Analyzing Time as a Theme in Chekhov's Plays: A Detailed Analysis

This essay delves into the significant theme of time in Anton Chekhov's plays, particularly focusing on 'The Cherry Orchard', 'Uncle Vanya', and 'Ward Number Six'. It examines how Chekhov uses time to illustrate various social and psychological issues, reflecting the clash between the past and present, and the impact of modernization on Russian society. The analysis highlights the psychological struggles of characters as they navigate changing cultural landscapes and personal discontent. In 'The Cherry Orchard,' time represents the end of feudalism and the rise of modernism, while in 'Uncle Vanya,' it embodies lifelong strife and the fear of the future. The essay further explores how Chekhov portrays individuals ill-equipped to deal with the realities of contemporary life, emphasizing themes of social decay and the search for spiritual and creative renewal.

Running head: TIME IN PLAYS OF CHEKHOV
TIME IN PLAYS OF CHEKHOV
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The theme of time is one of the major themes in the plays of AntonChekhov. The theme
of time is used in a number of plays by Chekhov to explain a number of different issues and
scenarios in the society. The works of Chekhov greatly takes into account the contemporary
society and other such aspects as the past and the present on the current lives of the people and
the society. the various issues that have been highlighted in the works of Chekhov point out the
fact that the people in the society are often affected by the past and present events in their life
Chekhov uses the different events happening in their lives as an important aspect affecting the
development of the different themes of the pays of Chekhov. The different aspects of the social
scenarios relating to the different sociological developments of the contemporary society and the
relative contrast is shown by Chekhov in the plays. The different themes of the play are being
explored in the plays by Chekhov and a number of variables including time play is an important
role in the expression. In the analysis the use of time in the play The Cherry Orchard, Uncle
Vanya and Ward Number Six will be analyzed to understand the exploration of the theme by
Chekhov.
The Cherry Orchardis one of the most important plays of Chekhov which takes into
account the psychological clash that the person undertakes when they are in the clash between
the time and the westernized society. In the different contexts of time that the person undergoes
in the changes between the native thinking and the western thought that gradually is getting
modernized (Senderovich 2009). The thoughts are often in conflict with each other in the
development of the society. Chekhov explores this context in the society of the human mind
where they are dependent on the different social and the sociocultural acculturation which is
being challenges in the society by the use of the different socio cultural constructs of the society.
The rich culture of a county being plagued by the pretentiousness of the modern society is well

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explored in the play of the cherry orchard. The aestheticism and modernization in the
contemporary society is impacted. The contemporary society in the context is the way in which
they explore the different aspects of the society in relation to the different perspectives that may
present themselves (Evdokimova 2000). The concept that has been presented in the play is the
conflict between the past and the present. Chekhov adeptly uses then theme of time to express
the different themes in the play so that they explicitly show the conflict between the past and
present to the society. The cheery orchard in its exploration marks the end of the feudalism in the
society and shows the rise of the modernism. The loss of Lyubov Ranevskaya and her
aristocratic family is shown and how the loss has led to increased debts on her family due to the
rise of the modern society (Beckerman 1971). The lifestyle of the aristocratic class did not
change but they were subjected to the loss of their constant income and thus was lost the
aristocratic and the classical lifestyle of the people giving rise to the modern way f living
consisting of the industrial lifestyle. The cherry orchard that is left with the family is itself the
personification of their vivid past and strong ideology living in the society. It is not only the only
remnant of the past but the only memory of their glorious past that the families had. The western
influence had caused a paradigm shift with people’s ideologies and they started embracing the
western lifestyle which was not ideal for the development of the local cultural heritage of the
country (Beckerman 1971).
In the play uncle Vanya the theme of time used in a very different way as it is shown as
the cause of lifelong strife and gloom that will be present in the society when the people will be
lost in the time and their struggle that may be shown in the society. The family has a number of
different aspects in the society. One of the important aspects that is present in the modern society
is the loss of the time that the people have to sustain themselves (Morson 1993).

