From the works that we have studied in class, one can not help but notice the role of women in these works. In Voltaire's Candide, the reader clearly sees that he is trying to evoke sympathy from the reader towards women. Voltaire depicts this image with two main characters, Cunegund and the old woman. Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, represent women in a different light unlike that of Voltaire. Ford depicts women as taking advantage of men for their own benefit. This is clearly seen when Florence seduces Edward because he is rich and is English. In Ted Hughes' poem Her Husband, he depicts women as slave to the man and it is her duty to serve him. Through this image Hughes is evoking sympathy towards women because of what they must endure. The role of women is key to understanding the works and the authors intentions.
             Voltaire clearly depicts women when he introduces Cunegund and later the old woman. Voltaire is able to portray a gruesome detail of women's life and their role in society through Cunegund and the old woman. In Voltaire's novel he gives the reader many images to state the fact that being a woman was not pleasant. Through Cunegund life and the story of the old the woman, the reader receives a sense of what they had to live through. After Candide is banished from the castle the reader learns later that the Bulgarians attacked it and destroyed it. This is the first time that the reader receives information about how Cunegund is treated. Voltaire gives the reader a taste of Cunegund's experience when he writes,
             I was in bed, and fast asleep, when it pleased Heaven to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh, where they murdered my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, attempted to ravish me; the operation brought me to my senses. I cried, I s...