In all three stories we have read, the role of women, in a cultural setting, is degraded and downplayed. Celebi omits women all together (for the most part) in his stories, and Gulliver and Candide talk degradingly about women in their stories.
Gulliver’s story has many examples of how women were viewed, both in his own culture and the Houyhnhnms culture: “That, prostitute female yahoos acquired a certain malady, which bred rottenness in the bones of those who fell into their embraces…” (Swift 457). It is also evident in the following quote: “…and my master thought it monstrous in us to give the females a different kind of education from the males…” (Swift 466).
Candide uses a more discrete way to degrade women in the way he tells his story: “…she was disemboweled by the Bulgar soldiers, after having been raped to the absolute limit of human endurance…” (Voltaire 525). Women are not viewed as having worth and purpose, but only being needed for the use of the “greater” man: “Her daughter Cun`egonde, aged seventeen, was a ruddy-cheeked girl, fresh, plump, and desirable” (Voltaire 520).
I understand that times have changed and back in a different time period there were different views about women in society, but where is the respect for women in general? How do these men think they came into existence? Is a woman’s worth only dependant on how well she can please a man’s eye? I believe that man and woman were created to compliment each other were the other falls short.
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