Happy+ending?

Did this play end on a happy note, which is the characteristic ending of most comedies? I think it was bittersweet. On the bitter part, Gayef and Mme Ranevsky are sad to leave the place, which is revealed in their crying embrace as they stand for the last time inside the house. Then of course, Firs dies, and deaths are usually not happy things. But on the flipside, the ending was still joyful because, you've got to admit, Firs's last line was pretty hilarious (at least in Bro Tom's translation it was) as well as the whole situation of everyone leaving this senile old servent alone in the house. Also, Gayef notices that "till the cherry orchard was sold [they] were all agitated and miserable; but once the thing was settled finally and irrevocably, [they] all calmed down and got jolly again." Mme Ranevsky even admits, "yes, my nerves are better; it's quite true" (44). Even though it's a sad moment, good still comes out of the situation. Thoughts? 1204756955

Well, as has been mentioned in class, this play has been called a plotless play because it has no rising and falling action: it has no introduction then conflict then resolution and closing. It is first an arrival, and then a departure. The in between is the play. It is essentially a play of relationships between characters. Are we just trying to classify the ending as happy because it is a "comedy"? I mean, you could say it was happy or sad. Optimist or pessimist? Anya or Renevsky?

You could say it's happy because it is hope for a new life. They don't need to worry about the mortgage or anything. They're poor and happy versus poor and miserable. They still have eachother, except for Firs, of course, but he didn't matter to any of the characters upon arrival. Renevsky is happy to see him, but if she hadn't seen him, would she have thought of him? Much of everything is the same between the characters if you compare the arrival to the departure. However, things have changed from the arrival. There is the breaking of the string that happens in the middle of the play and also at the end. Tradgedy has struck someone somewhere. Is any ending ever totally happy? Perhaps the characters were content, but they were by no means problemless. Happiness comes and goes, but the relationships the characters have with eachother keeps everything sort of constant. Neither happy nor sad.1204758411

I can’t see the ending as being a happy one. Just because the play is considered a comedy does not make its ending happy. I like to think of it as bittersweet. The family is relieved to have their unfortunate ordeal over with…they’ve sold the orchard and no long have to worry about it. They’ve still got each other and the selling of the orchard did bring them back together in a way because Mme Ranevsky had to come home from Paris for it. However, there were plenty of sad moments with the ending. Firs died, they lost an estate that had been in the family for generations (to be the one to lose that has got to be a bummer) and even though they still have each other, many are going in separate directions. The family has finally gotten the proverbial monkey off their backs by selling the orchard but now everyone must face the uncertainty of a new life without each other. I see the challenges this new life brings each character and believe that some will probably fail, like Mme Ranevsky, in adapting to a new way of life. If you see the hope and possibility of the future in their departure at the train station, you would probably see this ending as more positive than I did. 1204771106

I mentioned this in class, and I still stand by it as the best way to determine the end of the book. I said that our perception of the ending depends on who we sympathize with. This theory also applies to whether or not Lopahkin is a villain. If we sympathize with Madame Ranevsky and Gayef, this is a very sad ending indeed. They have been toppled from their former glory, and the home of their childhood and their forebears (not to mention their beautiful orchard) is being demolished. However, if we sympathize with the lower class who built their way up, we see that it is a happy ending because Lopahkin finally was able to prove his new influence in Russia over the old powers by buying the home of his ancestors' masters. I personally saw it as a sad ending. What did anyone else think?1204775833

I don't think Chekhov meant for the ending to be either happy or sad, but just an ending. Certainly, Firs's death would be sad in his ultimate loneliness, but it is symbolic for his character to die alone. I agree to a certain extent with NVa that it does depend on how one views the characters. Does Lopahkin's purchase of the cherry orchard symbolize the rise of the peasantry or the sad demise of the old powers? Both? Neither? Does it even really matter? For me this play was less about the politics of the time than the characters themselves, their basic humanity and the even more basic struggles that that entails. It's hard to say that any character in the end is good or bad, since they all have their faults and their strong points. There are no heroes, there are no villains, only people. So to that extent, I can really call this ending as anything but the end of one small glimpse into the lives of these characters. 1204776710

