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The need to change the bandage serves as a pretext for a serious and unpleasant talk. For Treplev this is the last attempt to regain his mother's favor and restore his ego shattered after the failure of his performance and Nina's betrayal~ By observing that Darn failed to come, Treplev points out to his mother that her admirer disapproves of her relationship with Trigorin. He realizes at once that by "taunts and jibes" he will not get very far and changes his tactics. Treplev recalls the time in their life the memory of which is precious for both of them. At that time Arkadina was still faithful to her ideals which drove her to elope with an actor "petty bourgeois from Kiev ". She did not have a real success in a state theater and went philanthropic. Treplev knows how to flatter his mother. This piece of recollection prepares the ground for an attack on Trigorin.
As can be seen, this piece of narration becomes an integral part of Treplev's behavior. Though the related events have no direct bearing on the unfolding scene, they help to create an integrated context. Thus, theoretically, it is possible to conceive a play where a character's words will have no connection with an action reported on a separate occasion.
In "The Sea Gull" such information is dispersed throughout the play. This peculiarity makes it possible to speak of the nonverbal character of the play which means that no scene taken separately contains enough information to understand the characters" actions. It also means that, out of context, each scene permits a freedom
of interpretation. When means of achieving a goal
are considered as actions, it results in a number of actions not united by a causal relationship. Thus an illusion is formed that the play lacks unity on the level of events.
The analysis of each episode in the context of the whole play, however, reveals that "disorganized dialogue does not equal an absurd dialogue. Such a consistency of the eternal action as in "The Sea Gull" and "The Three Sisters" can only be achieved with great and definitive unity of action of each of the characters". (7. 46)
Watching the actions of the characters of "The Sea Gull" is like watching strangers: much of their talk is not clear to an observer, some words and actions seem accidental. As we keep on watching, however, we not only receive new information, but also begin to better understand what we have seen and heard before. Every line is included both in a dialogue and in a context, augmenting the content of the previous lines. Therefore, in an action-psychology analysis of "The Sea Gull" an approach based on a perception of the play as an integral whole must be adopted.
On the level of the text, the action-psychology analysis establishes the interrelation of different elements of the semiotic system. These are not
always easily distinguishable, therefore, the presentation of the analysis' results can be difficult. Some of the conclusions can be easily confirmed by excerpts from the text, while others must be based on intuition. There are also cases where it seems to be appropriate to limit oneself to pointing out the' relationship between elements, as full blown conclusions would lead us far into the sphere of subjective perceptions.
On what basis is it possible to conjecture how Arkadina's fallout with her husband occurred? Speaking to her son, she uses words like "petty bourgeois from Kiev " <which sounds like an insult), "sponger" and "ragamuffin". This allows us to surmise that those years left in Arkadina bitter memories. It is more difficult to understand the reason for this rift. At this point, it is appropriate to take into account the nature of Arkadina, Trigorin and Dorn's relationships, Treplev's childhood memories and Nina's elopement with Trigorin, so much like Arkadina's elopement with actor Treplev. It would be worthwhile also to turn to history and recall what the Russian theater of mid to late XIX century was like.
The conveyance of nonverbal information occurs due to contradictions in "external action". By resolving these contradictions, the reader fills up the information gaps and reconstructs the events of the play. In reading "The Sea Gull", the co-authorship of the playwright and the reader
does not start automatically. Many contradictions are not always perceived as such because their recognition requires establishing connections between far removed episodes with different means of conveying information.
Few readers would ask themselves why Treplev and Trigorin published their works in the same magazine. Or how Treplev, who was too poor to dress properly, suddenly begins to earn enough to afford to make trips to Nina. Or why Sorin is absent in the last scene of Act IV. To a reader who did not reconstruct the preceding events the last Act must be very puzzling. Not that the three first Acts contain less contradictions. Is it just an accident that Dorn and Arkadina read "On the Water" of all things? Why is Polina Andreevna planning to go to town with Arkadina? Questions also arise in connection with the characters' life-histories. When did Arkadina get acquainted with Trigorin? How did it changed her relationship with her son? Why did Treplev leave the university in his third year?
Such questions inescapably face a director and actors.
Finding answers does not mean that the whole picture appears on the stage. It is necessary yet to understand why Chekhov chose these particular details from the whole story. Co-authorship is an important component of the artistic effect which may disappear if the attempt is made to dictate to the reader/spectator the meaning of the signs. The reconstruction of the invisible ("underwater") part of the play is necessitated only by the need to understand the visible part. The reconstruction must be performed with the utmost precision, because the slightest changes in it cause a huge distortion in the "underwater" part up to its total destruction. In such a case the text becomes a meaningless collection of unrelated lines. On the other hand, direct indication of the integrating relationships will distort the author's design according to which they must be formed in the reader's subconscious mind.
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