Anton Chekhov

ANTON CHEKHOV

Anton Chekov is one of my favourite playwrights. In all of Anton Chekhov's plays there are recurring themes and meanings and his plays are like accounts of his life and feeling, put into words and then spoken by characters - detailed analysis and wondering about being a human being and being alive. Chekhov is an exceptionally good writer not just because he speaks about how life has made him feel but also because everything he wrote down had a reason to be there in the text, it can all be joined up and together it will represent the main theme of the text. 

THE SEAGULL

We all start life free as a bird. When we discover love, we fall into it. However we learn that it is not so easy to land on our feet - there is a fine line between lust and partnership.
 
Expectations of life destroy life. Learning that fairytale love is delusional:
“All this if just nonsense. Love without hope - it only happens in novels. It’s really nothing. you’ve only got to keep firm hold of yourself, to stop yourself hoping for…hoping for the tide to turn…If love sneaks into your heart the best thing to do is to chuck it out…” (Masha, 167)
 
Growing up/sexual awakening:
“…A subject for a short story: a young girl, like you, has lived beside a lake as a seagull does, and she’s happy and free as a seagull. But a man chances to come along, sees her, and having nothing better to do, destroys her, just like the seagull here.” (Trigorin, 151)

THREE SISTERS 

A reminder of time passing. Time wasted with dreaming and hoping. Knowledge and education is not enough on it's own; nor is love on it's own.
 

Time:
“(drops clock and breaks it) Smashed to smithereens! (a pause. Everyone looks upset and embarrassed)” (Chebutykin, 300)

Hope for the future:
“I hate the life I live at the present, but oh! The sense of elation when I think of the future. Then I feel so light hearted, such a warm sense of release! I seem to see light ahead, light and freedom. I see myself free, and my children too…” (Audrey, 323)

All any of the characters in Chekhov’s plays ever seem to have is hope:

“Everything’s just wild grass”. (Masha, 282)

UNCLE VANIA

Decay and the old versus vitality and the young.

Hope:
“…No, ignorance is better…At least there’s some hope…” (Sonia, 220)
 

IVANOV

A man’s struggle to come to terms with life as it is. The parallels between naivety/youth and reality/older age.
 
Searching for meaning:
“I used to be young, eager, sincere and intelligent…And now…lazy soul, tired and broken, without faith, without love, without aim; I wander about among my friends like a shadow, and I don’t know who I am or why I live…Already it seems to me that love is silly…that there isn’t any meaning in work, that song and impassioned words are trivial and old fashioned…” (Ivanov, 113)
 
THE CHERRY ORCHARD

The old vs. the new. Living in ignorance. Work and love for purpose. Accepting the past/life and moving on.
 
The Student:
“Face up to the truth once in your life.” (Trofimov, 43)
 
THE BEAR

Two people haven given up on life find reason to live it again through love.
 
THE PROPOSAL

Selling a soul.

Ownership:
“I don’t understand this! What right have you to give someone else’s property?” (Lomov, 426)