It ordinarily wouldn’t have occurred to me to seek connections in Beckett and Chekhov, and in The Cherry Orchard, and Waiting for Godot. But, as it turns out, there’s a special tone, or emphasis in both, one that serves each playwright to different effect. In essence, Chekhov is an exemplar of naturalism and studies of characters whose hands are forced by ritual and custom. Chekhov shows life as it’s lived; people coping, perhaps resigned to their fate, whereas Beckett’s main players in Godot are utterly fatalistic. He shows humanity as a perpetual motion machine, spinning its wheels energetically and pointlessly.

Here’s a specific symbolic comparison. The Cherry Orchard’s exposition contains rhythmic passages of kvetching (Yiddish for ‘irritable vocalizing’ more-or-less) people and their complaints about shoes. A weary peasant or merchant may see his boots in terms of his connection with the land. Threadbare footwear, in Waiting for Godot, is also referenced, but symbolic rather of wear-and-tear on the human soul.

The following is an example of representative dialogue from both plays.

Chekhov:

He’s an unfortunate man; every day there’s something.
I shall drop this very minute. . . . Ah, I shall drop.

Beckett:

I can’t go on. I’ll go on.