What Love Means to Candide

Love. That’s something that is around our lives whether we like it or not.  Some people look at is as if it was the only thing that mattered in life and others try to ignore it as if it didn’t exist. While reading Candide, there is the perfect example that Candide only lives for the love he has for Lady Cunegonde.

He has passed through so much but never gives up because he always fights to be reunited once again with Lady Cunegonde. She is the “love of his life” at the beginning of the book they were separated and I was sure that she was dead. Pangloss told Candide that she had been killed by the men that attacked her home and family. But so unexpectedly she was alive and they were both reunited. To escape their troubles they left and she ended up with the Governor of Buenos Aires, and he had to run. How crazy is that? After all they’ve been through she had to be with the governor or else they would be killed. Finally Candide met Cacambo and went all the way to Eldorado where they found themselves with great things that would make them rich. They stayed there a while and got diamonds and gold and left to harbour to go back for Lady Cunengonde now that they had money. When they arrived Candide wasn’t aloud to go to Buenos Airs so he sent Cacambo and he went to Venice. But his sheep were stolen and all of a sudden when another boat sank he found one of his sheep in the ocean. How lucky but extremely ridiculous is that? Now that he has once again his money he can go and look for his love.

Everything that he does is with the hope that he will meet again with Lady Cunegonde. I don’t know if everything is a foreshadow of what is going to happen next because although he does suffer great obstacles he always overcomes them and gets what he wants. Meeting once again with Pangloss and with Lady Cunegonde is a total surprise, but I can see that it might be by the effects that Pangloss´s philosophy taught Candide. Although there are times when Candide feels there is nothing else he can do there are always signs that he will surpass his troubles. Candides only motivation to keep on living is Lady Cunegonde so I hope that he will meet with her once again. As the story goes I find that there are two possibilities: Candide will reunite with Lady Cunegonde or something crazy and unexpected will happen as it has happened throughout the whole story. But nevertheless I am almost sure that he will reunite with his love because everything that he does is for the purpose of seeing her again and it would suck if this didn’t happen.

“Candide, however, had one great advantage over Martin, which was that he kept hoping to see Lady Cunegonde again, whereas Martin had nothing to hope for.” This demonstrates how Candide does love Lady Cunegonde and it’s as if his life didn’t mean anything without her. I hope he is able to marry her as he wishes, but at the same time I am nervous to find out what will happen next!