ABSTRACT
The capacity for depressive anxiety is the contrary of the splitting of good and bad, of the projection of love into one object and hate into another. It can be a quality of writing, as well as a represented attribute of those constructed imaginatively in writing. In Uncle Vanya, Chekhov explores with tenderness the wounds of the soul. Sonya is the embodiment of the truth-seeker, whose searching is characterized by delicacy and kindness as well as painful realism. She is someone who can love despite a failure to be loved in her turn. Perhaps the best-known of all Chekhov’s dramatic images is the poignant longing of the three sisters to return to Moscow. The opening speech by Olga, the oldest of them, takes us straight to the centre of their distress: while Irena’s saint’s day should be an occasion for celebration, it is also the anniversary of their father’s death.
