The article analyses the French graphic novel Cruelle (“Cruel”) by Florence Dupré Latour. The graphic narrative is not only a shamelessly open autofiction, but also a reworking of the classic children’s book Les Malheurs de Sophie (1858). The Comtesse de Ségur’s pre-text, however, is a didactic book for the moral-ethical instruction of children from well-off homes who all learn their lesson. This is quite different with Dupré Latour, who—without fear of self-stigmatisation—expresses the great taboo of her violent excesses against animals unfiltered. In doing so, she asks herself whether she does not perhaps carry a very special predisposition to the brutal and violent within herself or whether violence is acquired favourably through certain forms of socialisation. Without commenting explicitly, the account of her childhood suggests that her cruelty to animals appears to be an outlet for a repressed psyche and the psychological constraints experienced in a repressive Catholic moral upbringing.