Candide: A Satire On The Enlightenment :: Voltaire Candide Essays

Candide A caustic remark On The depthWorks Cited Missing Candide is an outlandishly humorous, far-fetched tale by Voltaire satirizing the optimism espoused by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. It is the story of a young mans adventures throughout the world, where he witnesses much evil and disaster. passim his travels, he adheres to the teachings of his tutor, Pangloss, accept that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Candide is Voltaires answer to what he saw as an absurd belief proposed by the Optimists - an easy way to rationalize evil and suffering. Though he was by no means a pessimist, Voltaire refused to believe that what happens is always for the best.The Age of Enlightenment is a term applied to a wide variety of psyches and advances in the fields of philosophy, science, and medicine. The primary feature of Enlightenment philosophy is the belief that stack can actively work to create a better world. A spirit of tender reform characterize d the political ideology of Enlightenment philosophers. bandage Voltaires Candide is heavily characterized by the primary concerns of the Enlightenment, it also criticizes certain aspects of the movement. It invades the idea that optimism, which holds that rational thought can inhibit the evils perpetrated by human beings. Voltaire did not believe in the power of reason to overcome contemporary social conditions.In Candide, Voltaire uses Pangloss and his ramblings to represent an often humorous characterization of the typical optimist. Of Pangloss, Voltaire writes, He turn up admirably that there cannot possibly be an effect without a arrive and that in the best of all possible worlds the Barons stronghold was the best of all castles and his wife the best of all possible Baronesses. (522) The attack on the claim that this is the best of all possible worlds permeates the entire novel. Throughout the story, satirical references to this theme contrast with natural catastrophes and human wrongdoing. When reunited with the diseased and decease Pangloss, who had contracted syphilis, Candide asks if the Devil is at fault. Pangloss simply responds that the disease was a fatality in this the best of all possible worlds, for it was brought to Europe by capital of Ohio men, who also brought chocolate and cochineal, two greater goods that well offset whatsoever negative effects of the disease. (526)The multitudes of disasters, which Candide endures, culminate in his eventual, if temporary, abandonment of optimism.