Previous
Irina Prozorov
Andrey is the lone brother of Olga, Masha, and Irina, who idolize him. A promising academic in his youth, he gives up his dream of becoming a professor at Moscow University after marrying Natasha. Soon, his ambition shrinks to becoming a member of the District Council, whose head, Protopopov, is having an affair with Natasha, making Andrey a town laughingstock. In his unhappiness with his dead-end bureaucratic job and loveless marriage, Andrey accumulates major gambling debts and even mortgages the Prozorov house without his sisters’ permission. The sisters are heartbroken that he has become “a trivial man.”
Andrey Prozorov Quotes in The Three Sisters
The The Three Sisters quotes below are all either spoken by Andrey Prozorov or refer to Andrey Prozorov. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act Two Quotes
ANDREY: […] Dear old Ferapont, how strangely life changes, how it deceives us! Today out of boredom and having nothing to do I picked up this book—my old university lectures, and I began to laugh… My God, I’m the secretary of the District Council—and Protopopov’s the chairman—and the most I can hope for is to be a member of that Council! To be a member of the local District Council, when every night I dream that I am a professor at Moscow University, a famous scholar who is Russia’s pride!
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
IRINA: I must find another job, this one doesn’t suit me. What I wanted, what I dreamed of, it definitely does not have. It’s work with no poetry, no thinking […] [Andrey] lost two weeks ago, he lost at the beginning of December. I wish he’d be quick and lose everything, perhaps we’d leave this town. Lord God in heaven, I dream of Moscow every night. I’m just like a madwoman. [Laughs] We’re moving there in June, and until June there’s still… February, March, April, May… almost half a year!
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act Four Quotes
ANDREY: Oh where is it now, where has my past gone, the time when I was young, merry, clever, when I had fine thoughts, fine dreams, when my present and my future were lit up by hope? […] [People] just eat, drink, sleep, then they die […] and in order not to be dulled by boredom, they diversify their life with vile gossip, vodka, cards, law suits, and the wives deceive their husbands and the husbands lie, pretend they see nothing and hear nothing, and an irremediably coarse influence weighs down on the children […] The present is repulsive, but when I think of the future how wonderful things become! There’s a feeling of ease, of space; and in the distance there’s a glimmer of the dawn, I see freedom […] from the ignoble life of a parasite.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Three Sisters LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Andrey Prozorov Character Timeline in The Three Sisters
The timeline below shows where the character Andrey Prozorov appears in The Three Sisters. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act One
Offstage, Andrey is heard playing the violin. Irina explains that he’s “our scholar,” headed for a university...
(full context)
Andrey explains that their late father “piled education onto us,” like foreign languages; Irina even speaks...
(full context)
Andrey follows Natasha into the drawing-room and begs her to stay. He assures her that everyone...
(full context)
Act Two
...evening in late winter. Natasha is walking through the house with a candle. She finds Andrey reading and explains that she’s looking for any lights that have been left burning; the...
(full context)
...the house tonight, but Natasha says perhaps they shouldn’t come, in case Bobik is sick. Andrey wavers, pointing out that it’s his sisters’ house. Natasha is sure they’ll agree. In fact,...
(full context)
Andrey tells Ferapont, “how strangely life changes, how it deceives us!” He explains that, out of...
(full context)
Ferapont says he can’t really hear, and Andrey replies that that’s why he is confiding in Ferapont. His wife, Natasha, doesn’t understand him,...
(full context)
...to find another job—the Telegraph Office is “work with no poetry.” She tells Masha that Andrey has recently been losing money playing cards. If he lost everything, perhaps they’d move to...
(full context)
...arrive. Later, Natasha comes in and whispers to a couple of the guests, then leaves. Andrey, embarrassed, admits that the mummers won’t be coming—Bobik isn’t feeling well. Masha retorts that it’s...
(full context)
Andrey and Chebutykin continue talking. Chebutykin says that he never found time to marry, although he...
(full context)
...exits. Olga arrives home with a headache, exhausted from school and troubled by rumors of Andrey’s gambling losses. After she and the lingering guests leave the room, Irina finds herself alone...
(full context)
Act Three
...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...
(full context)
Irina laments that Andrey has become a “trivial man,” and that Natasha has led him astray. He’s boasting of...
(full context)
Andrey joins his sisters and says it’s time to “really have it out, once and for...
(full context)
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...
(full context)
Act Four
...in snatches, in small pieces, and then lose it,” it hardens a person. She sees Andrey pushing his baby’s carriage in the yard and compares him to an expensive church bell...
(full context)
Andrey asks about the incident in the town yesterday. Chebutykin says it was nothing, just “nonsense”—Solyony...
(full context)
Andrey admits to Chebutykin that he finds Natasha “amazingly coarse,” even inhuman, and can’t remember why...
(full context)
Andrey comes in, pushing the baby’s carriage again. He wonders where time and hope have gone—no...
(full context)
Natasha comes out, giving orders about the children and telling Andrey that he must move into Irina’s old room to play his violin, and baby Sofochka...
(full context)
