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The Seagull Symbolism

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In the play, The Seagull by Anton Chekhov the main characters Constantine Treplieff, Nina Zarietchnaya and Boris Trigorin are tangled in a unorthodox love triangle. Treplieff is an aspiring writer who writes plays about dead characters, which contributes to their failure. Nina Zarietchnaya says after acting in his play, “Your play is very hard to act; there are no living characters in it” (10). He lives in the shadow of his famous actress mother Irina Arkadina and her successful author boyfriend Trigorin. Zarietchnaya is an young aspiring actress who is also searching for acceptance. Nina’s 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 Zarietchnaya. The main symbolism in the play is a 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 at the lake, her destruction of Constantine Treplieff’s heart and her own destruction under the dependence of Trigorin and their love affair. The symbol the seagull represents Nina Zarietchnaya, but the symbol changes meaning over the course of the play. In Act One, Zarietchnaya is the seagull by the way she's attracted to the lake at her home during childhood. Zarietchnaya says, “My father and his wife never will let me come here; they call this place Bohemia and are afraid I shall become an actress. But this lake attracts me as it does the gulls. My heart is full of you” (9). The seagull embodies freedom and a sense of security. Zarietchnaya also says, “That was my dead mother's home. I was born there, and have lived all my life beside this lake. I know every little island in it” (28). The play reveals that Nina’s mother died during her childhood and she lived her life by the lake, which made her feel secure. In addition, her mother left her riches to Nina’s father who gave them to his new wife, leaving Nina with nothing. Ultimately, Nina Zarietchnaya is a desperate actress, with no riches and no support from her parents. Nina feels she does not have to authority to seriously peruse acting without her parents

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