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On the other hand the very time becomes a curse when they have very less for themselves
and have to fulfill the needs of a large number of people in the society. The different aspects
related to the situational scenarios in the play shoe how the different themes of the play explore
the importance of time (Clayton and Meerzon 2013). The sense of discontent with the current
scenario is one of the most important aspects in the play is the development of the different
people in the society so that they are influenced by the western influence affecting their overall
development in different sociocultural scenarios in the society. One of the important aspects in
this context is the fact that they are affected by the people and the sociocultural situations that are
present in the society. The play explores the theme of time in the context of its importance in the
overall development of the situations and scenarios of development in the society so that they
may present themselves as the remnant of the past and the conflict of it with the present (Clayton
and Meerzon 2013). The contemplation of the future in this context helps in the exploration of
the different themes of the play so that they are showed in different contexts relating to the
development of the situations and they show that different social and the soiciological changes
that the society was undergoing in this time. Uncle Vanya has sense of an impending doom in the
society, and the reference of the time that has been explored in the different ways to show that
the fear of future that the people in the society have. It also has a sense of the fear that has come
with the changing culture which also common the plays of Chekhov. The identity crisis that the
people undergo in the society is also affected by a number of situational scenarios such that they
may affect the overall development of the different themes in the play (Clayton and Meerzon
2013).
The time is also explores the theme of the different clashes between the people f two
different generations who are at a clash with each other to win the love of a person. The clash

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between two people of the different generations and age groups also exemplify the trends of past
and present in the plays of Chekhov (Alavi 2012).
In Gromov and Ragin, Chekhov depicts two individuals who are illsuited to deal with
reality of contemporary life. Gromov may be the more astute of the two. His conceded get-up-
and-go—"I have to live!" he yells at one point—emerges decidedly from Ragin's insightful pull
back in actuality. On the other hand, he, too, feels that its less requesting to talk about existence
than truly to live it. Neither one of the men has the quality or conviction to fight injustice on the
planet; finally, they are both pounded by their inside inadequacies.
It is seen, while both Gromov and Ragin are seemed, by all accounts, to be missing to the
endeavor of living huge and productive lives, they both give off an impression of being more
sensitive and alert than the straggling leftovers of the all inclusive community in their regular
town. Undoubtedly, Gromov remarks that there are scores of insane individuals walking
straightforwardly outside the shelter while people, for instance, himself are kept (Wolff 1990).
Ragin concurs and pronounces that such a fate is simply an issue of plausibility. His own
relationship with his expected friend the postmaster and his accomplice Dr. Khobotov adds
support to this view. The postmaster is a sit without moving prattler with no apparent
understanding or sympathy for some other person's weights anyway his own, and Dr. Khobotov
is a dull chaperon who subtly pines for Ragin's position in conclusion neither makes sense of
how to supplant him nor enhances past the edges of this nation town. Ragin wanders with the
postmaster to Moscow and Warsaw, yet he finds nothing of prompting in either locale. The
atmosphere of unrelieved indecency and detail that Chekhov makes in this story drove a related
writer to broadcast that Ward No. 6 is Russia itself. Chekhov's story gives particular evidence