I don't think that this ending is very happy; Firs dies, the cherry orchard is cut down, and Barbara and Lopakhin never end up together. When Firs dies it's really sad, not only because he was left alone in the house and died, but also because he says he never got a chance to live his life. But really, it doesn't seem like anyone in this play lives their life. Clearly the selling of the estate and the cutting down of the cherry orchard are a tragic step for the family, because they had generations of memories in the house and it was the end of their lives of rich fabulousness. It's a little bittersweet for them, because although they are done worrying about their fate, they still have to start over. I'm unsure whether or not it's sad that Barbara and Lopakhin never end up together--it seems that they didn't want it themselves, but the rest of the family really wanted them to be together. The ending really isn't happy, but it isn't sad either; it's almost apathetic. 1204854193

lma said that the ending seemed bittersweet. I don't really see the sweetness in the bitter sweet. She mentioned lots of ways that it is bitter. They are leaving their home, the cherry orchard is cut down, and we assume that Firs has died. There is some ironic comedy in that Firs is forgotten even though all of the characters insist that they sent him to the hospital, but I wouldn't say that this makes it bittersweet. KLe said that the play is often called plot less. I would agree and I think that this just proves what AHa said. She said that she didn't believe that the author meant for the ending to be happy or sad. This goes along with the lack of plot. The end of the story isn't really a resolution to what has happened. It is just a moving forward. The end is very open for further development.1204861985

I think that depending on how we look at this play it could be either a tragedy or a comedy. From the point of view of Ranevsky, it is a tragedy because she lost her cherry orchard and the best memories of her life was cut down. She was also evicted from her house and ended up in a far worse position than when the play began. On the other hand, from the point of view of Lopakhin, this play is a comedy because following the classic definition of a comedy, he ended up better than when the play began. He was able to move from the position of the oppressed to the position of the oppressor. He was able to erase his bad memories and avenge the lives of his father and grandfather. I think this play is open to much interpretation.1205102412

While I was reading the play, I found it humorous. As I took a step back and examined the plotline, I thought it looked rather tragic. I think that the overall effect of the play was humorous because that's what stuck with me the longest. Between Firs and all the exaggerated drama, I couldn't help but laughing. I'm sure that if this play was applied to my own life, it would be a completely different reaction. From Madam Ranevsky's point of view, of course everything is overly tragic. Losing the house and the orchard would make me more than upset. I liked KLe's thought that the play was plotless, or at least, extremely low-key. It was much like an arrival and a departure connected with a bit of mediocre conversation between the two. However, I thought that there was much more humor than tragedy because that's what caught my attention. 1205114377

I totally agree with bzw, the plotline of this story is extremely sad. All of the characters have their own problems and they are all upsetting. Everyone seems to be crying all of the time which also brings the play down. There are the occasional funny lines which lighten the mood but overall it is a really sad story. I think that the language that Chekov wrote in and the way he wrote certain lines serve as the comic relief throughout the play. As for the end of the play, I think that it once again was extremely sad. The family goes their separate ways and Firs dies! There is nothing funny about death, although I do admit that the last line that of Firs was hilarious. There were times when it made me laugh but I have to say that for me this play was not a comedy. 1205182628

The only person I think who could possibly be truly happy at the end of this play is Lopahkin because he ends up owning the cherry orchard; therefore, he has truly achieved his goal of going from being a peasant to joining the aristocracy. Sure, people like Madam Ranevsky might think that things are going to be better now that the orchard is sold, but I believe that if the story went on we'd see them regretting the way they went about selling the orchard. If anything, I think we can agree that there is a certain bit of tragedy in the end with Firs who is a lower class worker being forgotten and left to die alone in the house he worked in. Then, of course there's the entire Ranevsky clan which gets evicted and thus the aristocracy is out of the picture. What we're left with in the end is a victory for the self-made Lopahkin and sadness for everyone else. It's a bittersweet goodbye to the old way of life in Russia and the opening of a new chapter.1205206637

I think the future is very uncertain. The play is a comedy, but does that mean necessarily that there must be a happy ending? Madame Ranevsky has the most uncertain future. On one hand, now that the Cherry Orchard is gone she has a chance to start a new life, to start fresh. But the problem is that she is not starting over, at least not completely. She is going back to a situation she once fled from: her loveless Parisian lover. If she couldn't deal with her problems before, how will she deal with them now? Maybe the biggest problem for her was that she couldn't let go of anything, and now she has been forced to let go of everything. This will force her to move on. But to where? 1205369180

