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Mood
Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Act 1
Explanation and Analysis—Tea:
The housekeeper Marina, who many of the characters address as Nyanya, is closely associated with tea. When she appears, tea often does too. This motif comes to be linked with the tension and helplessness that many of the characters feel throughout the play. Making or serving tea is a way for her to relieve tension and show care. Many of the characters seem desperately in need of care, but no one seems to know how to help each other. In the position of nurse and housekeeper, she is the character whose role is most explicitly related to caretaking.
In fact, Uncle Vanya opens with a tea scene. The play's first action consists of her pouring Astrov a glass of tea, and the first line consists of her offering it to him. When he says he doesn't want any, she immediately proposes vodka. He defensively says he doesn't drink vodka every day. This opens up a nostalgic conversation in which Astrov looks back on their relationship and, eventually, his childhood, in which he had a nyanya like her. Even though Astrov declined Marina's tea offer, the offer paves the way for a tender moment in which Astrov shares profound, disillusioned thoughts on the passage of time and the state of the world. She mostly listens to what he says but eventually offers him something to eat. Chekhov mirrors this interaction, when she once again offers him tea at the end of the fourth act. This second time, he accepts vodka instead.
At the start of the second act many of the characters are up late, and the mood is tense between Voynitsky and Serebryakov. When Marina appears on stage, she immediately shows care for the Professor and uses tea as a way to entice him to go to bed: "I’ll make you some lime tea and warm up your feet… I’ll say a prayer to God for you…" No one expresses compassion for Serebryakov in the play, except for Marina, who recognizes that "no one is sorry for the old," even if they are "like children" and just "want someone to be sorry for them."
In the third act, she offers Sonya tea when a heated argument between Voynitsky and Serebryakov upsets her:
You’re shivering like when there’s a frost. There, there, my motherless child, God is merciful. Some lime or raspberry tea, and it’ll go…
For Marina, offering or drinking tea is something actionable to do in a stifling, tense household of people who spend a lot of time discussing their boredom and dejection. Because she is low on the social hierarchy, this seems to be the only contribution within Marina's power to make when the people around her seem upset. Tea gives her a sense of agency, providing her something to talk about and do with her hands.
The male characters associate women with tea. In the first act, Voynitsky uses tea to silence Mariya, his mother:
VOYNITSKY: There’s nothing disgraceful about it. Drink your tea, Maman.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA: But I want to talk!
Voynitsky's order to his mother reinforces the underlying idea in the play that old age relegates women to the fringes of public life. Whereas the male characters Serebryakov, Astrov, and Voynitsky explicitly reflect on aging in the dialogue, the lines spoken to Mariya give an idea of what aging means for aristocratic women, and the actions of Marina show what it means for domestic workers. The play's older women are expected to show care for others and keep their opinions to themselves. For Marina especially, in the role of housekeeper, this means serving other people tea.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Astrov's Anthropocene:
Toward the end of the first act, Astrov makes a long, impassioned speech in which he uses vivid imagery and pathos to persuade the other characters of the importance of conserving nature. The speech is sparked by Voynitsky's teasing comment that Astrov can't stop him from using wood for fuel and construction. Related to the symbol of forestry, Astrov's reflection on the senseless ecological destruction at the hands of humans becomes a motif in the play:
The forests of Russia are being wiped out by the axe, thousands of millions of trees are dying, the homes of animals and birds are being laid waste, river levels are dropping and drying up, wonderful scenery vanishes for ever, and all because lazy man hasn’t the sense to bend down and pick up fuel from the ground.
Astrov employs pathos to appeal to his listeners' emotions throughout the speech. He personifies the axe as well as the trees and animals, asserting that the latter have no chance against the deforestation caused by the former. Not only are trees dying and the homes of animals being destroyed, but the scenery that humans cherish is disappearing. However, it isn't really the personified axe that is to blame. Astrov eventually brings in the root cause of this widespread devastation: human laziness.
Lamenting the consequences of industrialization, Astrov critiques the idea that humans have the right to treat the earth however they please. Later in his speech, he touches on the irony that "man is endowed with reason and creative power in order to increase what he is given, but hitherto he has not created but destroyed." It is all because of humans that "every day the earth is becoming poorer and uglier."
