Treplev Konstantin Gavrilovich in the play “The Seagull” by Chekhov - a young man of 25 years old, the son of Arkadina and a Kyiv tradesman, who in his youth was famous actor; studied at the university, but did not graduate; does not serve anywhere; lives in the estate of his uncle Sorin at the expense of his mother, but because of her stinginess he is forced to wear the same clothes for three years. Nervous, impulsive, quick-tempered, painfully proud. According to Masha Shamraeva, who is in love with him, he “has a beautiful sad voice and manners, like a poet.”
Since childhood, feeling his humiliated position in his mother’s family, among the “celebrities” constantly surrounding her, artists and writers, who, it seemed to him, tolerated him only because he was the son of a famous artist, Treplev in the play “The Seagull” passionately desires to become famous himself a writer in order to prove to everyone around him and especially to his mother, whose talent and fame he secretly envies, that he is not “nothing”, that he also has a talent worthy of everyone’s admiration. At the same time, the hero denies realistic art, based on the principle of imitation of life as it is, as vulgarity, routine and prejudice, and contrasts it with art of a new type, depicting life as “it appears in dreams,” i.e., the art of symbolism. His play about the “world soul” and the devil, “the father of eternal matter”, in its figurative structure reminiscent of the plays of the Belgian playwright M. Maeterlinck, highly valued among the early Russian symbolists, is staged by him on his uncle’s estate specifically so that, on the one hand, , to demonstrate to his mother and everyone around him his talent as a playwright, and on the other hand, to “prick” his mother and her lover, the writer Trigorin, as adherents of an old art that has outlived its time.
However, rebelling against his mother, Treplev tenderly loves her in his soul, affectionately calls her “mom” to her face and behind her back, and, as it were, all the time expects that someday she, having cast aside her egocentrism, will give him that strong, unreasoning, only for him one directional motherly love, the absence of which on her part he had felt so acutely since childhood. The need to be loved is as strong in him as the desire to become a writer, but if, as a writer, he still manages to gain some success: he begins to be published in magazines, he even has his own circle of admirers among the St. Petersburg and Moscow intelligentsia, - then experience happiness mutual love he's not meant to be. Nina Zarechnaya, the daughter of a neighboring landowner, with whom he is passionately in love as a youth and who at first, as everyone thinks, reciprocates his feelings, is in fact cold towards him just like his mother, and in a sense repeats her role in his destiny. Hating Trigorin not only as a writer of the previous generation, alien to the aesthetics of “new forms,” but also as his mother’s lover, of whom he is jealous of her, Treplev begins to hate him doubly when he is convinced that Nina’s heart also belongs to the same Trigorin. In despair, Treplev in the play “The Seagull” is either going to challenge Trigorin to a duel, or hints that he will commit suicide (having accidentally killed a seagull, he tells Nina that he will soon kill himself in the same way), and actually makes such an attempt . At first he pursues Nina, who has left for Trigorin, but then, clearly realizing that he has been rejected, he returns home and tries to forget her: he tears up all the photographs and letters.
After two years, when he already becomes famous as a writer, the feeling of envy of Trigorin as a person who has long found his own style and writes better than him does not leave him. Rereading what he wrote the day before, Treplev is horrified by the mannerism of his language, replete with outright literary cliches (“A pale face framed by dark hair..”, etc.), and comes to a conclusion that can be interpreted as an attempt to make peace with Trigorin : “It’s not about old or new forms, but about what a person writes... because it flows freely from his soul.” The unexpected arrival of Nina at the estate, confessing to him that she still loves Trigorin, now that he has abandoned her, even stronger than before, makes the hero again feel Trigorin as a happier rival, and himself as a loser in the fight against him and at the same time with all those whom he wanted to defeat in this life. He clearly realizes that not only has his love for Nina not gone away, but has intensified. After she leaves, he “silently tears up all his manuscripts for two minutes,” and after a while, Arkadina, Trigorin, Dorn, Masha and others, who have just had dinner and are about to continue playing lotto, hear the sound of a shot, with which Treplev ends his life.
The screening of the film-play was timed to coincide with the anniversary of Oleg Strizhenov, who plays Treplev here. But his work in this production is not very expressive, and besides, in this version he is already too old for Treplev, like Angelina Stepanova for Arkadina: in Soviet time used to record performances at the moment when only ruins remained of them, as well as of the performers. But Stepanova at least “keeps her style” and her raspy voice, her mannered gestures are some kind of paint, Strizhenov doesn’t have that either. Kolchitsky’s Sorin is just some kind of benevolent old forest man with a sweet velvet voice, Bolduman’s Shamraev is uninteresting, flat. In Nina Zarechnaya I would never have recognized the young Svetlana Korkoshko - about fifteen years ago or a little less I saw her as an old woman in the play “Her Friends” by Rozov at the Doronin Moscow Art Theater, where she went after the partition, Korkoshko played the “correct” headmistress of the school, with with the meaning of saying “the school uniform obliges you to a lot!” - it was just a waking nightmare, and in the role of Nina, although she doesn’t have enough stars in the sky, at least due to her youth she looks decent and is simply pretty. An interesting Trigorin performed by Gubanov, a very touching Polina Andreevna-Evgeniya Khanaeva (I always liked her, but, naturally, I didn’t find her on stage), the most unexpected in this performance is Dorn (Ivanov plays him not as an aloof cynic philosopher, such a tradition developed in recent years twenty, but full of life, and partly ready to respond to women’s feelings as an unfading romantic, sincerely passionate about what is happening around and especially the work of Treplev) and Masha (Irina Miroshnichenko, unlike Korkoshko, is immediately recognizable, although she has changed since then in the literal sense scary; and her then Masha is so pleasantly different from the current smoky alcoholic drug addicts, she is like the “other side” of Nina, and it is no coincidence that after Dorn’s final remark, when everyone again sits down at the table to play lotto, it is Masha who comes to the fore, as the only one who accepted Treplev from beginning to end, she mechanically pronounces the lotto numbers, then stammers and, understanding everything, begins to cry, while the others are in bewilderment).
