The Seagull: Act 2 Summary & Analysis

Later in the week, Arkadina, Dorn, and Masha are together on the croquet lawn at midday. It is bright and hot outside. Dorn is reading aloud from a book, and Arkadina and Masha are standing side-by-side. Arkadina asks Dorn to tell her who is younger—her or the twenty-two-year-old Masha. Dorn says Arkadina is younger. Arkadina says that though she’s “nearly twice” Masha’s age, she is “constantly on the go” while Masha sits languidly in the same place. Masha admits that she feels old: like she is lugging her life around “like a dead weight.” Arkadina urges Masha to take better care of herself and invest more in her appearance.

Arkadina picks up the book Sorin has been reading and begins reciting from its pages aloud. The passage she reads concerns “people in society […] pamper[ing] novelists,” and advises against “loving them” and “flattering” them. Arkadina stops reading, and insists that her situation with Trigorin is different from what the passage describes—she was “head over heels” in love with him before she began wooing him.

Sorin, Nina, and Medvedenko come down to the croquet field. Sorin excitedly announces that Nina’s father and stepmother are out of town—Nina is free for three whole days. Nina, ecstatic, embraces Arkadina and tells her she’s all hers. Nina asks what Arkadina is reading. Arkadina replies that it’s a book by Guy du Maupassant—but it is “uninteresting and untrue.”

Arkadina asks where Treplyov is and why he’s so “surly” lately and spends all his time down at the lake. Masha answers that he is “sick at heart” before asking Nina to recite something from his play. Nina asks why Masha would want her to do so—Treplyov’s play, she says, was “so uninteresting.” Masha, however, excitedly states that she believes Treplyov is a great poet.

Arkadina shakes Sorin awake—he has been snoring—and chides him for not taking better care of himself or seeking help from Dorn. Dorn says that he doesn’t prescribe treatments for patients as old as Sorin. Medvedenko suggests Sorin stop smoking, but Sorin calls the idea “rubbish.” Medvedenko says that alcohol and tobacco turn people into “fuzzy” versions of themselves, but Sorin says that after working in the Department of Justice for twenty-eight long years, he deserves to fill his retirement with some enjoyment. Masha heads up to the house for lunch, and as she goes, Sorin remarks that Masha is someone who has known “no happiness in her life.” 

Arkadina remarks how “boring” it is in the rural countryside. She’s sick of everyone philosophizing, and would rather be in a posh hotel room somewhere learning lines for a play. Nina “rapturously” longs for the glamorous city life Arkadina describes.

Shamraev and Polina come down to the lawn. Arkadina suggests she and Polina go into town for a while, but Shamraev says that because today is the day the rye is being carted to town, there won’t be horses for them. Arkadina is incensed, and says that if there are no horses, she’ll return to Moscow immediately. Shamraev blusteringly states that he’s resigning from his position as overseer and storms back up to the house. Arkadina vows to never set foot on her brother’s estate again and heads up, too—Trigorin, coming up from the lake, follows her across the lawn.

Nina chides Polina for refusing to give the “famous actress” Arkadina a horse to take into town, but Polina says there’s nothing she can do—there are simply no free horses. Sorin asks Nina and Medvedenko to come up to the house with him to try to change Arkadina’s mind. Dorn and Polina stay behind.

Polina tells Dorn that Shamraev’s “crudeness” and his penchant for squabbling with guests is making her feel “ill.” She begs Dorn to take her away from her life so that they can be together at last—Dorn, however, says that, at fifty-five, he’s too old to change the course of his life. Polina accuses him of rejecting her because he wants to chase other women—she says she’s “sick with jealousy.”

Nina walks by picking flowers on the lawn—Dorn asks her how things are going inside. Nina reports that Arkadina is crying and Sorin is having an asthma attack. Dorn stands up to head inside so that he can give them both some calming valerian, and Nina urges him to take the flowers in to them. Polina follows him, ripping the flowers from his hands and tearing them up as they near the house and get out of Nina’s line of sight.