Towards the end of his speech, Astrov comments on the skeptical facial expressions of the other characters. He defends his perspective with a final boost of pathos.
[...] but when I go past the peasants’ woods, which I saved from destruction, or when I hear the hum of my young trees, which I planted with my own hands, I know the climate is a little in my control and that if in a thousand years man is happy, the responsibility for that will in a small way be mine.
In certain ways, Astrov's pathos-filled speech is surprising. Other moments in the play characterize him as an exhausted, disillusioned doctor with a potential drinking problem. However, unlike Voynitsky and other dejected characters, Astrov has a cause that gives him purpose and hope. Seeking to make the planet livable for future generations, he watches the birches he plants and his "spirit fills with pride." The other characters don't seem to care much, but what is most important to him is that caring for the earth is a straightforward, actionable way to care for other people. Whereas Serebryakov and Voynitsky worry about the legacy of their achievements, Astrov sees his legacy as a way to make the earth more livable for future generations.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Dinner Time:
Throughout the play, various characters comment on the time at which they eat dinner and on the contents of the meal itself. For Marina especially, this time becomes a way to evaluate whether “everything” is in "its proper order." The motif of dinner time expresses the characters' longing for simplicity. Serebryakov and Yelena stand in the way of their modest meals and regular routines.
Early in the first act, Voynitsky complains that the appearance of Serebryakov and Yelena has thrown his life schedule off track:
Ever since the Professor came to live here with his wife, my life has left its track… I go to sleep at the wrong time, for lunch and dinner I eat all kinds of rich dishes, I drink wine – that’s all unhealthy.
Marina picks up where Voynitsky leaves off, expressing shock over their lifestyle.
What a way to live! [...] Before they came we always had dinner before one o’clock, like people everywhere else, but with them here it’s after six.
For many modern readers, dinner would tend to mean the large meal one eats in the evening. However, different cultures eat the main meal of the day at different times; some eat it in the middle of the day, others at the end of the day. Historically, the meal people called dinner would be eaten around midday. It seems that Serebryakov has brought the custom of eating the main meal in the evening with him from the city. This perturbs the other country-dwelling characters, who are used to eating dinner earlier in the day.
Sonya also comments on this change in their schedule in the first act. When she invites Astrov to eat with them, she tells him that "We dine now after six." Though subtle, Chekhov uses this comment to reinforce the sense that the more permanent members of the household find it difficult to get used to their new, exotic dinner time.
When Serebryakov and Yelena prepare to depart at the start of the fourth act, Marina again expresses her longing for their former, plain lifestyle:
We’ll live again as we used to, in the old days. Tea at eight in the morning, dinner at one, sitting down to supper in the evening; everything in its proper order, just as people do it… Christian people.
Marina associates a midday dinner with propriety and morality. In her view, being an upstanding Christian person comes down not solely to faith but also to customs and routines. Through this dinner-time motif, Chekhov emphasizes the difference in lifestyle and views between those who have lived at the estate all along and the city-dwelling Serebryakov and Yelena. When they show up and change the routine, it is difficult for the other characters to adjust. Until the Professor and his wife leave for the city again, they all yearn for the calm order that used to structure their life.
Related Themes:
Act 3
Explanation and Analysis—Tea:
The housekeeper Marina, who many of the characters address as Nyanya, is closely associated with tea. When she appears, tea often does too. This motif comes to be linked with the tension and helplessness that many of the characters feel throughout the play. Making or serving tea is a way for her to relieve tension and show care. Many of the characters seem desperately in need of care, but no one seems to know how to help each other. In the position of nurse and housekeeper, she is the character whose role is most explicitly related to caretaking.
