Gender Stereotypes In Voltaire's Candide

While Voltaire was certainly not perfect, his mere recognition of the unjust treatment of women and manipulation of their weaker physical strength in his novella, Candide, was progressive for his time. The main female character, Miss Cunegund, was asleep in her home one night when Bulgarian soldiers broke in and killed her father, mother, and brother. One soldier took advantage of the fact that he thought she was passed out and raped her. Cunegund’s response to this was, “The operation [rape] brought me to my senses. I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn the tall Bulgarian’s eyes out, not knowing that what had happened at my father’s castle was a customary thing. The brutal soldier, enraged at my resistance, gave me a wound in my left leg with his hanger, the mark of which I still carry” (Voltaire 18). These poor women had to endure incredible emotional distress and physical pain but men still felt they were entitled to

In Candide, the characters took a trip to El Dorado, a perfect word, and Volatire’s description of his utopia entailed “twenty beautiful young virgins in waiting [who] received Candide and Cacambo on their alighting from the coach” (Voltaire 50). His words imply that a perfect woman is tarnished or less ideal if she has had sex and these implications then make her whole identity dependent on her sexuality. He is saying that women are only valuable for their beauty and virginity, nothing more. On a separate occasion, the Old Woman is telling her life story and describes herself when she was younger: “I was beauty itself, and then I had my virginity” (Voltaire 26). Her virginity was a symbol of her beauty and, once again, Voltaire attributes her significance to society based on her sexual purity. The portrayal of gender norms in Candide is indicative of how women were treated at the time of its