Characterize the wealthy landowning classes as ineffectual

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Reference no: EM133930194

Assignment:

Be sure to respond to several other posts.

1. In 1861, the emancipation of serfs in Russia liberated millions of serfs and ended the feudal political model. Serfs gained legal and financial independence. They could own property, buy land, use the court systems, vote, and so on. Previously, serfs were governed by landowners. They worked as agricultural laborers and servants for the landowners. Chekhov's play is set several decades after the emancipation of the serfs. The play opens at the turn of the century. Mme. Ranevskaya returns from Paris to her childhood home--the family estate passed down through the generations of a landowning family. The estate is in disrepair. The wealthy landowners, now without serf labor and facing a political system in which they must pay taxes, cannot keep the estate going because they do not have an income and cannot pay the taxes. They are about to lose the estate and orchard.

1. Lopakin, a former peasant, offers help to Mme. Ranevskaya and her family. He proposes to help them secure a loan so that they can tear down the orchard and build summer villas to rent. The real estate venture can create a steady income so that the family can pay their taxes and earn a living. Locate the conversations in which Lopakin tries to convince Mme. Ranevskaya and her brother, Gayev, accept his proposition. How do they react to the business proposal? Why do the formerly wealthy landowners choose to ignore Lopakin's advice?

2. What does the orchard symbolize? innocence? A once great aristocracy? The exploitation of the serfs? Feudal Russia? What does its destruction represent at the end of the play? The end of feudal Russia? The reclaiming of one's past--Lopakin's family and peasant history? The destruction of past wrongs?

3. How does Chekhov characterize the wealthy landowning classes as ineffectual? (Mme. Ranevskaya, Gayev, Pishchik...)

4. How do the ghosts of feudal Russia come back to haunt the characters of the play?

Reference no: EM133930194

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