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Optimism In Voltaire's Candide

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In the Candide by Voltaire, there are two well-known and popular characters that are reflected upon from the beginning to the end of the story. Voltaire allows his story Candide to express the way people are able to agonize and grieve after a catastrophe strikes and their knack to handle the aftermaths of the tragedies. His main goal in this story is to use the beliefs of Optimism through the relationship and situations that the two main characters, Dr. Pangloss and his student Candide, encounter. These characters are shown off to be the perfect optimistic people; however, they make choices throughout the story that does have a huge impact and effect on their lives. Pangloss and his student Candide have an agreement that, “everything is for …show more content…

His tutor Pangloss instills in him a doctrine of optimism whereby "everything is for the best." One day, the Baron discovers Candide and Miss Cunégonde, the eye-catching daughter of the Baron, kissing and due to his action he finds himself banished from the castle. Candide is then taken in by the Bulgars, Prussian troops, where he fights in their army. In time, he is accused of abandoning the army being forced to choose between two options, death or the gauntlet. Candide subsequently flees and runs away, coming into contact with Pangloss again. Pangloss then informs him that Westphalia was attacked by the Bulgar soldiers and everyone had been killed. It can be assumed that the attack on Candide’s home was due to him fleeing away from the troop. Following this drastic news they fled off to Portugal with the help of a welcoming gentleman. As all good things seem to be followed with a dramatic ending in this story thus far, due to a terrible storm at sea, the friendly man dies. At this point in the story, the quality of lives that Pangloss and Candide are living is very poor and risky. Due to the fact that they are trying to run away from their problems in search of a better life but along the way horrible things are happening to innocent

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Candide is intent to rescue his love, Miss Cunégonde, from the governor of Buenos Aires. He requests, “… a few sheep loaded with provisions, some pebbles, and some of the mud of your country” (385), from the king of Eldorado. He knows that even a small flock of sheep laden with the pebbles and mud of Eldorado will make him the richest man in all of Europe, if not the world. He plans to use a small amount of them as payment to get Cunégonde back. The king tells Candide and Cacambo that they are foolish to leave Eldorado, but allows them to leave.

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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.

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If I were to give you a choice between reading a book or watching the movie? which would you choose? I bet a lot of you said movie. If you said book you don’t need to read this. Here are reasons books are better than movies.

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Raised in Westphalia, Candide was surrounded by greed and his life was ultimately affected by strength and wealth. The phrase “everything is for the best,” taught by Master Pangloss, clouds Candide’s judgement and makes him careless. What Master Pangloss was trying to teach Candide was that with every cause there is an effect and that it is best of all possible worlds. For example, Candide stumbled upon a utopian society called El Dorado which was literally a city of gold. What seemed like pebbles to the residents who lived there were actually gems and bits of gold to Candide.

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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.

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Throughout Voltaire’s brilliant short novel, Candide, he utilizes the influential tool of satire as a civil attack on Europe’s corrupt society. While there are many themes that Voltaire confers upon in his writing, the central thesis in my view is his sarcastic portray of the optimistic view from the Enlightenment. This optimistic view is strategically used to hide the horrors of life during this period such as sexual oppression, religious hypocrisy, brutal warfare, and more. In the beginning of the story, the reader is introduced to the protagonist, Candide, who is being taught by a philosopher named Pangloss whose focus is the idea of optimism.

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The two main themes from the story are childlike belief and naïveté, as well as destructive (radical) optimism, which are embodied in the characters of the story. Candide embodies both themes because his childlike naivety and belief in Pangloss’ teachings causes him to suffer through many different disasters until he is willing to adopt another philosophy; his inability to construct his own only further illustrates his naivety and inexperience with the world. This ignorance is the root of the dangers behind radical optimism as it prevents informed, logical, and rational thinking about the world. Even after being enlisted in the army that destroys his old home, and apparently rapes and slaughters his love Cunegonde (Candide 4), Candide remains naïve and trusting. Candide’s constant loop of disasters happens only because of his naivety, and the repetition emphasizes that warning that Voltaire is trying to present to his

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At the end of the story, Candide’s redeems himself by living a humble and simple life, working at the farm with his family and not worrying about the rest of the world. The philosopher Pangloss also obtain redemption despite his suffering from contracting syphilis. His positivism helps him at the end as he knew that every misfortune a person could experience, is a step up for absolute positive change in the person’s life. Alternate characters in Voltaire’s story,

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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.

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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.

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After separating from Cunegonde, killing her brother, almost being eaten by savages, wondering the jungle for several months, and seeing the full brutality of slavery for the first time, the title character is finally ready to “[give] up on [Pangloss’s] Optimism after all,” (Voltaire 52). The entire quest seems to be a test, a way to see how horrible things must get for Candide to abandon optimism. Voltaire uses these grotesque and lethal circumstances to illuminate how ridiculous the philosophy of optimism is, to show that the world is a terrible place and not everything happens for a reason. In the end, though, Candide is still

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The introduction: In life, there are the cheerful people (optimistic) and there the frown faced ones (pessimistic). Taking one side remains illogic in the course of life, as it is better to strike a balance between these two extremes. Candide is torn between being naïve and a kind of lamb in the herd led by an optimistic Shepard, and his famous saying’ in this best of all possible worlds’. (Voltaire, 1761, p.4). And the shocking discoveries that he makes later on his journey to meet his beloved baroness.

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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.

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J. Robert Oppenheimer’s quote, “The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.” can be interpreted in innumerable ways. Voltaire's novella Candide resonates strongest negatively, with the pessimist’s view superseding the optimist’s view. Though a pessimist is someone who always sees the bad factors and worst possible results of any situation, Candide is not a story filled with negative thoughts even in the perfect circumstances; or gloomy with a quitter-esque attitude.

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Voltaire’s Candide is a story of a young man’s adventure and how his experiences change his philosophy on life. Although Candide’s adventures begin with a rather positive confidence that he lives in “the best of all possible worlds” his attitude is quickly transformed when he realizes the world is in fact full of evil. In

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