The Sea Gull and The Wild Duck: Birds of a Feather?

THE SEA GULL AND THE WILD DUCK: BIRDS OF A FEATHER? THAT CHEKHOV WAS CONSCIOUSLY AND PURPOSELY CONCERNED WITH literary and dramatic theory in The Sea Gull is undisputed; in this first mature handling of a new dramatic form which he earlier tried to express in The Wood Demon, he had, as Professor Balukhaty has pointed out, the twofold purpose of stating his aesthetic principles and supporting them by the example of the play itsel£.l It is Chekhoy 's "example" of symbolism that I shall consider in this paper. In a play designed to exemplify a new kind of drama and to offer a comment on existing forms of drama, it is legitimate, indeed essential, to ask what functions so obvious a symbol as the sea gull is meant to have. Because The Sea Gull is a play, not a prose statement of Chekhoy 's dramatic theory, we would expect its dominant symbol to have one or more of the usual functions of a symbol; and indeed the sea gull is no exception for it tells us something about Nina and Trepleff, and it helps to ,carry one of the major themes of the play. In this paper, however, I am concerned only with that facet of the play which is Chekhov's comment on dramatic theory; hence I am concerned only with what role, if any, the sea gull plays as a part of that comment. Is Chekhov joining the ranks of the symbolists, or is the sea gull, bearing marked resemblances to Ibsen's wild duck, created, in part at least, to criticize symbolist drama? There is "much talk about literature" in The Sea Gull as might well be expected with a cast of characters headed by a middle-aged actress of the "old school," a third-rate writer of stories, a romantic young girl who dreams of becoming a great actress, and a talented young writer who feels the need for new forms in literature and the theater. There is literary parody, too, which might also be expected from a writer whose early stories were often parodies of the writers of his day, both Russian and European. Chekhov clearly is satirizing symbolist or decadent drama in Trepieff's play; although Trepleff may echo Chekhov in his plea for new forms, Chekhov would disagree with Trepleff that literature should present life "as it appears in my dreams." David Magarshack has discussed Chekhov's literary theory in detail in the critical study, Chekhov the Dramatist (London, 1951), 1 S. D. Balukhaty, ed. with an introduction The Seagull Produced by Stanislavsky, trans. David Magarshack (London, 19'52), p. IS. (167) 168 MODERN DRAMA September pointing out with reference to Chekhov's letters that Chekhov felt that literature should present life "as it is" and "as it should be," not. according to Trepleff, "as it appears in my dreams." (Chekhov has been called many things-naturalist, symbolist, impressionist-but the critical comments in his letters to close friends and hopeful beginners alike demonstrate his abiding concern with a realistic portrayal of life, a portrayal in which there is nothing superfluous, in which every detail contributes to the total efEect by revealing the inner life of the characters or by establishing mood, a portrayal which is at heart realistic.) It is Nina who speaks for Chekhov when she criticizes Trepleff's play for its lack of living characters, lack of action , and lad. of a love story-an essential part of every Chekhov play. Nina's criticism that the play is all recitation seems to refer especially to Maeterlinck's static drama; William Gerhardi suggests that Chekhov had in mind (when Trepleff argues for new fonns) the symbolic plays of Leonid Andreyev, whom Chekhov thought pretentious and artificial.2 Might Chekhov have been thinking of Ibsen's symbolic plays as well? Several critics have pointed quite correctly to Ibsen's influence on Chekhov in general and more specifically to the similarity between The Wild Duck and The Sea Gull. Chekhov's debt to Ibsen is indeed obvious and should be recognized, as should his debt to Maeterlinck and other playwrights of the 1890'S who were concerned with the inner life...