The novel Candide by Voltaire is a great peice of satire thatmakes fun of the way people in medievil times thought. The book is about aman, Candide, and his misfortunes. Throughout the book Candide hascountless things go wrong in order to show that this is not “the best ofall possible worlds” Voltaire is trying to make a point through theexaggeration of the inhumanities of man in a humorous way.
The story begins in a castle in Westphalia. Candide is convincedby Cunegonde to take a lesson in “experimental physics”. The two arecaught and Candide is kicked out of the castle. While Candide is sufferingfrom hunger and cold he is met by two men who trick him into service in theBulgarian army. Candide has a terrible time in the army, he tries toescape, and he is punished severely. During the confusion of war Candidemanages to escape.
Time passes and Candide meets some other interestingindividuals and has one bad experience after the next. One day Candidemeets a woman who takes care of him and this is none other than Cunegonde. They amuse each other with stories of misfortune and travel around theworld. At every place Candide goes something unthinkable seems to happento him. Candide meets several people along the way who all have their owninteresting story of misfortune and the inhumanities of mankind.
Candideends up on a small farm, married to Cunegonde and living with twophilosophers. He argues with others at the end of the book if this reallyis the best of all possible worlds and they conclude the we must “workwithout reason” and “must cultivate our garden”. In this novel Voltaire is extremely influenced by his frame ofreference and mindset. He finds room to include almost all of hispolitical views. He takes Candide on a journey through all of the wrongshe beleives in the world in order to prove that it was not the best of allpossible worlds. He shows us the inhumanities of man through war andsocial interaction.
He basically paints an exaggerated picture of thewrongs of medievil people. Voltaire is just as biased as any other capableperson of the time. Everybody has a certain element of prejudice that theyhold within. His thoughts are taken into exaggeration but that is thebasis of satire. The conclusions arrived at by Voltaire are valid. Hedoes not have excessive prejudice and his conclusions cannot be invalidbecause they are thoughts of personal opinion.
Voltaire’s ideas do notcompletely follow others’. He is one of the only writers that stepped outand confronted major philisophical issues even if they were hidden withinhumor. Voltaire’s novel Candide is a book about all of people problemsduring the time period in which it was written. Voltaire wrote the book inorder to confront these problems in a humorous way so to allow the publicto ingest the reading easier. Voltaire accomplished his theme very wellbecause of the creative uses of humor in the book. Voltaire is right in what he is saying.
When looking at satire itmust not be evaluated too closely. If it is picked apart and some of thethings are taken too seriously then the general idea trying to be presentedis not recognized. Voltaire uses alot of great humorous filling inside ofa few major ideas and attacks the areas needed to be attacked in a wittyand humorous matter. The novel Candide is a well written, funny, to the point bookstressing that this is not the best of all possible worlds. The writingis not too difficult to read and is organized in an efficient manner.
Thebook does not die through translation like several other medievil books do. The ideas brought about in the book are important ideas of the time thatneeded to be discussed. Voltaire created a satirical masterpeice inCandide. This book adds to people’s general knowledge of medievil man’sproblems and the distorted philisophical ideas of the times.
Voltaire presents some major ideas in his novel Candide. Throughsatire he proves that this is not the best of all possible worlds byshowing the reader the problems of medievil times. Voltaire presents theseideas through a young boy, Candide. Voltaire’s Candide is a greatsatirical peice that makes fun of medievil people’s ideas in hope to openminds and inform the reader.Words/ Pages : 735 / 24
