The Seagull 277you,” to which she replies, “Nonsense... Your love
touches me, but I can’t return it, that’s all” (Act 1).
By the end of the act, Masha reveals the cause of her
inability to return Medvedenko’s affection: She is in
love with Treplev. As she pours out her confession
to the country doctor, Dorn, he tries to comfort her,
marveling at the intensity of the younger genera-
tion’s emotions, saying, “How nervous you all are!
How nervous! And so much love! Oh, that bewitch-
ing lake!” (Act 1)—linking the romantic fervor with
the environment.
Passions flare, and the comic tone begins to
wane as the summer progresses over acts 2 and 3 as
Treplev’s and Nina’s mutual affection is disrupted by
the presence of Trigorin, a well-known writer and
the lover of Treplev’s mother, Arkadina. Though
physical violence is kept offstage, the results are
shown, and emotional violence plays out in the
language through which the characters express their
disenchantment with love. Disconsolate over the
loss of Nina’s affection and jealous of her burgeon-
ing affair with Trigorin, Treplev shoots a seagull
and lays it at Nina’s feet, announcing, “Soon, in the
same way, I shall kill myself.” Displaying a similarly
impassioned fury over her unfulfilled desires, Masha
tells Trigorin, “I’ve made up my mind to tear this
love out of my heart—tear it out by the roots,” and
she reveals that she intends to marry Medvedenko
so that “new cares will stifle the old,” an impractical
solution that seems doomed to failure.
In act 4, set in the autumn two years later, an
emotional chill has set in, reinforced by the howling
winds that rattle the estate. Stuck in the same pat-
terns they were in at the beginning of the play, the
characters seem emotionally stagnant. Married to
Medvedenko, Masha has found no distraction from
her desires, yet she clings to the belief that she will
be able to “forget it all” if her husband is transferred
to another district, enabling her to tear her love
for Treplev out of her heart “by the roots.” Medve-
denko is still walking six versts (approximately four
miles) to and from the estate to spend time with his
beloved, though Masha’s indifference has turned to
bitterness. Similarly, Treplev, though he has not seen
Nina for two years, cannot let go of his love for her.
When she returns to the estate unannounced, he
says, “Nina, I cursed you, I hated you... but every
minute I was conscious that my soul was bound to
yours forever. I can never stop loving you.” Yet there
is no comfort in his declaration for either of them, as
Nina still loves Trigorin “passionately, desperately,”
despite being abandoned by him after a tumultuous
affair.
In the end, the characters’ inability to express
their love in realistic terms has devastating con-
sequences. The pursuit of how life is “in dreams”
provides an escape from the mundane realities of
life, but the characters’ commitment to a romanti-
cized ideal results in discontent, and love becomes a
burden rather than a source of happiness.
Margaret SavilonisWOrk in The Seagull
As in many of Anton Chekhov’s plays, questions
about the value of work frame the experience of
the characters in The Seagull. On the one hand,
work provides direction and structure, as well as the
means necessary to survive by earning an income,
however small. Yet although they are compelled to
work, few of the characters find pleasure in their
occupations, as the desire to find deeper meaning in
life is hindered by the commitment work demands
of their minds, bodies, and souls. As a result of the
dissatisfaction engendered by a life of labor that
offers no opportunity for “living,” the creative work
of artists becomes romanticized as a path to enlight-
enment. This privileging of the role of the artist is
summed up by Doctor Dorn’s observation, “If soci-
ety loves artists and treats them differently from...
merchants, let us say, that is in the nature of things.
That’s—idealism” (Act 1). Yet the experiences of the
writers Trigorin and Treplev and the actress Nina
show the cracks in that ideal, as even creative work
imposes burdens.
Most of the characters in the play are disheart-
ened by the lack of financial and emotional reward
they get from their occupations. Though Masha
asserts that “even a beggar can be happy,” the school-
master Medvedenko argues that his job, which pays
only 23 rubles a month, makes it difficult for him
“to make ends meet” as he tries to support himself,
his mother, and his three siblings. Sorin, the retired
owner of the country estate on which the play’s
action takes place, laments, “I served in the Depart-