Effects of the Past on the Present
by Emmelynn Gu
In Anton Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard, the characters he creates all have something in common; their pasts are connected to their present identities. While this observation is unsurprising when readers think of key characters such as Madame Ranevsky or Yermolay Lopakhin, it might be surprising to find this observation extend down to the most minor characters, such as Yasha. The present personality and behavior of Yasha, a young servant, is significantly tied with his past in Paris to which he is trying to return and his past in Russia from which he is trying to escape. After returning from Paris with his mistress, Madame Ranevsky, Yasha wishes to leave his life in Russia behind and return to Paris. Although Ranevsky’s family has a tough ultimatum of selling her estate or cutting down her beloved cherry orchard, Yasha acts in an uncompassionate manner and strategically strives to find a way back to Paris. Through Yasha’s change of character due to his negative past in Russia and positive past in Paris, Chekhov illustrates that the effects of our past are strongly associated with our present identity whether they be good or bad.
As a fairly minor character in the play, Yasha’s background is not clearly stated, but certain lines in the play suggest glimpses of Yasha’s past. For example, it is obvious that Yasha is of low rank because he is working as a servant which doesn’t require much education. Also, towards the end of Act One, Madame Ranevsky’s oldest daughter Barbara says to him, “Your mother’s come from the village. She’s been sitting in the servant’s hall since yesterday waiting to see you” (17). The clues “village” and “servant’s hall” imply that his mother is also of low status; therefore, Yasha has probably grown up in a poor family. He then responds to Barbara saying, “Well, good luck to her, then… Fat lot of use her coming yesterday…” Also, in the last act of the play, he does not bother saying goodbye to his mother before leaving for Paris. In fact, after Barbara announces to Yasha that his mother has come to say goodbye, he actually complains and says, “I’m losing my patience” (58).
These last few details suggest that Yasha clearly has a negative attitude toward his poverty-sticken life in Russia past due to his brief life of extravagance in Paris. Yasha apparently became accustomed to eating great food, drinking expensive champagne, and smoking cigars. When Ranvesky’s youngest daughter, Anya, returns to Russia in Act One, she tells Barbara, “Yasha ordered a fancy dinner for himself! - it’s simply frightful” (6). Given the luxurious pleasures he enjoyed in Paris and Russia’s shifting class structure, Yasha unsurprisingly rejects certain aspects of his present Russian life which reveals his thinking that he is above everyone. First, he rejects his present job by doing as he pleases. Instead of helping the other servants or tending to Madame Ranevsky, Yasha plays pool and drinks champagne. Also, in Act One, Dunyasha, a female servant, prepares coffee for Madame Ranevsky and Anya after they return home from Paris. Minutes later, Yasha decides to prey on Dunyasha instead of helping her with the coffee and quickly leaves the room after she spills it. He continues his alliance with Dunyasha and later in Act Two says, “Someone’s coming… Go home… Otherwise you’ll run into them and they’ll think you and me have been having a rendezvous. I couldn’t abide that” (25). This statement is very ironic because he is afraid that Dunyasha will jeopardize his job and ruin his reputation even though he has already done so on his own. In short, Yasha does as he pleases which reveals his assumption that he should not be doing the work of a servant because he’s been pampered by Paris.
Second, he rejects his status of a lowly servant. According to Firs, the extremely elderly and proper servant, “[in the past] the peasants kept their distance from the masters and the masters kept their distance from the peasants, but now everything's all anyhow and you can't understand anything” (30). Yasha decides to break free of these “rules” of society and often chats casually with Ranevsky’s acquaintances, Lophakin, Simeonov Pishchik, and her brother Lenya Gayev. Yasha is constantly among those in the higher class and even talks back to them. For example, Gayev speaks to Yasha in an irritated tone to which Yasha replies, “I can’t hear your voice without wanting to laugh” (26). His snide remarks and the fact that he mingles with those of the higher class indicate his arrogance and rejection of his present life due to the effects of his five years in Paris.
The strongest indicator of Yasha’s rejection of his present life is when he has the audacity to ask Madame Ranevsky a favor. In Act Three, Yasha begs, “If you go to Paris again, please take me with you. I can’t possibly stay here. I don’t have to tell you, you can see it for you yourself. It’s an uneducated country; they’re people with any morals… Take me with you! Please!” (47). The irony, of course, is that Yasha himself has no morals and is not educated; he is merely spoiled. This line not only contains irony, but it also contains many words and an exclamation mark. Yasha’s lengthy and energetic plea to Ranevsky is completely different from his usual self. Usually, he is lazy and bored which is expressed by his multiple yawns and his habit of speaking with short lines or one-word replies. Therefore, Yasha’s request to Ranevsky demonstrates his extreme desperation to escape a world filled with reminders of his past and return to his beloved Paris to remake himself as a liberated servant. The audience may also notice that he attempts to escape in a hurry simply because he asked Madame Ranevsky. She lost her son and fell in love with a Frenchman who only used her for her money in Paris. As a result, Yasha is aware of her present vulnerability, lack of judgment, and being in general a pushover. So he has obviously strategized to ask Madame Ranevsky for this favor especially while the characters are waiting to see what the end will be for the estate and the cherry orchard because that is when she would have been the most vulnerable. Due to his lack of compassion, he is assured a seat on the trip back to Paris if the house is sold, which it tragically is. Yasha has a positive attitude towards his past in Paris because he enjoyed the lifestyle. And although it gives an ugly effect to his present self, he is unconcerned with what others think of him and is constantly searching for a way to return to Paris.
The Cherry Orchard illustrates how everyone and anyone, high status to low, is connected to their past in some way or another. And after analyzing the character of Yasha, we can see how we shouldn’t allow the past to overcome us negatively. The effects of Yasha’s luxurious Parisian past and the effects of his poor Russian past have taken a toll on his present and have caused him to act irrationally. Yasha’s past has taken complete control over his present self, causing him to arrogantly reject reality and solely focus on his dream of going back to Paris, even if he has must greedily take advantage of Madame Ranevsky. Based on Yasha’s attitude towards his past and his present identity, Anton Chekhov suggests that whether they be positive or negative, the effects of our past are significantly tied to who we are in the present.