Uncle Vanya Man and the Natural World

Hardy har har. Don't make us laugh, Waffle. Obviously, this line that comes so early in the play is ironic. It's like the little birdies singing just before the hunters come and kill Bambi's mom (oh, spoiler alert). But Telegin's idea that everything is well has to do with his connection to nature; a connection that the unhappy people in the play just don't have.

First of all, an FYI. A desyatina is a unit of area measure, so Astrov has something like 81 acres of land. And versts are a unit of length pretty close to a kilometer. Anyway, he's using his own connection to nature to try to woo Yelena. It's not just his ownership of the land, but also his management and knowledge of it that he sees as strong points.

And here comes the screeching halt to all that nice talk about nature we were getting from Telegin and Astrov. Yelena tells it like it is, which is boring, in her eyes anyway. So her connection to nature, as a city woman, is basically nil. This is one way we learn that Yelena is the sort of listless, lazy woman who is easily bored.

Well, it's hearsay, but Astrov is standing right there as Sonya puts words in his mouth and he doesn't protest. So we can assume that this characterization is what Astrov thinks, and he's really putting a lot of pressure on nature, to make human beings better people. We hope Mother Nature's up to it.

And here comes Vanya to spoil the mood, as usual. After the high-minded idea that nature can make everyone better, and probably even better-looking, that Sonya and Astrov put forward, Vanya stamps all over it, ready to burn down the forest like there's no tomorrow. Says just a little bit about his character.

We're getting down to the heart of the matter, which is that Astrov thinks that by saving nature, and taking part in the conservation of the forest, he's having a real, lasting effect on the world. It's the kind of effect he can't get in his practice as a medical doctor, where patients may die and will be forgotten thousands of years from now. It's also interesting that all of his attention, at least as far as making lasting changes is concerned, is directed toward nature and not toward the people around him at this house. They're sure not changing, after all. We guess.

Yelena uses the forest as a metaphor for a person, who can be cut down so much that he or she can never grow back. She thinks that Vanya is too cruel, and that he will destroy the Professor with his hatred until there will be no redeeming qualities left in the way the two treat each other.

You're invited to Uncle Vanya's pity party, starting right now. Vanya compares his state of mind to the environment surrounding him. While nature is refreshed by the rain, he is inconsolable because Yelena won't return his love. Finally, he uses a simile to compare his feelings to light that is just swallowed up, never reaching the plants that need it because of the depths of the chasm. That's his love, going to waste on the fickle Yelena.

Sonya is the only one who seems to have any sort of practical relationship with the natural world. She's a country girl, in the end, and knows that no one will be eating if the growing and harvesting doesn't all go right. The rain isn't some cutesy refreshing shower for her; it's the enemy that won't let her hay dry out.

Aha. So Astrov really just spends all his time making relationships with the trees in the forest because he basically hates his fellow human beings. He obviously feels ethically tied to nature, because he loves forests and won't eat meat. And his criticism toward others has to do with the way that they deal with nature (first) and (then) people, which shows us his priorities.