276 Chekhov, Anton
play, Masha articulates her plans for abandoning her
fantasies and moving forward in a new direction.
Yet even after she has married Medvedenko and
become a mother, she still longs to be with Treplev.
Frustrated by her mother’s attempts to console her,
Masha declares, “It’s simply nonsense. Hopeless
love—there’s no such thing except in novels. The
only thing is you mustn’t let yourself go, and always
be expecting something, waiting for the tide to
turn.... When love plants itself in your heart, you
have to clear it out” (Act 4). Yet her actions contra-
dict her pronouncements, as she spends her days and
nights at the estate to be near Treplev instead of at
her own home with her husband and child, indicat-
ing that she retains some small semblance of hope
that her deepest desires may yet be achieved.
For others, hope provides the courage to take
risks. Nina leaves home to pursue her dream of
becoming an actress and achieving “resounding
fame,” even if it means enduring “poverty, disillu-
sionment, [and] the hatred of [her] family.” In some
ways, Nina’s hopes are realized: She does embark
on a career on the stage, and she has a love affair
with the writer Trigorin. Yet these dreams turn
out to be chimeras. She finds not fame or glory as
an actress but hard work. Her relationship with
Trigorin produces a child, who dies, and Trigorin
eventually leaves her, returning to his life with the
famous actress, Treplev’s mother, Arkadina. Her
hopes dashed, Nina refuses to give up, but she does
not simply hold on to old hopes. Rather, she finds
new hope, declaring, “I know now, I understand,
that in our work... what’s important is not fame,
not glory, not the things I used to dream of, but the
ability to endure” (Act 4). For Nina, hope is fluid,
and it must be so, or she will not be able to go on.
Treplev, on the other hand, is unable to adapt,
clinging relentlessly to his expectations, which end
up destroying him. He, too, achieves his professional
goal, becoming a published writer by the end of
the play. Yet the work is empty, and the realization
of his hopes is not quite as beautiful as the dream.
Because he cannot let go of his desire to share his
life with Nina, he loses hope, and that proves to be
the most detrimental thing of all. When he fails to
find a new path, a new hope to pursue, he simply
gives up, tearing up all of his manuscripts in a sym-
bolic destruction of his dreams. Despair sets in, and
Treplev ends his life.
Hope is, in some ways, a panacea for the char-
acters in The Seagull because it allows them to go
on even in the face of constant disappointment. Yet
hope cannot truly cure all ills; one must come to
terms with the inevitable disconnect between expec-
tation and realization in order to move forward.
That is not to say that one should give up hoping;
indeed, the play suggests that hope is something
everyone needs in order to survive, and the loss
of hope has profoundly devastating consequences.
People need something to dream of, but they also
need to be able to go on if the dreams fail.
Margaret SavilonislOve in The Seagull
Love is a driving force in Anton Chekhov’s The
Seagull. Early in the play, the revelation of vari-
ous love triangles generates mild, comic conflict.
Yet what is amusing in the beginning of the play
is crushing by the end. The heightened emotions
of the first act become increasingly intense as the
play’s action progresses, and, by the fourth act, the
characters’ inability to move forward, hampered by
unrealistic expectations and the oppressive yoke of
unrequited love, is emotionally, socially, and physi-
cally destructive.
Set during the summertime on a country estate,
the play begins with a light tone, and love takes
center stage early on. The pursuit of romance is
emphasized by the environment, the sultry weather
mirroring the simmering passions of the ensemble
cast. The primary focus is the relationship between
Treplev, an aspiring writer, and his beloved Nina, an
aspiring actress. Treplev’s joyful exclamation, “I can’t
live without her;... Even the sound of her footsteps
is beautiful.... My enchantress—my dream!” (Act
1) is emblematic of the intensity with which the
characters devote themselves to a gloriously ideal-
ized notion of love.
This passion generates anguish, as well, par-
ticularly for those who feel that such love is beyond
their reach. The schoolmaster Medvedenko laments
to Masha, “I love you, I’m so miserable I can’t stay
at home, every day I walk six versts here and six
versts back, but I get nothing but indifference from