Uncle Vanya

Serebrakoff is a recently retired professor who has been forced to move to the countryside because he can no longer afford to live in town. His frustration with the isolated rural setting echoes Anton Chekhov’s own resentment at having to relocate to the countryside in his later years due to health issues. Serebrakoff is pompous and entitled; he assumes himself worthy of the traditional respect and honor afforded to a family patriarch without assuming any of the conventional responsibilities of contributing to the household or providing for his family. His characterization is likely influenced by Chekhov’s own fraught relationship with his abusive father, whom he supported financially from a young age. For decades, Serebrakoff relied on the proceeds of the estate run by Voitski and Sonia to supplement his income and fund his lifestyle, profiting from the labor of others as though it were his right. Voitski’s bitterness about this exploitation and his criticism of Serebrakoff therefore functions as a commentary on the whole class of landed gentry and landowning intelligentsia that Serebrakoff represents.

Serebrakoff is very self-centered, disrupting the routine of the household to accommodate his own habits and yet forbidding Helena from disturbing him by playing music in Act II. Consumed by his own suffering, which is the result of old age and chronic illness, Serebrakoff’s behavior and attitude elicit scorn and pity. He is deeply unhappy and in pain, but he seems determined to take out his misery on the people around him. He is unable to appreciate the blessings for which Voitski envies him. Serebrakoff is the closest thing to an antagonist in the play, largely due to the protagonist’s hostile feelings toward him. However, he is too impotent and pitiful a figure to fully fit into the role of villain, despite his negative qualities. At the close of the play, he ultimately retreats from the country estate as though he was never there; this is a reflection of his lack of lasting impact in life.

Helena is Serebrakoff’s young wife. She is an exceptional beauty who unwillingly and unwittingly draws the romantic interests of both Astroff and Voitski. She is deeply unhappy in her marriage and in the isolation of the countryside estate, and she quietly suffers both the hostility and unwelcome advances of those around her. She develops a fond and quasi-maternal bond with Sonia following their reconciliation, and she considers Voitski to be a friend despite finding his declarations of love akin to “agony.” The complex and often contradictory nature of her relationships and interactions with various characters of the play make her instrumental to the exploration of The Complexities of Interpersonal Relationships.

Despite her unhappiness in her marriage to Serebrakoff, Helena is a devoted wife. The opening pages of Act II show the extent to which she supports her husband, beyond following him into his rural exile. She sits up with him as he works through the night, and she endures his harsh demands and unjust complaints. Beyond this, she goes out of her way to make peace with her stepdaughter and advance Sonia’s romantic prospects with Astroff. She also remains faithful to her husband—whom she married out of love rather than ambition—despite being attracted to Astroff. She resists Astroff’s advances and only consents to kiss him when they are on the brink of parting ways for good. In Voitski’s perspective, her fidelity and the consequent “wasting” of her youth make her a figure representing The Pain and Regret of Wasted Potential.

Although Helena is acknowledged as “good” and upholds the moral virtues of the time, she receives significantly more criticism from other characters than anyone else. She faces recrimination for her marriage, her fidelity, her part in disrupting the household routine, and her imperfect recollection of Telegin’s name. She is also criticized for her “idleness,” which seems to infect those around her and prompts them to fall into a sense of despair that reflects her own lack of purpose and belief in happiness.

Astroff is the local doctor who suffers under the physical and psychological strain of his demanding job, and he is tormented by the trauma he has endured in his line of work. He finds solace and satisfaction away from his medical practice in the care and maintenance of his local forests, and he is passionate about the subject of environmental conservation. Astroff is an outsider in a society that considers him eccentric. He does, however, become ensnared in the household’s aura of stagnation and idleness over the summer. This is illustrated by the fact that he came to spend much of his time drinking with Voitski at the estate and neglecting both his work and his forests. Astroff believes that his feelings have been numbed by his suffering and considers himself unable to love anyone, feeling only physical attraction for Helena and a nostalgic fondness for Marina. In general, he struggles to connect with his emotions, feeling nothing except for moments of extreme guilt and torment.

Astroff is attractive and enigmatic despite his world-weary cynicism and acknowledged eccentricity. He more closely resembles an archetypal romantic protagonist than the play’s actual lead, Voitski. His romantic interest in Helena is even reciprocated, though not consummated, but it is complicated by the added drama of Sonia’s youthful infatuation that Astroff does not return. The events of the plot would conventionally place Astroff as the focal point in a tragic romance or bittersweet comedy of errors. However, Chekhov subverts these literary conventions by sidelining Astroff to spotlight the less admirable and significantly more pathetic figure of Voitski.