SOURCE: Paperny, Zinovii S. “Microsubjects in The Seagull.” In Critical Essays on Anton Chekhov, edited by Thomas A. Eekman, pp. 160-69. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989.

In the following essay, which was originally published in 1982, Paperny studies the lesser themes of The Seagull, which contribute to the play's complexity.

The study of Chekhov's text can be compared to the history of the investigation of matter, where researchers have come to employ smaller and smaller units of magnitude. What formerly seemed indivisible has proved a complicated structure consisting of interconnected microparticles.

Something similar is taking place in Chekhov studies. From general formulations investigators delving more deeply into the text have become increasingly convinced that the tissue of poetic narration displays a structure. Along with the main actors, there are also “microparticles” of a sort, and all these “macros” and “micros” are interconnected and subordinated one to the other.

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