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Character | Lopakhin | |
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Gender | Male | |
Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50) | |
Type of monologue / Character is | Descriptive, Rejoicing/Excited, Reminiscing life story/Telling a story | |
Type | Dramatic | |
Year | 1904 | |
Period | 20th Century | |
Genre | Family, Drama | |
Description | Lopakhin reveals he has won the auction |
Summary
The story revolves around Madame Ranevskaya's ancestral estate in the provinces of Russia. Ranevskaya, a Russian aristocrat who has been living in Paris for the past five years, returns home with her 17 year old daughter Anya, her valet Yasha, Anya's governess Charlotte, her brother Leonid Gayev and her adopted daughter Varya. Ranevskaya is forced to sell her estate at an auction to pay her debts and Lopakhin, a rich merchant and family friend whose ancestors were slaves in the estate, offers to buy the estate and develop part of it into summer cottages. Ranevskaya and her family refuse because that would mean that their beloved cherry orchard would be destroyed. Throughout the play Ranevskaya ignores Lopakhin's offer for help and the story revolves around several family matters and romances. The day of the auction arrives and Lopakhin goes to the auction with Gayev, who has managed to borrow money from a relative. Ranevskaya throws a party and everyone awaits the outcome of the auction. Lopakhin, however, wins the auction and returns to the estate to tell everyone. In this monologue Lopakhin reveals to everybody that he has won the auction and now owns the cherry orchard where his father and grandfather worked as slaves.
Written by Administrator
Excerpt |
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LOPAKHIN: I bought it. Wait a bit; don't hurry me; my head's in a whirl; I can't speak. . . . [Laughing] When we got to the sale, Derigánof was there already. LeonÃd Andréyitch had only fifteen hundred pounds, and Derigánof bid three thousand more than the mortgage right away. When I saw how things stood, I went for him and bid four thousand. He said four thousand five hundred. I said five thousand five hundred. He went up by five hundreds, you see, and I went up by thousands. . . . Well, it was soon over. I bid nine thousand more than the mortgage, and got it; and now the cherry orchard is mine! Mine! [Laughing] Heavens alive! Just think of it! The cherry orchard is mine! Tell me that I'm drunk; tell me that I'm off my head; tell me that it's all a dream! . . . [Stamping his feet] Don't laugh at me! If only my father and my grandfather could rise from their graves and see the whole affair, how their Yermolái, their flogged and ignorant Yermolái, who used to run about barefooted in the winter, how this same Yermolái had bought a property that hasn't its equal for beauty anywhere in the whole world! I have bought the property where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they weren't even allowed into the kitchen. I'm asleep, it's only a vision, it isn't real. . . . 'Tis the fruit of imagination, wrapped in the mists of ignorance. [Picking up a set of keys] She's thrown down her keys; she wants to show that she's no longer mistress here. [Jingling them together] Well, what's the odds? [Musicians can be heard tuning up] Hey, musicians play! I want to hear you. Come everyone and see Yermolái Lopákhin lay his axt to the cherry orchard, come and see the trees fall down! We'll fill the place with villas; our grandsons and great-grandsons shall see a new life here. . . . Strike up, music! |
Comments
This is the moment when Lopakhin lets it all out. Even if a successful man, he has always been resentful for the way Ranevskaya and her family saw him, that is a humble man of peasant origins. The cherry orchard, that he describes as "the most beautiful place in the world", represents Ranevskaya's glorious past as a rich landowner and at the same time Lopakhin's past as a peasant. He is finally able to erase that past by destroying the orchard.