52 pages • 1 hour read
Three Sisters
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Act IVChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act IV Summary
Outside, in the Prozorovs’ garden, Fedotik and Rode are saying goodbye to Irina, Tusenbach, and Kulygin. Upstage, Andrey pushes a baby carriage. The military brigade is relocating to Poland. Irina and Fedotik disagree on whether they will see each other again, but Fedotik asserts that even if they do, they won’t be the same people and they won’t know each other. Fedotik snaps a photo. They leave, and Chebutykin complains that they didn’t say goodbye to him even though he is being shipped off to Poland tomorrow. Chebutykin expects to serve one more year before being discharged with a pension. He plans to return and retire here as a changed man—respectable and quiet.
Kulygin and Irina question Chebutykin about an incident in town yesterday that involved Solyony and Tusenbach. Deflecting, Tusenbach exits. They push Chebutykin to confirm if they were fighting because they are both in love with Irina, but the doctor demurs. Irina, who is to marry Tusenbach tomorrow, has taken the exam to become a teacher and will be moving with her new husband to a school, where she has just been hired. Chebutykin expresses happiness for her even as she leaves him behind. Kulygin talks about his love for Masha and how lucky he feels. Irina is excited about her new life.
They discuss Olga, who has become the headmistress and lives at the school now. Irina has been miserable at the house without Olga, and when Tusenbach proposed, she decided that it didn’t matter if she was meant to make it to Moscow or not. However, now Irina is concerned about yesterday’s altercation between Tusenbach and Solyony, which no one will explain to her.
Masha enters. Hearing that Olga has arrived, Irina and Kulygin go inside. Masha asks Chebutykin about his love for her mother, which he affirms. She questions whether it was requited, and Chebutykin asserts that he doesn’t recall. Masha replies that it makes one jaded to have to grasp for little bits of happiness that only dissipate. She sees Andrey as someone who was loaded with everyone’s hopes but only crashed without warning.
Andrey complains about the noise, and Chebutykin reassures him that everyone will be gone tomorrow. Andrey mentions yesterday’s incident between Tusenbach and Solyony but does not know any details. Dismissively, Chebutykin says that Solyony started a fight with Tusenbach that escalated until Solyony challenged Tusenbach to a duel. The duel is scheduled to happen in a few minutes. Chebutykin laughs at Solyony’s confidence but also acknowledges that this will be Solyony’s third duel.
Masha thinks that duels should be forbidden and is concerned that Tusenbach could be hurt or killed. Chebutykin replies that “one baron more or less” doesn’t really matter (73). He asserts that none of them exist anyway. Masha watches the birds flying south and remarks that they seem happy. She starts to go in but then exits through the garden instead, asking to be alerted when Vershinin arrives.
Andrey muses that soon, he’ll be alone in the house. Chebutykin reminds him about his wife. Andrey confides that although he loves Natasha, she can also be repulsively malicious. However, although he is unhappy today, he finds comfort in imagining a future where he might be happy. Chebutykin advises Andrey to leave without looking back. Solyony enters to fetch Chebutykin, as it is now time for the duel. Noticing Chebutykin’s foul mood, Solyony states that he does not plan to kill Tusenbach, only to wound him. They exit. Ferapont brings Andrey papers to sign and chases him as he walks away. Irina and Tusenbach enter, and he tells her that he needs to go but will come right back. Irina presses him to tell her what he is doing.
Tusenbach promises to give Irina a good life; he has loved her for five years, but he knows that Irina doesn’t love him. Irina replies that she cannot control her feelings and has never been in love despite her desire to find love. Tusenbach tells her that he is happy, but he keeps thinking about her inaccessible love. Wistfully, he kisses her hands and starts to exit. Irina tries to follow him, but he stops her. Irina exits.
Andrey enters, still followed by Ferapont. Andrey complains about his lost youth and laments this sad, provincial town where no one is special and everyone is bored. Andrey finally takes the papers. Ferapont comments about last winter in either St. Petersburg or Moscow, which was so cold that thousands froze to death. Andrey reiterates that in his current misery, he feels better when he thinks about the future. Natasha shouts at Andrey from the window that he is too loud and will wake Sofia. She orders Ferapont to take the baby carriage, and he obeys. Olga, Vershinin, and Anfisa come out to listen to a group of traveling musicians. Seeing Irina, Anfisa tells her excitedly about how happy she is to work for Olga at her school apartment.
It's time for Vershinin to go, and he looks for Masha. Irina and Anfisa go off to find her. His wife and children are staying behind for a few months, and Olga agrees to keep an eye on them. She comments that the town will be empty without the soldiers. She didn’t want to be headmistress, but now that she is, her dreams of Moscow are gone. Olga and Vershinin struggle to say goodbye until Masha enters. Masha and Vershinin kiss. He asks her to write and then leaves. Masha falls to the ground in tears. Olga tries to quiet Masha’s grief when Kulygin enters, but he tells her to let Masha weep. He won’t ask any questions, and their marriage will be like it was before.
