“SUPERFLUOUS” CHARACTERS IN CHEKHOVʼS PLAY THREE SISTERS
“SUPERFLUOUS” CHARACTERS IN CHEKHOVʼS PLAY THREE SISTERS
Николаева Е.Г.
Abstract
The article analyzes the artistic function of two seemingly
insignificant, “unnecessary” characters in the play Three Sisters, almost completing the list of characters – second lieutenants Fedotik and Rode – in interconnection with the poetic (rhythmic) organization of the dramatic material (“resonating space”). The analysis irrefutably shows that these are not just
“naturalistic flies” (K.N. Leontiev), designed to increase the level of reliability of the depicted, but characters that rhyme with painful points, nerve nodes of the play (through motifs for the irreversibility of the life stream – the doom of attempts to return the lost paradise, memory-oblivion, meeting-parting).
Keywords
drama; Three Sisters; “accident”; poetic organization; rhythm; “resonant space”.
For citation
Nikolaeva, E.G. “‘Superfluous’ Characters in Chekhovʼs Play Three Sisters”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 3(61), 2023, pp. 71–82. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2023.61.05