Oddly enough, the most interesting thing about this archaic performance is not the acting, but the director’s concept, which was quite extraordinary for its time. With an almost sacred attitude towards the text, Livanov makes cuts and even edits some things. For example, it removes many aspects that introduced grotesque notes into the characterization of the characters. Sorin does not talk about the fact that his voice is “strong, but nasty”; Arkadina gives the servants “a ruble for everyone”, and not “a ruble for three”. Livanov turns “The Seagull” into a romantic drama in the full sense of the word: in it those for whom love and creativity are sacred phenomena come into conflict with those who perceive both as commonplace and not as a miracle. Throughout the first act and at the beginning of the last, Shamraev’s dog howls behind the stage. The play about the “world soul” is performed in a mise-en-scène that is almost Vrubelian and to the music of Scriabin, which generally becomes the musical leitmotif of the performance (Treplev, while playing music, also plays Scriabin). This concept is supported by the director’s voice-over and the characters’ remarks, taken out of context and echoing like a musical introduction to each action: “So much love, oh, witchy lake... And there must be a lot of fish in this lake...” The metaphor of the lake, and accordingly the title image-symbol of the seagull, which today’s directors often forget about, comes to the fore here, it generalizes the romantic motives of the play, divides those for whom the lake is “witchcraft”, and for whom it is best case scenario source of the plot for a short story". From here special meaning the director attaches a phrase from Treplev’s play about “the fight with the devil, the beginning of material forces” - Nina at the end of the play, saying goodbye to Treplev forever, reproduces it again (this is not in the play, in Chekhov’s Zarechnaya simply recalls the first lines: “People, lions... ", etc., it doesn’t reach the devil). The pathos of the triumph of “spirit” over “matter”, and even in a romantic-mystical aspect, even in spite of death - at first glance for Soviet theater quite radical. Although in fact everything is very restrained and “well-intentioned”, by and large - in the key of the fight against philistinism, the ideal of self-sacrifice here and now in the name of a bright future, etc.
Since the publication of the play by A.P. More than a hundred years have passed by Chekhov's "The Seagull", but the controversy surrounding this work does not subside to this day. Chekhov's text does not lend itself to simple interpretation; it contains too many secrets and mysteries. Czech scholars are trying to find a key that would allow them to fully read this complex text, filled with understatement, by conducting benchmarking with other plays and authors. Thus, S. M. Kozlova in the article “Literary dialogue in the comedy of A.P. Chekhov's "The Seagull" analyzes quotes from Maupassant, which A.P. Chekhov uses in the play “The first mention of Maupassant in Treplev’s exit monologue follows criticism modern theater, where “the priests of holy art depict how people eat, drink, love, walk, wear their jackets.” .
S. M. Kozlova uses this comparison to analyze the context, understand the meanings of the replicas and prove that they are not random. IN in this case- this is a criticism of the theater. L.S. Artemyeva in her article “Hamlet’s” microplot in the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Seagull" compares W. Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" with the play by A.P. Chekhov, associating Treplev and Trigorin with Hamlet, and Nina Zarechnaya with Ophelia. V. B. Drabkina, in her sketch about the magic of numbers in “The Seagull,” looks for patterns in the play and in the writer’s biography and explains them using philosophical categories and compares the work of A.P. Chekhov with the works of F.G. Lorca.
A.P. Chekhov's play is rich in picturesque, multifaceted images. One of these images is the image of the World Soul - the role of Nina Zarechnaya. Perhaps it is this complex image that evokes the greatest number all sorts of interpretations. “...People, lions, eagles and partridges, antlered deer, geese, spiders, silent fish that lived in the water, starfish and those that could not be seen with the eye - in a word, all lives, all lives, all lives, having accomplished sad circle, extinct... For thousands of centuries, the earth has not carried a single living creature, and this poor moon lights its lantern in vain. Cranes no longer wake up screaming in the meadow, and cockchafers are no longer heard in the linden groves. Cold, cold, cold. Empty, empty, empty. Scary, scary, scary..." The name itself - “World Soul” already speaks of the globality and complexity of this image.
In philosophy, the World Soul is “ it is mental strength understood as the principle of all life. The concept of the world soul comes from Plato (“Timaeus”: the world soul is the engine of the world. It contains everything corporeal and its elements. It knows everything. The essence of this idea lies in movement, understood as a supra-mechanical action, as something organizing".
It follows from this that the World Soul is a perceiving, analyzing and organizing principle. This concept unites everything and connects it into a single picture of Existence. Therefore, in order to analyze this image, it is necessary to understand how it manifested itself in the events described in the play, how it developed in Treplev’s mind and what features it has.
It is no coincidence that the play begins with a small philosophical and everyday dispute between Masha and Medvedenko about what is most important in life. “Masha. It's not about the money. And the poor man can be happy. Medvedenko. This is in theory, but in practice it turns out like this: me, my mother, two sisters and a brother, and the salary is only 23 rubles. After all, do you need to eat and drink? Do you need tea and sugar? Do you need tobacco? Just turn around here".
