Three Sisters Lesson Plan

Discuss the play’s first image, and how Chekhov uses it to characterize the Prozorov sisters.

The very first image of the play is a striking one: three very different sisters, each isolated in their own world yet together in the family home. Olga is the eldest, a pragmatic and responsible woman. Masha is more intellectual, dressed in black and reading. Irina, the youngest, is impressionable and pure, dressed in white and daydreaming about the future.

Chekhov sets up a tableau of the titular sisters from the very first moment of the play, and even before a line has been uttered, the tableau gives us a sense of the sisters' relationship and their role in the family.