Voltaire's+view+of+Women

Back to Remember to Lock Page

**Voltaires view of women**   Women were said to be possessions of men and were only to be “used” to satisfy the man sexually and do household maintenance. Candide is full of quite a few graphic accounts of the sexual exploitation of women. The three main female characters—Cunégonde, the old woman, and Paquette—are all raped, forced into sexual slavery, or both. Both the narrator’s and the characters’ attitudes toward these events are strikingly of no concern. Voltaire believes there are dangers that only women are vulnerable to, so he uses these women’s stories to demonstrate these. Candide’s gentlemanly devotion to Cunégonde, whom he wrongly perceives as an ideal of female virtue, is based on denial to the real situation of women. The male characters in the novel value sexual chastity in women but make it impossible for women to maintain such chastity, exposing a hypocritical aspect of Voltaire’s novel.