“The Cherry Orchard”

CDA in “The Cherry Orchard”

van Dijk’s model of CDA

Perspective: “Class Inequality”

Definition of CDA according to van Dijk:

“Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted,

reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context. With

such dissident research, critical discourse analysts take explicit position, and thus

want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality.”

      CDA is known as the best approach to study text and talk. Teun A. van Dijk presents his model for CDA that is known socio-cognitive model. According to his model, discourse is influenced by society and cognition, a triangular model (including politics, culture and social cognition). And this triangular model of society cognition and discourse is interrelated and interconnected. His model tells us that discourse is both constituted and constitutive or created and creative. Discourse creates the society and it is again discourse that is created by the society. It is multidisciplinary and is not limited or confined to any single field.

      Function of language in terms of power and dominance is the study in CDA. Discourse is always created by the majority.CDA makes us to know such theories by which we can understand the role of discourse in the creation and reproduction of social dominance and resistance. The function of CDA is to resist the dominance discourse and social power abuse and a CDA analyst clearly defines the stance while deliberately destroys the discourse for their on purpose. A CDA analyst can’t be neutral and takes the side of oppressed, suppressed, local, native or marginalized.

Class inequality through discourse in “The Cherry Orchard”

      In this play, class inequality is shown through the discourse between the two classes. “Us” and “them” like atmosphere are created by the high society and this binary of us and them is notable by the remarks and discourse of the upper class members. Lady Lyubov and her brother Gayev belong to high society or upper class while Lopakhin, and Yasha and some others are from the lower class. This upper class is proud of its big cherry orchard and it is the symbol of their dignity and power. It is the sign of their ideology, an ideology that to possess something which distinguishes their class from the lower or middle classes. The title “The Cherry Orchard” indicates that the orchard obviously is possessed by not a man in the street but it is the man who is the member of high social class.  The title of this play is directly related to lady Lyubov for the cherry orchard is her estate in fact her property and the source for her to walk tall and both she and her brother also do show their  social dominance due to this huge and great orchard by their discourse. She is the owner of the estate and shows her superiority and power by her cherry orchard. It is a huge and gigantic orchard having the size nearly 2,500 acres in size which associates to the person of upper class, the class which tries to distinguish itself by this orchard as Lyubov says:

“This cherry orchard is the most remarkable… if there is one interesting feature in this whole province, why then it’s our cherry orchard!”  

      These lines not only give us macro meanings but also assist us to understand the title of the play. There is nothing remarkable in the whole province but the cherry orchard of lady Lyubov. This orchard is taken as the symbol of authority and power as a sole remarkable object and best instance of dominance in the society. She can’t lose it at any cost for this mighty orchard is the symbol of her ideology and ideology is to have something which shows the uniqueness of the class. It is remarkable in the sense for it belongs to her and her class itself is remarkable among the classes. So such a lady of high social class can possess only most remarkable things according to her style, standard and ideology.

Gayev also gives remarks on the orchard:

“This cherry orchard is mentioned in the Encyclopedia!”

     In macro level again we see that the orchard is described as the source of authority and power and that’s why they are boasting it. It is mentioned in encyclopedia and is worth thing to be presented as the sign of their high social class. And ideology is presented that something remarkable related to high society is always mentioned in top class books on information or some information of remarkable objects belonging to high social class is always there in most readable books. And then this class proudly gives references to these remarkable objects to tell us about their status, social position and ideology. Encyclopedia being an authentic and worth reading book also has the information of this orchard which, the information, distinguishes the family from the other classes according to Gayev so they cannot lose their beloved orchard at any cost.

Another sentence of the play can be looked as an example of macrostructure of the text. Lyubov says to Lopakhin:

“Don’t be cry, little peasant…you’ll be all right for your wedding day!”

      This above mentioned speech is another instance of macro structure. She does not call him by his name and uses the word peasant which distinctly tells that she has the right to call him by any name or title. She also knows that he is not all right now and will be all right at the day of his marriage. She perhaps knows that how and when the peasant can be alright. She consoles him in a manner that shows her authoritative nature in fact a guarantee like way of saying.

      Another instance of macro meanings is seen in the speech of Gayev which he made in response to Lopakhin’s suggestions”

“Ridiculous! Absolute nonsense!”

