Character Analysis
Natasha is Andrey's crush, turned fiancée, turned wife, turned worst enemy. Intimidated by the Prozorov girls, she's shy at first. Especially when they start mocking her fashion sense. But after getting married, she wastes no time taking over the house like some sort of blight: first Irina's room, then Olga's, then Andrey's—heck, even the hubby barely gets away with living there.
Natasha's is probably the biggest change in status in the play—from totally powerless, subjected to the ridicule of the better educated, wealthier Prozorov sisters, to wielding a whole bunch of obnoxious power over them. At the end of the play, she's the one in complete control, inviting her lover to sit in the parlor while her husband roams around outside.
Directors try to not make Natasha a total monster, but Chekhov has written her as the least sympathetic character in the play. Tyrannical with her servants and pretentious with her newly acquired but still-awful French, Natasha seems to represent the ugly side of the rise of the middle class. As the only woman in the play with offspring, we also wonder if Chekhov is saying: this is what survives.