A Retrospective Comparison of Voltaire to Candide

Voltaire was a wise man, yet deeply pessimistic about the entire human race. At a time in history when every institution was in question -religion, philosophy, government, and education- Enlightenment thinkers recited their optimistic theories of reform to each dilemma. Meanwhile, Voltaire, who grew up in a Jesuit school, decided to pursue his literary career on the “coat tails” of his noble bosses in Paris. Here he required his reputation among his contemporaries for his satires and odes.

In his comedic novel Candide, Voltaire’s underlying purpose was to spread his own ideas of Enlightenment, while distantly criticizing the French society. In a point in time when expressing your criticisms publicly could land you in the Bastille (a famous French prison) as Voltaire had been previously, for not so vague works, he masterfully conceals his gripes on religion, and government throughout the novelette.

At his peak, about 1755, Voltaire philosophies led him to conclude that there would never be a perfect world, regardless of what he was leaded to believe. Expressing his pessimistic opinion through satire and wit, this influential writer used one of his many controversial writings, Candide, to indirectly express his views of Enlightenment and what he believed needed reform.

Despite the stereotype of the Enlightenment as a movement of simplistic optimism, Voltaire was extremely negative. With his interests in the philosophical rationalism of the time, and in the study of the natural sciences, his first few works had gotten him either imprisoned or exiled. To condemn other thinkers of the era, Voltaire filled the pages with criticisms of eternal optimism and resilience.

Through the role of Candide, the character is portrayed naÃ?¯vely, getting him into many awkward predicaments. For all his tribulations, Voltaire set a constant sympathetic tone to his readers, all the while mocking the fact that punishment for no real crime really does happen to commoners of France. For example, Candide’s first exploit took place at the University of Coimbra, where listening to his philosopher friend, Dr. Pangloss talk about free will, they were both arrested.

In a superstitious auto-da-fe` display, authorities sacrifice towns people to avoid an earthquake, and our two characters were severely punished for no actual crime. The world of which the novel is set is exaggerated and fantastic; unlike Voltaire’s real perceptions, “He argued that the world could be less bad than it is if we replaced ignorance and superstition with knowledge and rational thought.”

To make things interesting, Candide experiences much superstition and ignorance on his voyage, but still has the everlasting sense of innocence about him. Ignorance comes about with the intolerance of many travelers, authorities, and nobles he meets along the way.

Two odd things about the history with Voltaire, he was known to be intolerant of most other religions, Jews, Christians, Jesuits, Muslims, etc. where as Candide was quite open minded and accepting. Also unfitting of Voltaire’s real thoughts, probably in mockery Candide translates to ‘blank as a white sheet of paper’ or as the title states, optimism.

Candide readily gives money to strangers like Brother Girofl�©e and the poorest deposed king, thinking that maybe his money can make these men happy again, when actually he has more problems with the more wealth he comes across. He honors his commitment to marry Cun�©gonde even after his love for her has faded. He blindly follows the words of Pangloss as he is God, yet he does not fully understand everything he says.

Exaggerating his defeats of purity and innocence, Voltaire’s real life is quite opposite. Growing up in a Jesuit school, Voltaire was well educated with other upper classmen, and with his aristocratic views of the Enlightenment, this is Voltaire’s way of poking fun of the unintelligent, who are still trying to grasp revolutionary concepts of the Enlightenment that have been trickling down through word of mouth from higher class citizens.

In his portrait of a contemporary thinker, Pangloss’s philosophy encourages a passive and content attitude towards all that is wrong in the world, whether it be that citizens are repressed from free speech, or being taxed to death, he sees no progress in revolting. It seems that Voltaire is talking through Pangloss here, but he figures if this world is the best world possible, than there is no reason to make any effort to change things perceived as evil or wrong.

For instance, besides the many tragic things that had happen to the pair of travelers, when Pangloss’s patron Jacques is drowning in the bay of Lisbon, Pangloss prevents Candide from trying to rescue him by “proving that the bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for [Jacques] to drown in.” The consequence of this mode of thinking is that, “while [Pangloss] was proving the point a priori, the vessel opened up and everyone perished.”

