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.