History Literature / MalheursDeSophie

* AbusiveParents: Paul's parents treat their son very coldly. In the animated series, Paul's mother hates boy and greatly favors Sophie, her niece. In her first appearance, after hearing Sophie had been punished for something, she immediately blames Paul, sends him away, and bemoans how she would've preferred a daughter like Sophie. Paul's father isn't much better. It's a godsend that they pretty much leave him with Sophie's mother.

* CelebrityParadox: There are in-universe references to some of de Ségur’s other children's stories or the characters in them. For example, Sophie and Paul name their rescue cat "Beau-Minon", like the cat "in the story of Blondine", referring to the tale ''Blondine, Bonne-Biche et Beau-Minon.''

* CorporalPunishment / DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: In the first book, Sophie's mother gives her a whipping "such as she had never given her before" on catching her having stolen the contents of her sewing box. In the second book, after her mother is lost at sea, Sophie's father marries Mlle Fichini, who severely whips Sophie on one occasion. Recognizing that he has given his daughter a cruel stepmother, he avenges the whipping by giving Mme Fichini a thorough beating. Shortly after, Sophie's father dies, and Mme Fichini begins to subject Sophie to nothing but cruelty, regularly severely beating her both when she has and when she hasn't done anything wrong. It doesn't help with socializing Sophie at all. In stark contrast to this, Mme de Fleurville never whips her daughters and when she takes Sophie into her care, she has to strictly discipline her only once, by locking her overnight in a "penance closet", a cell in which Sophie must sit, copy out the Lord's Prayer ten times, and read edifying literature. After some initial resistance, Sophie realizes she has been bad and [[HeelFaceTurn turns over a new leaf]].[[note]]The extent to which the author actually disapproves of physical punishment is ambiguous. While it's clear that Mme Fichini's wrathful, sadistic beatings are cruel and unacceptable, and while Mme de Fleurville's cool, calm and very firm, but violence-free methods are set up as the ideal, the author states of the sole whipping that Sophie's own mother gave her in the first book: "and one must admit that she deserved it."[[/note]]

* WishFulfillment: The author's description of Sophie's father standing up for her and beating her stepmother after the latter savagely whips her in the second book is likely a case of this, as is the stepmother's eventual [[spoiler: repentance, tearful admission of guilt to Sophie and subsequent death]] near the end of the second book. In RealLife, de Ségur's mother was a harsh disciplinarian and her father is said to have been unable to stand up to her.[[note]]Growing up in Orthodox Russia, Sophia Rostopchina, the future Comtesse de Ségur, was converted in her teens to Catholicism by her mother, who had developed convictions in that regard, while her father was away. It is said that her mother shut the young Sophia up in her room in order to force her to convert; this situation was not advantageous for the father, a high-ranking official, given that Orthodox Christianity was the state religion and that the conversion of his wife and daughter could displease the Tsar.[[/note]]

* WickedStepmother: Fédora Fichini is one of literature's iconic evil stepmothers; she acts as a sadistically abusive monster toward Sophie. Prior to marrying her father, she [[WolfInSheepsClothing acted very kindly to them]], but once she becomes her stepmother, she reveals her true colors, and is constantly angry at Sophie's father and scolds and beats Sophie. When Sophie's father avenges a particularly severe beating, Mme Fichini tells him: "I will return all the blows that you have given me to your daughter." Shortly after, the father dies, and Mme Fichini subjects Sophie to hell on earth, liberally beating her, rationing her food and even her water, and when she finds out that the servants are kind to Sophie, forbidding them to talk to her on pain of immediate dismissal. It is a godsend for Sophie when her stepmother goes abroad and leaves her in the care of Mme de Fleurville. [[spoiler: She ends up getting married to an impostor posing as a count and having a sickly baby daughter by him; at the end of the last book, Mme Fichini comes home disgraced and mortally ill; she deeply repents of the treatment she gave Sophie while under her care and apologizes to her. Her daughter dies shortly afterward.]]