"Sorin: I've got an idea for a story for Kostya. A good title would be The Man Who Wanted To... Long ago when i was young I wanted to become a writer. But I never did. I wanted to be a good speaker - and I was abominable.... I wanted to live in town and I'm dying in the country. And there you have it.

Dorn: You wanted to become an Actual State Councillor and you did.

Sorin: I never set my sights on that. It just happened."


But, yes. I'm like Kostantin still. Konstantin in the final act, still in love with Nina. But, Nina has matured, holding onto to old feelings but assimilating them with a healthier dose of reality. She persevered, not famous like she dreamed, but achieving her goal in a way, true to herself. No, there was no love like that in my life as a person. But, it's possible to say that the Arts are that love/obsession to me. We had a youthful romance that went nowhere. I still irrationally pine for them, but they have matured without me. The Arts are not a magical thing like they once were, but a serious life, with equal doses of work and play, of pleasure and irritation, of profundity and banality. Like Konstantin, I've had some success of sorts, but it feels completely unfulfilling. All I can think of in my obsessive love (and myself, my own worth), and with each passing year, the feelings are more futile than ever.

But my biggest frustration in being Konstantin is that the best line in the play goes to Nina. "I'm the Seagull. No, that's not what I mean." Why is this the best line. shall I become analytical. "I am the seagull," alone is melodramatic, an overbearing metaphor. But the two thoughts together are a struggle with dramatic emotions, dramatic images of oneself... and that is a feeling that is much more poignant, true to life.