Reading Notes W4: Candide, Part A

Voltaire, “Candide” (352-393)

IMPORTANT THEMES:

1)      Optimism being absolutely foolish

·         This foolishness starts with Doctor Pangloss who gives his teachings to others: Candide and Cunegonde.

·         Live by the saying: “Everything is for the best” (361)

·         Voltaire’s theme is a mockery of other Philosophers who go by this saying (using God) and completely overwrite the bad in the world, equaling perfection. Basically, they overlook the bad foolishly.

·         Pangloss and his followers do not have any reason that justifies any horrible act in this world but still come up with some awful arguments that make no sense like: “-It was all indispensable, replied the one-eyed Doctor, since private misfortunes make for public welfare, and therefore the more private misfortunes there are, the better everything is” (361). How would misfortunes make the world better? Wouldn’t it just mean more bad? This is just a foolish statement in an attempt to stay Optimistic.

·         They come across many terrible things like: flogging, disembowelment, rape, hangings, disease, natural disasters like earthquakes and fire, murder, etc.

·         This leads into the next theme and both these themes intertwine into a more powerful outlook into this story.

2)      How Philosophical thinking (Or Ideas) are powerless/useless/not needed

·         Some Philosophical ideas in the story (Some are just described differently but I felt they should be added):

Ø  “Everything is for the best” –pangloss (361)

Ø  “things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end” –Pangloss (356)

Ø  “Noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles. Legs, as anyone can plainly see, were made to be breeched, and so we have breeches. Stones...” –Pangloss (356)

Ø  “It must be, said he, that men have corrupted Nature, for they are not born wolves, yet that is what they become. God gave them neither twenty-four-pound cannon nor bayonets, yet they have manufactured both in order to destroy themselves” –Jacques (361)

·         They have taken these philosophies to odd extremes like when Candide could have saved one man: “He wanted to dive to his rescue; but the philosopher Pangloss prevented him by proving that the bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for this Anabaptist to drown in” (362). He could have changed that fate with just his will to do so.