How we cite our quotes: (Act.Line)
Quote #4
SONYA: [...] You're bored, you can't find a role for yourself, and boredom and inactivity are infectious. Look: Uncle Vanya does nothing and just follows you round like a shadow, I've left my work and come running to you to talk. I've got lazy, I can't do it! (3.30-34)
Sonya isn't the only one to notice that Yelena is kind of like a black hole, sucking everyone into her lazy way of being. She seems to think of the passivity as a contagious disease, that everyone is catching from her stepmother. And perhaps it's true; maybe if Serebryakov and Yelena showed up in a flurry of activity everyone else would be inspired.
Quote #5
SONYA: [...] No, uncertainty is better… There's still hope… (3.104-05)
When Sonya asks her stepmother to help her find out whether Astrov has feelings for her, it seems like a reasonable request, even if it's something most of us stopped doing in junior high. But what's really weird is her statement after they've made their plan: she'd rather not know, because then she can still fool herself with hope rather than have her answer. It's living in a fantasy world, plain and simple.
Quote #6
ASTROV: We have here a decline, which is the consequence of an impossible struggle for existence; a degeneration arising from stagnation, ignorance, a total lack of self-awareness [...]. (3.179-82)
Astrov's diagnosis isn't for a person, it's for society in general. And according to him, the social sickness is basically passivity. The lack of knowledge and self-awareness means that people are stagnant, like a smelly, old pond. Their lack of action causes the "decline" that Astrov is talking about.