Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya

A young woman, daughter of a wealthy landowner who (with his second wife) disapproves of her visiting the neighboring estate, drawn to the theater and to Treplyov's circle; she stars in his experimental play in Act One, delivering its "world soul" monologue, and is the object of his devoted, ultimately unrequited love. Her fascination with the established writer Boris Trigorin, whom she meets through Arkadina, deepens across the play into an infatuation that leads her, against her family's wishes, to leave for Moscow to pursue an acting career and a relationship with him; Trigorin eventually abandons her after she bears his child, who dies. When she returns to the estate in Act Four -- worn down, alternating lucid self-assessment with distress, and repeatedly likening herself to "a seagull" and, elsewhere, insisting she is "an actress" -- she and Treplyov have a final, unresolved conversation before she leaves for good; her visit precedes his offstage suicide at the play's close.