      How could it be possible for such a man to persuade the upper class or to suggest something to them? Gayev bluntly and candidly rejects the remarks of Lopakhin in a way that Lopakhin can only speak nonsense or useless and rubbish. Gayev response to his remarks without even thinking or listening and he believes that Lopakhin does not know anything better to offer us or the high class. Again we can see that it is the social power and ideology that the high class does not in the need to listen some suggestions from a person of lower rank in society.

“Strong smell of patchouli in here.”

      Rich class tries to show its ideology and by every possible means. Gayev dislikes the smell around of a cheap perfume and is annoyed. He is the man who can give his opinion about the smell spread around and he was not even asked to give his comments on the smell. Ideology is created by the smell of the perfume that upper or high class uses costly and rich perfumes whose fragrance tells us the taste of the class. The angry and loud way of saying this makes us to look at his character belonging to such a class which has authority to comment or like or dislike the atmosphere.

Gayev says something that is again related to smell in a way that shows us the class distinction:

“… You smell of the hen house”

      Again we see that Gayev is extremely sensitive to the smells because for him best fragrance in all around is the part of their high class society and he sarcastically calls Yasha that he smells of the house of hen. And it is his social power and dominance that he directly addresses to Yasha and says this. He expects sweet perfumes and smells as his personality demands due to a particular ideology.

Micro meanings of the above mentioned sentences.

“This cherry orchard is the most remarkable… if there is one interesting feature in this whole province, why then it’s our cherry orchard!”

      Words choices can be seen here. “Remarkable” could produce the effect but it is “most remarkable”. We see presupposition is also here. “Is one interesting feature” gives us the implication that there are other interesting features. Again we see presupposition that the province has only one interesting feature. The words like “Interesting features” again we see there is choice of words. “Whole province” tells us emotional use of words that there is nothing worth seeing but the cherry orchard. In “our cherry orchard!”  We see the possession of the orchard as they claim themselves the lords of the orchard.

      This cherry orchard is mentioned in the Encyclopaedia!” in this sentence “this” implies that there might be other orchards having also great value. Its mentioning in the encyclopedia also gives the implication that countless other worth reading information on countless items is also there in the book that perhaps are having more value than their cherry orchard. It is presupposition in this sense that mentioning of their orchard in encyclopedia is the guarantee that they are from high social class or having social power which in fact is not the case that the encyclopedia does so.

“Don’t be cry, little peasant…you’ll be all right for your wedding day!”

      Lopakhin was a child when lady Lyubov said this to him. He is little we know but she calls him “little peasant” just to give the notion that he is not only little in age and stature but also in his status. As for as the status of Lopakhin is concerned it could presupposition that he is little in age but will not remain little as for as his status is concerned. His marriage is far away but she claims that he will be all right on that day and will be married as well so we find presupposition here. Again presupposition is here that he will be all right only for his wedding day and not on any other occasion.

“Ridiculous! Absolute nonsense!”

      Emotional language and choice of words tell us the class inequality in micro meanings. All these three words give us the impression of emotive language. Only “nonsense” was enough but “absolute nonsense” gives us the presupposition for we don’t have any evidence of it.

“Strong smell of patchouli in here.”

      Choice of words in the sense of use of adjective is in “strong smell” and presupposition is also seen here that smell may not be as strong as he says. He feels himself uncomfortable in that smell of cheap and third class perfume. He claims that that this is the smell of cheap perfume but we don’t have any evidence for it so we see presupposition in his this remarks.

“… You smell of the hen house”

      Use of the lexical choice shows the dominance of Gayev over Yasha. Smell of the hen house tells us the presupposition here. The smell might not be as like as in the hen of the house there is no proof of it.

      To conclude we can say that class inequality through discourse of high or upper class society is seen in the text mentioned above. The model of van Dijk obviously helps us to make out the dominance created by the society of high class and it leads to the binary of us and them. The discourse depicts the authority, power, ideology and the social position of the upper class. The discourse by looking in macro and micro structure highlights all the traits of class inequality in the drama “The Cherry Orchard”. By following the CDA model of van Dijk we become able to look the discourse text which discloses the class inequality.