The Cherry Orchard Act I: Family Business

This family's social class seems very high since they have maids and peasants. Regardless of this in the first few lines I sensed that money will be a great problem. Once a person accustoms to a life where money can be accessed easily and this person spends this money extravagantly, it becomes very difficult to change the way this person views money. This can be seen when Anya says "She had already sold her villa near Mentone, and she had nothing left, nothing. And I hadn't so much as a kopeck left, we barely managed to get there. But Mama doesn't understand" (Chekhov, 327). Her mother clearly views money in a different way. She had nothing left after selling the villa because she spent it all. The word barely, makes a big emphasis on the amount of money. Having barely made it shows the margin of money left which lessens each time because of her mother's spending. Her mother can't understand that she has to change the way she views money because all of her life she has lived with the thought that money will be an endless source of happiness for her and her family. Anya, her daughter, sees this in another way since she hasn't been showed throughout her whole life that money is unlimited. Chekhov shows, through this financial crisis in The Cherry Orchard the quickness in which money can disappear. He also shows how the source of happiness for her mother can quickly evaporate as well as the happy moments in life.

 

Chekov shows the idea of marriage for money instead of for love. This theme has been emphasized in the novel Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen. Mrs. Bennet wants to marry her daughters to a wealthy man who can provide enough money for her daughters but as well as for her when her husband dies and is forced to give the ranch to Mr. Collins. Marriage as described by Austen's novel is the climbing of the social and financial status through contracting matrimony with a wealthier man. Varya refers to these thoughts when she says to Anya "If we could marry you to a rich man I'd be at peace. I could go into hermitage, then to Kiev, to Moscow, and from one holy place to another" (Chekhov, 328). In both of these cases the interests who are being fulfilled with the marriage are the family interests. We never see Elizabeth hoping to marry a rich man, these are Mrs. Bennet's interests. The same thing happens to Anya when Varya shows how she could be benefited from the marriage to a wealthy man. Varya says that she would be at peace but she never mentions if Anya would also achieve this peace.