The Seagull

Nina, one of the four protagonists of the play, is a young actress who lives across the lake from Sorin’s estate. While Konstantin has his own pressures due to being the son of a famous actress, Nina lives in a strict household compared to him. She tells Sorin and Konstantin, “My father and his wife don’t let me come here—they say you’re all bohemians” (7). She sneaks out anyway in pursuit of what her father fears for her most: a life on the stage. Nina admires Arkadina and longs to be a famous actress like her one day. At the beginning of the play, she is in love with Konstantin and acts in the play he writes.

Nina dreams of a life beyond the countryside, and it is the possibility of this very life that draws her to Trigorin. He has achieved the fame as an artist that she wants, and Trigorin takes advantage of her admiration for him. In Act IV, the audience learns that, offstage during a two-year period, Nina gave up everything to be in Moscow with Trigorin, but her life did not play out the way she had hoped: After having a baby with Trigorin, the baby died and Trigorin left her. Konstantin, who has been following her at every step of her career, tells Dorn that professional success has also eluded her: “She played some big parts but she played them crudely with a lot of declaiming and throwing her arms about” (58). She writes letters to Konstantin, and “every line ache[s] with unhappiness” (58). At the end of the play, she returns to see Konstantin one final time before going back to act, no matter how unhappy and unsuccessful she is because of it.

Arkadina is Konstantin’s mother, and the third protagonist of the play. Arkadina is a beloved and beautiful actress, but her beauty and fame are waning, and she does everything possible to hold onto them. Unlike some of the other characters who dwell on the future, Arkadina is obsessed with the past. She has “a rule: not to look ahead. [She] never think[s] about old age or death” (22). She frequently comments that she could still easily play younger roles, even though she is past her prime to play the leading ladies of the stage.

As a powerful and beautiful actress, Arkadina has a commanding presence that still draws others to her. Nina, who ends up becoming her rival, idolizes Arkadina. When Shamraev refuses to obey each of Arkadina’s commands, Nina whispers to Polina, “Imagine refusing Irina Nikolayevna the famous actress!—surely her every wish—even her slightest whim—is more important than your farming” (27). Arkadina walks through life as if she is the most important person, and for the most part, others indulge her fantasy.

The most complex relationship Arkadina has is not with Nina or her lover, Trigorin, but with her son. She and Konstantin share a love of the arts, but that is where the similarities end. Konstantin wants nothing more than to impress his mother, but she frequently belittles him instead. The only scene in which she demonstrates any sort of tenderness toward him is when she is bandaging his head wound. Even then, that conversation leads to a fight. In the end, Arkadina consistently chooses one person over everyone else: herself.

Trigorin, the fourth and final protagonist of The Seagull, is described by Konstantin as “[i]ntelligent—unaffected—a melancholy streak, I’d say…a decent fellow, famous at still well under forty, and tired of it all” (6). He arrives at Sorin’s estate as Arkadina’s beau, and subsequently causes an immense amount of turmoil and jealousy amidst the family. Trigorin is obsessive about his writing, to the point that he admits he spends far more time writing than he does with other people, and even when he is with other people, his mind is with his stories.

Trigorin’s workaholic methods are challenged when he meets Nina, and she inspires him to write a story about a seagull. After spending more time with Nina, he begins to think that perhaps a life in the country would have allowed him to slow down in life and not be as controlled by his writing. Despite his success, he is haunted by the idea that he will never be enough. He tells Nina, “I’ll never be anything more than charming and talented. And when I’m dead it’ll say on my gravestone, “Here lies Trigorin. He was good—but not as good as Turgenev” (34). As he spends more time at Sorin’s estate, he starts to imagine a life where he could have gone fishing more frequently, which is one of his favorite hobbies.

Trigorin bends easily to the will of whichever woman he is with. He uses this, and the fact that he dedicated his youth to work instead of romance, as excuses for the affair with Nina. In the end he is not good for either woman: He is not fully loyal to Arkadina, and he abandons Nina when he grows tired of her, even after they have, and lose, a baby together.

Masha is the daughter of Polina and Shamraev, who work to manage Sorin’s estate. The play opens with Medvedenko, the schoolteacher, asking Masha why she always wears black. She responds, “I’m in mourning for my life. I’m unhappy” (1). Masha’s unrequited love for Konstantin drives her to alcohol and snuff as a means of forgetting how unhappy she is in life. She is loved by Medvedenko but does not love him in return. By the end of the play, however, she marries him anyway, even though she continues to resent him and long for what she cannot have.

Polina worries for Masha, but Masha tells her, “[Medvedenko’s] been promised a transfer to another district. Once we’re there I’ll forget it all—tear it out of my heart by the roots” (54). Though she tries to take matters into her own hands by marrying Medvedenko, she never quite recovers from her heartbreak over Konstantin.