




































[Expositions 5.1 (2011) 14-29]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747-5376 

 

The Problem of Stupidity in Chekhov’s Three Sisters 

LEE TREPANIER 

Saginaw Valley State University 

 

 

One of the continual challenges that confront critics of Chekhov‟s Three Sisters is to locate a 

theme that unites the various elements in the play. The initial reaction to its first performances 

was one of puzzlement as to why the sisters did not go to Moscow: they were wealthy, 

privileged, and had no familial obstacles to prevent them from the journey.
1
 It also was 

interpreted by early reviewers as either allegorical, since the play seemed to lack action, or as a 

satire of weak-willed characters. Later, other critics, like A. V. Lunacharskky, found it 

unbearably morose in that Chekhov had failed to present a positive forceful hero who could 

“show us the seeds of a new life.”
2
 By contrast, Kornei Chukovsky believed that Chekhov‟s 

attempt to find beauty in the ordinariness of life demonstrated the value of the Christian virtues, 

for “it not only evokes sympathy for the downtrodden and suffering but make them an image of 

beauty.”
3
 Finally, these were Russian commentators like Vladimir Mayakovsky who wrote that 

there were two Chekhovs in the play: the first was about the twilight of Russian aristocratic 

society; the second was a call to the future for a spiritual renewal of Russian civilization.
4
  

In the West the criticism of Three Sisters has run the gamut of admiration of Chekhov‟s 

realist portrayal of life, psychological insights of its characters, and anticipation of theater of the 

absurd to a dismissal of the play as being outdated, dull, and pointless.
5
 Most western critics also 

have reiterated Mayakovsky‟s idea of the “two Chekhovs” – Chekhov‟s hope for the future and 

despair of the present – as the theme that unites the play. For example, Howard Taubman praised 

one production of Three Sisters as “a chorus affirmation the promise of the future and the 

regenerative powers of work.”
6
 However, other reviewers have been more suspicious about that 

claim. Michael Frayn rejected this notion, stating that “the whole structure of the play is 

designed to undercut Vershinin[‟s vision of a better future].”
7
 Another commonly-held 

interpretation of the play is that Three Sisters is a form of catharsis for the audience – a 

“cleansing baptism of irony” – where the audience‟s desires for the sisters to succeed are 

frustrated and thereby leads the audience into a process of self-examination.
8
 In short, there is no 

consensus in either the East or the West about what constitutes the overarching theme in the 

play. 

In this article I will argue that the theme of stupidity, as understood by Robert Musil, is the 

idea that unites the various elements in Three Sisters together. All the characters manifest some 

form of stupidity in their words and actions, with the result of vulgarity, selfishness, and 

ultimately dispossession that pervades and destroys the sisters‟ aristocratic world. The fate of all 

the characters, except for Natasha, is one of despair and misfortune that stupidity had bestowed 



15  Trepanier 
 

 

upon them because they were unable to recognize or resist it. Simply put, stupidity is the cause 

that leads the sisters to fail in their aspirations and preserve their world. 

 

Honorable and Intelligent Stupidity 

 

The state of spiritual and material decay that characterized the sisters – and more generally late 

nineteenth-century Russian aristocratic society – can be better understood by looking at Robert 

Musil‟s lecture, “On Stupidity.”
9
 An early twentieth-century Austrian novelist, Musil‟s work on 

stupidity provides an account of how civilized societies fail to regenerate themselves as moral 

and spiritual entities. According to Musil, when the leaders of society have become stupid, they 

are unable or unwilling to resist the forces that will destroy that civilization. Although Musil‟s 

lecture was directed at 1930s Germanic society, it provides a general explanation as to why 

cultured societies collapse when they faced by the forces of bourgeoisie self-interest, fascist 

conquest, or communist revolution. The material and spiritual dispossession of the Prozorov 

household in Three Sisters likewise can be understood as a result of the sisters being stupid. 

Because of their condition, they are unable to defend and to preserve the aristocratic values of 

beauty, shared sacrifice, and leisure.  

For Musil, stupidity – the cause of societal decay and its eventual collapse – is more than a 

deficiency of understanding; rather, there are two types:  

 

In life one usually means by a stupid person one who is a “little weak in the head.” But 

beyond this there are the most varied kinds of intellectual and spiritual deviations, 

which can so hinder and frustrate and lead astray even an undamaged innate intelligence 

that it leads, by and large, to something for which the only word language has at its 

disposal is stupidity. Thus this word embraces two fundamentally quite different types: 

an honorable and straightforward type of stupidity, and a second that, somewhat 

paradoxically is even a sign of intelligence. The first is based rather on a weakness of 

understanding, the second more on an understanding that is weak only with regard to 

some particular, and this latter kind is by far more dangerous.
10

  

 

The first types of stupidity – honorable stupidity – is commonly recognized and therefore not 

always threatening, while the second type – intelligent stupidity – is not commonly recognized 

and consequently is always dangerous.  