Naturally, everyone considers what they lack most in life to be especially important. Reading the play further, we notice that the characters sooner or later all speak out about what is most precious to them in life. And as it turns out, everyone lacks something to be happy. For them there is no happiness in this world; they have not learned to be content with what they have. The apotheosis of the feeling of this imperfection of the world and the disorder of life is Trigorin’s monologue: “And it’s always like this, always, and I have no peace from myself, and I feel like I’m eating own life that for the honey that I give to someone in space, I pick dust from my best flowers, tear up the flowers themselves and trample on their roots. Am I not crazy? Do my relatives and friends treat me as if I were healthy? "What are you peeing on? What will you give us?" It’s the same thing, the same thing, and it seems to me that this attention from friends, praise, admiration - all this is a deception, I’m being deceived like I’m sick<…>» . These words from Trigorin depict the fears of a man who thinks that he is using his gift of writing incorrectly. The knowledge of imperfection came to him real world. He strives to portray reality authentically, but at the same time he is in conflict with it, because he sees it differently than other people.
From this confession we learn that fame and money are not the highest blessings. Moreover, the hierarchy of goods and needs in the play seems to be erased when completely different people get together and talk, shout and argue about what is the meaning of life and what is best.
Thus, in addition to real picture life, the heroes of the play, another one emerges - an ephemeral, magical picture from their dreams. It is introduced by Treplev, who is more intolerant of reality than anyone else. He reinforces his position with the phrase: “We must portray life not as it is and not as it should be, but as it appears in dreams.”
The dream forced Treplev to think more broadly, to think not only about the unsettled life of his life, but also about the unsettled life of everyone living on earth. To understand this, Treplev personalized the creative force, identifying it with human soul. Also, most likely Treplev was familiar with the works of Plato. This is how the concept of the World Soul appeared in the play. Nina Zarechnaya’s monologue shows the initial and final stages of the development of Existence, which seems to have closed in a circle, ending the existence of all living things and awaiting the birth of a new life. “Fearing that life may not arise in you, the father of eternal matter, the devil, every moment in you, as in stones and in water, carries out an exchange of atoms, and you change continuously. In the universe, only spirit remains constant and unchanging.” The world soul is female image, because woman is the creator of life in the material world.
The world soul is the memory of the Earth: “In me, the consciousness of people has merged with the instincts of animals, and I remember everything, everything, and I relive every life in myself again.”. This memory is necessary when creating a new life, because memory stores not only images, events and processes, but also the laws by which matter is built. Therefore, the World Soul remembers everything.
It is symbolic that Treplev put the replicas of the World Soul into the mouth of Nina Zarechnaya. The world soul is the embodiment of a dream, and for Treplev Nina is this dream.
L.S. Artemyeva in her article says that “The image of Nina unites everything - including the plots not embodied by the other characters: Treplev, who strives for true art, and the naive Ophelia, and the murdered seagull (both in Treplev’s version and Trigorin’s version), and her own (with an unsuccessful career, the death of a child , a feeling of guilt before Treplev)"[ 1, 231].
A certain relationship emerges: Nina Zarechnaya - the aspirations and dreams of the characters - the World Soul.
Nina is a girl with a sensitive and attentive soul. Living among people, he not only listens, but also hears their desires, aspirations, dreams of people - everything that fills their life on earth (“a tragicomedy of heartfelt “inconsistencies” [4, 29] - Z.S. Paperny accurately defined these conflicts) . Having united in herself the knowledge about the desires, dreams, needs and aspirations of people, having comprehended and understood her soul, Nina ceases to be a person and approaches the state of the World Soul. Thus, we can conclude that the monologue from Treplev’s play becomes prophetic for Nina Zarechnaya. When she pronounces it, she is still a person, and when she experiences the drama of life not only of her acquaintances, but also her own, she rises, rises above matter and becomes a real prototype of the World Soul. At the end of the play, her image completely dissolves in space and time, losing all real features.
But, if the dreams and aspirations of everyone living on earth were fulfilled, then why did everyone disappear?! No, they haven't disappeared. Only the material, the thing with which dreams were realized, disappeared. It has served its purpose and is no longer needed.
But the disappearance of material things looks like Death.
“In the face of the game - Death, a person is tragically lonely and unhappy, and he is not consoled even by the prospect of merging with the World Soul. (Death pushes a person to loneliness, it is the only one that provokes a thought that is born only in loneliness. Death, that is, departure from earthly life, is good, is driving force progress, the sole purpose of which is the rejection of death)", - notes V.B. Drabkina. Yes, to some extent this is true, because each individual soul has its own path of development, both when leaving life and when appearing in each new life, the human soul is lonely, just like the World Soul among the silent natural phenomena, into which existence has been transformed. The world soul remembers a lot, but new transformations frighten it with their unknown. Therefore, she believes that eternal matter is from the devil, as from something completely alien, and, therefore, dangerous.
The image of the devil in the monologue of the World Soul is called “the father of eternal matter” and acts as the opposite of spirit. But if the devil is the creator of “eternal matter”, and matter, as mentioned above, is needed to realize the aspirations and purposes of human souls, then it means that the devil is the creator of the instrument of progress. And progress is development, and development, like any movement forward, is considered a good. This means that in this case the devil cannot be in a negative way. But it is worth remembering that along with progress there is regression or decline. The cause of regression is most often people who, having complete freedom of choice, misinterpret their opportunities, which they gain when their souls materialize. The fall in most cases occurs due to mistakes due to ignorance, and the devil allows them, probably wanting to give the incarnated souls experience. It follows from this that the devil cannot be a negative image here either, because fall and destruction are, most often, the conscious choice of an individual soul.
Without development, the spirit is not able to exist, because if there is no development, then there is no fulfillment of goals and desires. Therefore, the World Soul, like the small souls that it has united within itself, needs to be realized into matter.
