Candide Voltaire Optimism Essay Research Paper Candide

Candide Voltaire Optimism Essay, Research Paper

Candide & # 8211 ; Voltaire & # 8217 ; s Writing Style

In Candide, Voltaire uses many composing techniques which can besides

be found in the plants of Cervantes, Alighieri, Rabelais and Moliere.

The usage of the assorted manners and conventions shows that, despite the

transition of centuries and the linguistic communication differences, certain authorship

techniques will ever be effectual.

One common literary technique is the writer & # 8217 ; s usage of one or more

of his characters as his & # 8216 ; voice & # 8217 ; to talk out the writers views on a

certain topic. For case, in Moliere & # 8217 ; s Tartuffe, the writer uses

the character of Cleante to talk out against spiritual dissemblers

( page 1419, lines 99-102 ) :

Nothing that I more cherish and admire

Than honest ardor and true spiritual fire.

So there is nil that I find more base

Than spurious piousness & # 8217 ; s dishonest face.

In Candide, Voltaire makes usage of several characters to voice his

sentiment mocking philosophical optimism. On page 1594, Candide is

inquiring a gentleman about whether everything is for the best in the

physical universe every bit good as the moral existence. The adult male replies:

& # 8230 ; I believe nil of the kind. I find that everything goes incorrect in

our universe ; that cipher knows his topographic point in society or his

responsibility, what he & # 8217 ; s making or what he ought to be making, and that outside

of mealtimes & # 8230 ; the remainder of the twenty-four hours is spent in useless

wrangles & # 8230 ; -it & # 8217 ; s one unending warfare.

By holding this character take on such a pessimistic tone, he

straight contradicts the evidently over-optimistic tone of Candide.

In the decision ( page 1617 ) an old Turk instructs Candide in the

futility of gratuitous philosophizing by stating that & # 8220 ; & # 8230 ; the work

supports us from three great immoralities, ennui, frailty, and poverty. & # 8221 ; In each

of these illustrations, the character chosen by the writer comes across as

a sensible and respectable individual, doing the writer & # 8217 ; s point of position

look merely as sensible and respectable.

Another technique Voltaire uses in Candide is that of taking

existent people and events and weaving into his work of fiction. He

frequently does this to mock or roast his political and literary

antagonists, as shown in the conversation between the abbe & # 8217 ; and the

Parisian supper invitees ( page 1593 ) . The abbe & # 8217 ; references two critics who

in Voltaires clip have criticized his work. The critics are referred

to as drilling and impudent by the supper invitees. In much the same

mode Alighieri, in The Divine Comedy, has placed many of his enemies

in assorted circles of Hell. In one case ( page 797 ) , Dante himself

pushes one of his political enemies back down into the swampy Waterss

of the river Styx. In Gargantua and Pantagruel, Rabelais mentions a

series of text books which are a portion of the kind of educational

course of study that he is satirising. He ridicules their usage in that it

takes Gargantua so long to larn simple undertakings such as memorising the

alphabet. In each of these instances, the writers are able to talk out

against people or patterns in a manner less confrontational than public

speech production, every bit good as province their sentiment in a signifier where they can non

be instantly contradicted.

Voltarie has juncture to utilize the comedic manner of hyperbole

in Candide, such as the Baron & # 8217 ; s sister declining to get married Candide & # 8217 ; s

father because he can merely turn out 71 quarterings of his household

tree. Later, Candide is sentenced to have a whipping for holding

deserted the Bulgar ground forces.

He must do 36 base on ballss through the

gantlet of two 1000 military personnels. More bizarre illustrations of

hyperbole can be found in Gargantua and Pantagruel, such as the

size of Gargantua & # 8217 ; s female horse ( every bit large as six elephants ) or the weight of

his dumbbells ( each one is eight hundred and five dozenss ) . Beside being

entertaining to read, these hyperboles serve to indicate out the

absurdity of an ideal by demoing it in a absurd visible radiation.

The format in which Candide is written closely resembles that of

Cervante & # 8217 ; s Don Quixote. In both books, the writers have chosen to call

each chapter in a descriptive manner ; the name of the chapter tends to

be a brief description of the action that is to take topographic point within it.

Compare chapter three of Don Quixote, & # 8220 ; Of the amusive mode in which

Don Quixote had himself dubbed a knight. & # 8221 ; with chapter three of

Candide, & # 8220 ; How Candide Escaped from the Bulgars, and What Became of

Him & # 8221 ; . Alighieri uses this method in The Divine Comedy every bit good,

although on a much less descriptive degree. Each of the cantos in his

Divine Comedy has short three or four word descriptions of what

happens in the canto. Many chapters in Candide terminal with some kind of

lede to the following chapter, giving the book a certain feel similar to

today & # 8217 ; s telecasting seriess. This method is used in Don Quixote

( chapter 8 ) , but in a much more dramatic manner. Just as Don Quixote

is about to travel into conflict with the Biscayan, the action is suddenly

halted by the storyteller who describes how the & # 8216 ; original & # 8217 ; writer had non

finished the narrative, but that a & # 8217 ; 2nd & # 8217 ; writer had picked up where the

foremost left off and the action continues in the following chapter. While

Cervantes may hold been jabing merriment at this method by utilizing it in such

an overdone mode, both he and Voltaire use it efficaciously to maintain

the reader & # 8217 ; s attending and do him desire to read on to happen

out what happens following.

In Candide, the narrative is written such that the chief character

and normally one or more comrades have set out on a great journey

filled with escapades. It is in this journey that Candide & # 8217 ; s mentality

on life is challenged ; he is forced to go less optimistic about

this universe being the best of all possible universes. Similarly, in The

Divine Comedy, Dante goes on a journey as good ; through Hell,

Purgatory and Heaven with his usher Virgil. Through his travels he is

shown the mistake of other work forces & # 8217 ; s ways, functioning to remind him of his ain

wickednesss and to set him back on the right way in life. In Don Quixote,

the manque knight-errant sets out with his buddy Sancho Panza on

an escapade excessively ; determined to right wrongs and salvage demoiselles in

hurt. Through the rough worlds of life he finally comes out

of his insanity and sees that his manner of life in his modern universe is

outdated and disused. In puting their characters in these escapades

the writers demonstrate that, through experience with real-world

state of affairss, these work forces seeking to populate by some out-of-date or far-fetched

ideal shortly learn the mistake in their logical thinking and adapt themselves to

the writer & # 8217 ; s manner of thought.

From these illustrations it can be seen how Voltaire, a author from

the Enlightenment period, uses methods from authors centuries before

him to efficaciously pass on his point to his modern-day readers.

The times and issues may be rather different, but the authorship manner

plants merely every bit good for him as it did all the manner back to the twelfth

century.