Daisy #1

I wanted to start my blog this week by delving deeper into some of the literary influences which Chekhov used in writing The Seagull. Most of this information is relating to the character of Nina, as that’s where most of the information stemmed from.

Trigorin and Nina are modeled after a play Chekhov’s friend Suvorin wrote, called Tatyana Repina. Although this play was not a wide success, Chekhov raved about it and even offered literary advice to his friend. A quote from the article “The Seagull’s Theatrical Conext” by Laurence Senelick explains,

“Chekhov’s intimacy with Tatyana Repina peers out in The Seagull, especially in the first long scene between Trigorin and Nina….the central and longest scene in the first act of Suvorin’s play takes place in Tatyana’s hotel room where she is being courted by the play’s male lead, Mikhail Adashev, a journalist. He waxes eloquent and bitter about his profession, and Tatyana’s interjections, like Nina’s, spur him in denials and explanations, although the woman’s comments are teasing, not naïve.”
Here is an excerpt of an exchange between the two main characters, very similar to Nina and Trigorins’ scene at the top of Act II:

ADASHEV: A journalist’s specialty is journalism. I have to know everything or pretend to understand everything, everything has to be at my fingertips, starting with the Egyptian pyramids …don’t shrink from anything, throw yourself into everything, make decisions about all-that’s our motto…”
REPINA: “What a way to talk about your profession! Let me give you a piece of advice: never run yourself down! There are always plenty of people willing to do it for you…”

There are also very obvious writing similarities in the way Suvorin’s lines are constructed in parallel to Chekhov.

NINA: “He’s here too…Why, yes…Never mind…Yes.” (after overhearing Arkadina and Trigorin laughing outside together in Act IV.)

TATYANA REPINA: “He? Wait…Yes, yes, that’s his voice…l’amour qui nous…its he, he… (listens intently)

There are numerous other findings that suggest Chekhov have other many other sources influencing his make-up of the character of Nina. In particular, Aleksandr Herzen’s “The Thieving Magpipe” (1846), about a young serf girl left abandoned and systematically beaten by her master for refusing his commands. This story comes from a tale by Pisemsky, “One Thousand Souls”, in which the main character Nastenka runs off to become a famous actress, only to return home and reunite with her former lover. There is also Katya in “A Dreary Story”, who loses her baby and retires her life of glamour in exchange for solitude and seclusion.

Other figures for Nina perhaps include Annika and Lubinka in Saltyokov-Shchedrin’s novel ‘The Golovlyov Family’ (1876) and Negina, the heroine of Ostrovsky’s comedy ‘Talents and Admirers’( 1881).

-Treplev’s play was most likely modeled after Measterlink, whom Chekhov greatly admired. His criticism of the play within a play, that it was lacking living characters, showed no range and was only “lines and speeches’, was also found in a letter to Suvorin Chekhov wrote about a metaphysical drama called “Over Evne” by Bjornsen. Chekhov stated, “I won’t do it for the stage, because there’s no way to play it, no action, no living characters, and no dramatic interest.”

In conclusion, Chekhov drew from a deep wealth of characters from other playwrights at the time, and used many outside influences as a way to draw up his own dramatic figures in The Seagull.