Criticism In Voltaire's Candide

Throughout the novel, Candide comes across many religious leaders during his journey that Voltaire portrays with irony and hypocrisy. After escaping to Holland in the beginning of the novel, Candide encounters an orator who has been addressing on the subject of charity for a whole hour. The orator, when asked for food, tells Candide that he “don’t [doesn’t] deserve to eat” because Candide does not believe that the Pope is Antichrist. (27) Although people around him are actually suffering from continuous war and devastating poverty, the orator only seems to care about giving a speech on charity and converting others to his religious beliefs. Not to mention that his own religious belief or speech, ironically, also encourages reaching out to those in need. Stubborn and egoistic orator is engulfed with his certainness in his belief, and fails to recognize it himself that he, in fact, is going against his own belief. Another example of hypocrisy of religion is shown by the Grand Inquisitor who makes a deal with Don Issachar to share Cunegonde as a mistress.

    Candide on the surface is a witty story. However when inspected deeper it is a philippic writing against people of an uneducated status. Candide is an archetype of these idiocracies, for he lacks reason and has optimism that is truly irking, believing that this is the best of all possible worlds. Thus Voltaire uses a witty, bantering tale on the surface, but in depth a cruel bombast against the ignoramuses of his times.

Voltaire's Candide is the story of how one man's adventures affect his philosophy on life. Candide begins his journey full of optimism that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds," but he learns that it is naïve to say that good will eventually come of any evil.

Martin is another character who holds a philosophy that is not useful. Martin holds a pessimistic view of people, claiming that humans are innately evil. For example, he compares the natural evils in humans with the natural tendency for hawks to prey on pigeons (87). When Candide accuses Martin of being possessed by the devil, Martin says, “he is so deeply concerned in the affairs of this world that he may as well be in me, as well as in everybody else” (82). Contrary to Pangloss, who is in denial of societal faults, Martin has accepted suffering as a present part of life. Although acceptance is important, Voltaire criticizes pessimism to being as equally detrimental as optimism. Martin constantly criticizes the evil in people and finds the fault in others. When Candide trusts Cacambo to take on the great task of retrieving Cunegonde, Martin condemns Candide for foolishly trusting a person enough to think that he will do him any favors with large sums of money handed to him. This is evidence to further suggest his belief in the natural evils in people. When Candide increasingly loses hope in Cacambo ever returning with Cunegonde, Martin is “not consoling” and “continued to prove to him that there was very little virtue or happiness upon earth” (104). Because Martin’s statements do nothing to help Candide’s

This essay will examine the development of the character of Candide over the course of the text as well as commenting on the final conclusion that the protagonist comes to regarding the possibility or otherwise of achieving happiness.

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

Voltaire’s Candide can be understood in several ways by its audience. At a first glance it would appear to be simply a story blessed with outrageous creativity, but if you look deeper in to the novel, a more complicated and meaningful message is buried within. Voltaire uses the adventures of Candide as a representation of what he personally feels is wrong within in society. Written in the 18th century (1759), known commonly as the age of enlightenment, Voltaire forces his audience to consider the shift from tradition to freedom within society. He achieves this by exploring the reality of human suffering due to

Voltaire's Candide is a novel that is interspersed with superficial characters and conceptual ideas that are critically exaggerated and satirized. The parody offers cynical themes disguised by mockeries and witticism, and the story itself presents a distinctive outlook on life narrowed to the concept of free will as opposed to blind faith driven by desire for an optimistic outcome. The crucial contrast in the story deals with irrational ideas as taught to Candide about being optimistic by Pangloss, his cheerful mentor, versus reality as viewed by the rest of the world through the eyes of the troubled character, Martin. This raises the question of whether or not the notion of free will is valid due to Candide’s peculiar timing of his

In Candide Voltaire discusses the exploitation of the female race in the eighteenth century through the women in the novel. Cunegonde, Paquette, and the Old Woman suffer through rape and sexual exploitation regardless of wealth or political connections. These characters possess very little complexity or importance in Candide. With his characterization of Cunegonde, Paquette, and the Old Woman Voltaire satirizes gender roles and highlights the impotence of women in the 1800s.

Candide is a reflection of the philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Voltaire’s novel is a satire of the Old Regime ideologies in which he critiques the political, social, and religious ideals of his time.

In Voltaire’s Candide, we are taken by the hand through an adventure which spanned two continents, several countries, and to a multitude of adverse characters. The protagonist, Candide, became the recipient of the horrors which would be faced by any person in the 18th century. But Candide was always accompanied with fellows sufferers, two of which our focus will lay, Pangloss and Martin. In equal respects, both are embodiments of different philosophies of the time: Pangloss the proponent of Optimism and Martin the proponent of Pessimism. Each of the two travelers is never together with Candide, until the end, but both entice him to picture the world in one of their two philosophies. Throughout the story there is an apparent ebb and flow

The narrative techniques, features of language and context Voltaire used when writing Candide tells us a lot about this book and what Voltaire was trying to achieve in writing it. Candide is told by a third person narrator who is not a main character in the book and is completely outside of the storyline. The title page of Candide implies that the book was found and translated by Doctor Ralph who is our narrator. This is a fiction created by Voltaire to distance himself from the book and to help the reader to understand the satirical nature of Candide.

Voltaire also illustrated in Candide that society as a whole places more emphasis on physical appearance than on inner beauty. Throughout much of the story, Candide is obsessed with the idea of being reunited with Cunegonde. Candide speaks of how beautiful his future bride is and of how much he really loves her. As the story concludes, Candide is reunited with Cunegonde only to find that she has become ugly. Candide has a change of heart and

Voltaire’s Candide is a satirical fiction that was meant as both an insult and a criticism to the wealthy nobility and the Catholic Church. Voltaire, major voice during the Enlightenment period, had a wide spread influence from England and France to Russia. Candide was massively circulated throughout Europe. Voltaire used Candide to offer his opinion of what was wrong with society: being that the wealthy were ungrateful, selfish people and the church was a ruthless, maniacal super power.

Today, Candide is used in the study of European Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers as a first-hand account of the faults within the value systems of government, religion, and society during the 18th Century. Through its sarcastic portrayal of seemingly absurd customs and traditions, Candide illustrates Europe in all of its flawed glory. As a prominent figure of the Enlightenment, Voltaire sought to publicize his views on society in a digestible, entertaining, and condensed medium like Candide (“Voltaire”). Written in a period of exile and fear in his life, Candide acted as Voltaire’s biting response to the crushing weight of outdated societal customs.