In his work Candide, the old women pridefully recounts her tragic life story in protest to Candide and Cunegonde’s complaints of suffering, producing a comedic effect that substantially contributes to the overall satire of Voltaire’s work by demonstrating the innate love and passion for life within all human beings regardless of insufferable circumstances.
Like Cunegonde and Candide, the old woman begins life among the beautiful and elite of her country, experiencing the benefits of affluence. Unexpectedly, their lives make a complete reversal, removing them not only from comfort and prosperity, but inflicting them with intense physical and emotional suffering. Emotionally, both the princess and Candide experience the loss of lovers, but they never lose hope of reuniting. In the mean time, because of their virginal beauty, both Cunegonde and the princess experience the brutality of repeated rape. While the princess is initially preserved for the captain alone, Cunegonde is subject to the erotic desires of soldiers and later of wealthy benefactors. The old woman compares the loss of her virginity to the plucking of a beautiful flower, being a beautifully chaste blossom ready for her betrothed, but forcefully spoilt at human whim. In a magnificent satire, the old woman is raised in a secluded garden to glorious maturation, but her splendor is seized and crushed by men without care for beauty and purity. Her hope in the good of humanity is rigidly tried as Voltaire further derides her love as an aristocratic arrogance, decrying her for enjoying the benefits of her station in life while others suffer.
Although all the captured women are quartered upon their arrival in Morocco, the princess manages to escape and unite with her mother’s former eunuch, who promises to return her to her homeland, but instead sells her into slavery. Catching the plague but surviving, she is resold several times, and ultimately becomes a “rump roast” for starving soldiers fighting the Russians. Voltaire satirizes sacrifice as ultimately useless when, in a mockery of her pain, the removal of her buttock proves futile as a few days later her torturers are slaughtered by the Russians. Refusing to relinquish the dreadful life she holds so dear, the woman is healed by French doctors, only to be enslaved once more. Despite her fruitless sacrifice and suffering, the old woman stubbornly clings to her hopeless existence, though it shows no hope of improvement.
In closing her story, the old woman seems to have given up on life, but hope still lays disguised in her voice. “A hundred times I wanted to kill myself,” she said, “but always I loved life more” (538). Innate love for life and the inability to be rid of the charge to live are a human’s worst instincts. Though seemingly pessimistic, there is optimism in her words. The love for life that she describes implies a passionate desire for life, rather than a tolerant apathy towards it. She analogizes humanities grasp on life to “fond[ling] the serpent which devours us till it has eaten out our hearts” (538). Rather than merely holding the snake, she characterizes humanity as “fondling,” a word depicting loving caresses rather than dispassionate touches. Perhaps through her word choice the old woman secretly wishes to display the innate love of life that she pridefully holds. Furthermore, she points out that, although many may hate their existence, few will purposefully and deliberately give up their lives, all possessing an innate sense of love for their lives as their own.
In conclusion, Voltaire satirizes humanities love for life via his crudely comical tale about the haggard old “princess” in Candide. Many engrossing ideas about hope, optimism, and love of life instigate questions about reality in a world that is today greatly deprived of reason.
Works Cited
Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet de. "Candide, or Optimism." The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah N. Lawall and Maynard Mack. 2nd ed. Vol. D. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company Limited, 2004. 520-79.
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