# Madame Savage — Short Fiction character guide

> Madame Savage in Short Fiction by Guy de Maupassant.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Madame

**First appearance:** 0003-short-fiction

## Snapshot

A quiet provincial wife whose unsatisfied longing for Parisian excitement curdles into something far more dangerous when war arrives at her door.

## Who they are

Madame Savage lives a life of monotonous respectability, her days spent managing a household and raising two children while her imagination devours scandalous newspaper columns about Parisian vice. She is consumed by the fear that she will die without having tasted the intoxicating pleasures she reads about, a frustration that smolders beneath her irreproachable exterior. When Prussian soldiers are billeted in her home, this pent-up hunger and resentment will find a terrible outlet.

## In the story

### [Mother Savage](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/mother-savage)

The protagonist, an old woman living alone after her son's death in the war. She quarters Prussian soldiers and later takes revenge by burning her house with them inside.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/ii)

The protagonist of the chapter, a strong, tall, thin old woman who lives alone after her son enlists. She receives news of her son's death and takes revenge by burning the Prussian soldiers billeted in her home.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/characters/madame_savage
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/characters