Candide Character Analysis

When one is not used to thinking for themselves, this can lead to the naive nature of Candide. After having multiple life experiences and seeing how cruel human nature can be, is a way of being exposed to educating yourself through real life experiences. Even after going through hard times and many negative experiences Candide remains optimistic. He may have been enlightened through his life experiences that in the end leads him to think differently. From the beginning Candide is introduced as a naive and very gullible man, he believed everything anyone would tell him. He is attracted to a woman and becomes fascinated by her. “Candide

“Candide, stunned, stupefied, despairing, bleeding, trembling, said to himself:- If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like?” (Voltaire 433). This is huge statement that Candide makes, this shows that after all these harsh experiences he starts to question everything he ever believed in. He seems to be thinking for himself. Candide no longer seems optimistic stating “Pangloss must have deceived me cruelly when he told me that all is for the the best in this world” (Voltaire 435). Candide starts to show some personal growth when he questions Pangloss

He states, “never to accept anything as true when I did not recognize it clearly to be so, that is to say, to carefully avoid precipitation and prejudice, and to include in my opinions nothing beyond that which should present itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind that I might have no occasion to doubt it” (Descartes 23). If everyone took this advice it would be difficult to be easily convinced and not be gullible or naive like Candide’s personality. Another advice from Descartes is “to divide each of the difficulties which I should examine into as many portions as were possible, and as should be required for it better solution” (Descartes 23). If Candide was educated at a young age to think for himself and arrive to his own conclusion he would not have been easily convinced by anyone's opinion. “All children who come to this world must be subjected to the care of education, for there is none who is born completely instructed and completely educated. So what advantage does not accrue everyday to a state whose head has had his mind cultivated early” (Education 28). When one is