SYNOPSIS

The Three Sisters is the third of Anton Chekhovs four major plays, and maybe the most perfect expression of his
artistic genius. It chronicles three and a half years in the falling fortunes of the four children of a recently
deceased Colonel in the Russian army: sweet Irina, the youngest and most impressionable; tempestuous Masha,
who is trapped in a loveless marriage; practical Olga, who has resigned herself to spinsterhood; and their brother
Andrei, whose ill-advised romance and compulsive gambling wreaks havoc on the family finances and eventually
forces them out of their home. Weary of their small-town surroundings, the Prozorovs long to return to Moscow,
the bustling metropolis they left eleven years ago. Unfortunately, ground down by disappointment, debt, and the
oppressive ordinariness of their daily lives, theyre never able to get there. Ten other vivid characters round out
the cast -- including a coterie of soldiers whose arrival in town in the first act is a cause for celebration and whose
departure in the final act is a cause for dismay. Despite Chekhovs undeserved reputation for avoiding intense
drama, The Three Sisters is packed with action and emotion, including two tumultuous affairs, a fire that
devastates the nearby town, and a duel that ends in the death of a major character.

CHARACTERS
The Prozorovs
Olga Sergeyevna Prozorova (Olga) The eldest of the three sisters, she is the matriarchal figure of the Prozorov
family though at the beginning of the play she is only 28 years old. Olga is a teacher at the high school, where she
frequently fills in for the headmistress whenever the latter is absent. Olga is a spinster and at one point tells Irina
that she would have married "any man, even an old man if he had asked" her. Olga is very motherly even to the
elderly servants, keeping on the elderly nurse/retainer Anfisa, long after she has ceased to be useful. When Olga
reluctantly takes the role of headmistress permanently, she takes Anfisa with her to escape the clutches of the
heartless Natasha.
Maria Sergeyevna Kulygina (Masha) The middle sister, she is 23 at the beginning of the play. She married her
husband, Kulygin, when she was 18 and just out of school. When the play opens she has been disappointed in the
marriage and falls completely in love with the idealistic Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin. They begin a clandestine
affair. When he is transferred away, she is crushed, but returns to life with her husband, who accepts her back
despite knowing what she has done. She has a short temper, which is seen frequently throughout the play, and is
the sister who disapproves the most of Natasha. Onstage, her directness often serves as a tonic to the
melodrama, and her wit comes across as heroic. Her vitality provides most of the play's surprisingly plentiful
humour. She was trained as a concert pianist.
Irina Sergeyevna Prozorova The youngest sister, she is 20 at the beginning of the play. It is her "name day" at
the beginning of the play and though she insists she is grown-up she is still enchanted by things such as a spinning
top brought to her by Fedotik. Her only desire is to go back to Moscow, which they left eleven years before the
play begins. She believes she will find her true love in Moscow, but when it becomes clear that they are not going
to Moscow, she agrees to marry the Baron Tuzenbach, whom she admires but does not love. She gets her
teaching degree and plans to leave with the Baron, but he is shot by Solyony in a pointless duel. She decides to
leave anyway and dedicate her life to work and service.
Andrei Sergeyevich Prozorov (Andrey) The brother of the three sisters. In Act I, he is a young man on the fast
track to being a Professor in Moscow. In Act II, Andrei still longs for his old days as a bachelor dreaming of life in
Moscow, but is now, due to his ill-conceived wedding to Natasha, stuck in a provincial town with a baby and a job
as secretary to the County Council. In Act III, his debts have grown to 35,000 rubles and he is forced to mortgage
the house, but does not tell his sisters or give them any shares in the family home. Act IV finds Andrei a pathetic
shell of his former self, now the father of two. He acknowledges he is a failure and laughed at in town for being a
member of the village council whose president, Protopopov, is cuckolding him.
Natalia Ivanovna (Natasha) Andrei's love interest at the start of the play, later his wife. She begins the play as
an awkward young woman who dresses poorly and hides her true nature. Much fun is made of her ill-becoming
green sash by the sisters, and she bursts into tears. She apparently has no family of her own and the reader never
learns her maiden name. Act II finds a very different Natasha. She has grown bossy and uses her relationship with
Andrei as a way of manipulating the sisters into doing what she wants. She has begun an affair with Protopopov,
the head of the local council (who is never seen), and cuckolds Andrei almost flagrantly. In Act III, she has become
even more controlling, confronting Olga head on about keeping on Anfisa, the elderly, loyal retainer, whom she
orders to stand in her presence, and throwing temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Act IV finds that
she has inherited control of the house from her weak, vacillating husband, leaving the sisters dependent on her,
and, as the chtelaine, planning to radically change the grounds to her liking. It is arguable that the vicious,
manipulative, self-absorbed Natasha, who cares for no one besides her own children, Bobik and Sofia, upon
whom she dotes fatuously, is the complete victor by the end of the play.
Fyodor Ilyich Kulygin Masha's older husband and the Latin teacher at the high school. Kulygin is a jovial, kindly
man, who truly loves his wife, and her sisters, although he is very much aware of her infidelity. In the first act he
seems almost foolish, giving Irina a gift he has already given her, and joking around with the doctor to make fun of
Natasha, but begins to grow more and more sympathetic as Masha's affair progresses. During the fire in Act 3, he
confesses to Olga that he might have married her the fact that the two would probably be very happy together
is hinted at many times throughout the show. Throughout the show, often at the most serious moments, he often
tries to make the other characters laugh in order to relieve tension, and while that doesn't always work, he is able
to give his wife comfort through humor in her darkest hour at the show's climax. At the end of the play, although
knowing what Masha had been doing, he takes her back and accepts her failings.

