Since Candide is wanted for the murders of the two Portuguese, he is forced to leave her in Buenos Aires. However he vows to find her and marry her. Finally, near the end of the novel, Candide finds Cunégonde in Istanbul, but she has lost her beauty, and is now very irritable and unfortunately very shallow-minded.
Full Answer
She is pursued by Candide throughout the novel, during which time she passes into the possession of a long sequence of men: the Bulgarian Captain, Don Issachar, the Grand Inquisitor, Don Fernando, and others. Cunégonde is a symbol for the futility of human desires: she is always out of Candide's reach, and once she is no longer, her beauty is gone.
When Candide removes the veil, he finds Cunégonde is under it: the two faint with joy and surprise. Cunégonde explains that she survived... (full context) After Candide finishes telling his story, Cunégonde tells Candide what has happened to her. When the attack on Thunder-ten-tronckh took place, she... (full context)
At the beginning of the story, Candide is chased away from his uncle's home after he is caught kissing and fondling Cunégonde. Shortly afterwards, Cunégonde's family is attacked by a band of marauding soldiers and she is taken prisoner. However, Cunégonde soon becomes the mistress of two wealthy Portuguese who decide to share her between them.
Candide to get his change goes through many adventures and gradually matures into an experienced and practical man. Some of his adventures were sad and some not.
Cunégonde is propositioned by the Governor of the colony and she agrees to marry him. Cunégonde is finally reunited with Candide in Turkey. Cacambo reveals that he purchased her freedom, but that through a long series of unfortunate events, they each ended up in servitude. Candide purchases Cunégonde's freedom.
The events that happened in El Dorado shaped Candides philosophy. Candide experienced the world, though that he would grow as a person. Candide is thrown out of the castle because he kissed Cunegonde. In the beginning of the book Candide has little experience of how cruel the world is outside the castle.
The Character Candide changes to become a more sensitive and compassionate person and how he views life, which is important because it shows us how viewpoints and attitude can be affected by experience. Candide is introduced to the story as an acquiescent youth with a simplistic view on life.
Along with a newly acquired valet named Cacambo, Candide flees to territory controlled by Jesuits who are revolting against the Spanish government. After demanding an audience with a Jesuit commander, Candide discovers that the commander is Cunégonde's brother, the baron, who also managed to escape from the Bulgars.
El Dorado symbolizes the impossibility of utopian dreams. The novel suggests that the same desires which cause Candide and Cacambo to leave El Dorado would make any utopian society impossible—mankind is too restless.
Candide marries Cunégonde and buys a small farm with the last of his Eldorado fortune. The entire party — Candide, Cunégonde, Cacambo, Martin, Pangloss, and the old woman — live there together, and are soon joined by Paquette and her companion, Friar Giroflée.
Cunégonde is a symbol for the futility of human desires: she is always out of Candide's reach, and once she is no longer, her beauty is gone. Her name is considered, by some scholars, to be a pun on the words for female genitals in French and Latin.
At the end of the novel, Candide rejects Pangloss's philosophizing in favor of the practical labor that is introduced to him by the old farmer. While this shift in philosophy appears on the surface to be real progress, Candide's personality remains essentially unchanged.
It is ironic that this piece is in their soul and they don't find it until the end. Candide has the realization: "we must cultivate our garden" (120).
Cunégonde. Cunégonde is the daughter of a German baron who acts as Candide's benefactor until he discovers Candide's love for his daughter. Throughout much of the novel, Cunégonde is young and beautiful. After her father's castle is destroyed in war, a number of exploitative men enslave her or use her as a mistress.
The Conclusion in Candide He is reunited with Cunégonde. And Pangloss, of course, is just as annoying to the reader as ever, but Candide is happy to see him and to find him well. The little troupe of characters settles on a farm, where everyone does work to which he or she is suited, and life goes on.
Candide can hardly believe his eyes when the old woman brings out the long-lost Cunégonde. Candide believed Cunégonde was raped and killed, so he feels overjoyed to see her once again. Reunited, he catches up on the facts. He can see that she isn’t dead, so he asks if she was indeed raped, with the hope that she will refute that as well.
