Arkardina's Greatest Fear

"Time, merely implacable, works to no one's advantage in The Seagull."
"Time, in fact, it may be viewed as the play’s principal antagonist."

I was looking up themes in the play, and I read this interesting article that said "TIME IS THE MAIN ENEMY" in the Seagull. It is "relentless and erosive, never a healing influence...Its effect pervades the lives of all the characters, and, because that is basically true to life, it is a defining element of Chekhov's realism."

Arkadina fears her beauty to be taken away from her by time. Beauty, which she has used to further her career, and in doing so she has sacrificed most of her essential decency to get what she wanted and along the way has forgotten and pushed away her son. Without her beauty (for time isn't slowing down for anyone in this play), and therefore no career, and no more Trigorin (for he will find beauty in someone much younger...Nina), what will she have left?

"If there is an overriding theme in The Seagull, it is that humankind's greatest enemy is time, the relentless enemy of passion and hope. It is a play of hopelessly misplaced love or desire. Many of the characters want love from others who are either indifferent or have emotional commitments elsewhere and are frustrated in their own turn. There are no fortuitous liaisons in the play. Rather, except for the residual and somewhat enigmatic passion that binds Irina Arkadina and Boris Trigorin, the passions of each of the needful characters make them miserable, albeit, at times, comically so."

Look at the way time affects the characters later in the show:

"The most devastating impact of its passage is seen between the third and fourth acts, when two years elapse. Nothing works out for the better, or at least what the various characters believe is the better. Sorin grows older and weaker. Irina Arkadina’s beauty continues to fade. Nina’s acting career goes nowhere. Perhaps worse yet, other things remain the same. If it is not betrayed, love merely languishes in its hopelessness, molding like some buds that rot without ever bearing fruit. Masha marries her schoolmaster, Semyon Medvedenko, and bears him a child but is neither a loving wife nor mother, still suffering from a misguided passion for Konstantine, who, in turn, still pines for Nina. Time, merely implacable, works to no one’s advantage in The Seagull."