The Soldiers
Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin Lieutenant colonel commanding the artillery battery, Vershinin is a true
philosopher. He knew the girls' father in Moscow and they talk about how when they were little they called him
the "Lovesick Major". In the course of the play, despite being married, he enters into an affair with Masha but
must end it when the battery is transferred. He frequently mentions how his wife regularly attempts suicide (and
he has two daughters), but he seems to have become inured to his domestic suffering. His first act speech about
the hope he has for civilization speaks directly to Masha's melancholic heart, and, upon hearing it, she declares
"I'm staying for lunch."
Baron Nikolaj Lvovich Tuzenbach A lieutenant in the army and not deemed handsome, Tuzenbach often tries to
impress Irina, whom he has loved for five years. He quits the Army to go to work in an attempt to impress her. He
is repeatedly taunted by Solyony and between Acts III and IV, he retaliates and prompts Solyony to declare a duel.
He is killed in the duel, thus his and Irina's union is forlorn.
Staff Captain Vassily Vasilyevich Solyony A captain in the army, Solyony is a social misfit and a rather modern
type of antihero. He is in love with Irina and tries to put down the Baron to make himself look better, but Irina
finds him crude and unappealing. He spends much of his time mocking the Baron, who is the closest thing he has
to a friend, and ends up killing him in a pointless duel. He is said to have a remarkable resemblance to the poet
Lermontov in both face and personality, often quoting him. He always carries a small perfume bottle which he
frequently (almost pathologically) sprinkles his hands and body with; it is later revealed that he does it to mask
the smell of corpses on him.
Ivan Romanovich Chebutykin Sixty years old and an army doctor, Chebutykin starts off as a fun, eccentric old
man who exults in his place as family friend and lavishes upon Irina the expensive gift of a samovar. Later on in
Act III, while drunk, he suffers an existential crisis and reveals to all about Natasha's and Protopopov's affair. In
Act IV however, he seems to have come to terms with his crisis or perhaps been broken by it. He loved the
mother of the sisters (whose name is never mentioned) but she was married.
Aleksej Petrovich Fedotik A sub-lieutenant, Fedotik hangs around the house and tries to express his love to Irina
by buying her many gifts. He also is an amateur photographer, and takes photos of the group and Irina. In Act III,
he loses all his belongings in the fire, but retains his cheerful nature.
Vladimir Karlovich Rode Another sub-lieutenant, Rode is a drill coach at the high school.

Others
Ferapont Door-keeper at the local council offices, Ferapont is an old man with a partial hearing loss.
Anfisa An elderly family retainer and former nurse, Anfisa is 81 years old and has worked forever for the
Prozorov family.
SUMMARY
Three Sisters mainly follows the story ofwait for itthree sisters: Olga, Masha, and Irina Prozorov. They live
with their brother, Andrey, in a big house on the edge of a small Russian town. The townspeople are kinda
backward and boring compared to their educated and culture-lovin' family, so this set of sibs is not too fond of
the town to begin with.

Believe it or not, the only halfway interesting people around are the guys in the military. Basically, the Prozorov
kids are worldly, well-educated army brats. And being in the army in Tsarist Russia pretty much meant you were
in with the aristocracy and, once you got through the fighting stuff, probably developed a taste for the finer things
in life. So ever since the family moved from Moscow eleven years prior (with their father, now dead), the sisters
have obsessed over the dream of moving back to the big city.

But guess what? It's not happening. Olga, the eldest, is a spinster schoolteacher and eventually becomes a
headmistress living with her elderly maid. Masha, the middle sister, is married to another schoolteacher, Kulygin,
whom she despises for his small-mindedness. She has an affair with the officer Vershinin because he's given to
just the sort of philosophizing that really starts her engines. And guess what happens: the affair ends in
heartbreak.

Poor Irina, the youngest, has fanciful ideas about the value of work, but soon realizes that, in reality, work sucks
the life out of her. She's also in love with the idea of love, but doesn't get to experience it. Finally she comes
around to saying "yes" to Baron Tuzenbach, a friendly but ugly man who's been after her for years. On the day
they're leaving to get married, he gets shot in a duel

Andrey, the brother, gives up his intellectual dreams to pursue a town girl, Natasha. They marry, have kids, and
little by little she takes over the estate. At the end of the play, the upper-class Prozorovs are pretty much evicted
from their own house, while Natasha, a symbol of the working class, is on the rise. Allegory, much? For anyone
not already reaching for the history books, this was just a few years before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917and
you better believe smart Ruskies like Chekhov could already sense some storms on the horizon.

