Anton Checkov: Biography and The Three Sisters Analysis

Anton Pavlovich Checkov was a Russian playwright. He was born on the 29th of January 1860 in Russia and died on the 14th of July 1904 in Germany. In Checkov’s childhood years his father let him help and work in his shop and put him into a church choir. Although his mother was very kind to him, his childhood is a painful memory to him.

After attending a school for Greek boys, Checkov went to high school. During his last 3 years of high school he lived alone, because his father went bankrupt and moved the rest of the family to Moscow.

Checkov supported himself through coaching younger boys, and in 1879 he joined his family in Moscow and stayed there until 1892. During those times he studied to be a doctor and graduated in 1884. He was the breadwinner in the family and supported his family through freelance earnings as a journalist and writer of comic sketches, during his years in university. By 1888 Checkov became very popular with the public and he also did some serious writing during that time.

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In that same year he published his first work called: Severny Vestnik and moved away from comic fiction. A few of his famous works are: The Three Sisters, The Seagull and The Black Monk.

The Three Sisters took place in the late 19th century. this period had bad working conditions and high taxes which led to more strikes. At the end of 1901 the union made a program which had a goal to fight for political freedom and for socialism.

In this time period the woman’s father and husband controlled most of her life, women weren’t allowed to vote, have their own passport or go to school. Russian laws gave almost all the over to men over their wives and their family. Russian women could not divorce their husbands and if the husband died, his son would inherit most of his property, whereas the wife and daughter would only get a small share. At the end of the 19th century people started the idea of ‘women question’, which led to females standing up for themselves and demanding to get an education and to be independent. but , they were scared to face the world alone which led to most women going to the church for support and guidance.

The Three Sisters play had various themes such as dissatisfaction and dreams. This is because all 3 sisters couldn’t get what they want, which was to move out of their town and start over with a clean slate. They had big dreams which they couldn’t reach. Another theme is love- love plays a big role in the play. It starts with Alexander having an affair on his wife with Masha because they actually love each other. Unfortunately Masha didn’t end up with him because he ended things after him and his wife and kids left. Fedotik is in love with Irina and shows his love through buying her gifts. On the other hand there is Baron, a man who is also in love with Irina and was going to marry her but then died at the end. Only after he died did Irina realize that she wanted to be with him, but it was too late.

My character (Olga) was the oldest of the 3 sisters. I feel for Olga and I sympathise with her. When I looked deeper into Olga’s character I fell in love with her. She is a teacher and takes care of the house and her sisters. She is compassionate and we see this when she defends the old nurse from Natasha. She may come off as stuck up at first but when I looked deeper into her feelings and raw emotions, I understood why she did what she did. She just wanted to help the house, her sisters and their servants, because she cares about them. She put other people’s problems before hers. When the fire breaks out she takes action immediately and offers everyone to stay at her house for shelter, even if she had a constant headache and is stressing about her work and being pressured into taking the job for headmistress. She is unmarried and sometimes feels lonely and no one really cares about her loneliness and pain. She is on her own and doesn’t wait for love, it’s too late for her, but she tries to help Irina to find love and tells her to marry Baron. She does not want to be headmistress, she says this throughout the whole play, because that would mean more work for her to do and she has so much work already.

Her strengths are to stand up for herself and for others like she did with the old nurse. Her weaknesses are her headaches that slow her down and her caring too much about other people and helping them first before helping herself. Her long term objective in the play is to help her sisters and brother to have and live the best life they can, as well as get them out of the town and move to Moscow where they belong. Olga’s last words in the play: “If only we knew!”, emphasizes her desire to want to know why they suffer so much but there is no answer for why they suffer so much. In the ending she tells her sisters to not give up because there is still hope for them and for their children in the future to go to Moscow and live happy lives.