Multi Dimensionality in the Seagull by Anton Chekhov Essay

Keeping this in mind, it comes as no surprise that Raskolnikov would feel utterly abhorred when Svidrigaïlov refers to them as “birds of a feather”(p.340; Part 4, Chapter 1). While Svidrigaïlov is rather keen of their shared similarities, such as their status as murderers, Raskolnikov willingly fails to realize these associations. Raskolnikov’s better side objects to the hedonistic behavior of Svidrigaïlov, decrying him as a man of the most abject nature. The dramatic irony lies in the fact that Raskolnikov desires to be an “extraordinary” man, the very epitome of Svidrigaïlov, a man he holds in no high regard. Despite their superficial variances and dissidences, Raskolnikov had slowly rendered himself into a facsimile of the man he detested, Svidrigaïlov. Although both men, whether knowingly or unknowingly, desire to transcend above the ordinary masses, it is only a matter of time before self-realization indicates the folly of their ways.

In the play, The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, the main characters Constantine Treplieff, Nina Zarietchnaya and Boris Trigorin are entangled in a love triangle. Treplieff is an aspiring writer who writes plays about dead characters, which contributes to their failure. He lives in the shadow of his famous actress mother Irina Arkadina and her successful boyfriend Trigorin. Nina is a young aspiring actress who is also searching for acceptance. Her father and stepmother disapprove of her acting career. Lastly, Trigorin as mentioned before, is a successful writer and the boyfriend of Arkadina. He ultimately has an affair with Nina. The main symbolism in the play is an actual seagull, which is a bird that lives near the sea. In Chekhov’s The Seagull, the symbol of the seagull is used to represent Nina Zarietchnaya because of her sense of freedom and security at the lake, her destruction of Constantine Treplieff’s heart and her own destruction under Trigorin and their love affair.

He does not feel anything toward women and in fact, refers to them as “the lower race” (1) and that “their beauty aroused hatred in him and the lace on their linen reminded him of scales” (118). As the story ends, the readers learn about Gurov’s consciousness and that his feelings towards women have changed. The motive for his alteration begins with Gurov’s love for Anna, and later these feelings makes him “sleepless and restless” because of continuous thinking and dreaming about Anna.

The bond between these two characters allow Tolstoy to set up many interesting situations. Tolstoy often puts the two women into parallel situations and uses Sonya as an anti-thesis to Natasha.

    The confusion in Raskolnikov’s soul is best seen when he tries to help a girl in the street who has been raped and left to the whims of whoever may

cannot accept that some people speak to him without having the intention of hurting him in

Anton Chekhov’s short story, “At Home,” provides a representation on how societies view morality when faced with the action of discipline. This view is imperative to the story because Chekhov wants the reader to recognize the futile ways societies determine what is morally correct or incorrect, by implementing consequences without considering why an action must be punished. Evgeni Bykovski, an attorney, is faced with this exact problem as he determines how to properly teach and discipline his son, Seriozha, who has been caught stealing, smoking, and lying. Nevertheless, Evgeni finds himself at his most difficult trial because as he ponders how to punish his son, he encounters his own set of crossroads on how societies discipline

The author portrayed the banker as a foolish and greedy man, and since Chekhov characterized him as static, he never changed. His inability to alter his ways resulted in him making an extraordinarily rash bet and later on him wanting to kill a man in cold blood. “That is not true! I bet you two million that you

Though language each character tried to define life and their struggle in hope of controlling it. In one scene, Masha in her drunken state unmasks her true emotions and declares her love for Konstantin, upon rejection she proclaims the meaninglessness of life without love and how in the end the only result of it is misery. Her pretence of having a callous exterior was to masks the underling pain that she is unable to deal with. Dim lighting accentuated the foreboding mood of misery and her off centre positioning on stage underpinned the neglect of sympathy she was receiving from other characters, most importantly Konstantin, due to the seemingly “unimportance” of her character. At the pinnacle of emotional pretence, Irina as a character constantly maintains a façade of extravagance. Upon returning to the lake, she vociferates the “perfection” of her life and career, but moments’ later runs off stage and sobs in despair. The use of split staging depicts Irina’s battling emotions and her fear of showing emotional sincerity least it enhances her vulnerability. Throughout the play the seagull is a recurring motif and appears in peaks of tension in the play. In this case it reinforces the theme of the existentialism revealing the characters denial of their misery and unwillingness to change their