Medvedenko speaks about this inseparability: “ No one has any reason to separate spirit from matter, since, perhaps, spirit itself is a collection of material atoms.”
In this realization, in the relationship between matter and spirit, lies main conflict Genesis. In order for the spirit to approach matter, it is necessary to lose its individuality and form World Soul, and matter, in order to get closer to spirit, loses life on earth, because it is capable of existing and developing in other forms. It was precisely this state that Treplev reflected in his play in order to show people what would happen if all their conflicts were resolved and their dreams came true. Treplev showed what happiness on earth would look like, giving this happiness the appearance of his beloved.
To summarize, it is worth saying that this world has something to strive for, therefore it needs the interaction of spirit and matter. But the souls of humanity have already united in a single impulse of life and are gradually approaching the state of the World Soul, conducting a constant dialogue in search of truth.
A.P. Chekhov wanted to tell us that people need to strive to direct their thoughts and desires to the outside world. Then these thoughts and desires, like a mosaic, will form a single picture of the World Soul and will certainly come true.
Bibliography:
1. Artemyeva L.S. “Hamlet” microplot in the play by A.P. Chekhov's “The Seagull” // Pushkin Readings. – 2015. - No. 20. – P. 224-231.
2. Drabkina V. B. Dead seagull on a stone... A study on the magic of numbers: national server modern prose. - UPL: http://www.proza.ru/2009/09/04/531 (access date: 08/16/2016)
3. Kozlova S. M. Literary dialogue in the comedy of A.P. Chekhov's "The Seagull" // Izvestia Altaisky state university. -2010. - No. 4. – p. 51-56.
4. Paperny Z.S. “The Seagull” by A.P. Chekhov.- M.: Fiction, 1980.- 160 p.
XXV. "GULL"
In 1895, Anton Pavlovich began working on The Seagull. In October 1896, the play was staged on the stage of the St. Petersburg Alexandria Theater. Everything that Chekhov wrote for the theater before The Seagull was, of course, talented and interesting, but still inferior in significance to his prose. Chekhov, a brilliant playwright, begins with this play.
"The Seagull" is perhaps the most personal of all Chekhov's works. This is his only major work directly, directly devoted to the theme of art. In this play, Chekhov talks about his secrets - about the difficult path of an artist, about the essence of artistic talent, about what human happiness is.
“The Seagull” is an infinitely elegant creation of Chekhov’s dramatic genius; it is truly simple and complex, like life itself, and its true internal theme does not immediately reveal itself to us, just as we do not immediately understand those complex situations, the contradictory tangles of circumstances that life itself gives us. The author seems to offer us “a choice” various options understanding the play.
The main thing in “The Seagull” is the theme of heroism. In art, only those who are capable of feats win.
But the play may seem much poorer than its theme.
On the shore beautiful lake There lived a lovely girl, Nina Zarechnaya. She dreamed of the stage, of fame. A young neighbor on the estate, Konstantin Treplev, an aspiring writer, was in love with her. And Nina reciprocated his feelings. He also dreamed: about fame and about “new forms” in art - everything that youth doesn’t dream about!
He wrote a play - unusual, strange, in a “decadent” spirit - and staged it for family and friends in an original “scenery”: from the stage in the park, a view of a real lake opens up.
Nina Zarechnaya plays main role in this play.
Treplev's mother, Arkadina, a domineering, capricious woman, an actress spoiled by fame, openly ridicules her son's play. The proud Treplev orders the curtain to be drawn. The performance ended without ending. The play failed.
But this misfortune is far from the most bitter of the misfortunes that befall Treplev, who is already unlucky in life: expelled from the university “due to circumstances beyond his control,” he languishes from forced idleness on his uncle’s estate, in a pitiful and ambiguous position “ lived" with a stingy mother. But, to top it all off, he loses his love.
Arkadina, who came to rest at her brother’s estate, brought with her her life partner, famous writer Trigorin (her husband, Treplev’s father, an actor, died long ago). Nina fell in love with Trigorin with all the passion of her first love: her tender relationship with Treplev turned out to be just a “light dream” of her youth: “more than once a young maiden will replace light dreams with dreams...” Love for Trigorin is her first and, perhaps, only love .
Nina breaks with her family, enters the stage against her will, and leaves for Moscow, where Trigorin lives. He became interested in Nina; but intimacy with Trigorin ends tragically for her. He stopped loving her and returned “to his former affections” - to Arkadina. “However,” as Treplev says, “he never left the former, but, due to his lack of character, he somehow managed to do both here and there!..” Nina had a child from Trigorin. The child died.
The life of Konstantin Treplev is shattered. He attempted suicide after breaking up with Nina. However, he continues to write; his stories even began to be published in metropolitan magazines. His life is bleak. He cannot overcome his love for Nina.
Nina Zarechnaya became a provincial actress. After a long separation, she again visits her native places. Her meeting with Treplev takes place. He begins to hope for the possibility of resuming their previous relationship. But she still loves Trigorin - she loves “even stronger than before.” The play ends with Treplev's suicide. His life was cut short, as was his play.
Anton Pavlovich wrote about “The Seagull” while working on the play: “A lot of talk about literature, little action, five pounds of love.”
Indeed, there is a lot of love in the play: the love of Treplev for Nina, Nina for Trigorin, Arkadina for Trigorin, Masha Shamraeva, the daughter of the estate manager, for Treplev, teacher Medvedenko for Masha, Polina Andreevna, Shamraev’s wife, for Doctor Dorn. All these are stories of unhappy love.
