The Cherry Orchard - J. L. Styan (essay date 1962)
J. L. Styan (essay date 1962)
[Styan is an English critic and educator who has written numerous studies of the theater, including the three-volume Modern Drama in Theory and Practice (1981). In the following excerpt, he undertakes a detailed explication of the fourth act of The Cherry Orchard in order to reveal the development toward the climax and subsequent denouement of the play.]
The Cherry Orchard is a play which represents an attitude to life under stress and a way of life in transition. The orchard itself summarizes the hopes and regrets, the desires and ideals of this way of life. Just as the orchard with the town on the horizon epitomizes all Russia, so the play in its structure at once encompasses the range of social class from landowner to domestic serf, and brings the past hard against the future in its three or four generations. It achieves in its design as wide a statement as a naturalistic play could hope to do.
...[The entire page is 8532 words long]
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