Honorable stupidity is illustrated by its poverty of words and ideas, its slow comprehension of 

facts, and its stubborn preference for the familiar, while intelligent stupidity is distinguished by 

its claims to insights beyond its ability, the privileging of emotions over reason, and the ability to 

produce convincing rationalizations to justify its viewpoints: 

 

The higher, pretentious form of stupidity stands only too often in crass opposition to 

[its] honorable form. It is not so much lack of intelligence as failure of intelligence, for 



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  16 
 

 

the reason that it presumes to accomplishments to which it has no right[.] […] This 

higher stupidity is the real disease of culture […] and to describe it is an almost infinite 

task. It reaches into the highest intellectual sphere.
11

  

 

This distorted use of a genuine and energetic intelligence that makes unwarranted claims from 

unchecked emotions is fundamentally a condition of spiritual corruption for Musil: “Intelligent 

stupidity has as its adversary not so much the understanding as the spirit [geist], and if one is 

willing to imagine as „spirit‟ not merely a little heap of emotions, the sensibility [Gemüt] as 

well.”
12

  

Intelligent stupidity consequently is not merely an intellectual problem but one that 

encompasses all the elements that are operative in one‟s consciousness: the physical, the 

intellectual, and the spiritual. Although intelligent stupidity can become a social and political 

problem, such as when leaders of totalitarian ideologies are able to persuade people to follow 

them, it is primary a spiritual disorientation where one is blinded in both sense and sensibility to 

the order of reality.
13

 In other words, intelligent stupidity is a type of spiritual arrogance that 

rejects reason and a recognition of reality as it truly exists. Unlike honorable stupidity, intelligent 

stupidity consists not of an inability to understand reality but a refusal to understand it. 

Intelligent stupidity therefore is ultimately reductive in its content: vulgarity, selfishness, and 

emotionalism that push aside notions of beauty, shared sacrifice, and reason. It is not as if these 

aristocratic values do not exist; rather, they are not acknowledged by the intelligently stupid and 

instead are reduced to explanations of self-interest and power. By refusing to recognize the 

objective existence of civilized values, the intelligently stupid is able to paint a world where 

everything is a rationalization and nothing is a reason. It is to those who are not stupid to defend 

a cultured society and the values which it cherishes. 

Whether Chekhov himself believed intelligent stupidity could be eradicated or cured is 

unclear, but he did suggested a potential remedy to this condition in the experience of pathos: the 

ability to empathize and identify experientially with the suffering of another person or even with 

nature itself. The characters we admire the most in Three Sisters are those capable of 

experiencing pathos; and the characters we like the least lack this capacity. Unfortunately, it is 

not clear from Chekhov how pathos can be translated into effective social and political action, as 

evident by the fate of sisters. Nevertheless, Chekhov‟s Three Sisters is about hope for the future 

and despair of the present, as Mayakovsky had suggested, but with stupidity and, to a lesser 

extent, pathos, as the themes that tie the play together. 

 

Material and Spiritual Dispossession 

 

In Three Sisters both types of stupidity – honorable and intelligent – are manifested in the 

various characters with the result of the dispossession of the sisters‟ material and spiritual 

wealth. The sisters had left Moscow eleven years ago and now live a provincial town because 

their father was commissioned to be head of a brigade there. Since their father‟s death, all three 



17  Trepanier 
 

 

of them long to return back to Moscow. Olga is the eldest sister who teaches at a local high 

school; Masha is the middle sister and is married to Kuligin, whom she once thought was the 

cleverest of men but rather has turned out to be an ineffectual local teacher; and Irinia who is the 

youngest sister with aspirations to work and marriage. All three sisters have pinned their hopes 

on their brother, Andrey, who is studying to become a university professor in Moscow.  

However, Andrey is engaged to a poor local girl, Natasha, whom the sisters ridicule in the 

first act because she is shy, socially awkward, and inappropriately dressed for the celebration of 

Irina‟s name day. But over the course of the play, Natasha not only marries Andrey but slowly 

begins to dominate the household. She forces Irina to give up her room in order to have a place 

for the baby and later pushes Olga and Anfisa, a loyal but elderly servant, out of the house 

altogether. Natasha even takes on a lover, as Andrey spends his time gambling in order to forget 

how vulgar, rude, and selfish his wife truly is. At the end of the play, Natasha criticizes Irina‟s 

attire as “an error of taste” and orders to cut down all the fir and maples trees on their street 

because “they are so ugly at night.”
14

 

The other set of characters that are significant to the sisters‟ lives are Lieutenant Colonel 

Vershinin, Lieutenant Tusenbach, and Captain Solyony. In spite of being married and having a 

family, Vershinin begins an affair with Masha, who has fallen in love with him. But Vershinin is 

unwilling to leave his family and the affair concludes when the brigade leaves at the end of the 

play. The other soldiers, Tusenbach and Solyony, both vie for the affections of the youngest 

sister, Irina. Tusenbach eventually wins over Irina and becomes engaged to her. Unfortunately, at 

the end of the play, Solyony challenges him to a duel, where Tusenbach is killed.  

But it is the revelation that Andrey has mortgaged the Prozorov house in order to support 

Natasha‟s expensive tastes that destroy any possibility that all the sisters could be happy 

together. At the conclusion of Three Sisters, each sister is left alone in her misery, with Masha 

observing that “We must being our lives all over again.” To this, Irina remarks that “Some day 

we will know all the answers. Now we must work.” The last words of the play are Olga‟s reply 

to both sisters: “We shall soon be gone forever, but our suffering will turn into joy for those who 

live after us. Happiness and peace will come on earth … in a little while, we shall know why we 

are living, why we are suffering … If we could only know, if we could only know!” 

