# The Seagull — Character guide

> Key figures in The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.

- [Boris Trigorin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/boris_alexeyevitch_trigorin.md): Trigorin arrives at Sorin's estate as Arkadina's companion, a literary lion who confesses he has nowhere else to go and must live here whether he likes it or not. He is drawn to Nina's youthful admiration even as he half
- [Nina Zaretchny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/nina_mihailovna_zaretchny.md): Nina slips out of her father's house like a prisoner to act in Treplev's play, then turns her longing toward Trigorin, the famous writer whose book she has had engraved on a keepsake. She asks him to decide her fate with
- [Irina Arkadina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/irina_nikolayevna_arkadina.md): Arkadina holds court at her brother's estate, charming guests and needling her son, whose play she resents because Nina, not she, will triumph in it. She is generous with kisses and stingy with money, superstitious about
- [Konstantin Treplev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/konstantin_gavrilovitch_treplev.md): Treplev writes experimental theatre on his uncle's estate, desperate for his mother's approval and for Nina's love, and contemptuous of the conventional stage Arkadina represents. He tears the bandage from his head and r
- [Pyotr Sorin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/pyotr_nikolayevitch_sorin.md): Sorin presides over the estate where the play unfolds, a gentle, ailing old man who jokes about the story he might have written, 'The Man Who Wished.' He is fond of Treplev and anxious about him, urging Arkadina to take 
- [Masha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/masha.md): Masha trails after Treplev with a lazy, lagging step, watching him read with glowing eyes while she marries Medvedenko and settles into a life she doesn't want. She tells Trigorin she married long ago when he asks if she
- [Semyon Medvedenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/semyon_semyonovitch_medvedenko.md): Medvedenko supports a mother, two sisters, and a brother on a salary that barely stretches to tea and tobacco, and he cannot stop itemising it aloud. He adores Masha, who mourns her life in black and takes snuff while te
- [Yevgeny Dorn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/yevgeny_sergeitch_dorn.md): Dorn is the estate's calm centre: he doses Sorin, listens to Treplev's account of Nina's ruin, and admits he saved only two thousand roubles in a lifetime of practice. He meets Sorin's regret with the cool claim that the
- [Polina Andreyevna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/polina_andreyevna.md): Polina moves through the house doing small services — sheets, pillows, a hand passed over Kostya's hair — while quietly aching for Dorn and for her daughter's hopeless love. She begs Treplev to be kinder to Masha, then a
- [Ilya Shamraev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/ilya_afanasyevitch_shamraev.md): Shamraev runs Sorin's farm on rye-carting days and collars that cannot be found, greeting the returning actress with compliments about her youth and sprightliness. When she demands transport to the station, he explodes t
- [Silva](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters/silva.md): A minor character, possibly a servant or visitor.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_seagull_se/characters