Pangloss and his student Candide maintain the idea that “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” This idea is a reductively simplified version of the philosophies of a number of Enlightenment thinkers, especially one in particular that Voltaire had a history of contradicting: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. To these thinkers, the existence of any evil in the world would have to be a sign that God is either not entirely good or not almighty, and the idea of an imperfect God is illogical.

These philosophers took for granted that God exists, and concluded that since God must be perfect, the world he created must be perfect also. More importantly, according to these philosophers, people perceived imperfections in the world only because they do not understand God’s master plan. Because Voltaire does not accept that a perfect God (or any God) has to exist, he scorns the idea that the world must be completely good, and he loads satire on this idea throughout the novel.

Throughout the unforgiving parody, Voltaire uses this vision of the perfect world, God, and in some cases government systems to criticize contemporary philosophers. Showing his true satirical wit, our authors true feelings of humanity poke fun at the optimists, Pangloss and Candide, who suffered and/or witnessed a wide variety of horrors – floggings, rapes, robberies, unjust executions, disease, an earthquake, and betrayals. These horrors do not serve any apparent greater good, but point only to the cruelty and foolishness of humankind and the apathy of the natural world. Here Voltaire has fun with the fact that through extenuating circumstances; these weary men can keep their spirits up, instead of turning negative, as he and many underclass citizens had at the turn of the century.

Despite the absolute optimism Voltaire wrote of, at this time in France, skepticism ran high – questioning, talking and debating everything possible. In accordance with Voltaire, thinkers did focus criticisms on the church, particularly the institutions. Everyone touched by the Enlightenment was calling for freedom, searching for the truth, and sources of truth sparked by the Scientific Revolution in the mid 1600’s.

Throughout the novel, Pangloss struggles to find justification for the terrible things in the world, but his arguments are simply meaningless, as, for example, when he claims that syphilis needed to be transmitted from the Americas to Europe so that Europeans could enjoy New World delicacies such as chocolate. In order for the joy of chocolate to be experienced, Pangloss (Voltaire) believed there had to be a counter reaction, as those travelers suffered from venturing to get the New World treasures.

In his mind this theory proved syphilis needed to be experienced for the common good of the world to simply experience chocolate as well. More intelligent and experienced characters, such as the old woman, Martin, and Cacambo, have already reached pessimistic conclusions about humanity and the world. Shadowing how Voltaire’s ideas of Enlightenment were to spread though his readers, by the novel’s end, even Pangloss was forced to admit that he doesn’t believe a word of his own previous optimistic conclusions.

His companion, Martin, is as extreme a pessimist, much like the Anti-Semitic, Anti-Christian Voltaire. Martin was so bad that Candide questioned as to whether or not he was inhabited by the devil! Martin even takes question with Candide’s statement that “there is some good” in the world. This fully reflects Voltaire’s attitude towards the world, a man who had money, shelter, and a constant source of food. Imagine since the majority was in poverty, how pessimistic they would have to be. Martin and Voltaire fit together as Enlightenment skeptics.

If one character was to portray Voltaire, it would be Martin. Rebelling from his roots, Voltaire showed his thoughts of completely undermining religion structurally through the negativity of Martin, clearly showing his criticisms to readers of today. In similar form, Pangloss and Martin surprisingly agree on ideas that discourage any active efforts to change the world for the better. If, as Martin asserts, “man [is] bound to live either in convulsions of misery or in the lethargy of boredom,” why should anyone try to rescue anyone else from “convulsions of misery”?

Voltaire prefers elastic philosophies based on real evidence than rigid assertions based on abstractions. Absolute optimism and absolute pessimism both fall into the latter category, because they will admit no exceptions. Candide’s optimism seems to hit an all-time low after Vanderdendur cheats him; it is at this point that he chooses to make the pessimist Martin his traveling companion to Eldorado. On the way there, he recovers part of his fortune when a Spanish captain sinks Vanderdendur’s ship.

