This play offers two important developments during the time in which the play is taken place. (1860's) The railroad had arrived and was a valuable source for families to go from one place to the next. The other was the population of the serfs that had been liberated for good, bringing about a social change. The social change and the importance of the community pervaded the play and even perhaps drove the plot.
The play shows a tale of and aristocratic family that loses power as the other characters fall in between. It shows the changes in the class system and debates the nature of progress and freedom that is being shown in Russia. All the characters were sympathetic with the change and with one another. The play lacks a villain but criticizes the faults of others. .
The economic environment set in the play appears to be that you can work your way up in the social classes. People are out there to make money and they will if they are devoted to it. An example would be Lopakhin: "I bid ninety thousand above the mortgage, and it was knocked down to me The cherry orchard is now mine! I bought the estate where my father and my grandfather were slaves, where they weren't even allowed in the kitchen I can pay for everything." (Pg. 489) This quote shows us that even a mere slave can advance in the economic world and gain bigger and better things. .
The political environment set in the play was aristocrats or know as communism. Eventually it portrays the fall of communism when Lopakhin a mere peasant buys the estate. It shows the social change of the times in Russia. Firs on the other hand notes that social change is coming about but it has not progressed his life. He gives you the impression that while change occurs, there is more work to be done. With Firs you see that the liberation has made him free but he remains to the whims of the family he serves, as he had always been. .
The social environment is that those who have money (or are in denil.