It may seem that this is what unrequited love is main topic"Seagulls". And the author seems to be moving towards such an understanding. We are offered a variant interpretation of the play from notebook writer Trigorin. Constantly recording observations, characteristic words, plots flashing in his head, Trigorin writes down “the plot for a short story.” This plot arose in connection with the fact that Treplev killed a seagull and laid it at Nina’s feet. Trigorin tells Nina the story that flashed through his mind:
“A young girl like you has lived on the shore of the lake since childhood; loves the lake like a seagull, and is happy and free like a seagull. But by chance a man came, saw it, and out of nothing to do, killed it, like this seagull!”
This may seem to be the content of the play itself. After all, it is as if Trigorin himself later turns out to be the person who, out of “nothing to do,” destroyed the lovely girl, and the girl he destroyed was Nina. That’s why, they say, the play is called “The Seagull.”
In this understanding, “The Seagull” would be a play not about heroism, not about art, but only about love. Moreover, it would be such a touching play that it would directly beg to be included in the popular romance of its time about the “wonderful girl” who “lived calmly with a lovely seagull over a quiet lake, but a stranger, unknown, entered her soul, she was his heart.” and gave her life; like a seagull hunter, joking and playing, he broke the young heart forever, the whole young life is forever broken, there is no happiness, no faith, no life, no strength...”
This interpretation of the play is, unfortunately, very common.
However, all this is just a “plot for a short story” by Trigorin, and not at all for a big play by Chekhov. This plot exists in “The Seagull” only as a possibility, refuted by the entire course of the action, as a hint that could come true, but does not come true.
Yes, a wonderful girl lived by the beautiful “witch’s lake”, in a quiet world of tender feelings and dreams. In the same world, Konstantin Treplev lived with her. But then both met life as it really is. But in fact, life can be not only gentle, but also rough. (“Life is rough!” Nina says in the fourth act.) And in real life everything can be much more difficult than it seems in young dreams.
Art seemed to Nina a radiant path to fame, a wonderful dream. But then she came into life. How many heavy obstacles and obstacles life immediately piled up on her path, what a terrible burden fell on her fragile shoulders! She was abandoned by the man she loved to the point of oblivion. Her child died. She was faced with a complete lack of help and support during the very first steps of her still timid talent, who, like a child, did not yet know how to walk and could die at the first step. The person I loved “didn’t believe in the theater, he kept laughing at my dreams, and little by little I also stopped believing and lost heart,” Nina tells Treplev in front of them. last meeting. - And here are the worries of love, jealousy, constant fear for the little one... I became petty, insignificant, played meaninglessly... I didn’t know what to do with my hands, I didn’t know how to stand on stage, I didn’t have control of my voice. You don't understand this state where you feel like you're playing terribly."
She, a dreamy girl, encountered drunken merchants and the unimaginable vulgarity of the then provincial theatrical world.
And what? She, feminine, graceful, managed to withstand the collision of dreams with life. At the cost of heavy sacrifices, she won the truth that “in our business - it doesn’t matter whether we play on stage or write - the main thing is not fame, not brilliance, not what I dreamed of, but the ability to endure. Know how to bear your cross and believe. I believe, and it doesn’t hurt me so much, and when I think about my calling, I’m not afraid of life.”
These are proud words, obtained at the cost of youth, at the foam of all trials, at the cost of those sufferings that are known to an artist who hates what he does, who despises himself, his uncertain figure on stage, his poor language in the story. And we, readers, spectators, who go through with Nina throughout the development of the play the whole mournful and yet joyful path of the victorious artist - we are proud of Nina, feeling the full weight of her words in the final act: “Now I’m not like that... I I’m already a real actress, I play with pleasure, with delight, I get drunk on stage and feel beautiful. And now, while I live here, I keep walking, I keep walking and I think, I think and I feel how my spiritual strength is growing every day...”
Nina has faith, she has strength, she has will, she now has knowledge of life and has her own proud happiness. She already knows how, as Blok taught artists, to “erase random features” and see that “the world is beautiful”: yes, the world is always beautiful when the will to light wins in it! And only such beauty is truly beautiful, which knows everything - and yet believes. And the beauty of the first, earliest dream, the beauty of ignorance, is only possible beauty.
Thus, through all the darkness and heaviness of life overcome by the heroine, we discern the leitmotif of “The Seagull” - the theme of flight, victory. Nina rejects the version that she is a ruined seagull, that her sufferings, her searches, achievements, her whole life are just “a plot for a short story.” She repeats in her last conversation with Treplev: “I am a seagull. No, that's not it... Remember when you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and, having nothing to do, killed it... The plot for a short story... This is not it.”
Yes, that's not it! Not the fall of a shot seagull, but the flight of a beautiful, gentle, free bird high towards the sun! This is the poetic theme of the play.
Why is Treplev, who once unsuccessfully shot himself because Nina left him, why does he, having already accepted the loss of Nina as inevitable, having managed to survive this, yet after meeting Nina in the fourth act, shoots himself again - and on “successful” this time?
He saw with merciless clarity how Nina had outgrown him! She is already in real life, in real art, and he still lives in that world of immature beautiful feelings in which he once lived with Nina. In his art, he still “doesn’t know what to do with his hands, doesn’t have a voice.” Just before Nina’s arrival in the fourth act, he is tormented by this.