A shy and timid seventeen year old girl, Sonia is wary of Raskolnikov when she first meets him. Her tenacious religious faith is a vital part of her character; she is shy and timid, but also truly compassionate and altruistic (especially towards Raskolnikov). In this sense, Raskolnikov is quite different from Sonia; where he is uncaring and ignorant, she is warm-hearted and thoughtful. Sonia helps to bring back the humane aspects of Raskolnikov’s personality. “There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror-stricken. She looked wildly at him… There was a look of poignant agony, of despair in her face...His lips worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned, and went back into the police office” (Dostoevsky 447). At this moment in time, Raskolnikov had gone into the police station to confess his crime, but in a lack of better judgement, he returns back to Sonia without telling about his crime. Had Raskolnikov not been motivated by the repugnant look on Sonia’s face, it is unlikely that he would have gone back into the police station. This is perhaps the prime example of how Sonia brings out the best in Raskolnikov. Sonia’s sympathetic and doting personality is polar to Raskolnikov’s selfish beliefs and his “extraordinary man theory”. However, when all is said and done, Sonia guides Raskolnikov to face the punishment of his wrong doing. Had Raskolnikov not had a tenacious relationship with Sonia, it likely would have taken him a much

The protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student, decides to murder and rob an old pawn broker, Alyona Ivanovna, not due to his desperate need of money, but due to a theory he wants to test. Raskolnikov leaves no evidence which would lead the investigation to him; however, the police lieutenant in charge of the case, Porfiry Petrovich, a meticulous thinker, understands Raskolnikov’s theory and has a big role in influencing the student to confess. Between the murder and the confession, Raskolnikov undergoes a long and painful process of thought. His friend, Razumikhin Prokofych, along with a prostitute and his future significant other, Sonia Semyonovna Marmeladova, are part of the protagonist’s path. In the end, Sonia turns out to be Raskolnikov’s salvation as she helps him find redemption and start living

Masha becomes another medium for addressing human disappointment, and effectively shows this disappointment when she is talking about Treplev. Treplev himself is yet another example of disappointment and struggle from lack of love since he is trying to please to his mother, Arkadina, although this love is more of a family matter rather than a relationship when she shows disapproval of him by criticizing his play and states “he is a conceited, capricious boy” (117). These three examples provide evidence of Anton Chekhov's address to disappointment by showing the disappointment of love in The Sea Gull through characters and their actions; examples to this disappointment are not just limited as the whole play contains many romance triangles that lead to disappointment.

As the story unfolds, Gurov at first changes subtly. First of all he meets Mrs. Anna Sergeyevna. His attitude at first is still the same, he finds her as another victim of his little game that he plays. He sits and watches, searching his mind for a ways to get her attention like he does for every woman. He still looks at women in the same sort of fashion. Anna and Gurov start spending time with each other more and more, he still plays his game. Each time that he meets her and tries to coax her into have an ice or syrup, yet he still looks at her as “pathetic.” After their first kiss he begins to realize that there is something different about this girl. Unlike the usual women he messes around with, she feels guilty about engaging in this affair with him. Anna does not give him the satisfaction of playing the game along with him. As he spends more time with Anna he becomes fond of her presence. He starts learning more about her, when she talks him listens intently instead of getting bored and rolling his eyes. When Anna gets a letter from her husband asking for her to come home, Gurov acts like it isn’t a big deal, he still believes he is playing his game. At first he forces himself to believe he is ok, but after they are apart for a while he realizes that Anna isn’t leaving him. She follows him everywhere, not just in his dreams. He feels something that he has never felt before, he

In the beginning of the film, Nina was depicted as an average, normal person living in New York that yet lacked the freedom to express herself as a sexually free, young woman due to her mother’s controlling behavior. When she wins the coveted Swan Queen role, the feeling of immense pressure that comes with the role causes Nina to lose her tenuous grip on reality and descend into a living nightmare. For example, she experiences symptoms such as interpreting normal behavior from Lily as an attack because of Nina’s jealousy toward Lily’s effortless embodiment of the Black Swan (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, & Nock, 2014). Nina’s attention to negative behavior to Lily is a result of her own imagination – she starts conceiving events that did not happen such as a lesbian fling with Lily and her constant attempts to sabotage Nina’s ability to perform as the Swan Queen. In addition, she suffers through hallucinatory episodes that involve bodily horror, such as her skin tearing off her body and the appearance of an evil twin, every time she reaches a step closer to her full transformation of the Swan Queen.

“Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom.” –The Grand Inquisitor” “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” - Father Zosima. These two quotes voice the polarized philosophies that impregnate the book, The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan, the second of the three sons, and Zosima, the old monk, are huge commentators on the question, “Is the burden of free will to much for a human to bear?”