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Act Four
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Three Sisters, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life
In The Three Sisters, Russian sisters Olga, Masha, and Irina Prozorov wrestle with the meaning of change and suffering in human life. The year after their father’s death, they befriend Vershinin, an intellectually inclined army officer, whose optimism contrasts with the resignation of Chebutykin, a lifelong family friend and failed physician. Whereas Vershinin takes an abstract, progressive approach to the meaning of life, Chebutykin despairs over his personal failures, and…
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Happiness, Longing, and Disappointment
The Three Sisters spans several years in the Prozorov siblings’ lives, during which each of them pines for a future that seems unattainable. For the sisters, that future looks like a return to their beloved hometown of Moscow; for their brother, Andrey, it’s an escape from the mediocre work and marriage into which he’s drifted. By showing his characters entangling themselves in reminiscence and pining, Chekov argues that as long as people are fixated…
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Love and Marriage
In The Three Sisters, each of the Prozorov sisters offers a different perspective on the relationship between love and marriage. For Olga, marriage is more practical than romantic; for Masha, love and marriage are quickly decoupled as she outgrows the husband of her youth; and for Irina, romantic love doesn’t survive the death of her girlish idealism. Through the sisters’ very different experiences, Chekov suggests that love is as varied as…
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