A Handful of Dust / The Cherry Orchard

I am struck by the similarity in theme and character stereotypes and the utter disparity in theme development and character development in A Handful of Dust and The Cherry Orchard.

Structural similarities:

• Aristocratic families of landed estates
  
• Mother takes a lover
  
• Son is killed in an accident
  
• Mother stays with lover
  
• Father exits the scene
  
• Estate is consigned, lost to the aristocracy
  

Chekhov shows us the human side of his characters and evokes nostalgia for their lost way of life. We feel the world has lost something too, but a new, yet unknown order is emerging in which some, at least, will thrive.

Waugh shows us despicable characters, an aristocracy that has lost its way, and the world is better off without it. The new order hopes to survive by raising rabbits.

I like Chekhov's story, while Waugh's leaves me cold, but this like/dislike appraisal is too superficial. Perhaps this is exactly the response each author intends to evoke. Perhaps one must read both to see different realizations of, different reactions to the same story. The world is a wide place and one size does not fit all.
Edited for format.

What a great pair of companion reads. Like you, I prefer stories where I feel a lot of sympathy for the characters. At the same time, after the economy has been wrecked by an American aristocracy that worships money, I'm in more sympathy with Waugh's overall point of view. I wonder if there's a book out there that pulls in both ideas - that complacent self-indulgence in an expensive way of life that depends on others living in poverty is despicable, and yet the people who perpetuate this way of life are not simply monsters, but have human frailties and vulnerabilities of their own with which we can sympathize.