The Three Sisters

by

Anton Chekhov

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The Three Sisters: Act Three Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
A year later, a fire is raging in the town. It’s after two o’clock in the morning at the Prozorov house. Nobody has slept. Olga is handing out clothing for those whose homes have burnt. The Vershinins’ house almost burned, so they’ll be spending the night.
As hinted in the previous act with Natasha’s fretting about candles, a fire devastates the town the following year. This catastrophic event also suggests that other things in characters’ lives will be coming to a crisis point.
Themes
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
Natasha comes in, saying they must form a charitable association to help the fire victims. She’s quickly distracted by her reflection in the mirror, worrying that she looks bad while so many people are in the house. Then she yells at Anfisa, who’s exhausted from helping, for daring to sit down in her presence. She tells Olga she doesn’t understand why the Prozorovs keep the old woman, who’s no longer capable of working much. Olga, angered by Natasha’s attitude, says that Anfisa has been with them for 30 years. Natasha stamps her feet and insists that she is in charge of the household, not Olga, and that she wants “that old witch” gone.
Under the pressures of the disaster, Natasha’s superficiality and hypocrisy become more transparent. She is especially cruel to the elderly servant and presumptuous in her interference in the Prozorovs’ affairs. Although the sisters once mocked her for her odd clothing and lack of manners, they actually underestimated what a profoundly bad match she would be for Andrey and for their lives as a family.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Kulygin enters in search of Masha. Offhandedly, he tells Olga that if he hadn’t found Masha, he would have married her instead. Then he hears Chebutykin coming, drunk for the first time in years. They all retreat. Chebutykin enters, walking soberly, and laments that he’s forgotten everything he knew as a young doctor. The other day, one of his patients died under his care. He reflects that perhaps he is “not a man but only look as if I have arms and legs and a head […] if only I could just not exist!” The memory of the woman’s death made him feel “morally deformed […] loathsome,” so he got drunk.
Kulygin’s offhand remark is a tacit acknowledgement that although he loves Masha, they aren’t perfectly happy together, and that it’s common for people to miss out on spouses who might otherwise have been good matches for them. Meanwhile, Chebutykin’s disillusionment is of a far more visceral sort, as the portrayal of his character continues to darken—his error sends him into an existential spiral.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Quotes
Irina, Tuzenbakh, and Kulygin come in and talk about arranging a benefit concert for the fire victims. Vershinin mentions that the brigade might be transferred to Poland soon; Irina says that they will be leaving, too, for Moscow. Just then, Chebutykin drops a clock that had belonged to the sisters’ mother. “Perhaps I didn’t break it,” he says, “but it just looks as if I did. Perhaps we just think we exist but really we don’t.” He asks why they all just sit here and “don’t see anything.” He tells them that Natasha is having an affair with Protopopov.
Changes are on the horizon for many characters, though they’re still mostly hypothetical—in particular, Irina now speaks vaguely of going to Moscow “soon,” without setting a date. Chebutykin’s breaking the clock is symbolic and suggests that he is fragmenting psychologically as well. Although he questions his existence, he also charges the other characters with being oblivious to what’s right in front of them.
Themes
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
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Vershinin reflects on the strangeness of the night—the fright of the fire reminds him of long-ago pillaging and burning, and makes him wonder how “clumsy and burdensome” modern life will appear to people in two or three hundred years. He apologizes for talking philosophy, but he’s in the mood for it. He starts singing an aria about love from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, and Masha sings along.
Though frightened by the close call, Vershinin is moved to put the crisis in perspective by philosophizing—his way of coping with the unpredictability and pain of life. The duet between him and Masha suggests that the two are no longer going to great lengths to conceal their relationship.
Themes
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Tuzenbakh announces that he will soon be starting work in a brick factory. He sees Irina’s dissatisfaction with life and recalls their past conversation about the joys of work—“if only I were allowed to give up my life for you!”
Tuzenbakh deals with his longing for Irina by pursuing hard work instead of fruitlessly pining for her, showing that he meant what he said about labor being a key to life; however, he obviously still loves her.
Themes
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Masha tells Kulygin that he should go home. Kulygin calls her an “astonishing woman” and declares his love for her and his happiness. Masha just crankily recites the Latin conjugation for the verb “to love” and changes the subject to Andrey’s troubles. Andrey has mortgaged the sisters’ house to pay his gambling debts, but Natasha has taken all the money. Kulygin says he’ll wait for Masha at home while she rests.
