Uncle Vanya Passivity Quotes

We were starting to like Mariya, but then she goes and says something like this. Anyone who would sign their entire life over to someone else, control over everything from the amount of grocery money they have to whether or not they have a place to live, is not really in charge of their own destiny.

Vanya, Vanya, Vanya. He's so melodramatic, so sure of his accusations against Serebryakov, that he's completely unable to see his own responsibility in what's happening in his life. He doesn't realize that his own passivity, his going with the flow rather than making real decisions, is what makes him his own worst enemy.

Telegin and Marina are minor characters who don't truly intervene in the play's action. But this attitude that they're displaying here, where they are happy that Serebryakov and Yelena are gone but see it as a matter of fate rather than a result of a series of actions, shows the passivity that burns Chekhov up.