Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Analysis

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 the sisters finally reject both of these approaches, yet they cannot assign any definite meaning to their own suffering. By presenting these individuals’ extreme interpretations of what the meaning of life could be, and concluding the play with the sisters’ own inability to find an answer to this question, Chekov argues that it’s impossible to know the meaning of life, yet people must face this uncertainty with as much courage as they can.

Throughout the play, Vershinin repeatedly looks at suffering, change, and life’s meaning in an abstract, albeit optimistic, way. When Vershinin discusses the nature of change with fellow officer Tuzenbakh, he argues that present concerns are only relative: “In two or three hundred or even a thousand years—the point isn’t in the precise period—a new, happy life will dawn. Of course we won’t take part in that life, but we are living for it now, working, yes, suffering, we are creating that life—and in this alone lies the goal of our existence and, if you like, our happiness.” In other words, progress is an inevitable force, and it’s one’s responsibility to participate in it through one’s actions now, even if one can’t foresee the fruits of his or her work. People must reconcile themselves to their sufferings by believing that they’re “creating” something for the benefit of the future.

After a fire breaks out in the town, Vershinin is moved to “philosophize” once again: “And when my [daughters] were standing at the door in just their night clothes and the street was red from the fire and the noise was terrifying, I thought that it must have been something like this many years ago when an enemy attacked suddenly and pillaged and burned […] And when just a bit more time goes by, say two or three hundred years, people will look at our life today both with alarm and with mockery […]” An event like a fire would seem to encourage personal reflection, but Vershinin responds by distancing himself from the terror, reflecting instead on the distant past and the unknown future. Even given the horrible event of the fire and Vershinin’s fear for his daughters, he optimistically believes that people in “two or three hundred years” will be more enlightened and be living better lives, and thus view humanity’s current trivial problems with “mockery.” This attitude suggests that it is useless to resist change or get caught up in one’s suffering in the present, since these things will inevitably pass like everything else in history. Vershinin seems to be suggesting, then, that one can subjectively determine the meaning of life for themselves by choosing the perspective through which they view life’s hardships.

By contrast, in the middle of the play, the effects of time and change are presented as destructive and are met with despair. In Act Three, a distraught Chebutykin is very drunk. He’s upset because he no longer remembers his medical skills, and a woman died under his care: “Twenty-five years ago I knew a few things but now I remember nothing. […] Perhaps I am not a man but only look as if I have arms and legs and a head; perhaps I don’t exist at all but only think that I walk, eat, sleep. [Weeps.] Oh if only I could just not exist!” Chebutykin is genuinely crushed by his failure, and it sends him into an existential crisis. Unlike the younger Vershinin’s philosophizing in the previous act, Chebutykin must reckon with the devastating, immediate effects of change—effects which can potentially undermine one’s sense of self and make life’s suffering seem utterly meaningless.

At the end of the play, the effects of time and change are met with a mixture of optimism and despair, and ultimately settle on an attitude of grim determination and uncertainty as to suffering’s purpose. In Act Four, when Vershinin is about to remove to Poland with his army brigade and faces imminent separation from his mistress, Masha, he again resorts to abstract philosophizing: “Life is a heavy load. Many of us find it blank, hopeless, but still one has to admit it is becoming brighter and easier every day, and one can see the time is not far off when it will be filled with light. […] all that [violence] has now had its day, and left behind a huge empty space, which for the time being there is nothing to fill; humanity is passionately seeking that and of course will find it.” As before, Vershinin anticipates the dawn of a better age when humanity will put itself to more enlightened use. In contrast to his earlier optimism, however, he now admits that life seems “hopeless” and that people are struggling to fill a void. In the end, his vision of humanity’s “progressive” future appears to serve little purpose in the present—it doesn’t give meaning to people’s burdens, but only placates people’s consciences as they go about their difficult lives.

At the conclusion of the play, the three sisters are left grappling with the apparent meaninglessness of their sufferings: Olga has no prospects, Masha’s lover has left, and Irina’s fiancé has been killed in a duel. Olga says that “Time will pass and we will be gone forever […] but for those who live after us our sufferings will become joy—happiness and peace will come down on earth, and there’ll be a kind word and a blessing for those who are living now. […] The band is playing so gaily, so joyfully, and I think in a little while we too will know why we live, why we suffer…If we only knew, if we only knew!” At first, Olga tries to echo Vershinin’s forward-looking optimism, but it quickly rings hollow. The army band’s serenade seems a mocking reminder that actually, the sisters don’t know why they must suffer, and they can only struggle on and endure the lifespans allotted to them.

The Three Sisters’ philosophy of life could be viewed as either cautiously optimistic or grimly cynical. Chekov’s larger point seems to be that, while people can speculate about the purposes of life, neither unbridled confidence in the future nor wallowing in one’s certain misery is warranted, because people can’t know what’s coming or why. This message likely resonated with Chekov’s audience at the turn of the 20th century, as they tried to cope with the era’s rapid pace of social, political, and technological change.