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In Candide, what did Cunegonde observe in the park?

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While walking in the park, Cunegonde sees Pangloss and her mother's chambermaid having sex. Voltaire intentionally uses academic metaphors to obscure what is actually happening and comment on the taboos society has unnecessarily placed around sex.

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When Cunegonde enters the park, she observes Pangloss and a chambermaid engaged in an activity that is described as "a lesson in experimental natural philosophy." Voltaire goes on to use language that suggests an academic or intellectual pursuit, such as "cause and effect" and "reason." However, Voltaire is intentionally using this formal and distancing language to comment on the crude nature of the actual act that Cunegonde sees, which is Pangloss having sexual relations with the chambermaid.

Voltaire describes this sexual encounter with academic language to satirize Cunegonde's "study" of it:

As Miss Cunegonde had a great disposition for the sciences, she breathlessly observed the repeated experiments of which she was a witness

Cunegonde watches Pangloss have sex with the chambermaid with the curiosity and intensity of a student, and she proceeds to think about how she could conduct this "experiment" herself with Candide . In not describing the true...

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nature of the act Cunegonde is witnessing, Voltaire shows the hypocrisy of society's attitudes towards sex and its taboo nature.

The entire description of Pangloss's sexual encounter with the chambermaid is laced with double entendre and innuendo, as Cunegonde notes the "repeated experiments" and the "force of the Doctor's reasons." In the following paragraph, when Cunegonde attempts this "experiment" with Candide, Voltaire is more explicit about what is occurring:

Cunegonde and Candide found themselves behind a screen; Cunegonde let fall her handkerchief, Candide picked it up, she took him innocently by the hand, the youth as innocently kissed the young lady's hand with particular vivacity, sensibility, and grace; their lips met, their eyes sparkled, their knees trembled, their hands strayed.

However, when Cunegonde's father catches them in the act, Voltaire once again resorts to the academic language, describing the sexual encounter between Candide and Cunegonde as a "cause and effect." In this way, sex is only tiptoed around when it is something being observed, rather than an intimate experience between two people, showing how society has imposed a taboo on something that is perfectly natural.

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