Previous
Industry vs. Idleness
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Uncle Vanya, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
In Uncle Vanya, impossible desires and unrequited love motivate several characters to act highlighting both the folly and inevitability of chasing desires that one can never fully realize. Voynitsky—Uncle Vanya himself—best exemplifies this idea. Between his affection for Yelena, his dream of being a world-famous writer, and his painful need to rewrite his past, Voynitsky is overwhelmed by desires that he can’t fulfill. But even with his constant and inappropriate flirting with Yelena throughout the play, Voynitsky isn't a completely unsympathetic character. He sees Yelena as a way of escaping the failures of his past and starting a fresh new life, which is exactly what makes this desire an impossible one—because he sees her as a means to (unachievable) ends rather than a person in her own right. By treating Yelena as an idea rather than a person, then, he’s made a relationship with her impossible.
Sonya is in a similar situation, as she keeps her affection for Astrov in an impossible state of permanent limbo. She wants him to reciprocate her feelings more than anything, but her fear of rejection makes her desire impossible to satisfy. At one point, she even admits to herself that not knowing how Astrov feels about her would be preferable, as this would let her hold onto hope indefinitely, regardless of his answer. The theme of impossible desires explores how human beings often don’t think logically, leading them to make situations more difficult for themselves without meaning to. Though characters might cause their own misery when they fixate on impossible desires, their flaws, irrationality, and desires help to define who they are as people.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…
Impossible Desires ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Impossible Desires appears in each act of Uncle Vanya. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
act length:
Get the entire Uncle Vanya LitChart as a printable PDF.
Impossible Desires Quotes in Uncle Vanya
Below you will find the important quotes in Uncle Vanya related to the theme of Impossible Desires.
Act 1
Quotes
I am now forty-seven. Till last year, like you, I deliberately tried to cloud my eyes with your learned talk, so as not to see real life — and I thought I was doing right. And now if you only knew! At nights I don’t sleep from vexation, from anger that I so foolishly lost the time when I could have had everything that my age now denies me!
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2
Quotes
You have here my life and my love; where am I to put them, what am I to do with them? My feelings are going to waste, like a ray of sunshine falling into a chasm, and I myself am going to waste.
His voice trembles, caresses… I can feel it in the air. But when I talked to him about a younger sister, he didn’t understand. Oh how I hate being plain! It’s dreadful! And I know I’m plain, I know it, I know it… Last Sunday when we were leaving church, I heard people talking about me, and one woman said, ‘She’s kind and generous, but it’s a pity that she’s so plain.’ Plain…
Act 3
Quotes
You’re bored, you can’t find a role for yourself, and boredom and inactivity are infectious. Look: Uncle Vanya does nothing and just follows you round like a shadow, I’ve left my work and come running to you to talk. I’ve got lazy, I can’t do it! Doctor Mikhail Lvovich used to visit us very seldom, once a month, it was difficult to persuade him, but now he drives over here every day, he’s left his woods and his practice. You must be a sorceress.
No, uncertainty is better… There’s still hope…
Act 4
Quotes
I think you are a good, sincere person but there’s also something strange in your whole being. You came here with your husband and everyone who was busily working here and creating something had to drop what they were doing and devote the whole summer to looking after your husband’s gout and you yourself. Both of you — he and you — infected all of us with your idleness… I’m joking of course, but still… it’s strange, and I’m convinced that if you had stayed, the devastation would have been enormous.
We shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live out many, many days and long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials fate sends us; we shall labour for others both now and in our old age, knowing no rest, and when our time comes, we shall meekly die, and there beyond the grave we shall say that we suffered, that we wept, that we were sorrowful, and God will have pity on us, and you and I, dear Uncle, shall see a life that is bright and beautiful and full of grace, we shall rejoice and look back on our present woes with tenderness, with a smile — and we shall rest.