Candide takes this as proof that there is justice in the world, but Martin unwaveringly disagrees. As stated by Howard E. Hugo in Masterpieces of Neoclassicism “Perhaps it is the vision of Eldorado that saves Candide (and Voltaire) from complete despair. For a brief time the hero is allowed to dwell in a never-never land, a composite of all the utopian dreams of the Enlightenment.” This utopian country has advanced scientific knowledge, no religious conflict, no court system, and places no value on its plentiful gold and jewels, for the streets were littered with them. In a perfect society such as this, Enlightenment advocates would want to achieve this “Eldorado” status. Ironically that is why it was mentioned in the story, for it is merely a far fetched dream the underprivileged daydream of.

Throughout the adventure, Candide’s up and down emotions reflect his views on the world as he knows it, for he is still learning what is going to be made of him. Despite the optimism Cacambo inspires, however, he is no optimist himself. His wide experience of the world has led Cacambo to conclude that “the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor.” When he is traveling with Cacambo his perspective looks light, yet afterwards while he relates to Martin and his grim attitude, he feels that God is not so compassionate.

As Candide searches for something to believe in, Voltaire mocks religion throughout the book. He believed that religious organizations, particularly the Catholic Church were corrupt. He thought they were useless and designed to merely control people while benefiting from its members. Voltaire railed against the Catholic Church not because he was a wicked man who wanted freedom to sin, but because he viewed it as a source and safeguard of evil, taking advantage of all the followers that worshipped. He felt that no change in terms of Enlightenment he wanted was possible without undermining the power of the Church; that is why he devoted so much of his attention to ridiculing and discrediting it. In an attempt to damper ideas, the Catholic Church declared the Enlightenment dead around this time, mid eighteenth century, yet the thoughts had never been more alive.

Voltaire satirizes organized religion by means of a series of corrupt, two-faced religious leaders who appear all over the novel. The reader encounters the daughter of a Pope, a man who as a Catholic priest should have been celibate; an assertive Catholic Inquisitor who hypocritically keeps a mistress; and a Franciscan friar who operates as a jewel thief, despite the vow of poverty taken by members of the Franciscan order. Religious leaders in the tale also carry out merciless acts of spiritual oppression against those who oppose them on even the smallest of theological matters. For example, as mentioned earlier, the Inquisition attempts to hang Pangloss for expressing his ideas and flogs Candide for merely listening to them.

Though Voltaire provides these numerous examples of hypocrisy and immorality in religious leaders, he does not condemn the everyday religious believer. For example, James, a member of a radical Protestant division called the Anabaptists, is arguably presented as the most generous and humane character in the novel. For example, in the midst of a storm, James took a blow to the head by a fellow sailor who in turn fell overboard, but James extended his arm to help the falling assassin and ended up falling to his own death, another sick twist of fate from Voltaire.

In spite of Catholicism, and their view of inevitable perish, death seems to be unattainable for most characters. In an analysis of Candide, William Bottiglia states on the subject of infallible death in the book Voltaire: A collection of critical essays, “The function of these “resurrections” in the novel gets confusing, for death, the only misfortune from which one would never expect a character to recover, actually proves to be reversible.” On the other hand, the characters that get resurrected are generally those whose existence with Candide does more harm than good.

Each resurrected figure embodies a harmful aspect of human nature: CunÃ?©gonde reveals the shallowness of beauty, greed for wealth, and fickleness of love. Pangloss’s optimism represents folly, and the baron’s snobbery represents arrogance and narrow-minded social oppression. Through these characters’ miraculous resurrections, Voltaire may be trying to tell his readers that these traits will never die in society.

Skillfully enough, Voltaire certainly got his point across, whether it was about his views of philosophical Enlightenment, or the oppression by the church. This novel proved successful at the time of print, for everyone at the time was eager for change. As it so happened in Voltaire’s life with his joyous homecoming to Paris before his death, at the novel’s conclusion, with no time or leisure for idle speculation, he and the other characters find the happiness that has so long eluded them.