52 pages • 1 hour read
Anton ChekhovThree Sisters
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1901A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IIIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act III Summary
About a year has passed. In the middle of the night, a catastrophic fire ravages the town. In the room she now shares with Irina, Olga is gathering clothes to donate to the victims of the fire. Olga decides that Vershinin and his family, whose home was almost burned, should stay at the Prozorov house along with Fedotik, whose house was destroyed. Ferapont enters and comments that Moscow also burned once in 1912. Olga sends him off with a bundle of clothes and then dictates sleeping arrangements to Anfisa, noting that Chebutykin is extremely drunk. Suddenly, Anfisa begs Olga not to kick her out. Olga is perplexed that Anfisa would be worried about such a thing; she orders Anfisa to sit and rest. Natasha enters and announces that they ought to organize a charity for the fire victims, adding, “It’s the responsibility of the wealthy” (53). Natasha expresses concern that with so many people in the house, her son Bobik and her daughter Sofia could be exposed to the flu. Upon seeing Anfisa resting, Natasha yells at her sharply for daring to sit down. Anfisa rushes out.
Natasha exclaims that Anfisa is useless in the household and urges the others to fire her. Olga, upset by Natasha’s cruelty, replies that Anfisa has been with them for 30 years. Natasha contends that when Sofia is older and attends the school where Olga is headmistress, Natasha will fear her, but now, Natasha is the one who runs the household. Olga insists that she will never be the headmistress and will refuse the post if it is offered. The two women argue, and Natasha shouts, “DON’T YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME!” (54), noting that they will have conflict until Olga agrees to move into the basement. Kulygin enters, looking for Masha so that they can go home, as the fire has been controlled. Watching Olga, Kulygin praises her, commenting that if he hadn’t married Masha, he would have married her. They hear Chebutykin coming, noting that after two years of sobriety, he has chosen this tumultuous night to get drunk. Kulygin hides as Chebutykin enters, and Olga and Natasha sneak out of the room before they are spotted. Chebutykin grumbles that everyone thinks that he is a doctor who can treat ailing patients, but he doesn’t remember any of his medical training.
To himself, Chebutykin admits that he got drunk because he feels guilty that he recently treated a patient who died due to his malpractice. Irina, Tusenbach, and Vershinin enter, looking for a quiet place in the crowded house. Tusenbach, now a civilian, dresses fashionably. Kulygin joins them from his hiding place. Tusenbach has been asked to stage a concert benefit for the fire victims, and he and Irina debate whether Masha, a talented pianist, could play or whether she has forgotten how. Kulygin praises Masha, wondering if their headmaster might find it inappropriate for Masha to perform in public. As they discuss rumors that the military brigade is to be relocated, Chebutykin picks up and then drops a clock. Kulygin and Irina exclaim that the clock was expensive and belonged to the sisters’ mother. Chebutykin rambles incoherently about whether they all even exist. As he leaves the room, he announces that Natasha is having an affair with Protopopov, but no one acknowledges this revelation. Vershinin describes rushing home during the fire and finding his daughters alone; he feels guilty that their childhood is so difficult.
Masha enters. Vershinin imagines that the chaos of the townspeople during the fire was similar to what it was like to have one’s village attacked and plundered. He wonders how their lives will be perceived by people in the next century. They all start singing and dancing. Fedotik enters and joins in, laughing giddily about everything he lost in the fire. Solyony tries to enter the room, but Irina firmly turns him away. Solyony complains that Tusenbach is welcome in the room but he is not. Vershinin deflects the rising tension by announcing that they all must leave. As the soldiers exit, Solyony swears that he will remember this slight. Tusenbach lingers, telling Irina that he will be working as a bricklayer. Kissing her hands, Tusenbach asks Irina to be with him. Masha shoos him out, then wakes Kulygin and sends him home. Kulygin professes his deep love and admiration for Masha, exclaiming that he is satisfied, but Masha retorts that she is sick. It is also revealed that Andrey took a mortgage on their house to pay off his gambling debts, but Natasha took the money. Kulygin doesn’t understand why this is an issue for Masha. She sends him home again, but he insists on waiting while she sleeps.