The slow dispossession of sisters‟ material and spiritual wealth is a consequence of their own 

honorable stupidity: the slow comprehension of recognizing and resisting the intelligent stupidity 

of Natasha, Andrey, and Solyony. Throughout the play the once prosperous house of the 

Prozorov declines and disintegrates, with the expectations and aspirations of Olga, Masha, and 

Irina being continually frustrated and ultimately dashed. Ironically and perhaps comically, the 

Prozorov are conscious that their own hopes and ideals are being obstructed but they are not 

conscious that they have lost control over their own property. When they do come to this 

realization, they acknowledge that their future is destroyed: Andrey abandons his plans to 

become a professor, Olga accepts permanent exile of life at the local high school, Masha nobly 

relinquishes her love for Vershinin, and Irina weeps for her slain fiancé. The family has been 

doubly dispossessed of their material and spiritual wealth.  



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  18 
 

 

The collapse of the Prozorov‟s household also symbolizes the end to the aristocratic world. 

The various philosophical discussions throughout the play between the sisters and the soldiers 

about how life will be on earth two hundred years from now, the importance and need of nature 

for humanity‟s existence, and the desire to sacrifice and work for the betterment of all are 

expressions of the values of the aristocratic world in which the sisters occupy. Moscow, and talk 

of Moscow, becomes the ultimate symbol of this civilized society for the sisters: a place where 

culture, wit, and good taste are commonplace and people are conversant about philosophy, 

beauty, and sacrifice.  

These values are practiced by the sisters throughout the play. For example, the sisters open 

their house to the local townspeople who have lost their homes in the city fire. Olga even donates 

most of her clothes to those who no longer possess any. By contrast, Natasha resents the refugees 

in the house and takes her frustrations out on Anfisa, the elderly family nurse. Olga attempts to 

stand up to Natasha but fails. Nevertheless, Olga takes Anfisa with her to live in the school‟s 

apartment because Anfisa has been a loyal servant to the family and deserves to be treated as 

such. The problem for Olga, and the other sisters, is their inability to engage in effective action 

against Natasha‟s machinations, not to mention over their own lives. The outcome of their 

honorable stupidity is that the values of the aristocratic world – beauty, sacrifice, leisure – 

become replaced by the values of self-interest, vulgarity, and sensual gratification. 

These values are representative of the intelligent stupidity of Natasha, who takes over the 

financial wealth and physical space of the Prozorov house. At the end of the first act, Natasha is 

embarrassed by her garish dress and awkward manners but is protected by Andrey who finds her 

sexually irresistible in spite of her lack of social sophistication. At the opening of the next act, 

Natasha prowls around the house possessively and interrupts Andrey‟s study with her worries 

about their baby‟s need for his own room. In the third act, Natasha openly asserts her authority. 

With a second child in the nursery and the house crowded with refugees, Natasha berates and 

eventually dismisses Anfisa. When Olga protests, Natasha has a tantrum that results in Olga 

deciding to live at the school with Anfisa. By the time of the last act, Natasha reprimands 

Andrey, who is consoling Masha over Vershinin‟s departure, for the noise that they are creating 

because it is disturbing the children. As she surveys her newly conquered realm from a window, 

Natasha decides to cut down the fir and maple trees in the avenue and criticizes Irina for her poor 

taste in clothes. 

As representative of this new era of change, Natasha rejects the Prozorov‟s sensibility about 

life‟s larger purposes in her pursuit of the immediate concerns of the self, sexuality, and status. 

The discussion of the impractical ideas has been replaced by a philosophy of pragmatism and 

calculation. On the one hand, this new attitude towards life is successful, for Natasha does 

achieve all that she had wanted at the end of the play, but, on the other hand, the values of 

beauty, sacrifice, and leisure has become lost in this new world and there is a sense of sorrow for 

this. But how does one account for Natasha‟s success? And what does this suggest about 

intelligent and honorable stupidities? Is there any way to counteract intelligent stupidity, or are 

we doomed to ask, as does Olga at the end of the play, “If we could only know!” 



19  Trepanier 
 

 

 

Natasha: The Intelligent Stupid 

 

Most critical accounts of Natasha have been negative that emphasize her vulgarity and 

selfishness. For example, Styan wrote about Natasha as “symptomatic of those little pressures of 

destructive self-interest present everywhere, part of the cruel nature of life which fragile people 

like the sisters are unable to withstand.”
15

 However, other reviewers have found Natasha‟s 

vulgarity so familiar that it makes her laughable as opposed to cruel. Moravcevich argued that 

Natasha‟s “raw vitality and assertiveness behind her vulgar manners and selfish schemes are not 

artificial at all; they are the wellspring of superior strength.”
16

 What commentators have failed to 

provide is an explanation of how Natasha succeeds over the sisters.  

A close examination of the play reveals two features that distinguish Natasha from the sisters: 

her conception of subjectivity and her comprehensive understanding of time. Subjectivity 

enables Natasha to perceive reality in a Cartesian dichotomy of subject and object, thereby 

allowing her to manipulate people as means for her own goals. This sense of subjectivity 

emerges out of Natasha‟s intelligent stupidity where she refuses to recognize reality as it 

genuinely exists. The assumption here is that reality not only contains the values of beauty, 

leisure, and sacrifice, but one can only recognize the importance of these values if one identifies 

rather than objectifies them. This in turn requires a participatory mode of existence where reality 

is to be understood rather than dominated and controlled.
17

 In spite of their honorable stupidity, 

the sisters are able to recognize these civilized values because they see themselves as part of 

reality, a reality of which they will never be able to understand entirely.  