THEMES
DISSATISFACTION
You can't always get what you want in Three Sisters. It would be like a Stones song, except when we think about it
more, you actually can't ever get what you want. The sisters want to return to Moscow: no dice. Irina wants to fall
in love: nope. OK, she'll settle for a convenient marriage to a nice guy: sorry, baby, not happenin'.
In Chekhov's play, it's all about the wanting, not the gettingthe constant dissatisfaction that's a big part of life.
As the philosophizing commander Vershinin sums it up: "We're never happy. We can never be happy. We only
want to be happy" (2.112).

DREAMS, HOPES, AND PLANS

Characters in The Three Sisters spend a good bit of time dreaming and scheming about how to make tomorrow
better than today, usually for themselves but sometimes for the whole of humanity (good for them!). The sisters
long to return to Moscow, which, in this play, is a distant Shangri-la full of fun and excitement, not to mention
smarter, better-looking men. Among many of the characters, there seems to be an agreement that while their
own lives may be a bit lackluster, they must keep working to secure a better future for the generations to come.

ISOLATION
The house in The Three Sisters is fifteen miles from the railway station. It's situated in a little town so sleepy, and
with inhabitants so dull, that the cosmopolitan sisters might as well be on a desert island. Only a few military men
are around to party, chat it up, and serve as potential suitors. A good bit of solitaire is played in the house, along
with other one-person activities such as reading, playing piano, grading papers, and translating books.
But that's not all. The characters are emotionally isolated too, incapable of enjoying almost any company that
happens to be around. They're always longing to be somewhere else. Combine the emotional and geographic
isolation and you have a recipe for some serious ennui (pronounced uhn-wee). That's deep, existential boredom
with a capital UGH.

LOVE
Love is a big motivator in Chekhov. Everybody wants it (they are human beings, after all). Whether it's desire for
romance, a need for respect from one's family, the satisfaction of a child's attachment, or comfort in old age
The Three Sisters is all about gettin' the love.
In the end, the most steadfast and least volatile love is between the three sisters. They have arguments and
rivalries, sure, but they stand by each other through all of it: affairs, deaths, disappointments. In this little town,
familial love beats out the steamy kind, and it does it with a vengeance.

MARRIAGE
Here's the math: marriage = misery as far as The Three Sisters is concerned. Bio note: when he wrote the play,
Chekhov hadn't bit that bullet yetthough he would soon after with the actress who played Masha.
Middle sister Masha despises her schoolteacher bore of a husband. She has a pretty flagrant affair with an
intelligent older officer who also happens to be unhappily married. Brother Andrey and his trashy bride, Natasha,
soon stop loving each other, and Natasha carries on an even more flagrant affair with one of Andrey's colleagues.
So marriage is confirmed as miserablebut the two unmarried sisters (and a few of the men) nevertheless can't
wait to get hitched, or regret that they never did. It all ties back to the no-love-to-be-had thing, at least in this
little town.

TIME
Time flies when you're bored and lonely in a big house in a small town in the middle of the Russian countryside.
Except when we said "flies," we meant "crawls." There's a strong sense of life getting away from these characters
as they pursue all sorts of self-delusions and distractions in the realm of love and work.
At one point, the doctor even tries smashing the heirloom clock in Act III, but, big shocker, that doesn't stop the
minutes, hours, and even years from passing far too quickly. We watch the three sisters come to terms with aging
as their lives progress not exactly as they might wish.

SOCIETY AND CLASS

One of the main sources of complaint for the heroines of The Three Sisters is the lack of cultured and educated
people in their town. They feel marooned in a sea of ignoranceignorance that's seeping into their house
through unhappy marriages to some of the town's bumpkins. Once the shining hope of the family, their
academically and artistically talented brother Andrey slowly becomes a small-time gambler and a hen-pecked
husband.

Plus, the most dreaded eventthe inevitable departure of the slightly more refined soldierscomes to pass in
the last act. In the end, the sisters are displaced from their own home by their tacky, bourgeois sister-in-law
Natasha. As the Prozorov island of refinement sinks into oblivion, Chekhov makes a larger statement about the
disappearance of the privileged class in Russia.

WOMEN AND FEMININITY

There are so many good roles for women in The Three Sisters. Between the Prozorov sisters and their sister-in-
law, Chekhov creates a pretty comprehensive portrait of different feminine personalities. There's the born
caretaker Olga, tempestuous Masha, idealistic Irina, and the striving breeder and obnoxious-lady-extraordinaire
Natasha. These recognizable types get along, then clash, change alliances, and grow, as Chekhov profiles them
from youth to engagement to marriage, motherhood, spinsterhood, and the beginnings of aging.