An Analysis Of The Novel Candide By Voltaire Essay, Research Paper

An Analysis of the Novel Candide by Voltaire

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.