Despising Gold and Precious Stones

As Candide and Cacambo arrive to Eldorado, Pangloss’s words were now doubted by his pupil. How can Westphalia be a better country compared to a place where children play with gold and Emeralds as if they were simple toy marbles? Do they really have it all? Are they pleased with their government, with their religion, and most importantly do they not have social differences? In Candid’s world such a place does exist, but in our world a country where happiness rules in every community is merely just a symptom of our imagination. Candide was also astonished by how society praised every aspect in their life and had no complain, “We have nothing to ask of God, since he has given us everything we need” (76). Voltaire never gives away the secret of this utopian country in a direct way. Certain clues are shot out for the reader to catch and realize that all that glitters is not gold. It starts when Candide questions how their religion works, “There is only one God, not two¸ three, or four. What odd questions you foreigners ask!” (79).

 Well now we see that really these people of Eldorado are forced to follow one strict belief 

and who knows what will happen if one individual decides to protest.

This is just an aspect of the Royal Family’s impressment because the real trick

uptheirsleeveis the lawthat keeps everyone inside the country. This means no one is allowed to set foot

outside of their little kingdom that anyhow is sorrounded by "unscalible rocks and precipes" just in case. I 

must accept it was a well decided idea because by keeping outside influences such as European nations out, 

they mantain order and ignorance amongst their own people. Their goal is for them to never get rebellious 

ideas or hear about succesful revolutions because it might set an example, like the French to the Americans. 

Cuba works the same here in our own modern world and how have people reacted? Do they agree with 

staying in permanent lockdown inside their country? Eldorado seems to be a paradise that every citizen longs 

for, but it is much more complicated than Candide ever saw it to be, but who can blame him. He ran out 

with enough money and gold to create his own empire.

The New Batman and Robin

Candide has gone through the story  as an innocent lover, a Pupil in Panloss's teachings, and now after saving two naked girls from the Oreillons, he is a hero. Its no surprise This character had evolved throughout the story, but where will he end up? Voltaire never gave Candide a specific mission, but instead a desire to reach the new world for a fresh beginning. His journeys couldn't be more dreadful,Voltaire manipulates his world so that in every conflict Candide is found in, the only thing that appears to save him is pure luck. Luck is present when their ship splits in two and everyone is perished whil Candide and Pangloss swim to shore.It is present in the Spanish inquisition where Pangloss is hanged but Candide walks away with a whipping. Candide is now missing one thing every hero must have, and his name is Cacambo.

 Cacambo  is introduced in the story as Candides trustful servant, but I see him as his new fellow sidekick who might be the reason luck is not needed anymore. He covered for Candide when he killed a Jesuit, and as if it wasn't enough he also saved him from the hungry Oreillons thanks to his "logical" reasoning. It might be a little extreme to compare his relationship with Candide to Batman and Robin, two typical heroic figures society refers to as soon as they hear sidekick. Candide is trustful of him, " Very well, well do as you suggest, and trust in Providence"(74), and in a way he is his right hand. Isn't this friendship just like the relationship of our two marvel hero's? Sure Batman and Robin battle against Mr.Freeze and Poison Ivy from freezing Gotham City, and it may sound absurd to relate them to Voltaire's characters. Never the less, Candide and Cacambo have just begun their journey and who knows who or what they might come up against with that might destroy or strengthen their partnership.

Aren't You Tired of Forbidden Love?

The love between Lady Cunegonde and Candide has always been forbidden, even if destiny brings them together, somehow it seems like they are bound to be apart. From the beginning, the Baron was always in the way of their fairytale and as if it wasn’t enough, the perfect world of Westphalia was invaded and they were dramatically torn apart. You would think that when they finally met again they would leap into each other’s arms to find the life they always dreamed of. It would have been the most logical scene, but Voltaire’s style is anything but ordinary. Candide was once again forced to leave Lady Cunegonde.

Forbidden Love has been seen  not only in classical literary works such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where families hate each other, but in modern teenage books such as Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, where vampires came from being monsters to romantic figures. Movie directors constantly bombard the audience with this theme in movies such as A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. Here the couples are facing death, incurable diseases, and parents who believe the person their daughter marries must be rich and successful. In the case of Candide, poor Lady Cunegonde is taken Hostage and raped, and as if it wasn’t enough for Voltaire, she ends up choosing the “Captains Fortune” (60), instead of Candide. So why is this theme constantly used by authors if the readers can more or less predict the ending? It’s simple, we all love the idea of two people risking everything to kiss again, to hold each other’s hands one more time, and finally, if it’s the only way to be together, they are willing to die and unite in heaven. Forbidden love has always been one of our favorite sceneries, and even in Voltaire’s time it was a popular theme to write about. It never gets old.

