The Old Women In Voltaire's Candide

In Voltaire’s novel Candide, the main character Candide runs into an old woman who tells her story on her hardships. “I would never even have spoken to you if my misfortunes, had you not piqued me a little, and if it were not customary to tell stories on board a ship in order to pass away the time.” (29) This statement is said by the old woman, Cunegonde’s servant. This is an important statement because she stands for realism and goes against Pangloss’s statement that we live in “the best of all possible worlds.” The old women represents experience and claims that even though the world is less than ideal, we value it anyways. Voltaire’s satire tells a story of a baron nephew, Candide, who was taught by his teacher Pangloss that the world is “the best of all possible worlds.” He then falls in love with the barons daughter, Cunégonde and is caught kissing her. He then is expelled from his home. Candide sets out on his own, he encounters the army of the Bulgars. Seeing the dreadful battle, he then travels to Holland. He found an Anabaptist, Jacques, who takes Candide in. In Holland, Candide runs into someone he thinks is a beggar that turns out to be Pangloss. Pangloss tells him that he has contracted syphilis and that Cunégonde and her family have all been brutally murdered by the Bulgar army. Jacques, Pangloss, and Candide then travel by ship to Libson. Jacques was drowned on the way there due to a storm, leaving just …show more content…
Her own experience gives us a different perspective of things, and her realism gives her more wisdom than anyone she is traveling with. The old woman reprimands Cunégonde for making judgments about the world based on her little experience, and asks Candide and Cunégonde to ask everyone in the ship their story before making their own opinions. The old woman has a realistic view of the world. We don’t live in the best of all possible worlds, but we have to deal with