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Impossible Desires
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.
Almost every character in Uncle Vanya has something to say about the legacy that they will (or won’t) leave behind when they’re gone. Broadly, the characters present two different ways of looking at their legacy: one way that’s helpful, and another that’s decidedly unhelpful. Characters like Voynitsky and Professor Serebryakov embody this latter, unhelpful point of view. Both men are obsessed with the legacy they leave behind, but only as it relates to their own fame and fortune. Voynitsky wishes he could have become a famous writer himself, and he resents the professor for retiring in obscurity. Meanwhile, Serebryakov himself regrets never having become a well-known author or scholar, and he feels that he’s wasted his life in not making more of himself. Ironically, both of them feel roughly the same way about themselves, but each believes the other to be better off.
Characters like Astrov and Telegin, meanwhile, represent a healthier approach to the idea of legacy. While Astrov, a medical doctor, sometimes wishes that others would appreciate him more, but he still focuses his efforts on forestry and preserving the environment. In other words, Astrov cares more about future generations living good lives than about his personal legacy. Similarly, Telegin gave up his property to his unfaithful ex-wife so that she could properly raise and educate her children. Telegin might not personally benefit from his sacrifices, but he takes pride in improving the lives of his ex-wife’s children regardless. To him, following his principles and leaving behind a meaningful legacy is more important than having a wife and kids himself. In each of these cases, the difference between a helpful and unhelpful approach to legacy seems to boil down to selfishness vs. higher principles. Rather ironically, the characters who fixate on their own fame and recognition fail to actively produce any meaningful work that could contribute to their legacy and so ensure that the world remembers them after they’ve died. On the other hand, characters like Astrov and Telegin may very well be remembered after they’ve died because they’ve acted on their principles, making a lasting impact on the world through their actions. The play thus suggests a person must earn their legacy through their actions—meanwhile, fixating on superficial markers of success like wealth and reputation leads a person down a path of personal suffering and obscurity.
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Legacy and Prestige ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Legacy and Prestige appears in each act of Uncle Vanya. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Legacy and Prestige Quotes in Uncle Vanya
Below you will find the important quotes in Uncle Vanya related to the theme of Legacy and Prestige.
Act 1
Quotes
I sat down, closed my eyes — like this — and thought: will those who will be living a hundred, two hundred years from now, those for whom we are now laying down the road to the future, will they remember us in their prayers? Nyanya, they won’t!
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I still love her and am faithful to her, I help with what I can and have given up my property for the education of the children she had by the man she loved. I lost my happiness but kept my pride. And what became of her? Her youth has now gone, by the laws of nature her beauty has faded, the man she loved has passed on… What has she left?
…And perhaps this really is just craziness, but when I go past the peasant’s woods, which I saved from destruction, or when I hear the hum of my young trees, which I planted with my own hands, I know the climate is a little in my control and that if in a thousand years man is happy, the responsibility for that will in a small way be mine. When I plant a birch and then watch it come into leaf and sway in the wind, my spirit fills with pride…
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Act 2
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I work all my life for learning, and I’m used to my study, the lecture hall, the colleagues I esteem — and then, I end up for no good reason in this tomb, see fools here every day, listen to worthless conversations… I want to live, I like success, I like fame, making a noise, and here it’s like being in exile. To pine every minute for the past, to watch the success of others, to be afraid of death… I can’t! I haven’t the strength! And they won’t even excuse me my age here!
Act 3
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We have here a decline which is the consequence of an impossible struggle for existence; a degeneration arising from stagnation, ignorance, a total lack of self-awareness, when a frozen, hungry, sick man, in order to preserve the remnants of life, to protect his children, instinctively, unconsciously grasps at anything to relieve his hunger and get warm, and destroys everything around without a thought for tomorrow. Now almost everything is destroyed, but nothing has yet been created to take its place.
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I will not be silent! Stay here, I haven’t finished! You have destroyed my life! I haven’t lived, I haven’t lived! Thanks to you I wasted, I destroyed the best years of my life! You are my worst enemy!
Act 4
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Those who will live after us in a hundred or two hundred years’ time and who will despise us for living our lives so foolishly and with such a lack of taste — they may find a way of being happy, but we… You and I have only one hope. The hope that when we lie in our coffins we’ll be visited by visions, perhaps even agreeable ones.
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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.