In fact, Uncle Vanya opens with a tea scene. The play's first action consists of her pouring Astrov a glass of tea, and the first line consists of her offering it to him. When he says he doesn't want any, she immediately proposes vodka. He defensively says he doesn't drink vodka every day. This opens up a nostalgic conversation in which Astrov looks back on their relationship and, eventually, his childhood, in which he had a nyanya like her. Even though Astrov declined Marina's tea offer, the offer paves the way for a tender moment in which Astrov shares profound, disillusioned thoughts on the passage of time and the state of the world. She mostly listens to what he says but eventually offers him something to eat. Chekhov mirrors this interaction, when she once again offers him tea at the end of the fourth act. This second time, he accepts vodka instead.
At the start of the second act many of the characters are up late, and the mood is tense between Voynitsky and Serebryakov. When Marina appears on stage, she immediately shows care for the Professor and uses tea as a way to entice him to go to bed: "I’ll make you some lime tea and warm up your feet… I’ll say a prayer to God for you…" No one expresses compassion for Serebryakov in the play, except for Marina, who recognizes that "no one is sorry for the old," even if they are "like children" and just "want someone to be sorry for them."
In the third act, she offers Sonya tea when a heated argument between Voynitsky and Serebryakov upsets her:
You’re shivering like when there’s a frost. There, there, my motherless child, God is merciful. Some lime or raspberry tea, and it’ll go…
For Marina, offering or drinking tea is something actionable to do in a stifling, tense household of people who spend a lot of time discussing their boredom and dejection. Because she is low on the social hierarchy, this seems to be the only contribution within Marina's power to make when the people around her seem upset. Tea gives her a sense of agency, providing her something to talk about and do with her hands.
The male characters associate women with tea. In the first act, Voynitsky uses tea to silence Mariya, his mother:
VOYNITSKY: There’s nothing disgraceful about it. Drink your tea, Maman.
MARIYA VASILYEVNA: But I want to talk!
Voynitsky's order to his mother reinforces the underlying idea in the play that old age relegates women to the fringes of public life. Whereas the male characters Serebryakov, Astrov, and Voynitsky explicitly reflect on aging in the dialogue, the lines spoken to Mariya give an idea of what aging means for aristocratic women, and the actions of Marina show what it means for domestic workers. The play's older women are expected to show care for others and keep their opinions to themselves. For Marina especially, in the role of housekeeper, this means serving other people tea.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sick Boredom:
At multiple points in the play, characters accuse Yelena for infecting others with her idleness and boredom. In these instances, Chekhov uses a metaphor to liken boredom to a disease. Even Yelena herself suggests that her boredom has a fatal effect when she says in the start of the third act that she is "dying of boredom" and doesn't "know what to do." In response to Yelena, Sonya sustains the metaphor comparing boredom to a disease:
You’re bored, you can’t find a role for yourself, and boredom and inactivity are infectious.
To substantiate her claim that Yelena's boredom is infectious, Sonya brings up three examples of the way in which her appearance at the estate has interrupted the way the people in the household operate. First, "Uncle Vanya does nothing and just follows you round like a shadow." Combining the overarching disease metaphor with a simile, Sonya suggests that Yelena's idle presence empties Voynitsky of his vitality. Second, she says that she herself has been infected by Yelena: "I’ve left my work and come running to you to talk. I’ve got lazy, I can’t do it!" Usually busy and hardworking, Sonya finds she has changed since Yelena showed up at the estate. Like a disease would, Yelena has interrupted the work flow and energy that Sonya used to inform her sense of self. Finally, the disease has even spread to Astrov, the doctor, who used to pay infrequent visits but now "drives over here every day," leaving "his woods and his practice."
The metaphor of boredom as a disease is reinforced as a motif towards the end of the final act, when Astrov tells Yelena the same thing that Sonya told her in the previous act. He explains that as soon as she and Serebryakov appeared at the estate, everyone "who was busily working here and creating something had to drop what they were doing." To sum up the effect they had on the other characters, he tells her that the two of them "infected all of us with your idleness."
The metaphor acquires particular force when it comes from a doctor whose time largely goes to attempting to cure local peasants and workers from sickness. At the very start of the play, in fact, he tells Marina a gripping story about failing to save a patient from typhus. He's well-acquainted with real, non-metaphorical diseases, and likens their destructive effect to that of the couple's affluent inaction. Like a walking epidemic, Yelena and her husband "bring destruction" wherever they "tread."