By contrast, Natasha not only wants to know everything about reality, as exhibited by her 

constant nosiness into other people‟s businesses, but she wants to be able to control it to serve 

her own self-interest. Her inability to recognize the worth of beauty or sacrifice permits her to 

detach herself from reality and approach it as an object to be manipulated. This Cartesian 

subjectivity, understanding reality as a dichotomy of subject and object, enables her to be 

successful at the expense of the sisters‟ participatory approach to reality.  

An example of these two different approaches to reality is demonstrated in the respective 

treatment of Anfisa by Natasha and Olga. In the beginning of the third act, Natasha wants 

Anfisa, who is old, feeble, and therefore no longer useful, to be banished from the household 

because “she can‟t do any work now. … She‟s no good for work, she only sleep or sit about.” 

Olga‟s responses, “She has been with us for thirty years,” and “And let her sit about” is greeted 

with surprise by Natasha: 

 

What do you mean? She‟s only a servant. [Crying.] I don‟t understand you, Olga. 

I‟ve got a nurse, a wet-nurse, we‟ve a cook, a housemaid … what do we want that 

old woman for as well? What good is she? 

 

She continues:  



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  20 
 

 

 

We must come to an agreement, Olga. Your place is the school, mine – the home. You 

devote yourself to teaching, I, to the household. And if I talk about servants, Then I do 

know what I talking about; I do know what I am talking about … And tomorrow there‟s 

to be no more of that old thief, that old hag. … [Stamping.] that witch! And don‟t you 

dare to annoy me! Don‟t you dare! [Stopping short.] Really, if you don‟t move 

downstairs, we shall always be quarrelling. This is awful. 

 

The root cause of the conflict between Olga and Natasha over Anfisa is the latter‟s inability to 

see people as ends rather than as means to support her own self-interest. When presented about 

the value of loyalty by Olga (“she has been with us for thirty years”) and the lack of 

inconvenience caused by Anfisa‟s presence (“And let her sit about”), Natasha no longer engages 

in a rational conversation but instead has a temper tantrum. Afterwards, she presents several 

rationalizations of her feelings – Anfisa is no longer useful, the household is my domain, I have 

superior knowledge of servants, the fear of future quarrels – in order to get rid of Anfisa. The 

underlying and true reason is never stated – Anfisa is a reminder that the household was once of 

the Prozorov‟s and not of Natasha‟s – because such a statement would be too naked about 

Natasha‟s intentions and insecurities. 

Other examples of Natasha‟s subjective approach to life where reality is an object to be 

manipulated to serve her self-interests are the moving of Irina into Olga‟s room to make space 

for her baby, her love affair, her complaints about her own children when they interfere with her 

lifestyle, the mortgaging of the house in order to support her expensive tastes, and her decision to 

cut down the trees on their street. Natasha does not value any of these relationships for 

themselves: they are only valued if they are useful to her. Although she claims insights that are 

beyond her, e.g., the comment to Irina about her attire towards the end of the play: “It‟s an error 

in taste,” and substitutes rationalizations rather than reasons for her emotional desires, Natasha is 

successful and is the only happy character in the play. The capacity to view life as an object to be 

bended towards one‟s will is the first factor that accounts for her success. 

The second reason for Natasha‟s triumph over the sisters is her understanding of time as a 

comprehensive unit. Unlike Olga, who is preoccupied with the past (whether it is about her 

father‟s death or her youth); Masha, who cares only for the present (her passionate affair with 

Vershinin); or Irina, who looks towards the future (of marriage, work, and Moscow); Natasha is 

able to connect these slices of time together and thereby strategize throughout the whole play to 

achieve her objective of controlling the Prozorov household. Thus, this comprehension of time as 

a single unit complements Natasha‟s subjective approach to reality. Like people, time itself can 

be perceived as an object to be manipulated to serve one‟s ends; and those who are able to 

connect the past, present, and future together will be able to create a strategy of success. The best 

examples of Natasha‟s comprehensive perception of time are how her children physically push 

the sisters out of the house and how the debt from mortgaging the house supports her lavish 

lifestyle.  



21  Trepanier 
 

 

In the second act, Natasha expresses her concern about their son‟s health to Andrey because 

the child‟s room is drafty whereas Irina‟s room has “sun all day” and would be better suited to 

their son‟s health. With Irina working most of the day, Natasha argues, there is no reason why 

Irina should not share the room with Olga, since the two sisters only use the house as a place to 

sleep. Uncomfortable with this arrangement but unable to protest, Andrey silently consents. 

When she has her second child, Sophia, Natasha is able to move Anfisa and Olga from the house. 

However, she proceeds in a delicate manner because Olga will be Headmistress of the school 

which her children will attend school one day and therefore “I shall be so afraid of you.” But 

once Olga reveals that she does not want the position, Natasha unleashes her emotions into 

another temper tantrum when Olga defends Anfisa. The conflict is resolved with both Olga and 

Anfisa leaving to live in the school‟s apartment. 

 While her children physically push out the sisters from the house, Natasha‟s expensive tastes 

and extramarital affairs lead her to control its finances when Andrey signs the papers to 

mortgage the house without the sisters‟ permission. The income from the mortgage debt in order 

to pay for one‟s current expenses is the perfect metaphor of comprehending time as a single unit: 

Natasha‟s present income is derived from a future debt that is rooted in the past accumulation of 

wealth. The wealth of the house that has accumulated in the past can now be mortgaged in the 

future to support present desires. Only someone who is able to understand the relationship 

among the past, present, and future would be able to calculate and manipulate people for one‟s 

own self-interest. 

