Uncle Vanya Sacrifice

It's interesting that Vanya believes that he's the one who has suffered so much, when really Sonya is the only one we ever see working like Vanya talks about. In fact, Vanya himself is living it up like Serebryakov and letting his niece work to keep everyone swimming in vodka and tea.

Poor Waffle. He, too, has sacrificed his life for someone else—his horrible wife—but he doesn't complain about it like Vanya does. In fact, the only reason he brings it up is to show everyone that it's the right and proper thing to do, nothing to moan about. He associates sacrifice with pride, while others associate it with loserdom.

An important part of sacrifice is that it is worthwhile. Otherwise it's just, well, a mistake. And Astrov sees that when he arrives after having run like a maniac to the emergency they called him for. Serebryakov, supposedly very sick, is actually just fine, and no one seems to appreciate Astrov's sacrifice.

Serebryakov is accused of living off of his daughter, Sonya's, and Vanya's sacrifices, which he seems completely unaware of. However, he is explicitly asking his wife to sacrifice her youth and just wait around for him to die. The blindness on the one hand and the awareness here are a strange contrast, though it's also true that Serebryakov is giving Yelena a Class A guilt trip. It makes you wonder a little bit whether Yelena really is just waiting around for the old guy to drop. It might explain a few things, right?

Ivan's big problem is the disappointment he has experienced. He used to think that by sacrificing all of his own desires and doing what the Professor asked he would be repaid. He compares himself to an ox, a strong work animal, and to kulaks, who were the rich peasants in pre-Revolutionary Russia, to show the difference between how hard he worked and what his rewards were.

The Doctor is talking about Yelena here, and sort of thinking aloud about her character. He hits the nail on the head about one thing that several people point out over the course of the play. It's that Yelena doesn't work, but everyone seems to be breaking their backs to try to please her. Between her and Serebryakov, it's a massacre of sacrifices. It's also not too different from the situation in Russia in general, with huge masses of people working day and night for the benefit of a very small number of rich people.

Yelena and Astrov are having a tender moment together even while they talk about Sonya and what Astrov's lack of feelings for her means to her. When Yelena asks him to stop coming over, ostensibly because it tortures the girl, she's actually making quite a sacrifice because she has feelings for Astrov and would like him to continue to come.

Astrov agrees to go along with Yelena's proposal that they sacrifice their own potential relationship in order to spare Sonya's feelings. The "of course" at the end of the line shows that Astrov has a strong sense of ethics in certain things, like his friendship with Sonya, and is willing to sacrifice his own happiness with Yelena to protect it. Also, it's not like he can really have Yelena, anyway. We highly doubt this lady is going to ditch her hubby or have an affair with a younger dude, even if she wants to. She's way too careful about the rules for that. So maybe Astrov's sacrifice isn't so huge in the end.

This is incredible. Can you imagine doing what Vanya did for one of your siblings? He threw his own inheritance in with his sister's so that she would have enough to marry Serebryakov and had to take out a mortgage on top of things to pay the whole estate off. He himself paid the mortgage for the house that his sister and Serebryakov lived in. He must have had some motivation for making this sacrifice, but the payoff just wasn't there.

This accusation is a little bit tricky, because just before Vanya had claimed that he had made a huge, conscious sacrifice for his sister. Here, though, he's expecting Serebryakov to notice the sacrifice and reward it. The fact that his sister has died makes it pretty much impossible for him to ever get his due.