Shalom Freedman 2006-08-20
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The 'Three Sisters' is another Chekhov depiction of life's pains, disappointments, hopes , illusions and moments of beauty. It is once again as in the 'Seagull' life in the provinces which is a central villain depriving the heroines of what they believe would be a fuller more realized life in the city. Each one of the sisters does not come to the Love and realization in life that they dreamed. Olga the schoolteacher ends up as the mistress of her school, but this is not her heart's desire. Masha longs for a richer kind of love with one wiser than the husband she has outgrown .Irina dreams of an escape she can never make. Their brother Andrei who marries the peasant woman Natalya and has two children with her , sees her take over his life and drive out the sisters from the ancestral home.
The characters as is usually the case with Chekhov are not one- dimensional but are complex mixtures .Though the play ends in the seeming failure of all , a speech of sister Olga suggests that 'hopelessness' is not the last word for Chekhov, but dream and delusion maintain us to the end.
"We shall be forgotten, our faces will be forgotten, our voices, and how many there were of us; but our sufferings will pass into joy for those who will live after us, happiness and peace will be established upon earth, and they will remember kindly and bless those who have lived before. Oh, dear sisters, our life is not ended yet. We shall live! The music is so happy, so joyful, and it seems as though in a little while we shall know what we are living for, why we are suffering... If we only knew--if we only knew!"