Anton Chekhov is depressing - as a writer, he tours the subconscious of his readers and tears apart their insides, delicately poking at their pain, their joy, their fears. In comparison to his fellow playwrights of the late 19th century, he’s not particularly different - he dabbles in the same madness as Buchner, is arguably as pessimistic as Ibsen, and his delivery is even, at times, as witty as Wilde’s. Still, there is an air of tragedy and paralyzing disappointment in his characters. Chekhov being a Russian author, this isn’t entirely surprising - after all, the perceived image of the Russian writer is embodied by a despondent, delusional, deeply troubled man who sits in solitude, pondering his past mistakes while translating them into dramatic texts. With two of his most noted plays - The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull - Chekhov managed to do so with incredible eloquence.
Transitioning from themes of love to honesty, creativity to fame, to self-assessment and realization, he created “live characters,” who experienced so much in so few pages, not to mention so few settings. The structure of his plays is roughly the same - four acts, most of which take place in a single room or house, filled with so many characters that readers are forced to keep the dramatis personae nearby the entire time they’re reading one of his works. Through this structure, Chekhov seemed to hope to make a comment on the human condition, namely of the ill-fated. His characters, while robust and multi-dimensional, all lack a certain aspect of typical humanity - their outlooks are limited, their delusions are aplenty, and nearly all of their relationships lie on faulty foundations. And though the characters in the three plays differ in backgrounds and stories - the constancy of their styles of communication (or lack thereof), their deep self-hatred that often manifests in angry insults thrust upon others, and their utter lack of self-awareness remains. With this in mind, I’m forced to wonder about Chekhov’s outlook as a writer - was he merely announcing the condition of his Russian people to the outside world, or was he as troubled as his characters? By picking up on clues in his dialogue and the impossibility of love for individuals who do not seem to believe in the word, I tried to find Chekhov’s voice beyond the typical words associated with his writing - i.e. “Russian,” “pessimistic” - and determine if he was attempting to create a linear, multilayered remark on people who lack the proper sympathy and empathy to relate and connect to others in a genuine way. To do this, I examined his plays in a chronological way, starting with The Seagull, and ending with The Cherry Orchard, one of the last plays he wrote.
In The Seagull, the first play in this chronological series, Chekhov uses metaphors and symbolism in a style unlike his other works, to make an arguably self-indulgent commentary on creativity and the fame associated with becoming a writer. However, though it is not at all new territory for a writer to be writing about writing, Chekhov manages to tackle the subject in a creative way that also touches upon jealousy and unattainable love. In the play’s ensemble cast, Chekhov introduces several truly central characters - Irina Arkadina, an actress, her troubled son Treplyov, the young aspiring actress Nina, and famed writer Trigorin. The play is set, like other Chekhov plays, inside and outside a country estate, which Arkadina and Trigorin visit upon the news of Arkadina’s brother’s illness. Despite the play’s central subject matter, it focuses primarily on unsuccessful, impossible relationships between its characters - from the love-square (with one more member than the traditional love-triangle) between Trepylov, Nina, Trigorin, and Masha, to Trepylov’s undying desire for his mother’s adoration. As the plot’s central character, Trepylov resembles Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He is young, unconfident, unstable, and even suicidal - as his first attempt and eventual success show. Early on, in a conversation with his uncle about his mother, Trepylov is introduced as quite emotionally insecure - “She loves me, loves me not; loves - loves me not; loves, loves me not! You see, she doesn’t love me, and why should she?” (127) It’s at this moment that the reader is exposed to the genuine lack of self-worth resting both within Trepylov and his author – there is nothing glamorous about being a writer, much less a struggling one, as one is forced to personally battle his own demons with little hope for relief. His uncle, who tries to pacify him, exclaims “I once passionately desired…to become an author…It must be pleasant to be even an insignificant author” (128), which Trepylov seems to find no consolation in. It’s as if Chekhov is hoping to find some sort of silver lining in the idea of being a writer, while simultaneously exclaiming that the writer is so self-involved that he cannot see beyond his own delusional dreams. Trepylov is insatiable in his depression - for he desires an understanding of the world that he cannot, and will not find. Chekhov seems to forewarn readers of Trepylov’s eventual doom in the end of Act I, via a comment made by Dorn to him, in which he explains, “You should know why you are writing, for if you follow the road of art without a goal before your eyes, you will lose yourself, and your genius will be your ruin” (137). This begs the question – does Chekhov know why he is writing? The obvious answer seems yes, but he is telling the story of a man who does not – so perhaps he is telling the story of the ghosts of failed writers. Though we never find out if Tregoryn is a genius by any stretch of the term,it is as the hands of his creativity and obsession with love that he meets his eventual demise.
