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Optimism theme in candide by voltaire
Optimism theme in candide by voltaire
A clash between optimism and pessimism in candide
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The result of Candide’s journey through life is unsatisfactory and unfulfilling while Douglass achieves self-actualization and continues to help others by fighting to right injustices. In his quest to become a free man Douglass is self-reliant, resourceful and focused while Candide in his quest to marry his love Cunegonde is naïve, greedy, and selfish. The
Candide is sentenced to be wiped and shot and Pangloss to be hanged. Pangloss execution was successful; however, Candide is saved by an old lady who heals his wounds. Astonishingly enough, the old woman that healed Candide takes him to see Cunégonde, the young woman he kissed and was lead to believe was murdered. Cunégonde begins talking to Candide by going into detail as to how she is alive. Her whole family was killed but she was only raped and then captured and sold as a sex salve owned by Don Isaachar and the Grand Inquisitor of Lisbon.
Candide by Voltaire is filled with misfortunes. Throughout the book, he portrays moral evil with murder, rape, greed, sacrifice, and a few other examples. Cunegonde’s brother says, “I saw my father and mother killed, and my sister ravished.” Multiple times during
He then decides to go for a walk, but is kidnapped by four heroes of six feet who take him to a dungeon and put him through a series of human tortures. Candide is then saved by the King of the Bulgarian, who sees what is happening and gives Candide a pardon. Candide is then healed by a surgeon and later marches again for the King of the Bulgarians. 6. How are Voltaire’s anti-war sentiments obvious in chapter three?
It underscores that the only worthwhile thing for people to do is to cultivate their gardens. While cultivating gardens are an emblem of hero’s prospect and fortune, neglected ones lead to his misery. Voltaire provides in Candide several types of gardens. A garden that someone can be kicked out of it like what happened to Candide in baron Thunder-ten- tronckh, another garden that someone can foolishly leave as Candide did Eldorado, and a final well taken care of garden that makes human being close to happiness.
Although, her naïve nature isn’t blamed on the fact that she’s a girl. Candide is optimistic and innocent, not able to make choices without having somebody else weigh in. It seems to me that Cunegonde accepts the way her life is better than our old pal Candide. As a woman in this time, she realizes that her options are limited and she’ll use her looks if she has to. Unlike the men in the story, she doesn’t question or think too hard about things.
Voltaire’s Candide takes us through the life and development of Candide, the protagonist. Throughout his adventures, he witnesses many travesties and sufferings. Like many Enlightenment philosophers, Pangloss, Candide’s tutor, is an optimist; this philosophy was adopted by many to help mask the horrors of the eightieth century. Pangloss teaches Candide that everything happens for a reason. Voltaire uses satire, irony and extreme exaggerations to poke fun at many aspects; such as optimism, religion, corruption, and social structures within Europe.
In Candide Voltaire discusses the exploitation of the female race in the eighteenth century through the women in the novel. Cunegonde, Paquette, and the Old Woman suffer through rape and sexual exploitation regardless of wealth or political connections. These characters possess very little complexity or importance in Candide. With his characterization of Cunegonde, Paquette, and the Old Woman Voltaire satirizes gender roles and highlights the impotence of women in the 1800s. Cunegonde is the daughter of a wealthy German lord.
All of the three female characters are honest and realistic and they narrate stories about their sufferings in their lives as victims of their society, but in a comic way. Cunegonde is the most important female character in the book. She is Candide’s beloved, who retells the events of the opening chapters from her own perspective. The old woman narrates her tragic life story in chapters 11 and 12. She suffered in her youth as she was a princess, but ended up being abused and sold as a slave several times in Morocco and in other different countries.
Moreover, situations these forces create, and how they are beyond and within the control of Candide. Leading to Candide’s final beliefs, and how they illustrate the follies of optimistic determinism. At the beginning of Voltaire epic Candide is a naive scholar. He strongly adheres to the beliefs laid out for him by his mentor Pangloss.
One key facet of living in the world today is the ability for people to have free will over their own lives. In Voltaire’s story “Candide,” it is clear to observe that although Candide is free to form his own decisions, he allows himself to be strongly determined by his surroundings as well as everyone who he encounters. This story proposes that Candide is trying to find a balance between submitting completely to the speculations and actions of others while also taking control of his life through blind faith. Throughout the story, Candide encounters frequent hardships along his voyage to prosperity. These obstacles include, but are not limited to becoming a bulwark, being beaten and forced to watch his beloved Pangloss having been hanged, leaving such an amazing place as Eldorado, being lied to and tricked out of diamonds by the abb`e, killing Cunegonde’s two lovers, almost being boiled alive for killing the monkey lovers, and being persuaded to be promiscuous on Cunegonde.
Through the protagonist Candide one can deduce Voltaire’s negative outlook on human nature. He believes every word that Pangloss says, in the same way that people of the day believed everything that the Church would say. At the beginning of the text he blindly worships Optimism and by the end of it he worships the Turk’s philosophy of labour. “I also know… that we must cultivate our garden” (Voltaire 99). However it does appear that Candide has gained more knowledge and wisdom and has therefore made a more informed decision.
Candide literally means ‘truthful and straightforward’. Candide is also introduced as an optimistic, in fact one that studied under Dr. Pangloss. His mind had been so warped with the idea of everything being for the best, one can denote him as the most knowledgeable of optimism. Candide tells Cacambo on page 69 that optimism is “..a mania for insisting that everything is all right when everything is going wrong”. The man who was taught of the virtues and brainwashed to always believe in optimism defines optimism as a counter-insightful ideology.
After Candide was kicked out the castle he finds out that his lover Cunegonde was killed which turned out to be false, but then Cunegonde was taken away from him again. Even with all of these events going wrong Candide still kept the optimism going, but as time passes it seems as if him believing in this philosophy starts to waver. The final chapter revealed what Candide thought was philosophically right and that is to just work, take responsibility of our actions, and that we are in charge of our
During his trips to meet different characters, such as Cunégonde, Cacambo, Martin, and the old woman who also suffered a lot, and they all have bitter experiences in their lives. Even after listening to their suffering Candide remains positive. In life, everyone has to face the obstacles, whether natural or man-made, and finally ends up Candide that in reality 'everything is fine. " Journey around the world in hopes of finding and achieving happiness, and then heading towards many obstacles, exposed tortured during an army training and his separation with his love was very devastating for him but he continued to be optimistic.
