Hope or Disappointment

“It was wonderful how quickly these gentlemen can strip people; but what surprised me more was that they put their finger into a place where women normally admit nothing but a siringe-tube.”(Pg 51)That quote has both irony and absurdity (as in crazy) clearly. What exactly defines a gentleman? What I know is that it means that a man is educated, has good manners, is sensitive, is civilized and respects others especially women. In the quote the men are doing the opposite of being a gentleman, yet they are called that way. Isn’t that a bit ironic?

These men didn’t even care if they were princesses or just the fact that they were women, they just wanted to find diamonds or things that would bring them wealth and took away the dignity of the women.  What impresses me the most is that in that sentence the word “wonderful” was incorporated. How is the world wonderful which has a positive connotation to all of the people (or most) with an act so humiliating and indignant? How could the old lady be thinking about “how wonderful” it was that some men were stripping her? THAT is absurd.

This women is an example a mature experienced women, and she has gone through so many things in life that she has lost hope and isn’t optimistic anymore. I think here Voltaire is contrasting the old women, Abigail, with Candide. Candide had… Luck, lots of luck in his life. Things turned out the way he wanted most of the times, and if they were not the way he wanted at least they were getting there. Abigail in the other hand lost everything she had and had to become a slave. She went through so many obstacles and adversities in life that she became a pessimistic person. Well not exactly pessimistic but she wasn’t as naïve as she was before.

I think one of the things that bothered Voltaire the most was that sometimes people pretend to know it all. People pretend to be in your shoes, but they will never know how you feel or what you think about life after something very painful has happened to you. We expect people to know what it feels but they have no way of knowing so their only way of trying to make YOU feel better is by being optimistic. By showing you that maybe they are not as strong as you are but that they have hope in you, hope in life and hope in the future. 

"All is for the best" (pg.43)

“All is for the best” (pg.43) is one of the most common phrases throughout the book, it appears and reappears in many places after every negative event. It is a phrase that reflects what an optimistic person would say. Voltaire’s perspective about optimistic people is that they are naïve and they don’t know anything about life, people that lack of experience and therefore think everything is happy and perfect. He criticizes the naïve people the most in his text as they expect everything to turn out the way they want it and life is not this way. Maybe his feeling of dislike towards this people was because he wasn’t an optimist person and seeing people that have hope for better things seems pathetic and unrealistic.

The book itself is pretty unrealistic and the events are absurd in the sense that many things are not reasonable. After every event something positive happens and it turns the story into a type of “fairytale”. The chronologies in which events take place help the reader realize that the story has a sarcastic side to it. Voltaire tries to prove that it is not probable that after something negative all of a sudden something great happens that changes your world upside down. To prove his point he creates a fantasy story that it is very illogical and does not happen in real life. When Pangloss dies Candide is left alone and almost dead then out of the blue a miracle happens and Lady Cunegonde , the love of his life(who was supposed to be dead), reappears in his life a few days later. How unrealistic is this?

Then Lady Cunegonde tells Candide the story of what happened to her and when they are having dinner Candide kills the “owners” of Lady Cunegonde just as an act of jealousy. This is simply absurd; it is irrational and very unlikely to happen.  Killing two men in a matter of minutes and getting away with it leaving everything behind is nonsense. I think this is another way of mocking naïve people. Voltaire implies that Candide is so naïve that he thinks they can get away with that crime but will they really get away? Will this be for the best? Will everything turn out perfectly fine? 

Satire vs. Baroque

Recently we started reading Voltaire´s book Candide in class. This book is an example of satire since it ridicules many aspects of life especially optimism.  Irony, hyperbole, absurdity and target, the four elements of satire, are implicitly seen in the text (some of them are not easy to notice).  At first I didn’t understand what was going on in the book, since most of what is said has a double meaning. I find this book even similar to baroque, whereas the literature is so overloaded with details it becomes hard to understand. I kept reading and then it became easier. It’s like this picture, as you read you become better at understanding and even faster.

Back to the topic, satire is very similar to baroque literature because it has some of the same elements. Two of the main characteristics that baroque shares with satire, are that they include hyperboles and antithesis (which are in other words ironical statements).  Satire incorporates elements of absurdity that change the meaning of the text, while baroque literature includes details about ornamentation. This is the major point where the two styles differ but as for the rest they are very similar.

I think the most evident element of satire in Candide is the irony. It is distinct almost in every paragraph.  One example of the irony in the book is that Voltaire mocks the philosophers being a philosopher himself.  Pangloss, one of the characters in Candide, was a philosopher from Westphalia, but according to Voltaire he taught “Metaphysico-theologo-cosmologo-nigology” (pg.20). This is an example of him mocking philosophers, which usually have the stereotype of knowing everything and having many careers. Voltaire himself was a historian, writer, and philosopher which make it even more ironical. He is basically making fun of himself.

Another example of irony in the book is when Candide arrives in a village where an orator is giving a speech to the audience about charity.  Candide, who is hungry, asks for food and is denied his right to eat and is humiliated in front of the crowd.  It is ironic how the people heard this man talking for about an hour about charity and weren’t capable of helping Candide or at least him a bread or something. How hypocrite is this?

I think Voltaire uses satire to criticize things like stereotypes or the hypocrisy of people in the world. The two quotes clearly show how he is making fun of what people think a philosopher is and in the other one he is criticizing those who promise to do things like donating to charity but they never really care to take an action and do what they promise.  Why did Voltaire use satire to express the animosity he feels towards some groups of people?