Boule de Suif (review)

"Boule de Suif" (somewhat loosely translated as "Butterball") is a short story by Guy de Maupassant, first published in 1880. It remainds one of Maupassant's most famous works, and is slightly longer than many of his short short stories. In my version, it is about 50 pages long, which allow it more room for characterization and plot development.

The story takes place during the time of the Franco-Prussian War. A group of wealthy French people, men and women, are fleeing from the war. In a carriage, they meet a prostitute, the eponymous "butterball", (due to a voluptuous figure). Although hostile at first, their shared plot brings them together in friendship, along with two nuns who are also travelling with them. Slightly later, they are detained by a Prussian military officer. It is revealed that he desires to have sex with the Boule de Suif, and while at first somewhat protective of her, the rich people she is travelling with want her to go along with his demands, so they can continue to flee. However, she hates the Prussians, and resists until the pressure from the others, (including the nuns), until finally she gives in and provides sexual services so they can escape. Afterwards, they travel together, and she is reduced to misery while the others carry on non-chalantly.

Maupassant has written many stories about the plight of women, and many of them I found either too simplistic, or too moralistic. But this story is told in a way where Boule de Suif is not a one-dimensional figure or a target for moralizing. She is drawn as a real person, which makes her tragic abuse even worse. The story also doesn't depend on a twist ending of some sort, instead focusing in a realistic way on the devastated woman crying in the railroad car as the others ignore us. It is stark and bleak in a way I hadn't read before in the works of Maupassant.

This story took me a while to get through. It seemed to relate to things I have read recently, about the war against Ukraine, and how much sexual assault and abuse has been part of it. And this story crystallized something for me that made me feel really bad: for many people, including for many women, sexual assault is a crime against a woman's status, not against a woman's rights. The women around her feel that she is inferior, and therefore she is not entitled to control or dignity. It is an attitude that I think still persists, long after when this story was set.