Full title Uncle Vanya: Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts
Author Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Type of work Drama
Genre Tragicomedy; Chekhov was known for his blending of tragic and comic genres
Language Russian
Time and place written Written in 1895–1897; Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the south of Russia
Date of first publication 1897; first produced in Moscow at the Moscow Art Theater, October twenty-six, 1899
Publisher Platonov
Narrator None
Climax Voynitsky fails to murder Serebryakov.
Protagonists Voynitsky, Astrov, Sonya
Setting (time) turn-of-the-century Russia
Setting (place) Serebryakov's country estate
Point of view Point of view is not located as there is no narrator figure
Falling Action Chekhov does not make use of the classical Aristotelian plot line, in which rising and falling action comprise an immediately recognizable climax, catastrophe, and denouement
Tense The play unfolds in the time of the present
Tone Tragi-comedic
Themes The wasted life; impossible love
Motifs Indirect action; estrangement; the pseudo-climax; the land
Symbols Uncle Vanya does not particularly make use of symbols.
Foreshadowing Again, because Chekhov makes use of such an unconventional plot structure, often driven by indirect action, there is little foreshadowing.