Scene Analysis of Candide by Voltaire
Uploaded by snwboarder on Oct 27, 2011
This paper analyzes a scene from Candide as an example of Voltaire’s doctrine of the pursuit of happiness.
I Introduction
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.
II Candide
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.
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...