Unlike the other characters in the play, Natasha is able to rationalize her emotive selfishness 

by seeing people as objects rather than subjects and by stitching together a strategy based on the 

elements of time to control the Prozorov house. As intelligently stupid, Natasha is able to present 

rationalizations, which hides her emotive selfishness, so that what she desires appears to be for 

the good of the family (specifically for her children). The result is that she is the only the only 

successful and happy character in the family. However, this success comes at the price of 

vulgarity triumphing over taste, bourgeoisie self-interest over aristocratic sacrifice, and material 

wealth over spiritual idealism. The inability of the sisters and Andrey to resist Natasha creates a 

condition where evil – the absence of any moral direction for individuals and society – can 

flourish and have damaging consequences.  

 

The Consequences of the Intelligently Stupid 

 

The loss of material wealth is a clear result not only of Natasha‟s intelligent stupidity but also 

because of Andrey‟s. As the play progresses, Andrey relinquishes his dream of becoming a 

university professor in Moscow but he still remains attached to his wife to the point of 

mortgaging the house without his sisters‟ permissions, as Masha points out “but the house 

doesn‟t belong to him alone, but to the four of us! He ought to know that, if he‟s an honorable 

man.” Whether to support one‟s wife over one‟s sisters is debatable, but it is how Andrey 

justifies himself that reveals his stupidity as intelligent:  



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  22 
 

 

 

I‟ll only say this and go. Just now. … In the first place, you‟ve got something against 

Natasha, my wife; I‟ve noticed it since the very day of my marriage. Natasha is a 

beautiful and honest creature, straight and honorable – that‟s my opinion. I love and 

respect my wife; understand it, I respect her, and I insist that others should respect her 

too. I repeat, she‟s honest and honorable person, and all your disapproval is simply silly 

… [Pause.] In the second place, you seem to be annoyed because I am not a professor, 

and am not engaged in study. But I work for the zemstvo, I am a member of the district 

council, and I consider my service as worthy and as high as the service of science. I am 

a member of the district council, and I am proud of it, if you want to know. [Pause.] In 

the third place, I have still this to say … that I have mortgaged the house without 

permission. … For that I am to blame, and ask to be forgiven. My debts led me into 

doing it … thirty-five thousand … I do not play cards any more, I stopped long ago, but 

the chief thing I have to say in my defense is that you girls receive a pension, and I 

don‟t … my wages, so to speak. … [Pause.] 

 

It is clear that Andrey is ashamed of what he has become in spite of his protests of respecting his 

wife and being proud of his profession. But rather than admitting this shame and general 

disappointment in life, Andrey instead attacks his sisters for their prejudices against Natasha and 

his unfulfilled dream of becoming a professor. More importantly he rationalizes his emotive 

selfishness of mortgaging the house because the sisters will have a state pension, whereas his 

family will not. The emotive state of shame, disappointment, and humiliation are the motives of 

Andrey‟s actions – whether it is drinking, gambling, or unable to stand up to his wife – which 

triumphs not only over his reason but become the basis of the rationalizations he presents to 

others when defending his choices.  

If the consequences of Natasha‟s stupidity are vulgarity and self-interest, and the 

consequences of Andrey‟s stupidity are the relinquishments of one‟s wealth and dreams, then the 

consequences of Solyony‟s stupidity are evil: the loss of life itself. Vying for Irina‟s affections, 

Solyony is in competition with Tusenbach and eventually loses when Tusenbach and Irina 

become engaged. He spends most his time in the play spouting out nonsense which offends 

everyone and self-destructively mocks Tusenbach, the closest person he has as a friend. The only 

time he seems to make any sense is when he is alone with Irina in the third act and confesses his 

love for her. Although he is rejected, he promises: “I can‟t make you love me by force, of course 

… but I don‟t intend to have any more-favored rivals … No … I swear to you by all the saints, I 

shall kill my rival. … Oh beautiful one!” 

Towards the end of the play, Tusenbach and Solyony fight in a duel with Tusenbach being 

killed. The duel itself started as “a silly little affair” where Solyony‟s irritations finally paid off 

with Tusenbach losing his temper and insulting him. To protect his honor, Solyony challenged 

Tusenbach, which he had to accept. Although there is some concern about Tusenbach‟s fate – the 

doctor Chebutykin notes that this is Solyony‟s third duel – most people think the duel will be 



23  Trepanier 
 

 

resolved with little injury. Unfortunately, Tusenbach is killed, leaving Irina without a husband 

and a journey to Moscow. 

Solyony‟s nonsensical and crude comments serve their purpose to provoke Tusenbach into a 

duel, a practice in which Solyony had plenty of experience. On the surface, Solyony appeared to 

be a stupid person who was socially awkward and intellectually vacuous, but underneath this 

appearance he was actually intelligently stupid in that he knew what he was doing. If his 

objective was to kill any rival for Irina‟s affections, which he stated in the play and was the only 

time where he spoke lucidly, then he succeeded by not only provoking Tusenbach into a duel but 

by presenting the appearance of a harmless fool when in actuality he had experience in dueling. 

The nonsense he spouted was a way to make people not take him seriously and therefore not to 

think of him as dangerous. It also was a way to cover his emotive possessiveness over Irina.
18

 

Natasha, Andrey, and Solyony manifest the worst type of stupidity about which Musil wrote. 

