Who am I?
Name - Lyubov Ranevsky (also named Lyuba)
Age - a middle aged woman
Statues - a Russian landowner who is also a widow
Children - Anya Ranevsky and Varya Ranevsky
Siblings - Leonid Gaev
Lyuba is a kind and generous character, and we get the feeling that she has suffered from her ideals of 'love' and she doesn't believe 'love' to just be empty words. She is loved by her family as well as her friends which makes her generosity stretch to everyone no matter how cruel they are. Her sympathetic nature gives her loss of the orchard a poignancy as she identifies herself with the tree. She says that she would rather be sold with the tree instead of seeing being lost forever. Her character's circumstances has therefore made some people call the play a tragedy even though Chekhov wrote it as a comedy.
Themes for the character:
Lyuba's character is mainly defined by flight, both physical and emotional. Physically, she is continuously fleeing from location throughout the play. It starts with her flight from Paris, home to Russia, after her suicide attempt which is provoked by her French lover stealing from her. The play also later reveals that she left Russia 5 years ago after the death of her son and her husband. It is clear that she is a very submissive person as she runs away from all of her problems instead of facing them head on
She is a woman besieged by the memories of her tragic adult life and therefore is seeking refuge in her memories of her idyllic childhood. Her visions of her mother walking through the cherry orchard reinforces the picture of a woman suffering from illusions, the illusion that she can recapture the idyll of her childhood and block out the tragic events of the past 5 years from her mind. However she finally realises that she can't hide in her past forever when she sees Peter as he reminds her of the death of her son and tragedy of her adult life. So from this point in the story she starts to stop pretending to be happy.
The cherry orchard symbolises all of Lyuba's past memories and the joy she felt as a child so the destruction of the orchard makes her forget that happiness that she had and it gives her a chance to move beyond those memories. Hopefully she will take the opportunity and she will be able to forget her old life and star a new.
What are my obstacles?
Probably Lyuba's main obstacle is the orchard it self as she has such a deep attachment that she can't let it go. She is already fixated on her childhood memories and the orchard only heightens their existence so she might also see her memories as an obstacle as she is haunted by them in her adult life.
What do I do to overcome the obstacle?
I don't think that she makes herself come over the obstacle but more that she is forced to overcome it. When the orchard is cut down she is released from her childhood memories and the structure of her old life. It therefore sets her free to start a new life. But as there is no indication that she wanted the orchard to be cut down, she may find this experience traumatic as she is losing everything she has ever known that links her to her old life.
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