How we cite our quotes: (Act.Line)
Quote #7
SONYA: Drink yourself, if it doesn't revolt you, but I beg you, don't let my uncle drink. It's bad for him.
ASTROV: All right. We won't drink any more. (2.275-77)
Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes is getting in everybody's business again. Sonya seems to feel responsible for everyone around her, from her father to her uncle, and this request to stop her uncle is really falling on deaf ears, because Astrov himself is a big drinker. Maybe, just maybe, it's an excuse to talk to him, and she doesn't really care that much about Uncle Vanya, though that's a big maybe.
Quote #8
ASTROV: You took a jar of morphine from my travelling medicine chest.
[A pause.]
Look, if you are absolutely set on committing suicide, then go into the woods and shoot yourself. But give back the morphine or there'll be talk and conjecture and people will think that I gave it to you… (4.124-30)
Morphine is a powerful painkiller that can be addictive. If you use too much of it, which is easy to do because its effects are quite nice, it can kill. So Astrov concludes that the only thing Vanya must want with the drug is to commit suicide. And he's pretty much right. We've already seen that drugs and alcohol make it easier for the characters who take them to ignore their problems and do nothing. But here we can see that drugs and alcohol are also linked with death, so Chekhov is saying that ignoring your problems and drinking the pain away is like death because it's basically giving up your life.
Quote #9
SONYA: Give it back. Why do you frighten us? [Tenderly] Give it back, Uncle Vanya! I may be no less unhappy than you, but I don't become desperate. I endure and will endure until my life comes to a natural end… You must endure. (4.141-44)
Sonya is talking about the morphine that her uncle stole when she tells him to give "it" back. Like Astrov, she concludes that he will be using it to end his life, not for recreational purposes. And her plea that he continue and "endure" is really the target of the great criticism that Chekhov is offering through the play. Their lives are meaningless, painful, and useless, but they just continue to live them.