Character Analysis
Olga the Caretaker
Olga is the eldest Prozorov sister. She's kind of like Varya in The Cherry Orchard. She takes care of the house, her sisters, and the servants. As a high school teacher, she's clearly the most pragmatic and responsible of the three—and the most conservative. Unmarried herself, Olga is uncomfortable when Masha talks openly about her affair with Vershinin, and puts a stop to a long kiss near the end of the play.
That doesn't mean she's a total stick-in-the-mud, and she's got plenty of compassion. Not given to Irina's dreaminess or Masha's fits of temper, Olga is quick to action when the fire leaves some townspeople destitute. She gathers clothes with Anfisa: "Nana, take that gray one… and that one too… What a terrible thing, my God! The whole of Kirsanov Street must have burned… Take this one… and this" (3.2). So she's got philanthropy to spare, and she's also fiercely loyal: she defends the old nurse from Natasha, who wants to put her out to pasture.
Strict but also compassionate, Olga is still just as PO'd as her sisters to be in this Podunk town. We don't get quite as firm a handle on what she'd be doing if she had a way out, but we can be pretty certain it wouldn't be tiptoeing around Natasha and dealing with fires.
Olga Does Her Chores
Olga doesn't idealize work like Irina does. She just works. She worries about her fatigue, fretting that she's "lost far too much weight; I'm sure it's all because of the girls at the high school—they keep making me so angry" (1.12). And she absolutely doesn't want to become headmistress because it would be even more work—yet she does, because she's just a girl who can't say no. Olga's disappointed with life at the beginning of the play and remains disappointed through the end.
Olga On Her Own
Olga doesn't even wish for love. She's too pragmatic for that. It's too late for her now, but she doesn't want her baby sister to make the same mistake, telling her: "If you want my advice, marry the baron… People don't marry for love; they marry because they're supposed to. At least I think they do. I would have married without love. It wouldn't have made any difference who it was, as long as he was an honest man. I'd even marry an old man…" (3.102).
We know, getting down with some kind of Dinosaur is something even Ke$ha couldn't stomach, so this must be a big thing in Russian culture. That doesn't mean she makes complaining about what could have been her habit, though. She's disappointed, sure, but Olga's not too much of a whiner. She just keeps on working and living. The last line of the play is hers, and it's an expression of philosophical hunger: "If only we knew! If only we knew!" (4.170).
Timeline