Always Blaming Others: Uncle Vanya act III

Act III of Uncle Vanya is the most important part of the story. The feelings that had been repressed since the beginning of the play are now shown with no limit and with no secrets. Vanya has a big fight with the professor in which he says that his life has been ruined spent because of him. Vanyas resentment caused a huge dispute in the house, to the point that the professor has decided to leave. Vanya is so envious towards the professor mostly because he is husband to Yelena the woman Vanya loves that he tries shooting him, this is where the story totally changes.

“You have destroyed my life! I have not lived! Thanks to you, I have ruined and wasted the best years of my life."

Before Vanya shoots the professor there are a lot of repressed feelings but in a way are shown passively, when Vanya shoots and tries to commit murder we can see that what he felt towards his life and towards the professor have exploded and he can’t hold them anymore. Why does Vanya just sit and wait doing nothing if there are so many things to do? Why does he blame it on the professor?

Elena and Sonya were not the best friends at the beginning of the play, but once they talk and drink they end their disputes. Sonya develops a lot of trust in Elena to the point of telling her she loves Astrov and she asks her to talk to him. Astrov doesn’t love Sonya and is asked never to come back to the farm for jut seeing him harms Sonya. Love is a common theme in this play but it´s not the kind of love in which everybody is happy and with the person they love. Everybody suffers because of love in the play.

Astrov the doctor states a problem that is still common in humanity. Due to technology´s evolution, nature is being put aside and destroyed. In his charts he explains how the forests, animal species and other natural resources have been destroyed by the coming of men. He shows how fifty years before the coming of men, the forests were thick and the animals abundant while in the present most animals are extinct and there are only small patches of forests throughout the country. This is a common problem today and is a major cause for global warming.

An unhappy wasted life: Uncle Vanya Act II

In this act the love stories that began to build up previously are explained and many other love confusion begins to appear. The Doctor Astrov is in love with the nurse for he has known her for a very long time, Vanya is in love with Elena the wife of the professor and Sonya likes the doctor. All this takes us to the conclusion that nobody is happy for nobody is with the person they love.

Elena the professor’s wife says that he doesn’t love him and that she married him for a love that she thought she felt but she really didn’t. She also says even though we already had imagined this that she is not happy.

Sonya: "Tell me honestly as friends... are you happy?"
Elena: "No" (Pg193)

This is the way that Chekhov describes most of his characters, no character in the play is happy. Everybody lives for the professor and everything they do is oriented to helping him. The lives of the characters changed a lot since the arrival of the professor and this may be a reason for their unhappiness. Humans adapt to a way of life and are happy with the life they have, if you change their way of life they will be unhappy for they are not used to a new way of life. Vanya was used to having lunch and dinner at certain hours and now he has to wait for the professor to eat in order to have lunch. Changes as small as this will affect a person, but what affects characters mostly in the play is the lack of true love.

The professor s the cause for everyone’s unhappiness, his wife Elena lives to serve him and has spent her life beside him without really loving him. Elena and Sonya, the professor’s young daughter, hate each other until the end of this act when influenced by alcohol they talk to one another and end up as friends. The doctor has caused Uncle Vanya to leave his work and have a boring lonely life.

“I am haunted by the thought that my life has been hopelessly wasted.” (Pg 183)

Vanya in this sentence describes his life after the professor’s arrival; he has realized that his life could’ve been much better. Did the professor only arrive to ruin people’s life even though he doesn’t realize it?

Fruitless, senseless life: Uncle Vanya Act I

Life is a constant search for meaning and happiness. Anton Chekov in this play explains the total opposite through the beliefs of most of his characters. Astrov for example is a doctor that travels around helping patients. He dislikes life and everybody that surrounds him. This is very ironical for he helps those that are sick not to lose a life that he thinks is totally fruitless. Astrov the doctor is the only one that doesn’t appreciate life, Uncle Vanya or Voinitsky is also tired of the life he has. He is bored and in love of an impossible woman.

Love has also started to build up interestingly in the play, not only the impossible love that Vanya built up towards Elena the professors wife but the vision of love that Chekhov shows us through characters such as Telyegin:

My wife ran away with the man she loved the day after our wedding, the reason being my unprepossessing appearance. (Pg 169)

There is no true love in the story, nobody is happy with the life thy have but don’t blame themselves. the relationships between characters are also very aggressive and the unhappiness is reflected when they talk to one another.