All three of these characters claim insights beyond their capacities, have their emotions rather 

than their reason guide their actions, and present rationalizations rather than reasons to justify 

their actions. Natasha is motivated by self-interest and selfishness with her goal of controlling 

the Prozorov household; Andrey is motivated by shame, disappointment, and humiliation with 

his hope to regain some self-respect; and Solyony is motivated by jealously and possessiveness.  

Perhaps most terrifying is that all three characters succeed in their objectives. They are the 

only successful characters in the play. But this success comes at the price of vulgarity, a 

disappointment in one‟s dreams, and the taking of life itself. Intelligent stupidity therefore is 

dangerous because it can be successful; and by being successful, it sets down the foundation for 

conditions for evil to flourish. Unfortunately, this threat of the intelligently stupid is not 

perceived until it is too late: the honorably stupid have failed to recognize and resist them until 

the intelligently stupid have achieved their success.  

 

The Sisters: The Honorably Stupid  

 

The honorably stupid is characterized by Musil as a poverty of words and ideas, slowness in 

comprehension of facts, and a stubborn preference for the familiar to the unknown. This last 

feature particularly describes the three sisters who, in spite of their proclaimed love of Moscow, 

remain in the provincial town in which they feel comfortable. The sisters also choose the familiar 

over the unknown in their specific lives: Olga accepts the position of Headmistress, a post she 

does not want; Masha returns to her husband she does not respect; and Irina agrees to marry 

Tusenbach, a man she does not truly love. Each of these sisters has selected what was familiar to 

them rather than the unknown and consequently are unable to adapt to the new circumstances 

that life presents to them, e.g., Andrey‟s marriage to Natasha, Vershinin leaving, purchasing a 

train ticket to Moscow. 

Unlike Natasha, each sister is able to comprehend time as a single unit. For the sisters, each 

slice of time provides a benchmark for their hopes and memories: Olga is preoccupied with the 

past (Anfisa), Masha with the present (affair with Vershinin), and Irina with the future 



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  24 
 

 

(engagement to Tusenbach). Their inability to stitch together these elements of time 

comprehensively accounts for their slowness in the perception of Natasha‟s desire to dominate 

the household. For example, Olga‟s primary defense of Anfisa‟s residency in the household is 

one based on the past (“she has been with us for thirty years”) but ultimately is not persuasive to 

Natasha since Anfisa serves no purpose at present or will in the future. Olga‟s incapacity to see 

what Natasha wants leads her and Anfisa to be moved from the house to the school‟s apartment. 

She was not able to resist Natasha‟s selfishness because she was unable to recognize it.  

Olga‟s inability to provide an adequate defense of Anfisa is also emblematic of the first 

characteristic of honorable stupidity: a poverty of words and ideas. The inability of all the sisters 

to provide a rational defense, which would require a comprehensive understanding of time, is 

symptomatic of their honorable stupidity and thereby makes them vulnerable to the intelligent 

stupid. We also see this with Masha and Irina who become involved with men whom they do not 

love: the inability of Masha to see that she will not be together with Vershinin in the future and 

the inability of Irina to understand that she is not presently happy with Tusenbach leads both 

sisters into relationships which has little value for themselves. Furthermore, the poverty of words 

and ideas in Masha and Irina make them unable to articulate their true desires so that they can 

become aware of them. The result is that all the sisters lead a life of wishful thinking but they do 

not know what they truly want. 

Besides lacking a comprehensive account of time, the sisters also lack the subjectivity of 

Natasha in their approach to life. The sisters view life in a participatory mode where reality is not 

considered an object to be dominated and manipulated to fulfill one‟s desires but instead to be 

contemplated and enjoyed. This philosophical approach to life is best articulated by Tusenbach 

towards the end of the play, to which the sisters agree: 

 

It is as if for the first time in my life I see these firs, maples, beeches, and they all look 

at me inquisitively and wait. What beautiful trees and how beautiful, when one comes to 

think of it, life must be near them! 

 

Also in third act, Tusenbach speaks to Masha about the meaning of life: 

 

Not only after two or three centuries, but in a million years, life will still be as it was; 

life does not change, it remains forever, following its own laws which do not concern 

us, or which, at any rate, you never find out. Migrant birds, cranes, for example, fly and 

fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not 

know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to 

life among them; they may philosophizes as much as they like, only they will fly …  

 

This approach is one where humans participate rather than objectively observe life (the 

subjective approach) and thereby can appreciate what reality reveals to us while recognizing that 

it will continue to exist without us. This philosophy contrasts with Natasha‟s subjective approach 



25  Trepanier 
 

 

which is reality is to be controlled for our own desires. Thus the paradox is that the participatory 

mode is unable to defend itself against subjective encroachment. For all their discussion about 

beauty, sacrifice, and leisure, the sisters are unable to defend themselves when someone 

approaches reality in a subject-object dichotomy. The only alternatives for the sisters is to 

become what they abhor (subjectivity) or remain true to their principles but become 

dispossessed.  

Three Sisters therefore is an example of how the honorably stupid allow the intelligently 

stupid to seize power and destroy the values that society cherishes. Although they may be less 

culpable than the intelligently stupid for the destruction of their society, they are nonetheless 

culpable. The sisters‟ inability to defend themselves enables Natasha to control the house. Even 

when they knew about Andrey‟s mortgaging the house, the sisters did nothing. The pleasures of 

the participatory approach to life overwhelm any primal desire to defend themselves. The 

consequence is that the household is no longer theirs. 

