Candide Character Analysis Essay

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

Voltaire’s Candide portrays an exaggerated image of human cruelty and suffering in the world. Specifically, Voltaire criticizes people’s lack of willingness to prevent suffering, and their tendency to accept the idea that there is nothing anyone can do about human outcomes. He upholds his belief that practical ways of solving problems generate improvement. He believes that human indifference and inaction cause suffering to carry on. Voltaire’s believes that naïve optimism, absolute pessimism, cruel indifference, and lack of reason hinder positive and constructive change.

Voltaire wrote "Candide" as a response to the optimistic philosophy taking place in the mid seventy century. In 1956 Leonard Bernstein produced a Broadway version of this text. After that, several more version were produced until reaching the final edition played at the New York Philharmonic in 2005. Voltaire's Candide targets the ¬¬¬¬¬philosophical beliefs of the period while Bernstain's play adjusts the scenes to the context of the new audience for which is performed. For an audience watching "Candide" in 2014, however, other adjustments are necessary.

Chapters 1 through 7 of Candide introduces concepts from the Enlightenment Period in Europe that began in the late seventeenth century using satire that was popular at the time. One of those concepts that stood out in the chapters is to use reasoning, logic, and rational thoughts versus just obeying the existing traditional rules, reasoning, and authority. Pangloss uses this rationale for his philosophical belief “..that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end..” in other words, he appears to be stating that everything happens for a logical reason and that reason is not due to God or any other religious reasoning and whatever the situation is, it is for

Voltaire was the author of the novella Candide, also known as "Optimism". The the novella, Voltaire portrays the idea of Optimism as being illogical and absurd. In Candide, Voltaire satirizes the doctrine of Optimism, an idea that was greatly used during the Enlightenment time period by philosophers. In this narrative, Candide is a young man who goes through a series of undertakings and ventures around the the globe where he experiences evil and adversity. Throughout his journeys, Candide maintained the ideas of the teachings of his tutor, Pangloss. Candide and Pangloss believed in the idea that “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds...” (Voltaire 4). This belief is what Voltaire pointed out to be an irrational way of

     “Everything happens for the best, in this the best of all possible worlds.” This is a statement that can be found many times within Voltaire’s Candide. Voltaire rejected Lebitizian Optimism, using Candide as a means for satirizing what was wrong with the world, and showing that, in reality, this is not the best of all possible worlds.

Voltaire’s masterpiece has been read delightfully and with much interest by many people since its scarcely secret publication in Geneva and Paris (1759). When it was first published, there were about twenty copies, most of which were pirated. When Voltaire died (1778) there were already more than fifty, and later on it became the best seller of the eighteenth century.

     Throughout Candide the author, Voltaire, demonstrates the character’s experiences in a cruel world and his fight to gain happiness. In the beginning Candide expects to achieve happiness without working for his goal and only taking the easy way out of all situations. However, by the end of the book the character

Candide was brought up in Westphalia in Europe in the castle with the Baron of Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, the baroness, their daughter Cunegonde and their son Maximilian. (Hellman, 2008) Candide was considered a bastard son of his sister and is the nephew of the Baron. (Hellman, 2008) Candide fell in love with his daughter Cunegonde and confessed his love to her but the baron would not have his daughter marrying a bastard child, so the Baron kicked Candide out of Westphalia. (Puchner, 2012) The easy laid back life he once known is no longer in existence. Candide now has to rely on being optimistic and living on Pangloss’s (his Tutor) Philosophical side which he greatly looks up to. By doing so, Candide has to learn to reject the evil around him so it doesn’t swallow him up and take over the good that he possesses. The world is full of evil that he will soon embark upon and will see how the other side has to live being poor. Candide’s faith is tested in several adventures full of misfortune and disaster. (Hellman, 2008)

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.

Voltaire’s Candide is probably one of many satires or rebuttal against the culture of the enlightenment era. Yet today Candide is probably one of the only texts of the era that students read that speaks against the culture and believes of that time. In fact historian Johnson Wright in the Yale edition of Candide’s Introduction go so far to claim that “Candide has been ‘compulsory reading’ for nearly two hundred and fifty years”(2005). Regardless of what is gained and lost by Voltaire’s use of narrative in the writing of Candide, the tests of time and natural selection have chosen Candide to be a winner in Literature. The most celebrated example of the satire genre in modern literature (Wright, 2005).

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.

Voltaire tips his hat to the story of the Fall of Man in a plethora of ways within the first chapter of his famous novel, Candide. His approach to relating Candide’s environment to this famous story is a satirical one. He begins by chastising the castle or “paradise” belonging to Baron von Thunder-ten-tronckh with which Candide lives in. “This Baron was one of the most powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had a gate and windows.”(3) This area and time promised some magnificent castles, but containing a gate and windows did not classify you among the greatest. He’s comparing his castle to the Garden of Eden described in the fall. The Garden of Eden was thought to be this wonderful untouchable beauty that was a heavenly kingdom to Adam

In the eighteenth century, a French writer named François-Marie Arouet, with the pseudonym “Voltaire” wrote a novel called Candide. Voltaire was one of the leading writers of the Enlightenment. He was born in Paris in 1694 and died in late May of 1778. Of all his works, Voltaire is best known for Candide, a story of a young man called Candide who is a disciple of a philosopher named Dr. Pangloss, who was himself a disciple of Leibniz. The story follows the adventures and travels of Candide and his companions throughout Europe. Candide is an example of eighteenth century writing style: with a lot of vicissitudes and crazy incidents. Moreover, in Candide, Voltaire gives a refutation of Leibniz’s theory that this is the best of all possible worlds.

According to the author, naming the main character Candide was done on purpose and was not an accident at all. As explained in the introduction, the name is based upon the Latin word candidus, meaning white, and leading eventually to our modern candidate. One could then easily draw the figurative assumption of Candide being spotless, unadulterated, and innocent. However, Candide according to the story may not necessarily been all that innocent considering the fact that he also had an issue with greed. With that said, this essay will focus on the author's understanding on the writer's intentions of Candide's innocent outlook on life and the second part will also go into a different discussion with regards to understanding and the interpretation of the greed of Candide.