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that Russian culture was prey to the twin obscenities of deadness and laziness. Unimportant
words and philosophical speculations are lacking to fight this toxic weight.
In Chekhov little isolates such unexpected medicines of the "dynamic" plummet praise
tern from the uninvolved example. Chekhov withdrew for the Far East in a condition of spiritual
and physical depletion: he had lost his sibling a brief timeframe before taking the excursion, and
his own blood-spitting and palpitations had effectively given plentiful motivation to think about,
anyway unobtrusively, his own mortality. There is just the same old thing new in citing the scan
for otherworldly and imaginative resurrection as a purpose behind Chekhov's voyage to
Sakhalin; yet Chekhov himself connected this pursuit with the model plunge design, he searched
out the experience of awesome preliminaries and experiences with profound enduring as a way
to revival. He is mistreated by agonizing recollections which retreat just in the obscurity of
humble work, and it creates the impression that he and others of his age can free themselves from
the social and mental inheritances of their fathers just at the cost of implosion. Chekhov, it shows
up, comprehended before Mircea Eliade that in the cutting edge, desacralized world, we can in
any case discover the example of drop and trials "in the otherworldly emergencies, the isolation
and depression through which each person must go with a specific end goal to accomplish a
dependable, certifiable, and inventive life." This was no new thought in nineteenth-century
Russian writing, and Chekhov would have accumulated an unmistakable form of it from
perusing Dostoevsky. In this way, in spite of the fact that Chekhov as often as possible organized
his works of fiction and dramatization as entries and takeoffs, the genuine excursions of his
hypochondriac saints are regularly internal, and their most essential encounters (and
disappointments) are with the self. This is particularly the case in stories with a somewhat
unequivocal initiatory example another normal drop theme the focal occasions of which should

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be called existential. The class is the akafist, church tunes in acclaim of Christ, Mary, and certain
holy people; the craftsman is a priest who has kicked the bucket this Easter occasion. For the
storyteller, crossing turns into an exercise in the poetics of akafisty from the one priest who
valued the melody's imaginativeness, the one priest who won't have the capacity to hear them
performed in light of the fact that he should fill in as the ferryman (Durkin 1981).
Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard extends the social clash of the turn of the twentieth
century of Russia. With a verifiable implication, Chekhov displayed the changing Russia with
"cut of life" in his play. The Cherry Orchard isn't just a delineation of Russian life yet in addition
a modest representation of the truth of changing conventional esteem. Social clash itself is a
reflection. To clarify it, it is the customary culture that can't avoid the attacking one. In the play,
each character has his or her self identity, which symbolizes their individual social levels of
Russian culture. Chekhov's fiction leaves from the standard, intensely plotted story to reflect
Russian life truly, focusing on characters in extremely common conditions that frequently appear
to be without struggle. A pragmatist, Chekhov treads an almost negligible difference amongst
separation and a capricious however thoughtful worry for his subjects. In his develop work, he is
maybe the most amiable of Russian experts, humane and excusing, rare strident or inflexible.
Similarly essential, that develop work reflects exceptionally watchful creativity, deserving of
concentrate for its procedure alone.

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Bibliography
Chekhov, A., 2016. The cherry orchard: a comedy in four acts. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chekhov, A., 2016. Uncle Vanya. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chekhov, A.P., 1989. Ward number six. Shabdalok Prakashan.
Reference list
Alavi, N.R., 2012. Compulsive Drives Of Uncle Vanya On Keeping The Trust In Chekhov‟ S
Uncle Vanya Drama (1896): A Social Psychological Approach (Doctoral dissertation,
Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta).
Beckerman, B., 1971. Dramatic Analysis and Literary Interpretation: The Cherry Orchard as
Exemplum. New Literary History, 2(3), pp.391-406.
Clayton, J.D. and Meerzon, Y. eds., 2013. Adapting Chekhov: The Text and Its Mutations (Vol.
23). Routledge.
Durkin, A.R., 1981. Chekhov's Response to Dostoevskii: The Case of “Ward Six”. Slavic
Review, 40(1), pp.49-59.
Evdokimova, S., 2000. What's so Funny about Losing One's Estate, or Infantilism in" The
Cherry Orchard". The Slavic and East European Journal, 44(4), pp.623-648.
Morson, G.S., 1993. Uncle Vanya as Prosaic Melodrama:(A shortened version of “Prosaic
Chekhov”). In Reading Chekhov's Text. Northwestern University Press.

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Senderovich, S., 2009. The Cherry Orchard: Chekhov’s Last Testament. Anton
Chekhov, 35(1994), p.9.
Wolff, S., 1990. The Wisdom of Pain in Chekhov's" Ward Number Six". Literature and
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