“Three Sisters” By Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” portrays human beings in their most naked form, metaphorically speaking. In this play, each character has their own faults, no better or worse from the people they interact with. One of the key setups in this play is the constant need to always want what you don’t have. Despite this need, the characters almost never go after what they want and if they do by some chance get what they want, it still isn’t what they imagined. With this brilliant theme, the story naturally includes power struggles, secret relationships, miscommunication, pity, death, and humor all at the same time. In other words, “Three Sisters” is a microcosm of the interaction between human beings in the real world.
The first act in the play, out of four, is the most imperative because it introduces each relationship between the characters and ultimately sets the standard for what is yet to come. The play opens with the three sisters; Olga, Masha, and Irina, in their house. Their costumes give insight to where each woman is in the beginning of the play. Olga wears a dark blue high school teacher’s dress; she walks about correcting blue books. Masha wears a black dress; she is seated reading, with her hat on her lap. Irina wears a white dress; she stands lost in thought. With this one setup, Olga comes across as an older woman, past her prime, Masha wears black because as another character named Masha says in Chekhov’s “ The Seagull”, “ Because I’m in mourning for my life” (111), and Irina wears white significantly because she is young girl searching for a place to call her own. It sounds rather serene. Then the play starts and everything changes with Olga’s and Irina’s first interaction. Olga says, “It was a year ago today that Father died, May fifth, on your birthday, Irina… But now it’s a year later and it doesn’t bother us to talk about it…” (259) Irina responds with, “I don’t want to think about it” (259). Already, we are...