The two women compare their tortured pasts. Cunégonde recounts the gruesome litany of her troubles, and in response, the old woman recounts her own litany, as if competing to see who suffered a worse life. Regardless, both stories portray the absurd unpredictability of human life and the amazing scope of human cruelty.
Candide’s banishment sparks the story’s narrative arc into play. She innocently took hold of his hand, and he as innocently kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace—all very particular: their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their knees trembled; their hands strayed.
Candide. Her daughter, Cunégonde, was about seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and amiable. The narrator introduces Cunégonde. Although she says little throughout the story, she serves as one of the major incentives that inspires Candide and moves the plot along.
The narrator describes the moment Candide and Cunégonde kiss. Unfortunately, Cunégonde’s brother the baron passes by and witnesses the tender moment. In response, the baron kicks Candide in the rear and drives him from the castle, an event that initiates the odyssey narrated in the book.
Candide is introduced to the story as an acquiescent youth with a simplistic view on life. His perception on reality has been formed from an overly optimistic theory explained by his friend and personal tutor Pangloss.
It directly saved his life when the Bulgarian king spared him even though he fled the battle and it indirectly saved his life because if he had not left Westphalia he would have been most likely slaughtered by the raiders.
So, for the most part Candide is deceived in believing that Panglossian theory can be applied in real life circumstances. Candide accepts Pangloss’s theory with out question because Pangloss is “ the greatest philosopher in the province and consequently in the world.
This is the friving force throughtout the play that keeps Candide from giving up.
Candide is for the first time encountering opposition to the Panglossian theory which has been his source of viewpoints up until he encounters these tragedies. Very effectively, these real life experiences annihilate the falsity of Panglossian Optimism.
The Character Candide changes to become a more sensitive and compassionate person and how he views life, which is important because it shows us how viewpoints and attitude can be affected by experience. Candide is introduced to the story as an acquiescent youth with a simplistic view on life. His perception on reality has been formed ...
This throws Candide off because the two are so contradicting.
Depicting her like the heroine of the picareque novel, a heroine who is the idolized beauty of the hero of that genre, Voltaire employs Cunegonde as a symbol of Candide's idealization and innocence. But, while Candide perceives her as this ideal, she is a tool of Voltaire's satire as Cunegonde has all too many human shortcomings.
Cunegonde represents the thematic view of Optimism in which Candide has been educated, an optimistic view of life held by Pangloss that is used to explain all experience. Indeed, this optimism is satirized through the character of Cunegonde. As Candide's inspiration and ideal, Cunegonde spurs Candide, even in his darkest moments, to pursue his dream of being reunited with his love. Candide is so deluded by his perception of Cunegonde as perfection that when he is in Eldorado, where everything is absolutely wonderful, Candide is not happy. Speaking to Cacambo, Candide says,
Voltaire mainly wrote Candide as a repudiation of Leibniz’s philosophy of Providence and his optimism. However, it can be argued that Candide was also a criticism of many aspects of his society. Voltaire attacks religious fanaticism of his time (the scene in which the starving Candide is asked by a Protestant pastor if he thought that the Pope was the Antichrist), the Seven Years’ War (the famous “a few acres of snow”), and made other satirical allusions to contemporary figures.
Candide 's message is more political than philosophical. As a believer in Progress, Voltaire opposes the idea that people should entrust their lives to Providence. From an Enlightenment perspective, that kind of blind faith serves the establishment by justifying the status quo.
Voltaire destroys that optimism by putting Candide through a variety of difficulties — many inhumane — to prove the naivety of “the best possible world”. If this is the best possible world where all sorts of evil (both human and natural) exist, then what kind of “best world” is this?
Voltaire was concerned about exploring and answering questions. Questions about the nature of man. The nature of good and evil. The purpose of life. The purpose of education. And so on. These questions are philosophical in nature.
I can't give a comprehensive answer on this, but a major reason why Voltaire is highly regarded in history classes is because he was highly influential in history, unlike Kant, the other example you give. Kant is often more highly regarded by philosophers, probably because his philosophical contributions were more valuable.
Now it's fair to say Candide is more philosophical than literary. I mean, just read a couple pages. It is not a literary work motivated by fleshed out characters or complex plot lines . It is not holding up a mirror to nature. It does not go on at length with beautifully descriptive prose. None of that was what Voltaire was trying to do.