Voinitsky: "Oh yes! An enlightened personality who never enlightened anybody.... you couldn’t have made a ore venomous joke." (Pg 171)

There is a lot of tension between the characters and the pessimism towards life is present in most of their speeches. Many people find pleasure in work, pleasure in being busy but others find the pleasure in not doing anything, sitting around doing nothing. Uncle Vanya has not done anything since the arrival of the professor and is totally bored of this. His life feels senseless for he does nothing and he doesn’t have the woman he loves.

Chekov through the doctor also talks about a common problem for humans, deforestation, the doctor is a forest and nature lover and through him we can see a sense of awareness. The doctor relates the forests to life for he says that: "if you’re lost in a dark forest and see a light you will run for this light no matter what comes in your way." In life if you have real big problem and find a solution to it you will do anything you can to make this solution possible.

A simple but lonely life

A simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert is the story of a maid called Felicite that worked for Madame Aubain as a maid. She is a very sad and lonely person. She has never find real lasting love in her life and has no children. Throughout the story we can see Felicite love people and animals around her. But each of them, the ones she loves the most always end up dead.

Victor her Nephew and son to her sister was one of the persons Felicite loved the most. He was hired as a sailor and again this can be a way to show how people will just walk away or be dragged away even when the people that love them most will stay behind. Felicite is condemned to be alone and loveless. As Victor, the daughter of Madame Aulbain that she loved most Virginia was terribly ill and far away. She eventually died. Felicite tried to protect and be with those she loved, she would go every day to see Virginia when she was ill and far away. People normally do many things for love mostly when this love comes from a mother. Felicite felt a mother like love towards Virginia and when she died it was as if the meaning of her life had just passed away.

"For two, Felicite never left the corpse." (PG 13)

Felicite then received a parrot and called it Loulou. She loved this parrot so much, she saw it as a religious symbol. She lived for that parrot and would treat it as if it was his son. “Loulou, in her isolation, was almost a son, a lover.” (p. 14). This parrot is the most important symbol in the book, this parrot symbolizes the ignorance of Felicite, for she saw him as a religious symbol. When the parrot died, she had him stuffed and kept him in her room. She had several items in her room that reminded her to her past. She had clothes from Virginia, a gift Victor had given her and other similar items that will keep her sadness and misery with her forever.

Flaubert portrays a very superficial vision of life for there is no deep feeling in the story. Felicites life is rushed through in a couple of pages and everything happens so quickly that she doesn’t even realize how much she has lost.

Candide: chapters 1-5 A perfect Philosophy

In the beginning of this book, Candide is introduced to us but most importantly, he’s love towards Lady Cunégonde. Candide is kicked out of his house because of his love toward this lady and here is where he’s journey begins. Candide is totally poor until he reaches a tavern in which a person sees him and because of his height gives him money an food. "We´ll pay your share, and what’s more we shall not allow a man like you to go short on money." (PG 23). This is totally absurd, how come people just give away their money to Candide just because of his height?

Voltaire Mocks a lot of different aspects of life and society in this book, he starts up mocking the incredible riches that nobles had a long time ago. He describes Lady Cunégondes castle as the best place in "Westphalia" because "it has a door and a number of windows". Riches back in that time were counted imprecise metals such as gold. Around chapter four, Candide finds his old teacher and the best philosopher in Westphalia called Pangloss in the floor totally ruined and in the verge of death. How come the wisest of all the people in Westphalia is in such a state?

Candide seems to find people who help him everywhere he goes, after the first encounter with the men in the tavern who paid for his meal and gave him money; he finds an Anabaptist that helped him and Pangloss. This Anabaptist sailed away with them in a voyage in which their ship was attacked and everybody survived except for the Anabaptist who drowned to death. What is Candide future, will he find a new life or will he fight for his love?

The Crying of Lot 49: Was there really a mistery?

