Ire's Candide: A Comparative Analysis

Today’s society is inundated with information on any subject a person might want to learn about. There are magazines, newspapers, television programs, and blogs, to name a few media outlets, that dedicate their time and money creating fantastical stories for entertainment or to create a false sense of panic in the populous. Of course, there are also those same types of media outlets that have the same information, but they are dedicated to making the public conversant of what is happening around them without the fantastical or hysteria. Determining which of these will serve the person best, or in other words, which of these two will give that person the information that will not lead that person down a distorted world, it’s what must be arbitrated.

Nonetheless, Cervantes and Voltaire insist that the world awake from the surreal belief that it has created from the frivolity of chivalrous stories and optimistic gullibility.

After reading so many books on chivalry, Don Quixote loses the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. In his delusion, Don Quixote is convinced that he must become a Knight-errant and travel the land saving those who can’t save themselves. The first encounter in where Don Quixote’s credence is demonstrated is when he is on the way home to fetch money and fresh clothing, Don Quixote hears crying and finds a farmer whipping a young boy. The farmer explains that the boy has been failing in his

Don Quixote sees Sancho as someone who is simple and does not really know what live is all about or can actually recognize what’s in front of him. Don Quixote attempts to “educate” Sancho on what he should see in reality when they encounter the two herds of sheep. Don Quixote sees clouds of dust coming along the road and mistakes them for two great armies on the brink of battle. Sancho warns his master that the two clouds actually come from two herds of sheep. Unconvinced, Don Quixote describes in great detail the knights he thinks he sees in the dust. Don Quixote is merely reeling off ideas he has encountered in his “lying books” about chivalry, so once on the ground, he tells Sancho to follow the sheep and he will “see” who they really are. Don Quixote does not recognize what he sees in reality because he is blinded from the ridiculous stories of chivalry he has read. On the other hand, Sancho is illiterate and his judgement is not clouded by such nonsense. Later Don Quixote recognizes how smart and clever Sancho really is. Candide is a man of seemingly strong moral character, he has strong belief in his philosophy and follows it, yet he is portrayed as one who lacks any understanding of the world around him or the human race as a whole. Although he encounters many difficulties,