Uncle Vanya’s second act is full of interesting quotes that guide the reader towards understanding the conflicts that take place throughout the play. The characters are opening up to each other, revealing their secrets and inner thoughts, showing the readers that they behave the way they do because of what has happened to them in their life’s.
The first issue that is discussed in the second act is the troubles that old age brings on a person. The first one to talk about this is the professor who is in a lot of pain and is bored with life. He feels as if everybody feels discussed by his presence, and he even states that he himself feels the same way towards his present state of decadence. “Even my voice is repulsive. Well, let us suppose that I am repulsive, that I am an egotist, a despot-haven’t I the right to be selfish in my old age?”(179) In this quote he begins to tell the people that surround him that he is tired and that because he is so old, he can do whatever he pleases. His attitude demonstrates being old is a very delicate condition and the elders should be respected and allowed to do everything they like. This ideology reflects the desperation of the people when they reach an old age and don’t want to do anything else that to die soon. They are very depressed and want everyone to focus on them. The professor is already old and tiered, but Vanya is still young and what he is experimenting is a typical mid-life crisis that makes him feel as if he were as old as the professor although he is really not. Vanya is very negative and complains all day long about things that are not even worth complaining about. He hates the professor because he sees him as the person that he will become in the future. Uncle Vanya used to admire the professor, but now he sees him as a failure and he doesn’t want to resemble him at all. The most contradicting aspect of Vanya’s attitude is that he is very similar to the professor, as he complains a lot and is disappointed of life.
Another activity that is very common within the characters of this play is drinking. Most of the people that live in that house, be it men or women are driven to alcohol when they feel stressed or tiered. In this act, the ones that get drunk are the men, and more specifically, Uncle Vanya and the doctor. The scene were they get drunk is full of depressing comments that show their negative attitudes. When they drink, they feel as if they were living the life’s they would of wanted to have. “Elena: So you’ve been drinking today? What is that for?...Vanya: At least it seems like life...Don’t prevent me, Hélène!”(183) Uncle Vanya lives his fantasies when he is drunk, and probably one of them is to be happy. When he is drunk he confuses the momentary joy for the ultimate happiness he so desires to have. When Sonya confronts Uncle Vanya about his excessive drinking he answers in the following way, “Age has nothing to do with it. When one has no real life, one lives on illusions. It’s better than nothing.” As we can see in this quote, Vanya likes to drink because he lives the life that he wants to have. This quote may also relate to fiction, not only in literature, but in life. As Vanya said, sometimes it is better to pretend to have a good life, than to face reality. Apparently alcohol helps the characters of the play to overcome their fears, only if it is during a short period of time. In a way, fiction has the same effects on the readers, as it distracts them from their reality, and for a moment, involves them in a fictional story, with invented characters and fantastical plots. When you read a work of fiction you try to understand the nature of the people that are inside the book, and how you as an individual could be similar to them, and therefore have an exciting life as these characters. Maybe, in a way Vanya wants to make part of a fictional novel, where he doesn’t feel as old and useless as he does in his present life.
