This paper analyzes a scene from Candide as an example of Voltaire’s doctrine of the pursuit of happiness.
IIntroduction
Voltaire is generally considered to be the most important thinker of the Enlightenment. He held a basic belief in the power of human reason. This put him in direct conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, the most powerful organization of the day, which, of course, believed that God’s reason was supreme and the Church was the instrument for revealing his will. Voltaire, although he believed in God, despised the corruption that flourished in the Church, as well as the irrational belief in faith, rather than reason, that all religions espouse. I believe we can infer that for Voltaire, the pursuit of happiness meant the freedom to pursue his own thoughts, without the Church telling him what to believe.
One of the most prevalent doctrines of the Enlightenment was Optimism: it was a way for the Church to explain the presence of Evil in the world. If God is just and good, and yet Evil exists, it must be because God created it, and if he did, then this is “the best of all possible worlds,” despite the evil it contains. (Sareil, PG).
Voltaire took dead aim at this doctrine in Candide, and we’ll turn to the book now to analyze one of the scenes.
IICandide
Candide is the story of a young man of the same name, who is saddled with a teacher/mentor, Dr. Pangloss, whose motto is indeed “This is the best of all possible worlds.” He clings to it through disaster after disaster that clearly show this is anything but a good world. The book is short enough to examine one chapter in its entirety.
The Essay on Voltaires English Letters And Candide
In 1764 Voltaire wrote one of the world's greatest satires, Candide. Candide pokes at much of Europe and attacks simple human follies and frailties. Most of the characters are killed brutally or fiercely hurt for idiotic reasons. The overall message of 'Candide' is that every human being has the power to carve out their own destiny. And that each individual is not subject to God's grand plan, or ...
Candide was raised in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, with Dr. Pangloss as his tutor. When Candide and the Baron’s daughter, Cunegund, fell in love (or at least in lust), the Baron drove Candide away. He was kidnapped and forced into the Bulgarian army, fought in a terrible battle, and saw the horrors perpetrated by both sides. He deserted, and ran afoul of a man and his wife who demanded to know if Candide believed the Pope was the Antichrist. When he said he didn’t know, all he wanted was something to eat, the man yelled at him and the woman emptied a “vessel of water” over his head. James rescued him, and this brings us to Chapter 4, where our analysis starts.
James cleans Candide up, feeds him, and gives him a little money. As Candide walks about the town, he meets a horrible beggar:
“…all covered with scabs, his eyes sunk in his head, the end of his nose eaten off, his mouth drawn on one side, his teeth as black as a cloak, snuffling and coughing most violently, and every time he attempted to spit out dropped a tooth.” (Voltaire, PG).
This miserable creature turns out to be none other than Dr. Pangloss, who tells Candide that the Baron’s castle is in ruins, Cunegund has been raped and slaughtered; the Baroness is dead; and the Baron has been “knocked in the head.”
Upon hearing that Cunegund is dead, Candide faints; he revives and when Pangloss tells him how she died, he immediately faints again. Voltaire is obviously satirizing the “hardened” military man by having his hero faint twice within seconds.
When he comes to the second time, he asks Pangloss how he came to be in such a mess. Pangloss replies it was love: “…love, the comfort of the human species, love, the preserver of the universe; the soul of all sensible beings, love! Tender love!” (Voltaire, PG).
When Candide replies that he too has felt love, but it hasn’t brought him to such a state, Pangloss clarifies the type of love he’s just been glorifying in such magnificent terms. It’s not love at all, but crude sex. He had an affair with Pacquette, the Baroness’s serving wench, and caught syphilis from her. He then recounts to Candide the daisy chain of lovers who infected each other, and it includes several supposedly celibate churchmen, as well as at least one homosexual encounter: Pacquette got it from a “learned Franciscan,” who got it from an “old countess,” who got it from a cavalry officer, who got it from a marchioness, who got it from her page; he got it from a Jesuit; and the priest got it from one of the sailors on Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World. Candide is dismayed by this, and asks if the devil is at the root of it.
The Essay on Miss Cunegonde Candide Love Sex
In Arouet de Voltaires Candide, Candide travels the world to meet many people and see many places. He is not the sharpest pencil in the box and this gives him a unique spin on the adventures he has. During his encounters, love can be seen in many forms. The purpose of this paper is to show that the idea of love is another word for sex in this story. Miss Cunegonde infatuated Candide. Candide had a ...
Pangloss replies “Not at all,” and goes on to explain that the disease is “a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds,” for it Columbus hadn’t caught it (even though it can result in sterility and death), he’d not have discovered cochineal or chocolate! This non sequitur serves to highlight the basic lunacy of Pangloss’s argument: that syphilis is a good thing, and necessary to social development.
Pangloss concludes his astonishing speech by saying that there are many peoples around the globe who don’t suffer from the disease as yet, but they will in a few centuries, presumably when they are conquered and the invaders bring the disease with them.
The chapter ends with Candide begging his friend James to help Pangloss; James pays for Pangloss’s cure, which is “effected with only the loss of one eye and an ear.” (Voltaire,PG).
Pangloss enters James’s service, and the three travel to Lisbon. On the journey Pangloss continues to say that the world is so made that it cannot be better. “James did not quite agree with him on this point.” (Voltaire, PG).
In this chapter, then, Voltaire contrasts love with sex, and in doing takes us from the sublime (“love, the preserver of the universe”) to a bestial series of physical encounters, illustrating how we do one thing and label it as something else. He then has Pangloss actually praise syphilis as a good thing, something that indicates primitive people have been “exposed” to civilization, which presumably means they have progressed in their development. He also says that in future, many more people will become ill as they are invaded, but this too is progress.
Finally, Voltaire takes a potshot at doctors when he says that Pangloss is cured and “all” he lost was an ear and an eye.
The Essay on Candide Philosophical Optimism Pangloss Voltaire Rich
Philosophical Optimism Life, death, and existence; every sentient beings at one time or another have perused each concepts in regards to their own lives, questioning the very philosophy that they had so easily accepted. In the novel Candide by Voltaire, Candide the na ve protagonist of the story who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he ...
IIIConclusion
There’s a great deal going on here, none of it flattering to the establishment of Voltaire’s time. Throughout the short novel, he continues to castigate and criticize doctors, philosophers, and others, reserving most of his scorn for the Church. It may have infuriated his contemporaries, but it continues to delight audiences to this day.
IVReferences
Sareil, Jean. “Voltaire.” European Writers 4 (1994): 367-392. Retrieved 2 Mar 2003 from The Literature Resource Center, The Gale Group, San Diego Public Library, San Diego, CA at: http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?c=2&ai=91294&ste=6&docNum=H1479001452&bConts=16303&tab=1&vrsn=3&ca=2&tbst=arp&ST=Voltaire&srchtp=athr&n=10&locID=san67255&OP=contains
Voltaire. Candide. [On-line]. The On-Line Library [Web site]. 29 Jun 1999. Accessed: 20 Mar 2003. http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire/candide/chapter-04.html
