The Cherry Orchard, a classic of modern theater by Anton Chekhov, portrays coming of age in a Russian society that is beginning to witness a rising middle class liberate the serfs. The characters of Firs (Gayef's servant) and Lopakhin (an emerging middle-class businessman and landowner) react differently to this changing way of life. Lopakhin frees himself and rises to a higher level, while Firs cannot understand what to do with himself after so many years as a serf and, as a result, remains a slave; however, both men always remain aware of their inferior status in this age of change. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Lopakhin takes the horrible poverty of his parents' peasant origins and uses them as motivation to move up a notch into the developing middle class: “Well, it all ended soon. I offered nine thousand more than the mortgage and got it; and now the cherry orchard is mine! . . . If only my father and my grandfather could rise from their graves and see the whole matter, like their Ermolai, their whipped and ignorant Ermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, how this same Ermolai had bought a property which has not its equal in beauty anywhere in the world! I bought the property where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they couldn't even go into the kitchen” (Chekhov 38). He makes money by making shrewd and cunning business decisions that resemble his idea of ​​selling cherry orchard plots for mansions. Lopakhin is a person who sees a problem and imagines a way to fix it because he is a forward thinker. He even becomes a sort of financial advisor to his former lover, Madame Ranevsky, when he repeatedly tells her and Gayef to sell off pieces of the orchard and build mansions so the rising middle class can move in: “You know your cherry orchard is going to sell to pay the mortgage... if only you cut the cherry orchard and the land along the river into building lots and rent it out for villas... It will all be snapped up. In two words I congratulate you; you are saved” (Chekhov 8). Unfortunately, unlike Lopakhin, she and Gayef are too proud and ignorant to heed this advice. They let their feelings about their childhood home interfere with making the best decision for them financially: “Cut down the cherry orchard! . . . If there is one thing interesting, indeed remarkable, in the whole province, it is our cherry orchard” (Chekhov 9). Lopakhin, unlike Firs and many other once-enslaved people, is able to rise from his ashes to produce a better life for himself and his family; and even buys the property on which he and his predecessors were slaves. Liberation guides Lopakhin differently because Lopakhin takes advantage of his opportunities and is able to see beyond current struggles and failures into the future. He then creates a plan that will allow his future to be bright and successful by thinking carefully and making sometimes difficult, but ultimately responsible decisions to implement his plan. Fir trees, on the other hand, wither under slavery and decline even more under freedom. . Firs has spent so many years being told what to do that he cannot think for himself and is unable to look forward; he is paralyzed by the past and his old ways. He continues to care for a grown Gayef because that's what he's always done. The fir tree lives only to please: “My mistress has come home; I finally saw her. Now I am ready to die” (Chekhov 6) although the.