Though Kulygin is not willfully obtuse—he’s admitted to Olga that he could be happier with someone else—he persists in loving Masha, even though she humiliates him by responding with such coldness (while having an obvious rapport with Vershinin, no less). This supports Chekov’s argument that even where genuine love exists, it’s no guarantee that a marriage can thrive.
Themes
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Irina laments that Andrey has become a “trivial man,” and that Natasha has led him astray. He’s boasting of finally having become a member of the District Council; meanwhile, the town laughs at him because he’s oblivious to Natasha’s affair with Protopopov, the chairman. Even now, he sits in his room, oblivious to the fire. She starts to cry.
As everything else is coming to a head, Irina openly speaks about Andrey’s decline and humiliation—also a disappointment of the sisters’ high hopes for him. Andrey’s reluctance to engage with the fire emergency is another example of his generally avoidant, passive attitude.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Irina weeps that she’s getting older and now sees that they won’t be moving to Moscow after all. She works in the Town Council and hates it every bit as much as the Telegraph Office. At 23, she feels that she’s only moving “further and further away, into some abyss.”
Talking about Andrey prompts Irina to admit the failures in her own life as well—at last, she admits that Moscow isn’t a real possibility. With this admission, she effectively gives up hope for her life.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Olga advises her sister to marry Baron Tuzenbakh. He may not be handsome, but he is “decent and honest,” and “after all, we marry not for love but just to do our duty.” Olga herself would marry without love, as long as a “decent man” proposed, even if he were old. Irina replies that she’s been waiting until they move to Moscow—she dreamed of meeting her true love there. But that has “turned out to be nonsense, all nonsense.”
In keeping with Olga’s earlier declaration that she would marry just to escape the thankless toil of her life, she urges Irina to resolve her problems by marrying someone who loves her, even if she can’t reciprocate. This is more difficult for Irina, who has associated love with unattainable Moscow all this time. Giving up on one necessarily means abandoning the other.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Quotes
Masha comes in, saying she wants to confess; her spirit is heavy: “In a word, I love Vershinin…” Olga retreats behind her bedroom screen and says that she can’t hear whatever silly things Masha is saying. Masha replies that loving Vershinin must be her destiny—love is so different from what one reads in a novel.
Masha also comes clean about Vershinin, though the sisters’ muted response confirms that this has been an open secret and Masha has been the oblivious one in this case. She attributes her love to “destiny,” in contrast to Olga’s observation that love involves willful choices.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Andrey joins his sisters and says it’s time to “really have it out, once and for all”—what do they all have against him? Just then Masha hears Vershinin singing in the distance and excuses herself. The other sisters want to sleep instead of argue, but Andrey presses on. He knows, first of all, that they’ve had something against Natasha ever since his wedding day, but they should know that she is an “honest, noble human being.” And, second, his membership in the District Council is “just as hallowed and elevated” as the academic job they wanted him to have. Finally, he asks their forgiveness for mortgaging the house without their permission—he has no income to pay his card-playing debts, though he claims to have stopped playing cards now.
Not hiding in his room after all, Andrey suddenly appears, and with uncharacteristic forthrightness, he confronts the sisters about their attitudes toward him. However, his bold words have the tone of trying to convince himself of his own happiness, and his anger at his sisters seems to be a reflection of his disappointment in himself.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Kulygin passes through the room in search of Masha. Andrey notices that his sisters aren’t listening, but he repeats, “Natasha is an exceptional, honest human being.” He thought that when they got married, they’d be happy. He starts weeping, saying, “dear sisters, don’t believe me, don’t believe me…” and exits.
Andrey finally breaks down; his bold front about his work and marriage has been a lie. He seems to be fully coming to terms with these facts for the first time.
Themes
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon
Olga and Irina talk about the rumor that the brigade will be transferred somewhere far away. Finally, Irina says that she does respect the Baron and will indeed marry him—“only,” she says, “let us go to Moscow! I beg you, let us go! There’s nothing better than Moscow in the whole world!”
Irina agrees to do as Olga suggests, but her cry of “Moscow”—which has no obvious place in their plans now—is a final, heartbroken tribute to her abandoned hopes.
Themes
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment Theme Icon
Love and Marriage Theme Icon