“I talked so much about new forms, but now I feel that little by little I am slipping into routine. (Reads): “The poster on the fence read... Pale face framed by dark hair.” It said, framed... This is mediocre. (Strikes out.)... Trigorin has developed techniques for himself, it’s easy for him... but for me there is a flickering light, and the quiet twinkling of stars, and the distant sounds of a piano, fading in the quiet fragrant air... It’s painful.” Treplev's torment is no different from the torment Nina went through. The seagull - she had already flown far, far away from him! In the last act, Nina appears before us shocked, she still suffers greatly, she still loves and will love Trigorin. And how can she not be shocked after experiencing what she experienced! But through all her torment the light of victory shines. This light struck Treplev. The consciousness that he has not yet achieved anything penetrates him with cruel force. He now understood the reason for this. “You have found your path,” he says to Nina, “you know where you are going, but I am still running around in the chaos of dreams and images, not knowing why and who needs it. I don’t believe and I don’t know what my calling is.” He cannot do anything with his talent, because he has no goal, no faith, no knowledge of life, no courage, no strength. Having talked so much about innovation, he himself falls into a routine. Innovation cannot exist on its own; it is possible only as a conclusion from a bold knowledge of life; it is possible only with the richness of the soul and mind. And how did Treplev enrich himself? Nina managed to turn her suffering into victory. But for him, suffering remained only suffering, fruitless, drying, emptying the soul. Yes, he, too, like the heroes of Chekhov’s early story “Talent,” spoke “sincerely, passionately” about art. But, like them, he turns out to be only a victim of “that inexorable law according to which out of hundreds of beginners and hopefuls, only two or three jump out into the world.”
Thinking about Treplev and his fate, we will say: talent! how little this is! Thinking about Nina and her fate, we exclaim: talent! how much is that!
One of the smart contemporary spectators, A.F. Koni, wrote to Chekhov after the first performances of “The Seagull” that the play contained “life itself... almost incomprehensible to almost no one in its inner cruel irony.”
The internal cruel irony of the play is undeniable. The fate of Nina Zarechnaya and the fate of Konstantin Treplev are developing in many ways similar. Both here and here are the torments of immature talent. Both here and here - unhappy love, the loss of a loved one. For Nina, this is immeasurably enhanced by the loss of her child. And so a fragile, young woman withstands all these tests, and Treplev dies under their weight. This is how his “symbol,” as Nina calls it, takes on real meaning: the seagull he killed and threw at Nina’s feet. He identifies himself with the killed seagull. Let's remember this scene. "Nina. What does it mean?
Treplev. I had the meanness to kill this seagull today. I lay it at your feet.
Nina. What's wrong with you? (He picks up the seagull and looks at it.)
Treplev(after a pause). Soon I will kill myself in the same way.”
We see what a complex, multifaceted meaning, penetrating the entire play like rays, the image of a seagull has in it. By “internal cruel irony” it turns out that the ruined, killed seagull is not a fragile girl, but a young man who considered himself brave, strong, an “innovator.”
Chekhov, of course, sympathizes with Treplev, perhaps as deeply as he sympathized with his brothers, and not only blood brothers, but all brothers in art, all people of talent. But, having gone through immeasurably greater difficulties in the struggle for the triumph of his creative will than the difficulties that befell Treplev, he could not forgive weakness, just as he could not forgive it to either Alexander or Nikolai, just as he could not forgive the weakness of his most beloved heroes. Art was for him a sacred matter of affirming truth, beauty and freedom in his native, infinitely beloved Russian land. Talent meant for him a weapon in the fight that could not be laid down. And he raised above all the weak, those who had lost faith, the bright image of a seagull, with its beautiful free flight!
As we see, “The Seagull” is closely connected with all of Chekhov’s thoughts about the essence of talent, about the worldview, about the “general idea.” The main problem of Konstantin Treplev is that he has no goals that could inspire his talent. Clever Doctor Dorn says to Treplev: “The work must have a clear, definite thought.
You must know why you are writing, otherwise if you go along this picturesque road without a specific goal, you will get lost and your talent will destroy you.”
Talent without a worldview, without a clear, definite thought is a poisonous flower that brings death to its owner. Like the hero of “A Boring Story,” Konstantin Treplev, “in such poverty,” was enough of a push to make his whole life seem meaningless.
The same theme - the terrible burden for an artist of life without a clear worldview - is even more deeply connected in “The Seagull” with the image of Trigorin.
His suffering is more high level than Treplev’s suffering. An experienced master, Trigorin painfully feels the weight of talent, not inspired by a great goal. He feels his talent like a heavy cast-iron core to which he is tied, like a convict.
Anton Pavlovich connected a lot of his own, personal, autobiographical things with the image of Trigorin. This is especially felt in those tragic words with which Trigorin responds to Nina’s childhood delights, to her admiration for his success and fame.
“What success? - Trigorin is sincerely surprised. “I never liked myself.” - I don’t like myself as a writer... I love this water, trees, sky, I feel nature, it arouses passion in me, an irresistible desire to write. But I’m not just a landscape painter, I’m still a citizen, I love my homeland, the people, I feel that if I’m a writer, then I have to talk about the people, about their suffering, about their future, talk about science, about human rights, and so on. and so on, and I talk about everything, I’m in a hurry, they’re pushing me from all sides, they’re angry, I’m rushing from side to side, like a fox hunted by dogs, I see that life and science are moving forward and forward, and I’m still falling behind and falling behind , like a man who missed the train, and, in the end, I feel that I can only paint a landscape, and in everything else I am false and false to the core.”
The image of a discerning artist appears before us behind these words, remarkable in their sincerity and depth. Familiar Chekhovian motifs are heard again and again. It’s not enough for an artist to love his homeland and people; he needs to help solve the fundamental issues of life, go along with life, with advanced science, and keep up! Art is not false when it points the way to the future.
Trigorin expresses many other thoughts and feelings of Chekhov himself. We remember how Chekhov assessed contemporary art: “nice, talented” - and nothing more! We know that Anton Pavlovich regarded his own work this way. But here’s what Trigorin says in response to Nina’s question: don’t inspiration and the very process of creativity give him high, happy moments?
