Full title · The Cherry Orchard: A Comedy in Four Acts
Author · Anton Chekhov
Type of work · Play
Genre · Comedy (satirical, ironic, often concerned with marriage proposals); Tragedy (involving catastrophic loss as a result of the protagonist's weakness)
Language · Russian
Time and place written · From 1901 to 1903, in Yalta, an island in the Mediterranean.
Date of first performance · seventeen January 1904
Date of first publication · During the last week of June, 1904 (just a few days before Chekhov's death on July one)
Narrator · There is no narrator in the play
Climax · The climax comes in Act Three, when Lopakhin reveals he has bought the orchard
Protagonist · Ranevsky
Setting (time) · Between May and October of a year around the beginning of the 20th century
Setting (place) · At the country estate of Lyuba Ranevsky
Falling action · Everyone leaves the house in October after Lopakhin purchases the estate in August; this departure constitutes the entire fourth Act
Tense · Not applicable (drama); but the story is told both directly and in flashbacks
Foreshadowing · Firs walk across the stage in Act One foreshadows his death scene in Act Four; in Act One, Lopakhin foreshadows his own purchase of the orchard by declaring that the orchard cannot be saved except by his plan;
Tone · Varying between absurd, satirical, ironic and tragic
Themes · Modernity vs. the old Russia; breaking with the past; nature
Motifs · The union of naturalism and symbolism; miscommunication; self-consciousness
Symbols · The cherry orchard; the sound of a breaking string