Chekov’s The Seagull: Moral Decadence as a Strand of Modernity

Abstract

This research paper brings out the features of modernity affecting themorality of the characters in the play, The Sea-gullby Anton Chekhov. The characters in the play are in the influence of the experience of modernity but at the cost of their integrity and proper conducts. Their inclination towards modernity causes them to follow its aspirations as deeply absorbed in their passions. In essence, Chekhov portrays the characters with different prototype physiognomies of modernity proposed by Charles Baudelaire, like the boheme, dandy, suicide and other physiognomies of passions. The characters in the play are attracted by the experiences of popularity and fame, beauty and fashion, the crowd and city’s world, in an extreme limit so that they derail from their stable life in a way as directed towards the situation of the moral decadence. The excessive vocation for the passions and ambitions create struggle and crisis in the way of life of the characters as they fall into moral decadence.