The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov is an idea play about the irreconcilable conflict between Russia’s nostalgic past and its modern present. It’s is also about the very Russian idea of being an object of struggle rather than a subject. Many Russian hardships – the harsh winters, the masses of poor serfs (some of whom may happened to have tended to Madame Renevsky’s cherry orchard) – are simply thrust upon the people of Russia, and Chekhov plays with this idea as well of many others creating the complex web of symbolism that is The Cherry Orchard.
The ideas of The Cherry Orchard can’t be analyzed without examining the orchard itself. The orchard means different things to the various characters who have a stake in its existence (or non-existence). On the broadest level, the orchard (as well as the entire estate) is a symbol of the past and its irreconcilable conflict with the present. The once-thriving orchard produces fruit that is no longer useful.
Firs explains that, “In the old days, forty or fifty years ago, they used to dry the cherries and soak ’em, and pickle ’em, and make jam of ’em and the dried cherries… Nobody knows how to do it
