How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue. We used Julius West's translation.
Quote #1
LOPAKHIN. My father was a peasant, it's true, but here I am in a white waistcoat and yellow shoes ... a pearl out of an oyster. I'm rich now, with lots of money, but just think about it and examine me, and you'll find I'm still a peasant down to the marrow of my bones. (1.5)
Lopakhin knows himself well. He admires and desires upper-class life, but doesn't believe he can truly inhabit it.
Quote #2
LOPAKHIN. You're too sensitive, Dunyasha. You dress just like a lady, and you do your hair like one too. You oughtn't. You should know your place. (1.9)
Everyone's always telling Dunyasha to know her place. Yet Lopakhin is the quintessential striver, escaping from his lower-class roots to eventually buy the orchard.
Quote #3
GAEV. It smells of patchouli here. (1.86)
Gaev is very sensitive to smells and likes to comment on working-class ones to put people in their place, particularly Lopakhin and Yasha.
Quote #4
LOPAKHIN. Up to now in the villages there were only the gentry and the labourers, and now the people who live in villas have arrived. All towns now, even small ones, are surrounded by villas. And it's safe to say that in twenty years' time the villa resident will be all over the place. At present he sits on his balcony and drinks tea, but it may well come to pass that he'll begin to cultivate his patch of land, and then your cherry orchard will be happy, rich, splendid. (1.124)
Lopakhin just really doesn't know how to speak their language. Does he think that Lubov and Gaev will be enamored of the image of hundreds of burghers setting up house on their land?
Quote #5
VARYA. [To YASHA] Your mother's come from the village; she's been sitting in the servants' room since yesterday, and wants to see you. ...
YASHA. Bless the woman!
VARYA. Shameless man. (1.192-194)
Though he is a servant, Yasha wants to be a man of leisure. He won't acknowledge his mother, who reminds him of his peasant past.
Quote #6
GAEV. The peasants don't love me for nothing, I assure you. We've got to learn to know the peasants! (1.214)
Do the peasants really love Gaev? Does he have anything to do with them? The only interactions we see are the encounter with the vagrant – which Gaev handles with total distaste – and a farewell speech at the top of Act 4.
Quote #7
VARYA. In the old servants' part of the house, as you know, only the old people live--little old Efim and Polya and Evstigney, and Karp as well. They started letting some tramps or other spend the night there--I said nothing. Then I heard that they were saying that I had ordered them to be fed on peas and nothing else; from meanness, you see. ... And it was all Evstigney's doing. (1.220)
Because Varya has practical dealings with the peasants, she bears the brunt of class tensions. She can't afford to be as magnanimous as Lubov.
Quote #8
DUNYASHA. I went into service when I was quite a little girl, and now I'm not used to common life, and my hands are white, white as a lady's. I'm so tender and so delicate now; respectable and afraid of everything. (2.18)
Dunyasha is doing what our grandmother called "putting on airs." She tries to attract the newly cosmopolitan Yasha by claiming to be a lady.
Quote #9
YASHA. Of course, every girl must respect herself; there's nothing I dislike more than a badly behaved girl. (2.19)
When it comes to "knowing one's place," Yasha is a hypocrite. He believes he can act like a gentleman, while counseling Dunyasha to remember to be subservient.
Quote #10
LOPAKHIN. I've never learned anything, my handwriting is bad, I write so that I'm quite ashamed before people, like a pig! (2.64)
Lopakhin is equally honest about his background, whether he's with servants or aristocrats.
Quote #11
VARYA. Why is Epikhodov here? Who said he could play billiards? I don't understand these people. (3.51)
Varya is more conservative and hierarchical than the generation above her. Gaev and Lubov don't seem to care that the workers are enjoying themselves at the party, but Varya can't stand it.