So Similar

As I turned the pages of Anton Cheekhov’s The Cherry Orchard , its resemblance to Pride And Prejudice immediately stood out. The play revolves around impressions and the relationship between personalities. The plot itself fails to stand out as extraordinary, but rather it is relations that make ordinary events entertaining. Again, money drives people and their actions, social standings are made evident in descriptions and the event are easily foreshadowed. When relating it to something so similar in the near past, my mind made quick connections between the two works to enhance my understanding. There were more logical connections than I would have predicted.

In a family of such bluff and materialist personalities, it would be a shame not to have at least one thinking individual. It used to be Elizabeth Bennet, now we have Anya and Varya in her place. Even as they publicly recognize their poor financial situation, the family continues to live as if it was seasonal trouble and would soon disappear. Anya is first to recognize their mother’s habits, for she “had dinner in a station restaurant, she always ordered the most expensive dishes and tipped each of the waiters a ruble” (320). Not only are they concerned with the situation, they recognize that a change is in order. And so, much like Elizabeth rejected Mr. Collins and a world based on impressions, these two girls disregard public opinion as long as they get to eat. When Pishchik asks for money to pay the interest on his mortgage, it is as if their mother had been role-playing a while ago and quickly forgot their condition. Varya intervenes, reminding both “we have nothing, nothing at all!” (329). A character that is able to keep a grasp of reality when everybody else builds upon optimism is always a character with which the great majority of readers identify. These two girls meet this role and eventually become a source of credibility in the play.

In the animal kingdom mothers are always example to their offspring, which grow up imitating their behavior. Humans are part of such tendency, making it logical for mothers in the texts to encompass the spirit of society. Mrs. Bennet used to incite her daughters to marry a rich man in order to live a worthy life in the luxuries of a great estate: those where the priorities in her society. Her substitute, Lyubov Andreyevna displays similar indicators. She lives in a great estate full of luxuries that work towards appearances. She is not stupid, even if not incredibly bright, and understands the extent of her assets, or lack of. She chooses to ignore trouble and live the day with little care for distant future, which reflects the attitude of a society. This mentality is evident in Pishchik as he asks for a loan while “something else [turns] up, if not today- tomorrow…Dashenka will win two hundred thousand… she’s got a lottery ticket” (330). It is a consumer oriented society that has little understanding of investment, perfectly portrayed by the mother.

As similar contexts come together in describing an idea, characters bred by such contexts connect immensely. This is probably a result of logical human behavior, for our context shapes who we are and how we think. More than coincidence, these connections emerge as a result of authors understanding the every detail in a situation from the social trends to popular behavior.