Alone on the lawn, Nina remarks how odd the behavior of these bohemian people is—it’s strange, she thinks, to see “a famous actress crying, and over such a trivial matter,” while her paramour, a “best-selling author,” spends his whole days down at the lake by himself. Nina admits that she always thought that famous people were “proud” and “inaccessible,” but now sees that they are, more or less, just like “anybody else.”

Treplyov approaches Nina, “carrying a rifle and a slain gull.” After confirming that Nina is alone, he sets the gull down at her feet. Nina asks him what it means—Treplyov doesn’t answer, but says only that he killed the gull and now wants to lay it at her feet. Nina asks Treplyov what’s wrong with him. He tells her that he’ll soon kill himself “the very same way” he killed the gull. Nina tells Treplyov that she doesn’t recognize who he is anymore—he’s always talking in codes and symbols lately, but though she recognizes the gull as one of his symbols, she’s “too ordinary” to understand him.

Treplyov says he believes Nina stopped loving him the night of his “fiasco” of a play—he can’t stand her sudden coldness towards him, and he is distressed over the idea that she sees him as “a mediocrity.” As Treplyov sees Trigorin approaching with a notebook in hand, he tells Nina that he knows she thinks Trigorin is the “real genius.” Treplyov hurriedly runs off.

Trigorin approaches, absentmindedly making notes in his notebook as he mutters aloud to himself—it becomes clear that he is writing a character sketch of Masha. Nina greets Trigorin excitedly. He looks up from his notebook and tells her that he and Arkadina are leaving today—he plainly states that he and Nina will probably “never see one another again.” He laments that he so rarely gets to “meet young girls” like her and hear the interesting things they have to say. He says he wishes he could be in Nina’s shoes and be young again—Nina retorts that she wishes she could be in his and could know what it feels like to be famous.

Trigorin says that no matter how much praise he receives, it’s never enough—but Nina can’t stop waxing poetic about what it must be like to live a “brilliant, meaningful” life full of art, beauty, and fame. Trigorin tells Nina that she’s upsetting him—he decides to tell her the truth about his “beautiful, brilliant life.” He laments that he is obsessive about his craft to the point of ignoring real life. Everything, he says, is just fodder for his stories. He is so determined to make good art and surpass his previous attempts that he cannibalizes his own friendships, interactions, and feelings for his work—he “know[s] no peace,” and never feels anything he writes is good enough in spite of the unceasing effort he puts in. 

Nina asks if the moments in which Trigorin experiences inspiration—or even the moments in which he’s just writing—are happy ones. Trigorin admits that writing is “nice enough,” but as soon as his work is published, he begins to find errors and things he wishes he could revise. Reviews always compare him to great writers like Tolstoy and Turgenev, and he fears he’ll never be as truly good as they are. He is never satisfied with himself, he says, and worries that his writing isn’t even fulfilling a “social” obligation to the world around him. He feels like a “phony” all the time. 

Nina tells Trigorin that he’s working himself too hard—and that even if he’s disappointed in himself, there are many others who regard his work as beautiful and important. Nina says that if she could live as a writer or an actress, she’d sacrifice everything—her family, money, personal happiness. She’d be fine with personal dissatisfaction, she says, if only she could be famous.

Arkadina’s voice rings out across the lawn, calling Trigorin in. Trigorin says he wishes he could stay in the country a little while longer. Looking out across the lawn, he spots the dead gull on the ground and asks what it’s doing there. Nina replies that Treplyov killed it. Trigorin takes out his notebook and jots down an idea for a short story about a girl who grows up on the shores of a beautiful lake, “happy and free, like a gull”—until a man comes along and “destroys her" simply because he has nothing better to do.

Arkadina calls for Trigorin again—but shouts out to him that they’re going to stay after all. Trigorin heads into the house to talk to Arkadina. Nina, alone again, cries out: “It’s a dream!”