Three Sisters

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain descriptions of death, gun violence, and attempted suicide.

At age 28, Olga is the eldest of the Prozorov sisters and feels that she has grown too old to find a husband. At the start of the play, Olga has been teaching at the local girls’ school for four years. This position has utterly exhausted her on an existential level and has incited constant headaches. Between Irina’s optimism and Masha’s despair, Olga maintains a more moderate, reasonable outlook. However, she is still struck with the same feelings of purposelessness and longing as her siblings and shares their dreams about Moscow.

For Olga, her feelings of longing are mostly nostalgic. She is often lost in her memories, and her desire to go to Moscow is based on a desire to return to a place that is full of happy memories. Olga wishes that she had married when she was younger, and at this point, she would marry any man who asked her, even a much older man. However, she is one of the few characters who has no romantic entanglements over the course of the play. She is kind and giving, as shown when she gathers piles of her own clothes to give to

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