Other characters are also responsible for the destruction of their society: Vershinin‟s 

unwillingness to leave his suicidal wife causes damage to Masha; Tusenbach‟s willingness to 

duel Solyony leads to his death; and Chebutykin‟s forgetfulness leads to the death of a patient. 

All these characters, with whom we sympathize, still contribute and therefore are responsible for 

evil to flourish in their societies. In some sense, as leaders of their society, these people are more 

responsible than the intelligently stupid because their responsibility is greater. Rather than being 

Lenin‟s “useful idiots,” these leaders should be able to recognize and resist the evil that threatens 

them and their world. To answer Olga‟s question at the end of the play, if leaders only would 

have known this, then evil may not have occurred. 

 

The Potential Remedy: Pathos and Work 

 

Interestingly, Chekhov does provide a path for leaders to emerge from their condition of 

honorable stupidity: work, and more specifically, work in the service of others. The theme of 

work is constant one throughout the play, with Irina praising the virtues of work in the beginning 

of the play: 

 

When I woke up today and got up and dressed myself, I suddenly began to feel as if 

everything in this life was open to me, and that I knew how I must live. Dear Ivan 

Romanovitch, I know everything. A man must work, toil in the sweat of his brow, 

whoever he may be, for that is the meaning and object of his life, his happiness, his 

enthusiasm. How fine it is to be a workman who gets up at daybreak and breaks stones 

in the street, or a shepherd, or a schoolmaster, who teaches children, or an engine-driver 

on the railway. … 

 

And in her last lines of the play, Irina reiterates the importance of work: 

 



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  26 
 

 

There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all 

this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. But now we must live …  we must 

work, just work! Tomorrow, I‟ll go away alone, and I‟ll teach and give my whole life to 

those who, perhaps, need it. It‟s autumn now, soon it will be winter, the snow will cover 

everything, and I shall be working, working. … 

 

The importance of work is twofold for the aristocrats: it provides them not only a source of new 

income but it also provides them a sense of purpose to live. However, work for simply oneself is 

not what Irina advocates; instead, work in the service of others provides a possibility to resist 

evil. If one were to work simply out of self-interest, the result would be Natasha‟s. What Irina 

proposes is work for the betterment of society. It is an attempt to translate the participatory mode 

of reality from leisure to work, thereby preserving oneself and one‟s society from a subjective 

approach to life that allows evil to flourish.  

But to work in the service of other requires pathos: the capacity to identify with another 

person‟s suffering that enables the recognition that all humans are fundamentally equal. 

Although people may differ widely in the manner in which they come to grip with it and build 

the experience into their lives, every person suffers. Olga‟s identification with Anfisa, Masha‟s 

empathy of Vershinin‟s familial situation, and Irina‟s with the needy after news of her slain 

fiancé are all examples of pathos.  

By contrast, the intelligently stupid, such as Natasha or Solyony, exhibit no capacity to 

experience pathos and remain isolated from the community. It is the shared suffering that makes 

community possible. For late nineteenth-century aristocratic Russian society, this community 

needs to be re-founded on notion of work in the service of others as a remedy against the 

emerging class of vulgarity and self-interest.
19

 

Although pathos is a possible path to remedy the honorable stupidity and to reform society, it 

does have its limitation in that it is difficult to provide a rational defense of it. Because the 

experience of pathos itself cannot be articulated perfectly, such a defense can be misconstrued or 

dismissed. This also may account why the sisters are unable to defend themselves against 

Natasha. Whereas self-interest can be articulated and even rationalized, the experience of pathos 

cannot be without sounding trite. In other words, the experience of pathos requires another 

person to be open to it. If the person is unable or unwilling, then the hope of building a 

community based on work in the service of others is in danger. 

Nonetheless, these two remedies – pathos and work – can be part of the new age that the 

characters predict, as Vershinin proclaims at Irina‟s name-day celebration: “In two or three 

hundred years‟ time on this earth will be unimaginably beautiful and wonderful. Mankind needs 

such a life, and if it not ours today then we must look ahead for it, wait, think, prepare for it.” He 

repeats similar sentiments in the second act: “How can I put it? It seems to me that everything on 

earth must change, little by little, and is already changing under our very eyes. After two or three 

hundred years, after a thousand – the actual time doesn‟t matter – a new and happy age will 



27  Trepanier 
 

 

being.” After he reiterates the same point in the third act, he concludes at the end of the play “If 

only education could be added to industry, and industry to education.” 

This future is also predicted by Tusenbach, who also proclaims on Irina‟s name-day 

celebration: “A new age is dawning, the people marching on us all, a powerful, health-giving 

storm is gathering, it is drawing near, soon it will be upon us and it will drive away laziness, 

indifference, prejudice against labor, and rotten dullness from our society.” The hope for a future 

age is one when labor is not scorned but embraced by the aristocracy and combined with 

intelligence (“education”) for the betterment of society. The dual remedy of work and pathos is 

required to realize this vision of curing the honorable stupid of their poverty of words and ideas, 

slow comprehension of facts, and preference for the familiar. Chekhov points out this path as a 

way for society to renew itself both morally and spiritually.  

 

Conclusion 

 

Although Chekhov does propose another possibility to reform the individual and society from 

their stupidities, it is not realized in the play. This does not mean this possibility remains only a 

theoretical one, for it exists as an ideal for other to emulate. In this sense, Chekhov does have a 

double vision of the present despair of stupidity and the hope of a future of moral and spiritual 

renewal. However, I would argue that both of these possibilities are underscored with a deeper 

insight into the nature of reality: the continuity of life regardless of one‟s attempts to eradicate or 

embrace stupidity. This perspective is best represented by the physician Chebutykin. 

