The Seagull

The literal story of the seagull in the play, which inspires Trigorin to write a fictionalized version of it, is a metaphor for Nina’s character arc. It symbolizes her transformation from a beautiful, free spirit living by the lake to a woman destroyed by a man out of boredom. The parallel is drawn between the two from Nina’s first appearance. One of her first lines in the play is to Konstantin, when she tells him her father and his wife refuse to allow her to visit Sorin’s estate. She says, “They’re terrified I’ll go on the stage. But I’m drawn here like a seagull drawn to the lake” (7, emphasis added). From the beginning, there is a sense of curiosity and an overshadowing presence of impending danger that is coming her way.

Later, Nina sneaks away for longer and is relieved of the fear of being caught. Sorin teases her, saying, “We’re all smiles because Papa and Stepmama have gone away and we are now free as a bird for three whole days” (23). It is during this time when Nina is “free” that she becomes enchanted with Trigorin and loses interest in Konstantin. It is in these three days that she forms a romantic relationship with a man who will ultimately lead to her demise.

Trigorin himself compares Nina to the seagull that Konstantin shoots and brings to Nina as a symbol of what he will soon do to himself. Instead of being frightened by the dead creature, Trigorin admires it. He says to Nina, “Beautiful bird. I really don’t want to leave. What if you were to persuade Irina to stay?” (35-36). It is in this moment that Trigorin decides he wishes to have Nina for himself. He begins to write down an idea about a story of a young girl like Nina. He tells her, “She loves the lake like a seagull and is happy and free just like a seagull. Then a man happens to come along, he sees her, and having nothing much to do, destroys her, like this seagull” (36, emphasis added). Anton Chekhov uses Trigorin’s short story to foreshadow what he will do to Nina later in the play. Trigorin does not literally kill her the way Konstantin kills the seagull, but when she leaves all she knows behind to go to Moscow, he impregnates her, then abandons her when the baby dies, leaving her to mourn their child alone and to suffer a career on the stage she was not truly ready for yet.

Finally, in the last Act of the play it is revealed that Trigorin asked to have the seagull stuffed. When the group gathers to be with the ailing Sorin, Shamraev mentions that the stuffed bird is still on the property. After Nina and Konstantin leave the study and the rest of the group bursts in, Shamraev pulls it out from the cabinet. This is significant for a few reasons. First, it is significant because Trigorin asked for it to be stuffed in the first place in a morbid parallel to his objectification of Nina. Secondly, the fact that it was in Konstantin’s study, hidden away, represents the idea that he too had his feelings for her locked away, as is proven when he reveals that he has been following her to every performance and watching from a distance. Nina is no longer the beautiful free woman she was at the beginning of the play, yet she has been frozen as an object of affection, perfectly preserved and not allowed to change in the minds of the men who love, covet, and destroy her.