Thinking about the old woman's story, hard work never really paid off for her. She was born royalty; the only time she ever had things good was before she actually had to work for them. After her fiance was murdered by his mistress she and her mother set off on a trip to visit the altar of St. Peter's in Rome. While traveling over seas their boat was taken over by pirates. She was stripped and searched, taken into slavery and raped.
All of this lead to her witnessing her mother being murdered and her running into an old teacher who promised to take her home; but ended up selling her into slavery again; this time to a soldier. This soldier took her with him on a battle and the army ended up cutting off half her buttock and eating it! All of the hard work she did when she was a slave the first time and all the times she was raped and even after watching her mother being quartered to death she still had not yet endured the worst part. Thus, causing her to eventually being resold into slavery and having half of her buttock cut out of her and eaten by the very people that owned her! This goes to show that hard work really does not pay off; if anything it just leads to more hard work and suffering.
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There is some really specific things that you remembered... I did not remember some of the detail that you recalled. You are on the right track, as most of us are on topic. I think it is just getting it down, and having it completely in our minds that this is about how people cannot overcome adversity.
ReplyDeleteI think that your conclusion of this passage is correct. I think the author was really making fun of Pangloss's theory of cause and effect. She went through all that suffering and her reward was getting her ass eaten!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great way to support the pessimistic view of the book.
ReplyDeleteThe Old Lady has quite a story to tell. No one can match her misery. The story of her life is so infamously grotesque and miserable that she is willing to be thrown overboard of the ship to Buenos Aires if anyone could tell a story worse than hers.
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