Uncle Vanya

Content Warning: This play includes depictions of alcohol abuse, sexual harassment, and attempted murder, as well as discussions of suicide and depression.

Voitski is the eponymous protagonist of the play and a major vehicle through which its themes are explored. He is a complex and multifaceted character. While his misery and hardships would traditionally cast him in the role of a tragic hero, his impotence transforms him instead into an object of pity and even comedy. In keeping with the Realist school’s refutation of the dramatic conceits of the prior Romantic movement, Voitski’s role in Uncle Vanya subverts many expected dramatic tropes. For instance, although he has a deep, unrequited love for Helena, he functions more as a side character to the attraction between Helena and Astroff than as a romantic figure in his own right. Furthermore, his failure to murder Serebrakoff alters what might have been a heroic act and the play’s dramatic climax into a farcical anti-climax.

Voitski lived most of his life before the events of the play as a selfless and hardworking man. He sacrificed his inheritance so that his sister could receive the estate as a wedding present, and he worked for two decades to clear the debt on the estate and support Serebrakoff’s studies.