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Example Of Disillusion In Candide

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In Voltaire’s short story Candide (1759) the theme of disillusion is manifested through various aspects of the text. From the moment Candide, whose very name means ‘innocent,’ is banished from the kingdom of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the situations he faces should suffice to disprove his master Pangloss’s theory that this is the “best of all possible worlds.” However it is not just Candide’s internal struggle between Pangloss’s views and his own experience that is representative of the process of disillusion; Candide’s own love for Cunégonde, which is the driving force behind his actions, is not all it seems either. It is not only the characters, however, that undergo the process; contemporary readers themselves, being placed alongside Candide in …show more content…

Voltaire does this by presenting to the reader fleeting examples of religion in a pure form but ensuring that it does not reappear. For instance in Chapter 3, the reader meets L’Anabaptiste Jacques, who shows Candide kindness and compassion that L’Orateur, who punishes Candide for ‘believing that Pope is the antichrist,’ does not. He dies in Chapter 4 and, while Pangloss and Le Baron de Thunder-ten-tronckh are miraculously resurrected, L’Anabaptiste Jacques is not. Similarly, Voltaire presents religion in its ideal form through Eldorado. During Candide’s visit there, he finds that there are no priests, and his reaction of, ‘Quoi! vous n'avez point de moines… qui disputent, qui gouvernent, qui cabalent, et qui font brûler les gens qui ne sont pas de leur avis?’ (page 42-3) is almost comical. As the sage replies that each man is a priest, implying that every person in Eldorado has an individual connection with God, the comedy in Candide’s interpretation further highlights his naivety. Here, it could be said that this is a more positive form disillusion as Candide learns of a way of religion purer than the one he has known and readily accepted. However, the fact that he abandons Eldorado in pursuit of Cunégonde, combined with the idea that he will not be able to return there demonstrates that he, or any other people on earth for that matter, does not have the spiritual strength to practice it himself. The purity of religion in Eldorado also serves as the criticism of the attitudes of the armies at war in Chapter 3; Gaillard writes, ‘La leçon se dégage toute seule de chaque chapître. Au lieu de prier la divinité qu’elle les délivre du mal… que les humains… regardent en faces les horreurs qu’ils s’infligent et qu’ils en tirent les conséquences. Hommes, délivrez-vous du mal, aidez-vous

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