Related Themes:
Act 4
Explanation and Analysis—Dinner Time:
Throughout the play, various characters comment on the time at which they eat dinner and on the contents of the meal itself. For Marina especially, this time becomes a way to evaluate whether “everything” is in "its proper order." The motif of dinner time expresses the characters' longing for simplicity. Serebryakov and Yelena stand in the way of their modest meals and regular routines.
Early in the first act, Voynitsky complains that the appearance of Serebryakov and Yelena has thrown his life schedule off track:
Ever since the Professor came to live here with his wife, my life has left its track… I go to sleep at the wrong time, for lunch and dinner I eat all kinds of rich dishes, I drink wine – that’s all unhealthy.
Marina picks up where Voynitsky leaves off, expressing shock over their lifestyle.
What a way to live! [...] Before they came we always had dinner before one o’clock, like people everywhere else, but with them here it’s after six.
For many modern readers, dinner would tend to mean the large meal one eats in the evening. However, different cultures eat the main meal of the day at different times; some eat it in the middle of the day, others at the end of the day. Historically, the meal people called dinner would be eaten around midday. It seems that Serebryakov has brought the custom of eating the main meal in the evening with him from the city. This perturbs the other country-dwelling characters, who are used to eating dinner earlier in the day.
Sonya also comments on this change in their schedule in the first act. When she invites Astrov to eat with them, she tells him that "We dine now after six." Though subtle, Chekhov uses this comment to reinforce the sense that the more permanent members of the household find it difficult to get used to their new, exotic dinner time.
When Serebryakov and Yelena prepare to depart at the start of the fourth act, Marina again expresses her longing for their former, plain lifestyle:
We’ll live again as we used to, in the old days. Tea at eight in the morning, dinner at one, sitting down to supper in the evening; everything in its proper order, just as people do it… Christian people.
Marina associates a midday dinner with propriety and morality. In her view, being an upstanding Christian person comes down not solely to faith but also to customs and routines. Through this dinner-time motif, Chekhov emphasizes the difference in lifestyle and views between those who have lived at the estate all along and the city-dwelling Serebryakov and Yelena. When they show up and change the routine, it is difficult for the other characters to adjust. Until the Professor and his wife leave for the city again, they all yearn for the calm order that used to structure their life.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Normal Eccentricity:
In the play's expositional conversation between Astrov and Marina, Astrov tells her that he has become an eccentric on account of the eccentric people around him. In the fourth act, he again brings up eccentricity, but this time to describe Voynitsky. Imbuing the motif with paradox, he tells Voynitsky that being an eccentric is normal:
You aren’t mad but simply an eccentric. A buffoon. I used to consider all eccentrics sick, abnormal, but I’m now of the opinion that the normal condition of man is to be eccentric. You’re quite normal.
People usually use the word "eccentric" to refer to those who behave in an unconventional or odd way. Consequently, the word by definition means the opposite of normal. Nevertheless, Astrov concludes in his conversation with Voynitsky that most people are eccentric—that it is more normal than being ordinary.
Through this paradox, Astrov makes a comment on the play's characters. In his view, they and the other people surrounding him in his daily life are difficult to understand. He finds it much rarer to fully comprehend the people he encounters than to struggle to make sense of their behavior. And even if he states that eccentricity is rather universal, Astrov's comment to Voynitsky does come with a certain degree of disdain. The other word he proposes, "buffoon," has a negative connotation. Buffoons may make people laugh, but their behavior is ridiculous.
This relates to the comment he makes early in the play, when he says it is an "unavoidable fate" to gradually become an eccentric yourself when "you're surrounded by eccentrics, nothing but eccentrics, and you live with them two or three years." In this way, eccentricity is a sort of infectious disease that unavoidably spreads between people. Eccentricity is also negatively loaded in this early conversation with Marina, as Astrov relates it to the "boring, stupid, dirty" nature of life, which "drags one down." He may be normalizing eccentricity, but it nevertheless bothers him.
Related Themes:
