaya's drowned son. He speaks warmly about work and progress, though he has no job or money himself. His speeches inspire Anya and irritate Ranevskaya.
• Boris Simeonov-Pishchik: a neighbouring landowner always short of money, who keeps borrowing from Ranevskaya. His luck turns when foreign investors lease his land for its clay. A cheerful, absent-minded man, he shows that luck, not planning, can rescue some people.
• Firs: the eighty-seven-year-old valet who has served the family all his life. He misses the days before serfdom ended and still fusses over Gaev like a child. His fate at the end becomes the play's saddest image.
• Charlotta Ivanovna: Anya's governess, a foreign-born woman who performs card tricks and ventriloquism. She says she does not know where she is from or who she is, which makes her one of the loneliest people on stage.
• Semyon Yepikhodov: the clerk nicknamed “Twenty-two Misfortunes” because of his clumsy accidents. He trips, breaks things and owns a pair of squeaking boots. He provides much of the play's slapstick, while his hopeless love for Dunyasha adds a note of sadness.
• Yasha: a young servant who travelled to Paris with Ranevskaya and came back full of airs. He looks down on Russian life and the old servants, and goes back to Paris with her at the end.
• Dunyasha: a young maid who loves pretty clothes and romance. She brushes off Yepikhodov's proposal and falls for Yasha, showing a younger generation eager to step above its station. Her light, flirty scenes balance the heavy ones.

Writing about this book

A good report on The Cherry Orchard starts with a choice of viewpoint. Decide whether you read the play from the side of Ranevskaya and her family, from Lopakhin's side, or from the younger generation of Anya and Trofimov. Then build your thoughts around a few questions:

• Why does the family refuse the cottage plan? Look for reasons that are about feeling, not only money.
• When Lopakhin buys the orchard, has he won? Look at what he says and does just afterwards.
• How do you hear the breaking string and the axes at the end?
• What is your own “cherry orchard”: a place, habit or memory that is hard to let go?

Chekhov called the play a comedy. Look for the funny moments inside sad scenes and ask why he mixed them. Rather than retelling the plot, pick one scene that stayed with you and connect it to your own experience or to a wider question about change. Quote sparingly, and always say which act you mean.