Arrested for Speaking and Listening

In chapter VI of Candide, as you read through the text you can’t help to notice how absurd Candide’s world really is. This is the effect Voltaire wants to create in his audience, and he does this by using a sarcastic tone. After the earthquake that had destroyed Lisbon, a Basque was convicted for marrying his godmother, two Jews for eating bacon with their chicken, and Candide and Pangloss for speaking and the other for listening with approval. The way he narrates these absurd events in such a casual tone make it sound like the most logical situation. The consequence for their actions is where the author once again decides to use sarcasm, “Pangloss and Candide were led off separately and closeted in exceedingly cool rooms, where they suffered no inconvenience from the sun… ”(36). After this “beauty treatment” you would think they were set free, but as a reader you take a shock when in one sentence you realize Pangloss is hanged. The end of one of the main characters is too soon in the story.

"Then You Don't Believe in Free Will, Sir?"

My previous post was about Voltaire’s unique sense of writing: satire. Now we will analyze how Voltaire reflects his beliefs and personality through his own characters. Let’s take in Dr. Pangloss, the well-known philosopher from Westphalia. After he and Candide survive a devastating shipwreck, citizens helped them into a good meal, but the people were sad as they ate in silence. Pangloss came back to his reason that there is no cause without an effect. He ensures the people that the event was no tragedy, rather it was just destiny, it was inevitable no matter the circumstances,” For it is impossible for things not to be where they are, because everything is for the best ”(35). Here we can see how Voltaire expresses himself through Pangloss’s words, or perhaps it isn’t his way of thinking, but rather the people that surround him. As a reader I can sense catholicism starts to take place in the story, “…there can be no such thing as the fall of Man and eternal punishment ”(35).  This statement is said by a secondary character in the story of no importance, but what Voltaire wants the reader to understand is that the character represents the opposition to his beliefs. Pangloss is attacked with questions of Free Will but he believes that there is no such thing as Free Will, but rather it’s called Absolute Necessity. He means that the man does not make choices freely, but rather he makes them because they are vital of “necessity” as previously mentioned.

We know that Voltaire grew up with a certain thirst to reality. He is defined as a deist, but he did believe in the existence of God; “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”, he said. He understood people needed this kind of faith in order to survive all the grievances life brought upon them, but that God had no favorite people, church, or country. This page in Candide reflects Voltaire’s views on God; how he has no plan for eternal punishment of man, but instead he has equal tolerance to all mankind.

Satire: a New Way of Writing in Voltaire

 In  Candide, the author seems to focus on satire as his main writing style during the whole text. He dramatizes and exaggerates every aspect of the story through his main character Candide. Voltaire focuses on ridiculizing Westphalia starting with the stereotypical aristocracies of Europe, “…that in the best of all possible worlds, his lordships country seat was the most beautiful of all ”(19). Clearly as described before, this grand mansion is really a simple house with a door and no windows which makes it absurd to call such a thing a mansion where one of the most influential noblemen live. Another example of absurd is when Candide suddenly decides that after being beat up by the Burglars because of his cause and effect theory, he now wants to find somewhere else to pursue his reasoning. This cause and effect theory comes  from Dr. Pangloss, a philosopher who perhaps is the only one who exists in town, and here is where the reader can decode Voltaire’s mocking humor toward’s Pangloss and his teachings of “ metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology”(20).

The second aspect of satire, hyperbole, is his way of testing the reader to actually capture these events and take them in as a simple exaggeration in every matter. For example, “Rifle –fire which followed rid this best worlds of about nine or ten thousand villains who infested its surface” (25), here you can tell that that extremely huge number of villains doesn’t make sense if there talking about such a small and simple Westphalia. His descriptions are also so detailed and in this case gruesome, that you sense the hyperbole thanks to the diction Voltaire chooses to use; ”Whichever way he looked, the ground was strewn with the legs, arms, and brains of dead villagers ”(26).

Voltaire has a unique way to introduce certain issues in the story such as the STD Dr. Pangloss has recently acquired; “ In her arms I tasted the delights of paradise, and they produce these hellish torments by which you see me devoured ”(30). Instead of taking a direct approach on the characters sickness, he simply chooses for the dialogue between Pangloss and Candide to be obvious enough that you can infer it’s a sexually transmitted disease.