Uncle Vanya Essay Questions

How is Marina distinct from the other characters? In what ways does she uniquely contribute to the overall aesthetics and themes of the story?

Marina isn't exactly like the other character. She doesn't complain, whine, wander around listlessly, or lament her existence. Instead, she is a comfortable, steadfast, self-assured person who tries to be a bulwark against the waves of despair and boredom that afflict the household. She is religious and uses her faith to comfort Astrov; she also acknowledges that the family's behavior is, as critic Karl Kramer says, "simply sound and fury signifying nothing." She calls the other characters cackling geese, and observes that they will do this and cease, do this and cease. However, Marina's "sense of what is right harks back to a standard that says 'the way we've always done is the best way'" and ultimately she "stands for the monotony of country life, a monotony that she interprets as a beneficent order" (Kramer quoting Eric Bentley).

Is Vanya really the protagonist? Why or why not?

To some extent, yes. His struggles are the most manifest and his sorrow bears itself out most dramatically. He dominates every act; he casts himself in his own tragedy. He doesn't hold himself back; he rages, sobs, and tries to murder his brother-in-law.

However, many critics suggest that there are multiple protagonists, or that the abstract "individual" is the protagonist. All of the characters are more or less exactly the same when the play ends as when it began, suggesting that no one person is elevated over another. This is one of the modern elements that Chekhov's plays presented audiences with: the break from the traditional protagonist/antagonist dramatic structure, in favor of a mode of theater that relied less on overt plot and conflict.

Is the play a tragedy, a comedy, both, or neither? Why or why not?

It may depend on whom you ask, but the best answer is probably "both" or "neither." There are elements of comedy in Chekhov's tone, the silliness of Telegin, the outlandish behavior of Vanya, and Astrov's biting wit. Tragedy can be seen in the dashed hopes and dreams, failed love affairs, unhappy marriages, devastation of nature, and the putative meaninglessness of life. However, life's tragedies in this play are rather banal, exaggerated, and trivial. Vanya isn't a real tragic hero, and nothing much changes at the end of the play. It's a play of anticlimax, a play lacking in heroes and villains. Chekhov's plays defy traditional dramatic dichotomies, and the categories of "tragedy" and "comedy" are firmly rooted in that traditional mode.

What does Telegin's comment "A subject worthy of Ayvazosky's brush?" mean? How does this comment represent the broader themes of the play?

Ayvazosky was a Russian painter of grandiose maritime scenes, usually battles and storms at sea. They were monumental works in size and subject. When the hapless Telegin brands Vanya's attempted murder as a subject worthy of this painter, he, as critic Karl Kramer writes, "brands this failure as an event of immense significance, thereby unwittingly revealing its complete insignificance." It's a wonderful, ironic statement, especially because it came after Vanya's outburst about Serebryakov preventing him from being a Schopenhauer or a Dostoevsky. Chekhov (gently) skewers his character, showing how he and the others make mountains out of molehills because their existence is simply too dull and meaningless to provide any real intellectual and emotional sustenance.

What do critics mean by the "everydayness" of the characters? What role does this everydayness play more broadly in Chekhov's tradition-challenging method of playwriting?

Critic John Weston uses this phrase to discuss how he and others see the characters as people who are neither good nor bad, do not engage in any major change or experience anything particularly notable, and are recognizable to the audience in their petty squabbles and anodyne conflicts. They clash with each other and struggle through life in commonplace ways; they see their dreams fade away and search for meaning, but this is melodramatic and halfhearted rather than fully tragic or comedic. Their words are banal, and their talk is trivial. They bicker, chatter, cry, and lament without end; they are, as Weston writes, "a meandering stream of people searching for love, or excitement, or dignity, when all the while it is directly at hand if one could only see and understand."