Kulygin is Masha’s good-natured, loyal, unflappable husband. A high school teacher, he seemed intimidatingly clever when Masha first married him, but after a few years of marriage, he no longer seems very intelligent to her. Though he is aware of Masha’s affair with Vershinin all along, he tenderly forgives her and accepts her back after Vershinin leaves. Though he loves Masha unwaveringly, he once comments that he might have just as happily married Olga, with whom he has a warm friendship. He often jokes around to bring comic relief.
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Kulygin Character Timeline in The Three Sisters
The timeline below shows where the character Kulygin appears in The Three Sisters. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act One
Kulygin enters and offers Irina his good wishes. He gives her the present of a book...
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...excessively; besides, what does it matter? To herself, Masha complains about a boring evening with Kulygin’s colleagues—“what a cursed, intolerable life…” Everyone, including Vershinin, proceeds to the table, except for Irina...
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...photographs and gives her a spinning top as a gift. Irina is delighted. During lunch, Kulygin observes that there are 13 guests at the table, and he jokes that this means...
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Act Two
Masha and Vershinin enter. Masha is telling him about her marriage—how she was intimidated by Kulygin’s intelligence at first but no longer thinks him clever, and how she finds his colleagues...
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Act Three
Kulygin enters in search of Masha. Offhandedly, he tells Olga that if he hadn’t found Masha,...
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Irina, Tuzenbakh, and Kulygin come in and talk about arranging a benefit concert for the fire victims. Vershinin mentions...
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Masha tells Kulygin that he should go home. Kulygin calls her an “astonishing woman” and declares his love...
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Kulygin passes through the room in search of Masha. Andrey notices that his sisters aren’t listening,...
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Act Four
...his lifestyle completely and become “so very good and well-behaved.” Tuzenbakh exits, but Irina and Kulygin interrupt Chebutykin’s newspaper-reading to press him for details about something that happened in town yesterday—rumor...
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...is beginning.” When she passed the teachers’ exam, “I even cried for joy and well-being…” Kulygin says that “somehow it’s not very serious,” but he wishes her the best. Chebutykin is...
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Kulygin says that with the Army’s departure, everything will go back to what it was before....
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...not to forget him and quickly leaves. Olga tries to stop Masha’s tears, but when Kulygin comes in, he tells Olga to let her cry. He tells Masha, “You are my...
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...sound of a muffled shot. Olga and Irina sit with Masha, trying to comfort her. Kulygin puts on a fake mustache and beard he’d confiscated from a little boy at school....
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