How Does Voltaire Use Satire In Candide

Through the use of bitter irony, sarcasm, exaggeration, blunt jokes, and blatant criticism, Voltaire sheds light on European civilization in the 18th century. He reveals the hypocrisy of the people and their institutions of the time by effectively using humor as his tool to compose this widely known satirical piece. His tone throughout his work also suggests as to what he would deem appalling in modern society and what the most likely subjects of his satirical criticism would be. Voltaire satirizes the different philosophies that people lived by throughout the novel. Every new character introduced exerted a particular definition as to how life should be perceived and lived. Conegonde’s time with her Bulgar captor after the uprising in the

The allure of money is a recurring event which makes its way back to Candide time and again, even making his love Conegonde, marry Governor of Paraguay, Don Fernando, in order to gain status and fortunes, again mentioning, “you have seventy-two quarterings, and not a farthing to your name” , which further highlights status and birth

Most of his humor is derived from tragic and unfortunate circumstances because his characters get little reprieve from violence, even in the end where Pangloss, unhappy with how his life turned out, still crudely clings to his motto . Although his dark humor and biting sarcasm does drive points home, a lot of the comedic factors are lost in the language style in which Candide is written.

The book was first written in French and then later translated into English where most likely, like in other translated literature, the effectiveness of their literary devices were lost. A pun, joke, metaphor or the like do not share the same potency once translated because most languages do not share the same culture. Moreover, the writing style of the novel is set in an older form of English, which many youths today falter in, causing the humor to slip through in an effort to understand the overall content.

However, obvious uses or irony and exaggeration do stand out. Such amusements stemmed from quick retorts among the characters and far-fetched observations. Additionally, with the prior knowledge of events and subjects presented in the novel that were reviewed in class such as the different branches of Christianity, 17th century events like the 30 years war, and leading figure heads, made it much easier to understand situations heavy with