Question

What is the main theme of the excerpt?

Read this excerpt from Guy de Maupassant's "Mother Savage" about an old woman who takes in four Prussian soldiers while her son is away fighting in the French army:

But the old woman thought always of her own son, so tall and thin, with his hooked nose and his brown eyes and his heavy mustache which made a roll of black hair upon his lip. She asked every day of each of the soldiers who were installed beside her hearth: "Do you know where the French marching regiment, No. 23, was sent? My boy is in it."

They invariably answered, "No, we don't know, don't know a thing at all." And, understanding her pain and her uneasiness—they who had mothers, too, there at home—they rendered her a thousand little services. She loved them well, moreover, her four enemies, since the peasantry have no patriotic hatred; that belongs to the upper class alone. The humble, those who pay the most because they are poor and because every new burden crushes them down; those who are killed in masses, who make the true cannon's prey because they are so many; those, in fine, who suffer most cruelly the atrocious miseries of war because they are the feeblest and offer least resistance—they hardly understand at all those bellicose ardors, that excitable sense of honor or those pretended political combinations which in six months exhaust two nations, the conqueror with the conquered.

A.
A mother’s love has no barriers.
B.
In war, there are no winners.
C.
The common man is not patriotic.
D.
The poor suffer the most in war.

Answer 1

The correct answer would be option D: "The poor suffer the most in war". In this excerpt, the woman is telling how she view's war as something that affects the lower classes most, there are several sentences that demonstrate that opinion, for example, "The humble, those who pay the most because they are poor" and "...those who are killed in masses, who make the true cannon's prey because they are so many", "those, in fine, who suffer the most cruelly the atrocious miseries of war because they are the feeblest and offer lest resistance". Option A is not correct because the excerpt does not say that she cares for the soldiers because she is a mother, Option B is not correct because it says that the upper class may benefit in someway and Option C is incorrect because she does not say she is not patriotic.

Answer 2

The last option explains the theme.Though it is clear in the woman´s point of view that in war nobody wins, she speaks about the poor.There are the feelings of the humble and the peasantry.She gives a visual description with strong words .She is against war but she knows who sufferes the most .The miseries affect the poor and the miserable.This is the evidence .