SOURCE: "Uncle Vanja's Predicament," in Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4, Winter 1978, pp. 454-63.

In this essay, Vitins argues that Vanya's family ties are the source of his passivity and impotence.

Overlooked in discussions of Uncle Vanja's ineffectuality as a male protagonist is a textual network of emotional ties which bind him to his dead sister, her family, and his mother. To a great degree these ties serve to repress his masculinity and prevent him from establishing a family of his own or making an imprint on the outside world.¹ Vanja has become a peripheral male figure, a veritable "Uncle Johnnie" who proudly supports his sister Vera's family and experiences the role of husband vicariously. It is only years after Vera's death and the recent remarriage of her husband that he becomes dissatisfied with his secondary role in life.² He ceases temporarily to act the uncle and...