Pyotr Nikolayevich Sorin

Arkadina's older brother, a retired civil servant living out his declining health on the country estate where most of the play takes place, and Treplyov's uncle and closest confidant among the older generation. A mild, self-deprecating man who describes his own life as having failed to achieve what he wanted ("the man who wanted"), he indulges and defends Treplyov against Arkadina's dismissiveness, employs Shamrayev as his estate manager, and grows visibly frailer across the play's two-year span, his declining health forming a quiet counter-rhythm to the younger characters' romantic crises.