In Act II, there is a breakthrough connection between two of Chekhov’s characters which we do not usually see in his work, as Nina and Trigorin connect in a rather pseudo-genuine way. The conversation between them seems like a tipping point for Trigorin, who has finally found someone to divulge his worries and his neuroses to, while Nina amazedly listens to the explanation of his creative process – and while it isn’t necessarily genuine connection for both sides, they seem to find what they need in one another. Their dialogue is unusually poignant and emotionally jarring, because their honesty is seldom seen in Chekhov’s other plays - but even still, what seems like the opening scene of a romantic love story, is merely an introduction to a world of disheartening pain that is to follow, which Chekhov alludes to in the closing of Act II, as Trigorin tells Nina about an idea he had for a story, “A young girl grows up on the shores of a lake, as you have. She loves the lake, as the gulls do, and is happy and free as they. But a man sees her who chances to come that way, and he destroys her out of idleness” (147). Later, we realize that the man is Trigorin, and the seagull is Nina. If “idleness is the only refuge of weak minds,” perhaps Chekhov is attempting here to deliver the message of Trigorin’s weakness – he is a selfish egoist, who would rather destroy than build, leaving a harmless girl by the wayside in exchange for a few moments of satisfaction. Trigorin and Nina are clearly not meant-to-be, in the romantic sense, and while Trigorin seems to be aware of it, Chekhov still shows his pursuit of the girl as a tool of exposing the evil ways in which men take advantage of the women they seem to desire. After Trigorin and Arkadina’s departure from the estate in the end of Act III, by which point Nina has fallen in love with Trigorin and vows to follow him to Moscow, Chekhov atypically creates a two-year break between acts and returns to the estate, to which Trigorin and Arkadina have coincidentally returned upon again hearing news of her brother’s poor health. In the two-year period, Nina has become a failed actress and has become mad from the disappointing failed love between her and Trigorin.
A pivotal moment in the play, and perhaps its thematically most important line, comes when Nina passes Trigorin a note that alludes to a line in one of his plays - one which reads “If you ever need my life, come and take it.” The line alludes to not only Nina sacrificing her livelihood to Trigorin, who merely takes it for granted, but also to Trepylov’s love for Nina, which results in his suicide at the end of the play. It is in looking back from this point that it becomes clear that everything the characters desired and longed for, was not at all what they expected or needed. Rather than fame or recognition, Trepylov and Nina needed love, but in their quest they became muddled with unsuccessful work and crumbled over their failures. Meanwhile, Trigorin, who deceitfully pretended to “connect” with Nina, used her and left her, while getting what he desired - a bit of attention from an enthralled young girl. And Masha, who disappears through most of the play’s action, returns in the end of the play, married to a man who she does not love. All of the central characters (aside from Masha), blinded by their empty desires, cannot see the love directly in front of them, and are doomed to lives of misfortune - for even when they get what they want, they cannot enjoy it. This becomes clear as Nina reminisces with Trepylov of the past - “So you are an author now, and I am an actress. We both have been sucked into the whirlpool. My life used to be as happy as a child’s; I used to wake singing in the morning” (168). Judging her pseudo-nostalgic tone, she not only does not wake up singing, but more likely wakes up sobbing from her hapless professional and personal life – she pretends to be satisfied but she still harbors a tangible sadness and regret. And while Masha somberly argues that “hopeless love only exists in novels” (160), it exists in this drama as well.
Meanwhile, in one of Chekhov’s final plays, The Cherry Orchard, he examines topics quite distant from those in The Seagull, though he does fall upon similar themes in his study on identity and self-awareness. The Cherry Orchard, which is essentially Chekhov’s treatise on classes and the disparity between people within different social levels - captures a combination of irony and desperate sadness in a similar, but unique way, as he fuses socio-economical and romantic ideas and tells them through a much more clearly structured and confined story. Early on in Act II, Yepihodov introduces the idea of misconstrued identity within the characters and a certain lack of self-assessment - “I have studied various remarkable books, but I cannot fathom the direction of my preferences; do I want to live or do I want to shoot myself, so to speak?” (294). While this can be read as a horrifyingly revealing cry for help, Chekhov eases the tension with Yepihodov’s following statement, “But in order to be ready for all contingencies, I always carry a revolver in my pocket” (294). The comedy in his tone is obvious, but it is also paired with Charlotte’s dramatic revelations - ” I long to talk so, and I have no one to talk to, I have no friends or relations” (193) and “I am always alone, always alone; I have no friends or relations, and who I am, or why I exist, is a mystery” (194). With this juxtaposition of comedy and unrelenting pain, Chekhov introduces a bitter internal confusion within his characters – they cannot find or understand themselves, or any meaning in their own lives. Of course, a joke about suicide can be merely a joke about suicide, but there is something deeper going on in Yepihodov’s words. He doesn’t like who he is and where he is, and for obvious reasons – he’s a mere clerk surrounded by wealthy oligarchs who travel and only return home when someone has fallen ill. Charlotte also struggles with her place in society as a tag-along to people she does not especially love or care about. Chekhov revisits this longing desire to be elsewhere with others again, in Trophimov’s defensive rant about being a student, where he ridicules the learned who “only talk about science, and understand little or nothing about art. They are all serious; they all have solemn faces; they only discuss important subjects; they philosophize” (300). While his speech is made as a retort to Lopakhin, it is ironic because Trophimov is characterized as a life-time student, who seems to be in his 30s and still studying - while ridiculing the educated men who he likely aspires to be like. Perhaps Chekhov is making a comment on his critics and the “educated” men who pretend to know about art – but more so in the context of the play he is making a comment on people living lives that are discontented with, where they do not belong.
