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Symbols
In The Three Sisters, birds symbolize hope, happiness, and freedom and how these things are often just out of reach. At her name-day celebration at the beginning of the play, an optimistic Irina says that she is so happy it’s as if “great white birds were flying in the wide blue sky,” suggesting that she feels that her whole life is ahead of her. However, in a later philosophical discussion, Vershinin uses a prisoner’s longing to see birds, a longing he abandons upon release, as an example of human beings’ perpetual desire for what they can’t have. As she anticipates her final goodbye to Vershinin, Masha notices the “dear […] happy birds” in the sky, in contrast to her heartbreak and the stagnating life she anticipates. Given her bleak circumstances, Masha’s acknowledgement of the birds recalls Vershinin’s earlier comment, showing that she feels imprisoned by fate, unable to grasp true happiness ever again.
Birds Quotes in The Three Sisters
The The Three Sisters quotes below all refer to the symbol of Birds. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Act Two
Quotes
VERSHININ: The other day I was reading the diary of a French minister, written in prison. The minister had been sent there over the Panama affair. With what delight, with what rapture he talks about the birds he sees from his prison window and which he never noticed before when he was a minister. Of course, now he’s been released, he doesn’t notice the birds, just as before. In the same way you too won’t notice Moscow when you’re living there. We have no happiness and it doesn’t exist, we only desire it.
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Birds Symbol Timeline in The Three Sisters
The timeline below shows where the symbol Birds appears in The Three Sisters. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act Two
...life will remain the same; that’s because life follows unchanging, inscrutable laws. For example, migratory birds fly without knowing why or where. Masha interjects that unless people have faith and search...
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...he’s read recently—the diary of an imprisoned French minister who pined for the sight of birds. After he was released, he no longer noticed the birds. He says that it would...
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Act Four
...her the best. Chebutykin is overcome, giving his blessing and saying he’s like “a migratory bird which has got old and can’t fly.”
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...the decision to marry him, and then “it was as if my spirit had grown wings”—she wanted to work once again. But ever since yesterday, “some mystery is hanging over me.”
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...that we do.” Masha walks off, waiting for Vershinin and noticing the “dear […] happy birds” above.
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