Voltaire’s novella Candide is a satirical piece of literature that lampoons ideologies, and values that man adopts without critical reflection. The story line adopts mystery, tragedy, irony, satire and the paranormal to challenge the dominant beliefs that existed in eighteenth century Europe. Some of the ideas that the novella challenges are related to wealth, love, and virtue.
His criticism on wealth is illustrative in the fate of his rich uncle’s family in German where he first lived as an illegitimate nephew. After his expulsion he comes to learn that the castle was attacked, plundered, most of his relatives killed. Stylistically, the author uses this tragic situation to illustrate the vanity and limits of wealth. The second illustration is in the land of Eldorado where Candide finds the streets littered with gold, treasure and peace (Voltaire 553). Despite the initial fascination he leaves this land of plenty and goes back to his usual lands of strife and struggle. His eventual marriage to Cunegonde despite earlier opposition from her baron father and brother shows the triumph of a commoner over the superstitions of the rich.
Voltaire’s lampooning of love expresses itself in the search of love between Candide and Cunegonde. The odds that oppose the relationship have been constructed to destabilize lofty assumptions on love. The novella shows that love should not be hinged on the superficial qualities of beauty, class, and time. The author seems to suggest that love should be tested through difficulties so that only the ideal one survives. Despite the rape ordeals that Cunegonde undergoes Candide does not lose his interest in her. He makes sacrifices and marries her at a time when she has shed off much of her beauty. It is a relationship that lasts through time and distance.
The question of God and virtue is brought into focus. At the beginning of the book Pangloss tells Candide that God is entirely good and would not abandon his own. But this teaching falls apart in the harsh experiences of rejection, violence, enslavement which Candide has to endure. In the end Candide learns to emulate the simplicity of some farmer who leads a quiet life and tills his land with undivided attention. Candide realizes that good life is anchored on simplicity and virtue (Voltaire 574). The simple farmer who guides them into this truth appears to challenge the lofty philosophies of life, and religious ideologies that the other characters in the novella have attempted to adopt in their tumultuous lives.
The novella Candide is Voltaire creative attempt to reunite humanity to the purpose of reflecting through the dominant ideologies and values that govern their lives. The book might be thought of as a philosophical attempt by the author to create some new order in the world that would rescue humanity by redirecting their focus to the natural gifts of life around them. The vanity of life as captured in the baron’s life at beginning of the book is contrasted with the peaceful life of the simple farmer at the end in a way that lampoons the superficial while celebrating simplicity (Voltaire 574).
It might be argued at this point that the earthquakes, wars, storms, and journey’s that the lead characters experience are a metaphor of search for the good life.
Works Cited
Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet. “Candide.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. 2. Susan Lawall. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002-580. Print.