Mother Savage

"Mother Savage" (original title: "La Mère Sauvage") is a short story by the French realist writer Guy de Maupassant.

The Prussians bring home a live rabbit for a meal which they killed brutally in the eyes of Mother Sauvage.

Mother Sauvage does not partake in the meal, and as they finish dinner, she insists on providing the young soldiers with hay to make their stay in the loft more comfortable.

Influenced by Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant writes in the realist style which focuses on objective reality and "shows" instead of "tells".

The story is set during the winter of 1871 midway through the Franco-Prussian War in a quaint village in the French countryside.