The Garden of Eden

What is life? People are constantly trying to find a utopia but I'm sorry to break your bubble guys, there's no such thing as it. Perfection is non existant, what might seem perfect to someone might not be to others so nothing will ever be perfect for everyone. We all have a different perception of perfection and what our own utopia should be like. 

               According to Pangloss life was a type of utopia whereas everything was for the best, but the question is: was it really for the best? Throughout the story Candide realizes that life is everything but perfect and starts doubting Pangloss´s views about life. When Pangloss and Candide and the rest of the group talked with the Turk they noticed it was true. Life has “three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.”(143) they saw that life is not as perfect as it seems and you have to recreate it to what you want it to be just like nature. Voltaire uses the Garden of Eden as a symbol just because of that, nature can be molded and shaped into what you want it to be just like life.

               For those that don’t know the story behind the Garden of Eden it is a biblical garden created by god. It is a “utopia”, God created Adam and provided him with everything even a women Eve from his own flesh, but the only thing he couldn’t do was eat the fruits from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. This place was paradise but one of the reasons perfection can’t exist is because no one is ever satisfied with what they have. Adam and Eve greedy and wanting more than what they had they ate the fruits of the tree and “Man was forever doomed to a life of toil and restlessness, with pressures, temptations, and adversity at every corner.” http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/biblical-garden-of-eden.html.

               What does this have to do with Candide? At the very end of the book Voltaire uses the Garden of Eden to symbolize life, because life may be paradise, but destiny is in your own hands and based on the decisions you make your life will be good or bad.