Throughout the play, Chebutykin retains a balanced view of the world and comments of the 

insignificance of human impact upon the world. In response to Vershinin‟s speech about his 

utopian vision in the first act, Chebutykin simply replies: “You said just now, Baron, that they 

may call our life noble; but we are very petty. … [Stands up.] See how little I am.” However, 

later when Masha complains how life has become unbearable, Chebutykin responses: “It‟s not so 

bad.” Neither succumbing to the idealism of Vershinin nor resigning to the pessimism of Masha, 

Chebutykin views life as something in the middle between these two extremes. What accounts 

for this balanced perspective is that the physician is the only character in the play that actually 

works and exhibits pathos: he is a person of action that is able to recognize and resist evil, such 

as the disease that has been plaguing the countryside.  

Of course, Chebutykin himself is not perfect, as he himself attests when in the third act he 

berates himself for the death of one of his patients. In the fourth act, he becomes tired and worn-

out from his job and looks forward to retirement in a year‟s time. In spite of his broken spirit, life 

continues on regardless of a person‟s individual drama. This is acknowledged in the last lines he 

speaks in the play: “It‟s all the same! It‟s all the same!” The death of Tusenbach, the loss of the 

house, and the shattered dreams of Moscow in a larger sense makes little difference upon the 

flow of events. The juxtaposition of the tragedy befalling the sisters with the lively band music in 

the background underscores this point that our human lives may have less of an impact upon the 

world than we had originally thought. 



The problem of Stupidity in Chekhov‟s Three Sisters  28 
 

 

Chekhov‟s acknowledgement that life flows on uninterrupted precludes him from being a 

utopian ideologue of the sort like Vershinin and Tusenbach and from being a cynic who operates 

out of self-interest like Natasha and Solyony. The fact that Natasha is victorious certainly 

prevents Chekhov from being categorized as a political ideologue; and the audience‟s dislike of 

her victory does not make Chekhov a cynic. The possibility of pathos and work is most fully 

realized in Chebutykin despite his missteps. When compared to Vershinin, Tusenbach, and the 

sisters, Chebutykin is not honorably stupid but one who serves other in work and pathos. The 

others may recognize the path out of their condition, but he is the only one that has undertaken it. 

The problem of stupidity therefore is one that is not insurmountable but perhaps it is 

continual. We will always have stupidity, whether honorable or intelligible, and must be able to 

confront it in an effective manner; otherwise, the Natashas and Solyonys will rule the world. 

Chekhov‟s remedy of pathos and work is one to consider in spite of its limitations. Whether we 

will wind up in Moscow or remains in our provincial town remain to be seen. 

 

 

Endnotes 

 

1. For a comprehensive account of the critical reception of Chekhov‟s Three Sisters, refer to Charles 

W. Meister, Chekhov Criticism (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1988) and Trevor Nunn, “Notes from 

a director: Three Sisters,” in The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov, eds. Vera Gottlieb and Paul 

Allain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 101–10. 

2. Meister, 247. 

3. In Kenneth A. Lantz, Anton Chekhov: A Reference Guide to Literature (Boston: Hall, 1945), 20. 

Cf. Kornei Chukovsky, Chekhov the Man, trans. Pauline Rose (London: Hutchinson, 1985). 

4. Meister, 247–48. 

5. Meister, 248–64. 

6. Howard Taubman, “Chekhov‟s Truth; Revival Catches Spirit of Three Sisters,” New York Times, 

July 5, 1964, 2:1. 

7. Mel Gussow, “Stage View; Echoes of Chekhov Haunt Frayn‟s Benefactors,” New York Times, 

January 5, 1986, 2:3. 

8. Meister, 260–64. 

9. In Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses, eds. and trans. Burton Pike and David S. Luft 

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 268–86. 

10. Musil, 282. 

11. Musil, 283–84. 

12. Musil, 285. 

13. In his novel, The Man Without Qualities, Musil analyzes how stupidity becomes manifested in 

pre-World War I Viennese society. For example, the protagonist Ulrich is a “man without 

qualities”: he lacks any profound essence, is socially disconnected, and possesses an ambiguous 

attitude towards life that makes him resigned and passive in the world. 

14. All citations from the play are from A. N. Chekhov, Three Sisters, in The Complete Works of 

Chekhov, vol. 7 (Moscow: Moscow Library Classics, 1970), 246–312. Translations are mine own. 



29  Trepanier 
 

 

15. Meister, 261; cf. J. L. Styan, Chekhov in Performance: A Commentary on the Major Plays 

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). 

16. Meister, 262. 

17. For more about the differences between the subjective and participatory mode of existence, refer 

to Eric Voegelin, Anamnesis, On the Theory of History and Politics, vol. 6, ed. David Walsh 

(Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2002). 

18. This account runs contrary to the criticism that Solyony is a fool or an absurd hero, such as 

argued by Charles T. Rzepka, “Chekhov‟s „The Three Sisters,‟ Lear‟s Daughters, and the World 

of the Weird Sisters: The Arcana of Archetypal Influence,” Modern Language Studies 14.4 

(1984): 18–27. 

19. The audience‟s identification with the honorably stupid characters also creates a sense of pathos 

between them. By experiencing pathos themselves, the audience can reform their own lives and 

society. 


