SOURCE: "Microsubjects in The Seagull" in Critical Essays on Anton Chekhov, edited by Thomas A. Eekman, G. K. Hall & Co., 1989, pp. 160-69.

In the following essay, which was originally published in Russian in 1982, Paperny maintains that The Seagull comprises "a mosaic of disparate bits, " or microsubjects, in which "characters not only advance opinions, make confessions, argue, and act, they also offer each other various subjects for literary works, which express their understanding of life, their point of view, their basic 'idea. ' "

The study of Chekhov's text can be compared to the history of the investigation of matter, where researchers have come to employ smaller and smaller units of magnitude. What formerly seemed indivisible has proved a complicated structure consisting of interconnected microparticles.

To A. S. Souvorin

Chekhov's Initial Reaction to the Failure of Gi; Chekhov's Initial Reaction to the Failure of the Seagull: =~ Sthe Seagull:

To A...