Thus, since the primary concern of Candide is exploring philosophical questions, it's fair to say it's more a work of philosophy than a work of literature.
Candide to get his change goes through many adventures and gradually matures into an experienced and practical man. Some of his adventures were sad and some not. He was expulsed from the palace for his love to Cunegonde, but it help him to faces the cruelty of life with the philosophical view that all things in life are necessary for some greater good. Candide is a simple person who has not had much real life experience. He is banished from his home and unexpectedly introduced to the reality of the outside world. Throughout his travels he develops a new philosophy of life. His eyes open to reality, He sees that everything does not happen for the best as the philosophers and metaphysician Pangloss had told him in the Baron’s castle. In Europe as well as in America, he encounters misery. He meets a number of people from various walks of life. He comes across many philosophers ranging from extreme optimism of Pangloss to the pessimism of Martin. He experiences the love with Ms Cunegonde but it was not accept for their different social classes.
Candide spends a great deal of time traveling the world and learning of many different idealogies in “metaphysics.” Finally, he decides to settle down and live by farming his own garden -this symbolizes his surrender to simple self-preservation. After a long and difficult struggle in which Candide is forced to overcome misfortune to find happiness, he concludes that everything is not as good as it seems the way Dr. Pangloss, his tutor had taught him.
Voltaire says through Candide’s ultimate discovery that happiness in many ways depends on a person’s attitude. When meeting a man that is happy with a simple garden to tend and a family to love, Candide realizes life does not have to be full of wealth in order to be happy. At the end he realizes that everything in life is not evil, especially when a person strives to make changes and not simply accept what comes their way.
According, to Candide by Voltaire, he describes the transformation of the protagonist Candide, throughout the story. Voltaire utilized satire, characterization, and techniques of exaggeration and contrast to represent Candide’s point of view in life. Basically the protagonist endures the human suffering to get his final destiny. Moreover Voltaire demonstrates the character development over the course starting with an innocent personality as a child who does not have responsibility to know into a great man. In the text the language shows Candide’s progress towards maturity. In the beginning of the novel the reader finds compact, colorful and crisp sentences as Candide, the hero rushes through life. Later Voltaire adopts a calm and reflective style analogous to Candide’s mental development. Also, the author disproves the overly optimistic philosophy that Candide and Pangloss represent. While the experiences of Candide and Pangloss conflict dramatically with this philosophy, both choose to maintain their beliefs in this regard.
Also, he knows that at the end, he is going to find the best for his life.”We are destined , in the end , for another universe, no doubt that is the one where everything is well.” (p.391).Also, Candide begins to experience human suffering in many different ways as love, loneliness and disasters. He understands that no matter who are you, always going to experiment the both sides happiness and sadness because is part of human life, “It’s true , and you see how people make mistakes who have not received a measure of education” (p.402).Make mistakes is of humans and those mistakes make the experience, that later help us to take decisions.
Voltaire’s philosophy expressed through Candide’s final realization is that “We must cultivate our garden, ” (p.4380, which is the key to happiness. By cultivating our garden, Voltaire means that we must make the best of our situation in the present moment. We accept what we are given in life and work to make the best of it. It all has to do with our perspective on life. Candide finally realizes that he must try to make his own happiness even while battling hardships. Candide’s happiness is finally realized when he too becomes a man of simple means with a garden to tend and a loved one at his side.
Ultimately, her horrific experiences destroy her beauty and temperament. Cunégonde seems to represent the way the horrors of the world destroy innocence and beauty.
As Candide perceives her, Cunégonde is a woman of endless virtue, innocence, contentment, and beauty . When Candide and Cunégonde are finally reunited at the end of the novel, the real Cunégonde (who is, surprise, surprise, unable to live up to Candide’s expectations) comes as an inherent disappointment to Candide:
No, Cunégonde doesn't have a doppelganger. She's not an evil twin. She doesn't have split personalities. But there's Cunégonde herself, in all of her 100% Cunégonde-itude, and then there's the Cunégonde of Candide’s imagination... who (no shocker here) is, like Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way.
At the bottom of his heart Candide had no wish to marry Cunégonde. But the extreme impertinence of the Baron determined him to conclude the match, and Cunégonde pressed him so strongly that he could not go from his word. (30.1)