Verga Response

            In Verga’s The She Wolf, Pina, a young woman earns the reputation of being a She-Wolf. She displays the characteristics that differ from being a lady. “In the immense fields, where you heard only the crackling flight of the grasshoppers, as the sun hammered down overhead, the She-Wolf gathered bundle after bundle, and sheaf after sheaf….” (4). This trait of Pina’s shows how she appears to be masculine to others as she works in the field parallel to men. She also exemplifies this when she, “was the only living soul to be seen wandering in the countryside…no good woman goes roving around in the hours between nones and vespers” (6). Pina exhibits many qualities that are uncommon for women during this time. This would lead to suspicious by others. Pina harnesses the label of she-wolf when Verga mentions that the towns’ woman, “made the sign of the cross when they saw her pass, alone as a wild bitch, prowling about suspiciously like a famished wolf; with her red lips she sucked the blood of their sons and husbands in a flash, and pulled them behind her skirt with a single glance of those devilish eyes” (3). Pina is compared to a wolf in a sense that she is also compared to a devil. The devil and wolf are closely related, Pina sneaks around a commits adultery, as men are unable to prevent it. The act of adultery is seen to be a devilish act. Pina is marked as an outcast in the village and because of her various acts people are quick to determine that she is the issue, but can the men really not control themselves and are they not the ones to blame?