La Lupa (story)

La Lupa is a novella by Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga. It was published as part of a collection of short stories, Vita dei Campi (Rural Life) in 1880. The novella is about a beautiful woman called Gna Pina, called La Lupa (she wolf) because of her attitude towards men. She had a daughter, called Maricchia, who was old enough to be married, yet nobody wanted her because of her mother's behaviour. La Lupa falls in love with a man, Nanni, who refuses her. She then makes her daughter marry him, so that she could have him always near. La Lupa keeps trying to seduce the man, even in front of the daughter, and Nanni decides to "solve the problem" by killing Gna Pina with an axe.