There is a gunshot from offstage. Irina enters and coaxes Masha to sit with her. Natasha enters and expresses insincere sadness that Irina will leave tomorrow. Now that Natasha has the house to herself, she already has plans to shift the room arrangements and overhaul the landscaping. Finding a fork left on a chair, Natasha exits, berating the maids as she goes. Chebutykin enters as Masha, Kulygin, and Olga decide to go home.
Chebutykin whispers in Olga’s ear, unable to speak his news in full voice. He is clearly upset, adding, “Anyway, what difference does it make?” (84). Olga hugs Irina, and Chebutykin informs her that Tusenbach was killed in the duel. Irina starts to cry, and the three sisters hold each other. Chebutykin sits with his newspaper. They hear the women from the village singing, signaling that the military men are leaving. Masha tells her sisters that even alone, they must press on and live. Irina states that one day, they’ll understand why they had to suffer like this. She plans to go forward with her teaching job and find meaning in her work. Olga says that the happy music gives them a will to live, and eventually, even though they’ll die and be forgotten, their misery will have forged a life of peace and happiness for those who come after them. But they’ll know why they suffer and live. Chebutykin, singing along with the village women, asks again what difference it makes. Olga says, “If we could know. If we could only know” (86).
Act IV Analysis
The final act is fraught with The Pressures of Love, Longing, and Loneliness that arise from enormous change and the anguish of saying goodbye. The army brigade has been transferred to Poland, and by tomorrow, there will be no more military stationed in the town. The wrenching nature of these sudden changes is brought home when Irina responds to Fedotik’s goodbye by saying, “Until we meet again” and is taken aback when he asserts, “No, it’s just goodbye. We’ll never see each other again” (67). Fedotik explains that even if they happen to meet someday, they will have changed and grown distant, becoming strangers to one another. This exchange implies that the characters’ longings are more complex and impossible than they can imagine, for the people they long for are not simply far away. For all intents and purposes, they no longer exist. Likewise, the Moscow that the siblings long for also does not exist. The city itself has undergone over a decade of change since the Prozorovs left, and even their memories of it have been further distorted by over a decade of starry-eyed romanticizing. All three sisters are now settled in situations of work or marriage that ultimately kill their dream of Moscow, and they continue to mourn the city in their imagination. When Masha and Vershinin must also say goodbye, Masha collapses into tears of love and yearning, and Kulygin kindly allows her to grieve, leaving the reality of her long-time affair unspoken. His silence indicates that he has longed for a version of his wife who once existed, and he hopes that she will return to him and resume their life together.
Act IV is largely dedicated to analyzing The Decay of the Aristocracy, and this dynamic is driven home by the fact that Natasha has achieved a full takeover of the Prozorov house, ejecting the sisters in one way or another and getting rid of Anfisa, whom Olga protects by taking her along. Ironically, however, Natasha herself simply becomes the new aristocracy despite lacking the education and social graces typically expected of the upper class. With the military’s departure, the Prozorovs will be left with the provincial, uncultured townspeople in an imposingly silent town. There will be no one left to appreciate their culture and education, which will fade away from disuse. Significantly, the play’s chief antagonist against the upper class is Solyony, who not only lacks social propriety but also brings a grating sense of discord to every polite social setting. While class hierarchies have generally been inherited, the military was one of only a few ways to elevate one’s social status. Thus, Solyony, who has no upper-class pedigree, has improved his station enough to feel like a worthy match for Irina, but his military service does not dampen his hot-blooded temper or make him less feral. It does, however, put him in a position to duel and kill Tusenbach, who is of aristocratic origin. In this way, the disastrous conclusion of the duel itself serves as a heavy-handed metaphor to suggest that the old guard of the original aristocracy is being eliminated by the rise of other social classes.
The duel represents the conclusion of the years-long philosophical debate among the characters, who have endlessly focused on Worrying about the Meaning of Life. Chebutykin, who has gone through a largely invisible existential crisis due to the deadly ramifications of his neglected medical training, now decides that life is expendable, and rather than resigning his position as an army doctor, he has made peace with the results of his incompetence. His newfound disregard for life is evident in his agreement to act as the doctor on hand for the duel, for he asserts, “The Baron is a good man, but one Baron more or less isn’t going to make any difference” (73). He callously acknowledges that whether Tusenbach lives or dies, the results of the duel are inconsequential in the vastness of history because history will always make more barons. When Andrey calls it immoral for anyone – even a doctor – to watch a duel, Chebutykin argues, “But nothing’s here, we’re not here, we don’t actually exist, we just look that way. So, what difference does it make?” (73) In a sense, he is correct, for from a metafictional standpoint, they are all merely characters in a play, and even if they were real, their lives would still be temporary. At the end of the play, the sisters weep together and wonder again about the purpose of their suffering, and the play itself ends on a paradoxically despairing yet hopeful note, for they decide that they simply have to go on living even if they will never know the answers to these philosophical questions.
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By Anton Chekhov