At the same time, Chekhov’s usual ideas about the futility of love return, as Barbara explains to her mother in Act III why she has not married Lopakhin yet - “I can’t propose to him myself. For two whole years everybody’s been talking about him to me…but he either says nothing or makes a joke of it…if only I had some money, even a little, I would give everything up and go right away. I would go into a nunnery” (307). While this moment is, again, slightly comedic, it makes a statement toward the other characters as well - who fool themselves into pretending they want something, namely love, just for the sake of love, while essentially lying to themselves. Madame Ranevsky suffers from the same flaw, as she explains just a page later to Trofimov why she still loves the man she was with in Paris - “My love is like a stone tied around my neck; it’s dragging me down to the bottom; but I love my stone. I can’t live without it” (309). While she admits to her lover being a taxing force in her life, she claims to still love him, but one cannot help but see this as a confused woman’s delusions. Like Trophimov, she is stuck in a situation that she knows is not hers to be stuck in, but she grids and bears it, with no actual, tangible rationale as to why.
One of the play’s subtler but more effective subplots comes by way of Dunyasha and Yasha’s pseudo-romance. Dunyasha, a simple girl from the country, falls for Yasha, an assistant of Madame Ranevsky who has just come from Paris - and while she falls “head over ears” in love with him, he seems to write her off as a mere nothing. As their “romance” starts to blossom, Dunyasha admits, “I’ve fallen dreadfully in love with you. You’re so educated; you can talk about anything!” (295), to which Yasha simply replies, “The way I look at it is this; if a girl falls in love with anybody, then I call her immoral,” before telling her to walk away so people don’t see them together. And later, as Yasha prepares to depart with Madame Ranevsky, Dunyasha exclaims, “Write me a letter from Paris. I’ve been so fond of you, Yasha, ever so fond!” (319), Yasha responds with “There’s somebody coming” (319). Yet again, Chekhov outlines a failed love story with two people simply missing one another by virtue of mis-communicating and mis-interpreting how they truly feel. It’s true - maybe Dunyasha doesn’t actually love Yasha, but rather loves the idea of him (as an exotic foreigner who can help her escape the estate), but whether it’s genuine feelings or not, Yasha writes her off with ease.
The way Yasha dispenses of Dunyasha is very similar to the way Trigorin leaves Nina – and it is in this comparison that I found my central note on Chekhov’s work. Aside from the litany of ideas and messages he conveyed through his stories and characters, he made a vital argument about love and disappointment with these two misconnections – that people, who seem to know what they want, never actually do. They aim for connections with others and consequently feel misery and regret when they don’t work out the way they planned – but these are emotional distractions from their truths. If they wanted love, they would not seek it from the people who they cannot find love within. Searching for a fish outside of the ocean could leave anyone disheartened – and despite the poor metaphor it describes how futile the attempts of these characters are in finding someone who cares about them, for they will never care for them in the way they truly wish to be cared for. In this over-arching idea, perhaps Chekhov is also discussing art, and creativity – for the writers in The Seagull either desire fame or normalcy, and each one gets what the other desires, and both are left paralyzed by what they’re missing; and the student in The Cherry Orchard, who defends his life and his choices with full force, apparently loathes those who he surrounds himself with – as he strives to understand art while only educating himself on education.
To be entirely honest, it is slightly difficult, after examining these plays, to dissect them and pretend to find a singular thread which runs through all of them, for as similar as they are in voice and structure, they vary in message and moral. However, as dramas which represent clear focal points in Chekhov’s career, they exhibit a larger message - the representation of an author’s outlook on relationships between individuals, the ways people love and hate, and the way they lie and tell truths. From Madame Ranevsky and Dunyasha of The Cherry Orchard, who lie to themselves to find a passivity and peacefulness within their broken hearts; to the unfortunate lovers in The Seagull, who’s aimless ambition and naivete lead them to their downfall at the hands of those who’s admiration they need more than want. By telling the stories of these characters who all seemed to be pre-destined for failure in one way or another, Chekhov is not merely pessimistic, rather he is honestly realistic - much more than most of his characters - about the tragedy of some who can never find whatever it is they are looking for. So, whether their lack of understanding of one another leads to their doomed relationships, or their failed loves and friendships lead to warped worldviews - they are all unlucky in their own distinct way. Moreover, they are singular characters, who must run their own course, and though it seems like at times they can be saved by a missed relationship, perhaps they are beyond saving - Chekhov merely takes the guessing out of the equation.