This last chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 was the total opposite to what I expected. The whole mystery about the tristero and W.A.S.T.E was really no mystery and the whole idea of a conspiracy was not present at all. There are many angles by which you can approach this novel but the whole idea of the trystero is not what it’s all about.

In this last chapter Oedipa is able to find the meaning of trystero which is many things: from the underground mail service (Waste) to the symbol of the silenced horn. This whole mystery doesn´t help her at all in her job as executor and there was really no mystery to Pierces life. Other than this there are many other important events in this chapter that show the satirical content of the novel.

Pynchon makes fun of the church saying: "what’s in the Vatican?" Asked Oedipa "a pornographic couriers tragedy"(Pg 125). He links the church with sexual themes when the members of the church have sex prohibited. The fact that he talks about a tragedy that is being held in the most important religious site of the world is very satiric. The tragedy itself is very strange for there is a lot of sex in it that doesn’t match the real text of the play.

The Crying of Lot 49: The world goes mad

Chapter five of this book is the longest and most confusing chapter of all. The beginning of the chapter is very strange but near the middle it gets very interesting. This is where the story gets more complicated and very strange events start to happen.

In one of this very interescting sections Pynchon talks about love as a very damaging addiction:

"The pin Im wearing means I´m a member of the IA. That´s Inamoraty Anonymous. An Inamorato is somebody in love. Thats the worst addiction of all." (Page 91)

The fact that tere is an association such as the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) to prevent people from falling in love is very interesting because the fact that someone is in love is normally seen as soething good and poetic. Everyone has fallen in love some time and there are many different ways that people might react to the feeling, but to the point of makingit an addiction is a very extreme case.The fact that these group of people have an enterprise against falling in love is very strange. I had never thought about love in a way in which it would be harmfull and addicting.

The way that this group of people supossedly help people is also very interesting, there is a phone nnumber, to which they call in order to get asistance.

"Nobody Knows anybody else´s name;just the number in case it gets so bad you cant handle it alone. We´re Isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." (Page 91)

The fact that a such impersonal way of helping each other is apllied regarding to such a supossedly delicate theme is very contradicting. The fact that you cant handle your love alone as itsays on the beggining of the quote is also important, because normally people would meditate on their love alone and think about what they should do by themselves. Most of th times beingin love isvery private and personal.

A second important part of this chapter is Oedipas meeting with doctor Hilarius, Oedipa has just spent a heavy night in San Francisco in which the symbol ifthe tryatero has appeared a number of times and she thinks shes starting to become obssesed and even crazy about it. When she gets to Hilarious office she realizes he has gone crazy.

"What´s happening?" Oedipa said. "He´s gone crazy. I tried to talk to the police,but he took a chair andsmashed the switch board with it." (Page 108)

Oedipas psichiatrist doctor Hilarious has gone crazy, this is ery ironic for he is supossed to helpthose that are becoming crazy or are crazy allready. also the fat that one of his assistants stayed becaue "He might need somebody" (page 108) is very ironic because he is the one that is supossed to be there when others need somebody. Thats exactly the reason why Oedipa whent to him that night, because she needed somebody to talk to and somebody who knew if she was becoming crazy.

Pynchon also talks about how people become crazy and start shooting at others, like the many examples of kids that have gone crazy and started shooting at schools or universities.

"Well hes shot at half a dozen people," replied nurse Blamm, leading Oedipa down a corridor to her office." (Page 108)

Doctor Hilarius thinks hes being followed, so he shoots at anyone he sees, he doesnt care if it is a patient or even the police. He is in a state of paranoia, where he thinks that everyone is against him. In this same scene Pynchon makes fun of the ridiculous amount of stupid questions that policemen do when invesstigatingor dealing with any sort of situation and how the media is always inside the most dangerous places.

"Who are you, lady". She told him. "how do you spell that first name?" He also took down her adress, age, phone number, next of kin, husands occupation, for the news media" (page 111)

Pynchon shows how the cops cooperate with the media in order to get as most information as possible to the people, when most of the times what we see is cops fighting of reporters that are triying to find out what happened. In this case its totally different: "Tv folks would like to get soe footage through the window. Could you keep him occupied?" (Page 112) The cops give media priority and instead of triying to get this crazy man to stop shooting, they whant to have some records and show the people through media what he is doing.