Yeah, I think the ending made me a little uneasy. I don't think I would be comfortable calling the whole thing a comedy, because I was pretty saddened by the end. I don't know, call me a sentimentalist, but it doesn't exactly make me laugh out loud when I see old men dying and families moving away from the homes that they've lived in their entire lives. I do see the symbolism in all of this, how it means that the times are changing and people are moving on, but I still don't really find this play to be all that comedic. Sure, it has its moments, but in all, I see it as more of a tragedy. I mean, pretty much everyone in this play is unhappy about something or other, be it a lack of money, or losing a house, or not getting the respect that one deserves. As I said, the play has its moments of comedy, but I really don't see this play to be a comedy as a whole, and I //certainly// don't believe that the play has a happy ending. 1205369674

Well, I'm not so sure you can argue very much over whether the ending was sad at all or not - it certainly did have a sad note to it, even though things were starting to look up. I mean, what the heck, Fir was just about to die or something there, cuz the locked him in alone, forgetten. I felt really terrible for Fir. Actually, he might have been one of my favourite characters, oddly enough, but he's just so kind and old and innocent. Really though, the ending is more focused on the fact that they're leaving for Paris for the robber/lover and leaving behind the orchard which is being cut down for villas. Yet, the characters all seem to be content finally getting past the.. well, past. They seemed to have been so fond of it only a short while earlier, but it shows how the past really wasn't terribly great for any of them. Charlotte had no family, Madame R lost her family, L was abused by his family, Yasha things it's barbaric etc, etc. They're all attached to the orchard for no real reason, and once it's gone the stop worrying. But it's not happy. Now they're not tied to the past, they're freed from it, but they're just drifting away to more problems (or fleeing, as the case may be) Only Firs really liked the past, hated the liberation and the change that had gone on, and saw the present degenerating it. And poor loyal him was left behind, forgotten, to die. 1205378886

I hope no one has said this already, but comedies do not need to be completely happy. They often have elements of tragedy in them, but hope for at least most of the characters is also common at the end of these plays. Take much Ado About Nothing for example. In that play is one of the harshest scenes of marital rejection and abuse I have ever read about, but at the end there was hope and joy for those characters. In this play, the tragedy is the loss of the cherry orchard and the life of Firs, but even those aren't that bad in the whole scheme of things. Everyone except firs still has their life and livliehood, but he was old and probably ready to die anyways. It is sad that he had to die without loved ones around him, but it is not devastating. And as for the other characters, they have hope for their new lives. They look at their situation at the end of the book more as an adventure than a great loss. So I call it a comedy.1205384780

I remember when Brother Tom first intorduced "The Cherry Orchard," he pointed out the subtitle to us--"A Comedy in 4 Acts." Brother Tom even said that this play would challenge our typical definition of comedy, and I agree that this play certain did. What makes this play a comedy of all genres? Yes, there were silly moments like kissing cupboards and outward expressions of emotions, but I would not say that the overall tone is comedic by any stretch. Rather, I found Ranevsky's life situation to be rather sad and depressing; she was losing what she loved/cherished most: her beloved cherry orchard that was with her since childhood. She could not bear to lose it.

"Chekhov originally intended the play as a comedy (indeed, the title page of the work refers to it as such), and in letters noted that it is even more like a farce. When he saw the original [|Moscow Art Theatre] production directed by [|Constantin Stanislavski], he was horrified to find that the director had molded the play into a tragedy. Ever since that time, productions have had to struggle with this dual nature of the play (and of Chekhov's works in general.)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cherry_Orchard

So our difficulty in deciphering whether this play is comedic or not is based off a director's interpretation of Chekhov's play? 1205447244

The ending of the play to me seemed more like a tradgedy than anything else. Even though Firs had a really good line at the end the whole end of the play seemed to signified to me as an end of an era and even though with every era ending there will always be a new era and improvements there will also always be parts of the old era that will be missed or are vital to society though we may not know it now. Plus the new era dosn't always bring improvements especially when you think about Russia. From artisocracy and slavery comes industrialization and discontent after the freeing of the surfs and after that comes war and wonderful commies that kill millions, but don't worry there still losing the cold war and dictator Putin to look forward to. To me both the plays Uncle Vanya and the Cherry orchard seemed to be tadgedies more than anything else though I do agree that there is a difference in that the characters in the Cherry Orchard were able to leave their past behind while Vanya has to live with his past for more than a few more years. However considering the we never know if the characters in The Cherry Orchard get any money they could be walking out of their home and into a life of desitution and homelessness. user:DGr-c