The final act of Uncle Vanya brings the whole conflict to an end. Uncle Vanya is seen by his family as crazy and they all decide to leave the house after the shooting. The fact that Vanya shot the professor twice and he also missed him both times is truly embarrassing and pathetic. He seats down and cries completely humiliated. When the fourth act begins, he is still very ashamed.
As soon as the act begins, Uncle Vanya realizes that he has been treated as a mentally unstable person by his family. “Strange. I attempt to commit a murder, and they don’t arrest me, they don’t bring me to trial, which means that they consider me insane.” (216) When he sees it, he begins to argue with them and tries to confront the. His sarcasm is always present and he tries to up set them so that they let him to what he wishes. This is definitely an attempt of manipulation, and at the end he accomplishes his goal, because they all leave the house. When he has to confront them directly, he says the following, “Well, I’m insane, I’m not responsible, I have a right to say silly things.”(216) Although he feels embarrassed over what happened with the shooting, Uncle Vanya is not mature enough to deal with his problems and so he tells his family that because he is insane, he can’t be held responsible for anything, and therefore they have to take care of any troubles he may cause. Uncle Vanya is not even capable standing up for his ideals which position him once again to be the victim of the story. He never does anything right, not even murder. When he is treated as insane he reacts as one, although he knows he is perfectly normal. In every single opportunity, Uncle Vanya finds the time to victimize himself in front of everyone.
The attitude that Vanya takes before life is a very tragic one. He finds the negative aspects to everything and he doesn’t want to look for anything that may bring him some happiness. Sonya on the other hand, tries to find some positive aspects to her life, although she is also a pessimist and a victim, just as Vanya. Both of these characters are very similar, but at the end of the play, Sonya demonstrates to be more hopeful. It seems as of she were the person that complement Vanya, not only in personality but in state of mind. They are so similar, but at the same time very different. They are like a paradox, but less contradictory. When the final act is about to end, Sonya tells Uncle Vanya the following, “What’s to be done, we must go on living... You have had no joy in your life, but wait Uncle Vanya, wait... We shall rest...We shall rest! (227) We shall rest? What does that really mean? Is she referring to death? Is she talking about forgetting all their problems and leaving their frustrations behind them?
At the end, it is hard to understand both of this characters, but in a way it is not as difficult to see that what they wanted to have was actually nothing. They didn’t want anything, because in the beginning, having all those things and being responsible for them was what ruined their lives. Even though they did victimize their selves too much and try to appear as if everything in their life was empty, they knew that when they were left alone, there would be no temptations and no reasons at all for them to be desperate as they once were.
