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?