the value of a woman

In all of the stories we have read in the last few weeks there has been a lot of descriptions of women and there is clear evidence that women were not thought of as people but more as objects. The women are looked at two different extremes they are either valued for their beauty or they are cast aside as ugly and diseased. In Gulliver’s Travels women are described as someone who “bred rottenness in the bones of those who fell into their embraces; that this and many other diseases were propagated from father to son” (Swift 457).I really don’t think if I were a man that I would want to touch a female described that way, but we all know men did. In Candide, we see a man desperately in love until she loses her beauty. We see this in toward the end of the story when he sees Cunegonde again “with her skin weathered, her eyes bloodshot, her breasts fallen, her cheeks seamed, her arms red and scaly, he recoiled three steps in horror, and then advanced only out of politeness”(Voltaire 577). This cannot be a man who is in love with her as a person for her mind. Even though Candide does marry her it is surely out of spite for the Baron and that he promised her marriage. He was in love with her beauty and married her only because of his pride. The last story about Cooper and Osen spoke volumes about the authors view of women. First of all, the old Nanny is described as a “mischievous crone in whom cooper had put his trust”(Saikuku 593). Even though Cooper is getting help from this woman, he describes her as being deceptive. Later in the story, women are characterized as “fickle creatures. Captivated by some delicious love story, or deluded by the latest dramatic productions of Dotombori their souls caught up in giddy corruption”( Saikaku 600). This is further evidence of his attitude that women are ruled by the heart and not the mind.