You Don’t Know What Happened To Me

In the story Candide the author Voltaire used satire to the extreme. The story was much exaggerated. In the story everyone had a tragedy and each characters tragedy seemed to be greater than the next. I would like to discuss the tragedies of Candide, Cunegonde, and the little old lady. Candide had several tragic events starting with getting kicked out of his home: “The Baron…drove Candide out of the castle by kicking him vigorously on the backside” (Voltaire 521). Then he was put in prison and escaped the Bulgars, being shipwreck, in an earthquake which he almost died in. Further in the story he’s almost eaten by Buglugs, having to kill Cunegonde’s brother, and losing all the treasure he brought out of Eldorado. He suffers more tragedies within the story and he still doesn’t lose his greatest hope of being reunited with Cunegonde.

Cunegonde’s tragedies start with losing Candide, but that was not the worst. She tells her story of the castle being overtaken by Bulgar’s and watching them butcher her father and brother, and hacking her mother in to pieces. She had been raped by a Bulgar: “An enormous Bulgar …set out to raping me” (531). She was rescued by a captain only to become his mistress then to be sold to a Jew named Don Issachar and became the object of affection a Grand Inquisitor. Further in the story she married to prevent being destitute.

After hearing their stories the old woman stated, “You pity yourselves…but you have had no such misfortunes as mine” (534). Cunegonde tried to make fun of her and the old woman told her “My lady, you do not know my birth and rank: ….you might even speak with less assurance” (534). She told the story of how she was so beautiful and was loved by the enormous prince she was to marry and he was killed, how the ship she was on was taken by pirates and how they search ungodly places. She was sold into slavery and fought over, rescued by a native of home, then sold by him in Algiers. In Algiers a plaque broke out and she almost died. That was not the worst of her story after being sold and resold she ended up in Azov were she had a portion of her bottom cut of f to feed the Russian’s who had captured them which was the alternative to being killed and eaten.

Each of the three stories are very extreme but that’s what Voltaire did best. He wrote this story to make a joke of life and made fun of the hardships that they had.