Madame Ranevksy is a middle-aged Russian woman that is continually trying to avoid her problems. She is continuously fleeing from location to location. She fled Russia to be with her lover only to return to Russia and then leave again when her life became to complicated. She is unable to settle in one place and this leads to more complications, because she never solves the problems at hand. Madame Ranevksy's problems only get deeper and more complex, which lead to the eventual lose of her childhood home.
Madame Ranevksy tries to avoid the problems of her tragic adult life and returns to the memories of her happy aristocratic childhood. When she returns to the estate, her talking about the nursery indicates this. Also, when she has the vision of her mother walking through the cherry orchard it reinforces the fact the she is stuck in the memories of her childhood. This delusion shows that she is trying to block out the unfortunate events of the past few years from her mind. Madame Ranevksy is stuck in the past and feels this is the best way to avoid her problems.
Another problem Madame Ranevksy faces is she is deeply in debt and has to give up her beloved cherry orchard. The orchard symbolizes Ranevsky memories. Her return to the orchard only brings these memories back and prevents her from moving on with her life. Her uncontrolable spending is also proof that she is unable to give up the past and realize that she is an impoverished aristocrat. Her rejecting Lopakhin's business proposal seems to be a stubborn refusal to accept the truth about her situation. The cherry orchard means a lot to Madame Ranevksy but it only causes more problems because she does not want to face reality. .
Madame Ranevksys return home is hopeless from the very start of the play, for two reasons. First, her home is not as peaceful as she had hoped it to be. It serves a reminder of all the tragedy that she faced before she left.