"Yes. It feels good when I write. And it’s nice to read the proofs, but... as soon as it’s out of print, I can’t stand it, and I already see that it’s not right, it’s a mistake, that it shouldn’t have been written at all, and I’m annoyed, my soul is rotten. (Laughing.) And the audience reads: “Yes, nice, talented... Nice, but far from Tolstoy,” or: “ Beautiful thing, but Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons is better.” And so on until coffin board everything will be only sweet and talented, sweet and talented nothing more, but when I die, my friends, passing by the grave, will say: “Here lies Trigorin. He was a good writer, but he wrote worse than Turgenev.”
The point here, of course, is not at all a matter of Trigorin-Chekhov’s wounded literary pride, or jealousy of the fame of Turgenev or Tolstoy. No, this is, first of all, a longing for great art, which would not only be “cute and talented,” but also help the homeland move towards a wonderful future. And besides, there is also Chekhov’s bitter feeling, his annoyance at the fact that contemporary criticism and the “public” in most cases pass by the main, new thing that he brought into literature, what he struggled and suffered over, and see only one is traditional, like the reader who only heard “Turgenev’s” notes in “The House with a Mezzanine.”
Of course, Trigorin is not Chekhov. In his image, Chekhov separated from himself, objectified what he felt as a possible threat to his talent.
Trigorin is threatened by the danger of creativity without pathos, without inspiration - the danger of handicraft arising from the lack of a “general idea.”
Another one is connected with the image of Trigorin big topic, which tormented many artists. Art eats up and absorbs Trigorin so much that for ordinary human, and not just professional life, he has neither the will nor even the ability for large, integral feelings. This a common problem artist in bourgeois society. It was not the essence that Marx characterized, when he pointed out that the victories of art in the bourgeois world were achieved at the cost of a certain moral inferiority of the artist.
Trigorin does not feel like a complete master of his talent. Talent keeps him on a leash, just as Arkadin keeps him on a leash.
And in the image of Nina Zarechnaya, Chekhov expressed the beauty of bold, free flight. So Nina “outgrew” not only Treplev, but also Trigorin.
All this does not mean that Chekhov gave us, in the image of Nina Zarechnaya, a realistically accurate history of the artist’s formation and growth. No, Nina Zarechnaya, while maintaining all the authenticity of a living character, still seems more like a symbol. This is the very soul of art, conquering darkness, cold, always striving “forward! and higher!"
Why is there so much love in The Seagull?
We again encounter Chekhov's constant theme: “happiness is not in love, but in truth.” If you only want happiness for yourself, if your soul is not filled with the general and is given only to the personal, then life will beat you cruelly and still will not give you happiness.
Here is Masha Shamraeva, the same age as Nina. Masha is a poetic creature, she feels beauty human soul and that’s why he loves Treplev. But her life, like the life of Katya, the professor’s pupil in “A Boring Story,” is not inspired, not filled with any purpose. She bitterly speaks about herself to Trigorin: “Marya, who does not remember her kinship, lives in this world for unknown reasons.” She has nothing to apply her desire for the beautiful, the sublime, like many ordinary girls of that time. All that remains for her is the realm of love, where there is so much that is accidental and can easily lead to death if there is no other, reliable support in the soul.
Love becomes an ugliness and loses all its beauty if it is the only content of life.
Barren love, like a dope, depersonalizes Masha, gradually erases beauty and poetry from her soul, turns her into an eccentric. How callous and rude is her attitude towards her teacher Medvedenko, who modestly and selflessly loves her, whom she married “out of grief”! How her indifference to her child repels us! She becomes as pathetic in her love for Treplev as her mother Polina Andreevna in her funny, jealous love for Dorn.
So love is a happy feeling that brings a wonderful uplift, the flowering of the best spiritual forces; love is the poetry of life, making a person inspired, talented, opening his eyes to the beauty of the world; love, meaning the boundless wealth of the soul, becomes beggarly poor, her beautiful face turns into an old woman’s wrinkled face, just as Masha begins to resemble Polina Andreevna, when all content is reduced to her, to love alone human life. Cut off from the whole breadth common life, love, like the beauty from folk tale, becoming a frog by the force of evil magic, turns into its opposite, from beauty it becomes ugliness.
And this is not at all happening to Masha because her love is hopeless. And hopeless love can have its own beauty. Nina's love for Trigorin is also hopeless. But Nina does not live only by her love. She also has a huge, infinitely wide world of creative work, serving people in their pursuit of beauty. And therefore, even a feeling of hopeless love can enrich Nina, help her understand life, people more deeply and, therefore, work even better for them. And her love only depersonalizes Masha.
“If the whole purpose of our life consisted only in our personal happiness,” Belinsky wrote, “and our personal happiness consisted only in love alone, then life would truly be a gloomy desert, littered with coffins and broken hearts, it would be hell, in front of the terrible the significance of which would make them pale poetic images earthly hell, outlined by the genius of the stern Dante... But - praise to the eternal Reason, praise to the protective Providence! there is for a person and more great world life except inner world hearts - the world of historical contemplation and social activity - that great world where thought becomes action, and high feeling - feat... This is the world of continuous work, endless doing and becoming, the world eternal struggle future with the past" ( V. G. Belinsky. Complete collection essays. Ed. and with approx. S. A. Vengerova, vol. XI, Pg., 1917, pp. 271-272).
Lives b for Chekhov means, first of all, to work creatively. There is no real life without labor of love. Arkadina says that she is younger than Masha, and explains this by the fact that she works, while Masha does not live. Arkadina feels young, and Masha seems like an old woman.