Irina blames Natasha for Andrey’s dashed ambitions. Instead of becoming a professor, he is now proud just to be a council member. Andrey does nothing but hide in his room and play his violin. Distraught, Irina admits that she knows they will never go back to Moscow. Irina is miserable in her job, and Olga advises Irina to marry Tusenbach, reasoning that although Irina may not love him, she does like and respect him. Olga longs for marriage so much that she would wed any decent man who asked her. Irina admits that she has been waiting until they moved to Moscow, certain that she would find real love there, but now she feels silly.
Natasha crosses the room with a candle. Masha muses that Natasha probably set the fire, and Olga calls her foolish. Masha confides in her sisters that she and Vershinin are in love, but Olga doesn’t want to hear it. Andrey enters, notes his sisters’ judgmental silence, and demands that they air their grievances. The sisters promise to discuss the matter tomorrow. Masha exits, hearing Vershinin’s voice. Andrey knows that they dislike Natasha, disapprove of his unambitious life, and are unhappy about the mortgage, but he defends his choices. He weeps. Kulygin enters, unable to find Masha. Irina cries to Olga about the rumors that the military is leaving town. She decides that she will marry Tusenbach but pleads with Olga that they will still go to Moscow.
Act III Analysis
Act III focuses on the fire that raged through the town, which is easily the most dramatic action in the play so far. However, as is typical of Chekhov’s narrative style, this action-packed event takes place offstage. Not only is the fire occurring outside the house and away from the audience’s view, but when the act begins, the fire is all but extinguished. However, the fire represents a powerful metaphor for The Decay of the Aristocracy, for at this point in the play, the erosion of the upper class has theoretically been achieved through equalization; the upper-class echelon’s privileges have worn away and their ranks have been thoroughly infiltrated by lower-class individuals. Additionally, the fire itself acts as a great equalizer, for it brings wholesale destruction that has no respect for class or social standing. However, Natasha’s domineering presence demonstrates that societal class systems are not so easily disrupted. If at first she played the role of a disruptor by marrying into an upper-class family and taking control of the house, she now illustrates the fact that holding the power of a higher social class also corrupts those who wield such power. Far from evincing discomfort at the extravagance of putting on a charity event, Natasha is pleased by the idea and condescendingly asserts that the rich have a duty to help the poor. To compound the evidence of her transformation, she treats lower-class characters with cruelty, verbally attacking the elderly Anfisa for daring to sit down in her presence and failing to acknowledge that the woman is drained after helping fire victims all night. Natasha therefore proves that she should not be mistaken for any kind of social activist. Instead, she demonstrates the unpleasant truth that existing social systems often reshape people, not the other way around.
In the deliriousness of exhaustion in the early morning hours, the characters’ emotions are raw, and their conversations reveal that they are still overwhelmed by The Pressures of Love, Longing, and Loneliness. The devastation of the fire has left survivors with nothing, not even clothes on their backs, and Olga has been working nonstop to donate clothing and to invite people to stay. With the external crisis of the fire, the lurking crises of the characters’ problematic marriages and romantic connections also come to light, as when Vershinin finds his daughters alone and terrified, abandoned by their mother. Likewise, although Kulygin repeatedly affirms that he loves Masha and is satisfied with her, the play’s subtext suggests that he suspects that she is engaged in a secret affair, which he does not acknowledge. His own dissatisfaction is also evident in his comment that he might have married Olga if he had met her first. This is a rare moment of emotional truth from Kulygin, who longs for his wife to return his adoration. Finally, when Andrey tries desperately to talk to his sisters and explain how his marriage is destroying him, they are too exhausted to listen and leave him isolated with his feelings once again.
Another tragic figure who wanders throughout the act is Chebutykin. The others, especially the sisters, are irritated that Chebutykin has chosen tonight of all nights to get drunk, seeing it as a random and ill-timed slip-up in his ongoing alcohol addiction. As usual, no one listens to Chebutykin or takes him seriously, and Olga, Irina, and Kulygin even hide from him to avoid interacting with him. However, when he believes himself to be in an empty room, he reveals that due to his own malpractice, he has caused the death of a patient and is now Worrying about the Meaning of Life. In this light, his copious drinking is an effort to deal with the ramifications of his shortcomings as a physician, and his reaction suggests that this is the first patient to die from his incompetence. In Chebutykin’s view, life and death are meaningless: as arbitrary as the fact that Chebutykin has the power to tip the balance either way.
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By Anton Chekhov
