Candide-Book Analysis Essay, Research Paper

The novel Candide by Voltaire is a great peice of satire that makes fun of the way people in medievil times thought. The book is about a man, Candide, and his misfortunes. Throughout the book Candide has countless things go wrong in order to show that this is not “the best of all possible worlds” Voltaire is trying to make a point through the exaggeration of the inhumanities of man in a humorous way.

The story begins in a castle in Westphalia. Candide is convinced by Cunegonde to take a lesson in “experimental physics”. The two are caught and Candide is kicked out of the castle. While Candide is suffering from hunger and cold he is met by two men who trick him into service in the Bulgarian army. Candide has a terrible time in the army, he tries to escape, and he is punished severely. During the confusion of war Candide manages to escape. Time passes and Candide meets some other interesting individuals and has one bad experience after the next. One day Candide meets a woman who takes care of him and this is none other than Cunegonde. They amuse each other with stories of misfortune and travel around the world. At every place Candide goes something unthinkable seems to happen to him. Candide meets several people along the way who all have their own interesting story of misfortune and the inhumanities of mankind. Candide ends up on a small farm, married to Cunegonde and living with two philosophers. He argues with others at the end of the book if this really is the best of all possible worlds and they conclude the we must “work without reason” and “must cultivate our garden”.

In this novel Voltaire is extremely influenced by his frame of reference and mindset. He finds room to include almost all of his political views. He takes Candide on a journey through all of the wrongs he beleives in the world in order to prove that it was not the best of all possible worlds. He shows us the inhumanities of man through war and social interaction. He basically paints an exaggerated picture of the wrongs of medievil people. Voltaire is just as biased as any other capable person of the time. Everybody has a certain element of prejudice that they hold within. His thoughts are taken into exaggeration but that is the basis of satire. The conclusions arrived at by Voltaire are valid. He does not have excessive prejudice and his conclusions cannot be invalid because they are thoughts of personal opinion. Voltaire’s ideas do not completely follow others’. He is one of the only writers that stepped out and confronted major philisophical issues even if they were hidden within humor.

Voltaire’s novel Candide is a book about all of people problems during the time period in which it was written. Voltaire wrote the book in order to confront these problems in a humorous way so to allow the public to ingest the reading easier. Voltaire accomplished his theme very well because of the creative uses of humor in the book.

Voltaire is right in what he is saying. When looking at satire it must not be evaluated too closely. If it is picked apart and some of the things are taken too seriously then the general idea trying to be presented is not recognized. Voltaire uses alot of great humorous filling inside of a few major ideas and attacks the areas needed to be attacked in a witty and humorous matter.

The novel Candide is a well written, funny, to the point book stressing that this is not the best of all possible worlds. The writing is not too difficult to read and is organized in an efficient manner. The book does not die through translation like several other medievil books do. The ideas brought about in the book are important ideas of the time that needed to be discussed. Voltaire created a satirical masterpeice in Candide. This book adds to people’s general knowledge of medievil man’s problems and the distorted philisophical ideas of the times.

Voltaire presents some major ideas in his novel Candide. Through satire he proves that this is not the best of all possible worlds by showing the reader the problems of medievil times. Voltaire presents these ideas through a young boy, Candide. Voltaire’s Candide is a great satirical peice that makes fun of medievil people’s ideas in hope to open minds and inform the reader.