Natella Abashwili Character Analysis

The wife of Georgi Abashwili and a similarly vain and uncaring individual. Whereas her husband’s main concern is an architectural project which will expand their lavish palace, Natella’s main concern is her dressing and finery. When Georgi is captured and killed, Natella’s servants and staff urge her to flee the palace with her infant son, Michael. Natella packs too much for the trip, stuffing several trunks with her finest garments and accessories. When her servants tell her she can’t possibly take everything with her, Natella begins fussing over which of her things she should bring along, and instructs a servant-girl who is holding the child to set him down and fetch Natella a pair of saffron shoes she left behind inside the palace. When Natella sees the red sky overhead, signaling fire from the peasants’ riots, she allows herself to be swept away from the palace, leaving her child behind. Later in the play, after the old regime has been restored to power, Natella orders her soldiers to hunt down her child and bring him back to her. His adoptive mother, Grusha, follows Michael back to Nuka after he is taken away by Natella’s soldiers. There, Grusha and Natella stand trial against one another. During the course of the trial, it is revealed that Natella only wants her son back because he stands to inherit his father’s estates. When the unusual judge Azdak proposes that the two women place Michael in the center of a chalk circle and yank on one arm each to try pulling Michael out of the circle and thus be proclaimed his true mother, Natella pulls on her child while Grusha refuses to cause the boy any bodily harm. Grusha is declared Michael’s true mother, and Natella faints when Azdak rules that all of Michael’s inheritance will be dissolved, and will instead go to the city. Thus, Natella represents themes of corruption, injustice, and the vanity of the wealthy and powerful.