You can't always get what you want in Three Sisters. It would be like a Stones song, except when we think about it more, you actually can't ever get what you want. The sisters want to return to Moscow: no dice. Irina wants to fall in love: nope. OK, she'll settle for a convenient marriage to a nice guy: sorry, baby, not happenin'.
In Chekhov's play, it's all about the wanting, not the getting—the constant dissatisfaction that's a big part of life. As the philosophizing commander Vershinin sums it up: "We're never happy. We can never be happy. We only want to be happy" (2.112).
Questions About Dissatisfaction
- If you had to put all the characters on a "contentment" continuum—from least contented to most contented—who would fall in what spot?
- What is the relationship between expectations and fulfillment for these characters?
- How do characters' expectations change over time?
Chew on This
Three Sisters is the portrait of a family lacking the drive to make their high expectations a reality.
The only satisfied characters in the play, Anfisa and Ferapont, are those with very little future to worry about. Since they're the servants, Chekhov is making a pretty big statement about class with that.