Uncle Vanya Dissatisfaction Quotes

Okay, Vanya. Save the drama for your mama. His little suicide joke is, as we see throughout the play, not serious. He doesn't really want to hang himself, but he might like it if someone else, say, Serebryakov, did so. But the juxtaposition between the common phrase of "lovely weather for…" and the abrupt, unexpected "hanging oneself" is what really gives his sarcastic joke its punch. Even so, the mention of suicide leaves a bad taste in our mouths. It makes us realize that even though a lot of what happens is ridiculous and kind of pathetic, there are some serious issues underneath it all.

Apparently no one ever told Serebryakov the old saying about "you can wish in one hand…". His wish list—for success, fame, and life—goes completely unfulfilled. Of course, we'll find out later that his dissatisfaction lies largely in his finances. He's unable to pay for his fancy city life, so the country estate really is like an exile for him.

Once again we're boarding the Sarcasm Express with these guys. When Serebryakov says that he's the only one who's happy and compares himself to the other people he's keeping at all hours taking care of him, he's actually trying to say that he's the least happy of all of them, because of his illness. Yeah, we know. The kind of joke only a professor would make.