Cunegonde's Character Analysis

Cunegonde: Voltaire’s Version of the Roles of Women

If we were to place the character of Candide next to the character of Cunegonde in terms of their traits, key plot points and, transformative journeys we would have two drastically different lists. While Candide develops as a character and journeys throughout the world in an attempt to find himself, Cunegonde has two main roles: a prize for Candide and sex. Candide’s character develops, while Cunegonde’s and the other female characters have no progression, barely a storyline in itself. From Paquette to the Old Woman the reader is easily able to grasp the not so subtle misogynist storyline the women characters are placed in. The Enlightenment, which was a period attempting to take people out

Many are forced into sexual slavery, or raped and hurt because of their anatomy. As a general rule in the book the female characters are only valued for their beauty and looks, which is shown when Candide feels as if he has to settle with Cunegonde, the woman he had been chasing throughout his entire journey, after she becomes older and more haggard. The women are all underdeveloped as characters themselves with their stories mainly revolving around the mishaps that happen to them or, the men they have to serve because of their subservient status. One female character stood out the most as a woman who endured so much because of her gender and that was

The reader is at first able to determine that she is a bold female character after she sees Pangloss and Paquette practicing, in the words of Voltaire, “experimental philosophy” (Voltaire 2). Instead of waiting for Candide to make the first move, as men usually did in this time period, she was the one who corrupted Candide by taking him behind the screen to practice physics with her. In a critical analysis essay from Andrew Scherr the author states this action of “attributing aggressive sexual intent to the female” is to play into the fantasy that Voltaire had of women taking control and channeling their inner “nymphomaniac”, giving the reader their first taste of Cunegonde’s character trope of only being useful in terms of beauty and sex. It is an unexpected behavioral trait Cunegonde is put with, for she contributes to what, in that time period, is the male’s role in the relationship. “The Miss dropped her handkerchief...She innocently took hold of his hand” (2). Candide was not the person to initiate any contact at all, it was Cunegonde who grabbed his hand instead making her a “[subtle] aggressor” (Scherr). When the Baron finds them together it is assumed that Candide was the initiator trying to ruin his daughter instead of vice versa, furthering the idea that what Cunegonde did was a reversal of gender