Who is Madame Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard?

The biggest flaw of Madame Ranevsky's character in this
excellent play is her complete inability to "move with the times" and recognise how her
Russia is changing in so many different ways. When it looks as if she is going to be
losing her estate and orchard, she shows herself to be characterised by a kind of
paralysis that does not help her to save it. Although she is kind and also generous, she
shows that she doesn't know how to manage either her money or the complexities of adult
existence. Even though she is facing the imminent loss of her property, she continues to
spend money freely, even lending money to her neighbour when her finances are in such
dire straits.

Madame Ranevsky is dominated by nostalgia.
She can only see the orchard as it was in her idealised childhood. Ironically, although
she is deeply distressed by the sale, she finds that she actually experiences a sense of
liberation when she is freed from all of the worries of managing such big estate. In her
character, Chekhov paints a human face representing the many landowners who lost their
land at this time in Russia.