Candide Character Analysis Essay

Voltaire's Candide seems to display a world of horror, one filled with floggings, rapes, robberies, unjust executions, disease, natural disasters, betrayals and cannibalism. Pangloss, the philosopher, has a constant optimistic view throughout the entire novel even despite all of the cruelty in the world. While looking back on the book I couldn't think of many characters that displayed admirable qualities. Even though Pangloss stuck to his views that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, which is admirable, he is stupid and naive to still believe this after everything he and his family goes through. It was quite hard for me to find admirable characters within Voltaire's Candide, all of the characters seemed to

Both Dade and Julian where fixated on proving themselves right and defending their beliefs about

On the first day of class, after he was done checking in, he sat down to observe his classmates returning from their summer vacations. Initially, he walked in full of confidence and his head held high. However, that quickly changed when he heard his classmates speak French, and the feeling of intimidation washed over him like waves hitting the beach, “at my age, a reasonable person should have completed his sentence in the prison of the nervous and insecure . . . my fears have not vanished, rather, they have multiplied with age” (Sedaris, 1999, 1). For being a forty-one-year-old man, he thought these feelings of insecurity and fear in the classroom would have ended long ago. If he thought things could not get worse, he was mistaken. The teacher walked in, rattled off commands to the class, and then asked them to recite the alphabet. In that moment, he knew he was in trouble, “I’ve spent time in Normandy, and I took a monthlong French class in New York. I am not completely in the dark, yet I only understood half of what she said” (Sedaris, 1999, 1) and, despite the exposure he already had, he was still unable to understand everything the teacher was saying.

Discuss the female characters in Candide. Are they victims, or natural survivors? Do they deserve more pity or more admiration? Take one side only.

In Voltaire’s novel, the main character is shown to have an optimistic personality, just as his name Candide implies. Candide believed that everything in the world is good; but, ironically, he suffered all kinds of difficulty. At first, Candide is dislodged from the castle he has grown up in. Then, he forced to join the army and fight for the king he didn’t know. In the end, he goes through many difficulties and finally marries his lover, Miss Cunegonde. Under the torture of the society, Candide’s thoughts and mentality are changed. He starts to doubt his belief. However, between the line, people always can feel Candide is not as veracity as his name.

The text suggest Mary was r**** by Mr Neal just as one of her friends were...

Voltaire’s “Candide or Optimism” was written in the enlightenment era. Voltaire’s story is published in The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Voltaire’s character Pangloss is a philosophy who taught about the all-powerful God, who created the world. Pangloss indicated the world must belong to God, for he was the only divine creator. Pangolss was also a mentor to Candide, who was the main character in the novel. Candide had a good heart, but felt very hopeless in life. Pangloss took Candide under his wings teaching him the “best of all possible worlds.” The enlightenment movement is closely seen in Voltaire’s writing style on page 378. Pangolss

How do the experiences of the women in Candide differ from those of the men? How do their reactions to those experiences differ from those of the men?

2.From the moment he was introduced to Ender on Eros, Mazer Rackham’s character traits and behavior both toward him and in general can be seen as ambiguous. Firstly, he shows no remorse or pity when he beats up Ender when they first meet, but did he do it with good or bad intentions? “One move took [Ender] near [Mazer], as he had come near him before, but this time the old claw shot out and seized Ender’s left leg in the middle of a kick” (Ender’s Game, Chapter 14). From this quote we find out that Mazer cold bloodedly attacked Ender without being provoked in any way and is skilled at fighting even though he is old. Also, we see that he is patient but brutal. Moreover, we see that he generally has little to no pity for Ender when he thinks

Voltaire uses the literary device of distortion throughout his novel candide. By exaggerating and satirizing the adventures of the characters, Voltaire successfully illuminates his underlying ideas about the the tyranny and persecution by the elite in the church and state that existed in 1694-1778. Through the character Candide and his adventures, Voltaire exhorts his audience to address his subversive ideas with laughter and horror and then to address the problems in the world. In Candide Voltaire successfully employs distortion through the use of diction in names and titles, imagery in the places he creates, and exaggerated characterization to express his very specific ideas about wealth, religion and human nature .

Travelling plays a significant role within this novel as the whole story is encapsulated by the protagonist, Candide’s, search for his love, Cunégonde. Due to the episodic nature of the novella, Voltaire is able to put Candide in many different situations, which, in turn, allow him to successfully satirise the main ideology proposed at the start. Furthermore, as Candide travels across the world, we begin to see a mental maturation in the character. At the beginning of the novella Candide is clearly susceptible to the teachings of his mentor, Pangloss, however, due to the hardships he faces through his travels, he begins to start thinking for himself and develop his own philosophy.

Candide grew up naïve in the magnificent castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh. He focused on the positive aspects of a situation and was blind to personal pain and danger. Candide fell in love with the Baroness’ daughter and was beaten and chased away. Candide was abused as he trained for the military and was then forced into a war, representing the mindset of pessimism. The protagonist, Candide, starting with a childlike and innocent personality, goes through suffering on his adventures and matures over the course of the novel. If he had stayed in the castle where he grew up, Candide would not have learned about extreme pessimism. In the middle of Candide’s adventures, he finds his way to the perfect kingdom of El Dorado, where his belief of blind optimism was restored. Towards the end of the book, Candide finds out his true love Cunegonde is still alive. This event shows Candide is in the middle of believing in blind optimism and in extreme pessimism. He experienced both good and bad aspects of life, which contributed to his maturity. Candide’s adventures in love, war, and experiencing an ideal society not only matured him, but fulfilled him in the extreme philosophies of blind optimism and pessimism.

The Holocaust was a tragic event in history where millions of Jews were sent to concentration and death camps to be killed. Though there was a lot of negativity in the world at this time some people still seemed to stay positive. One girl, Anne Frank said, “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.” Despite of everything Anne still tried to stay positive even when they had to go into hiding. I would have to agree with Anne because of Mr. Frank’s actions especially when he put everyone else before himself. Although I could see where some people would disagree with me because of Mr. Dussel's actions in the play and how rude he was.

It was mid-august and the end of summer was quickly approaching; the decision of leaving from my full-French to go to join the finest athletic school in central Alberta had to be made in the next few days. My father however, had his mind fixed on me graduating from a French school because the opportunities were greater for a bilingual student. I

I rewrote the story to point out that even though Joey was a bystander, he has feelings as well, he is a part of this story. So while I was rereading these two scenes, I realized that Joey was scared. Even though Joey is a minor character, he is a character all the same. Recall how earlier in the original story, Lizabeth was telling us how her little brother is usually the one to do the dumbest and brainless things although even he wouldn’t dare tear apart Miss Lottie’s marigolds. Joey tends to have to lean on Lizabeth. And as the little brother, we finally see a glimpse of the adolescent part of Joey. He tried to take charge and stop Lizabeth, even though it didn’t work out in the end. Joey acts older than he is and he tends to act brave which