“And I have this feeling,” she says, “as if I was born a long, long time ago.”
Treplev says the same about himself: “My youth was suddenly torn away, and it seems to me that I have already lived ninety years in the world.”
When there is no faith in one’s calling, an exciting passion for creative work, no goal, no idea, then there is neither life nor youth. The soul ages, and, as Masha admits, “often there is no desire to live.” This is how Masha’s inner closeness to Treplev is revealed. Perhaps, vaguely feeling it, Treplev is therefore so annoyed by Masha’s love for him. Both of them are unable to oppose anything to their barren love that devastates them; both of them do not have large, high common goals in life. Both of them end up miserable and poor.
This is the meaning of the theme of love in the play.
But, perhaps, there is also so much love in “The Seagull” because love seemed ready at that time to enter the life of Chekhov himself...
The writer T. L. Shchepkina-Kupernik remembers Lika Mizinova. Lydia Stakhievna Mizinova was “a girl of extraordinary beauty, a real princess - a swan from a Russian fairy tale; her ashen curly hair, clear gray eyes under “sable” eyebrows, extraordinary softness... combined with a complete absence of breakage and almost stern simplicity made her charming. Anton Pavlovich was not indifferent to her.”
Their friendship was on the verge of the most tender love. But Chekhov did not take the decisive step. Lika knew how to enter into that humorous and ironic tone with which he colored their relationship. In their letters to each other, both of them joke constantly. This tone, however, could not satisfy her. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to cope with her feelings. In one of the letters, she even decides to turn to him with a request to help her in the fight against herself:
“You know very well how I feel about you, and therefore I am not at all ashamed to write about it. I also know your attitude, either condescending or completely ignoring. My most ardent desire is to recover from this terrible condition in which I am, but it is so difficult on my own. I beg you, help me, don’t invite me to your place, don’t see me. This is not so important for you, but maybe it will help me forget you...” Both were strongly drawn to each other. But as soon as the “threat” of turning their half-friendship, half-love into something much more serious was brewing, Chekhov, like his hero from the story “At Friends’ Place,” “as usual, played it all out as a joke.” He helped Lika, but not in the way she asked him to, not by stopping meetings, but by joking. He helped her “discharge” the tension of her feelings for him, coloring her experiences in humorous tones in her eyes, so that she would believe that all this was not so serious.
Time passed, and Lika could more or less calmly remember that she was “twice rejected” by Chekhov.
And the same thing happened to him that so often happens to his heroes who refuse happiness.
He did not have a clear, thoughtful decision at all: to run away from great love. Quite the opposite: during the period of his friendship with Lika Mizinova, we find in his letters such confessions as: “it’s boring without great love,” and thoughts that he should get married. He thought about the possibility of great love and marriage. And yet he preferred to “play it all as a joke.”
And then, as Yur correctly points out. Sobolev, who first published letters from L. Mizinova to Chekhov, events unfolded in such a way that they gave Anton Pavlovich the plot for “The Seagull.” “Twice rejected” Lika threw herself into a new hobby. The writer Potapenko often visited Melikhovo. Concerts were organized. Lika, who was preparing to become an opera actress, played the piano. Potapenko sang excellently. There was a lot of music, a lot of poetry in Melikhovo. Lika fell in love with Potapenko, perhaps “out of grief”... “And I... am completely in love with Potapenko,” she writes to Chekhov. - What should we do, daddy? You will still always be able to get rid of me and leave me for someone else.”
Potapenko's wife was very similar in character to Arkadina. And all of Potapenko’s behavior is similar to Trigorin’s behavior. A young girl dreaming of the stage, a married writer who could neither refuse the girl’s love nor give her true love, - this is the plot of “The Seagull”, “borrowed” from the drama that began in Melikhovo.
Lika withstood the trials that befell her. There is every reason to think that even during her passionate infatuation with Potapenko, behind his image, another image still remained alive in her soul - a man who felt her charm much more deeply, who took her much more seriously and did not want to exchange his feeling for the small coin of a fleeting moment. novel.
The story of Lika Mizinova’s unhappy love explains to us both the origin of the plot of “The Seagull” and the secret of the origin of the main images of the play, in particular, the image of Trigorin. Just as in Lika’s feelings the image of Chekhov and then the image of Potapenko merged with each other into one image of her rejected love, so in “The Seagull” the image of Trigorin “encompasses” both Chekhov and... Potapenko, oddly enough, the combination of the two of such incommensurable magnitudes! For Chekhov, this combination was quite natural, because he looks at the events unfolding in “The Seagull”, first of all, through the eyes of Nina Zarechnaya, and therefore through the eyes of Lika Mizinova. Trigorin's thoughts about literature, his longing as a writer, citizen, patriot - all this is Chekhov's. His behavior in relations with Nina Zarechnaya and Arkadina is Potapenkovsky: However, of course, it would be wrong to mechanically “divide” Trigorin into two parts: the writer’s and the personal, just as it would be wrong to “reduce” this image to its prototypes. Trigorin is not at all the “sum of two terms”; he is something different compared to both of his prototypes.
Chekhov really did not want his Trigorin to be perceived as a photograph of a real person, and was upset that in the plot of his play many people learned the story of the romance between Potapenko and Lika Mizinova. He wrote about “The Seagull”: “If it really looks like Potapenko is depicted in it, then, of course, it should not be staged or published.”
“The Seagull” failed on the stage of the Alexandria Theater for this reason.
The play, so dear to Chekhov, into which he invested so much treasured, failed.
But while this cruel blow had not yet fallen on him, in the interval between finishing work on The Seagull and staging it on stage, Chekhov created another of his classic plays.