As in many pieces of literature which have been written by man, an entourage of minor characters accompanies most of the Candide and which have been known to be used as a way of assisting and, or even hampering his journey. Voltaire in his book Candide has used a number of minor characters in a way of expressing his personal ideas and criticisms of contemporary French society and politics (Voltaire, 2). In the work of literature, Voltaire’s complaints had been on the issues of French politics, the society, and culture which faced the country during the years of the early eighteenth century.
One of the most outstanding minor characters to have been used by Voltaire is Martin in the epic in an attempt to make him the major spokesman of his own complaints which had been greatly faced within the French society during the time of his writing. In the epic, it is worth noting that Martin has been presented as an ‘old scholar’ of the modern time and whose understanding is purely philosophical and a bit of reflection of Voltaire’s own living opinions. Martin in the book has thus been drafted by his friend, Candide, towards coming to the finale and conclusion of his own adventures. This is seen clearly when he becomes Candide’s favorite companion during the time of Cacambo departure. Martin has thus been mostly presented and clearly able to represent Voltaire’s own personal opinions and sentiments which he found to have become a rot within the French society in particular. This has been necessarily not at all browning from Pangloss’ theory, either in its pure form or shape (Voltaire, 3).
It is as well through the use of Martin’s words that Voltaire expresses these imbalances in the society and hence viewing the church and religious institutions as the only rightful approach which would have been adopted so as to make sure that all people were brought together in harmony and thus be able to address some of these problems. Such has ever since been presented by historians and philosophers as the exact opinions which Voltaire held and believed would effectively heal society. Although it will be agreed that the novel Candide had been a form of work which had been partially written in order to give entertainment to the people, it had also been a very important tool by the author to effectively satirize some of the views which had been held by peoples and philosophers of the time such as Leibniz. Voltaire thus used Martin and other minor characters in looking intently at the universe in particular and thus come up with the idea in which something quite significant could be done in order to address the political imbalances and pains which had become commonplace within the society. So as to satirize the philosophy of Leibniz, he used Martin as a benchmark and thus being able to tear apart Pangloss and his downplaying philosophy (Voltaire, 3).
Through the use of Martin, yet a minor character in the novella, Voltaire was able to specifically show the main form of destruction which had caused some of the natural disasters as well as the brutality which came about due to men’s involvements in war. According to Voltaire as he has been able to pass across in the novella, it can be seen that the society of the country had been spoiled apart by the poor kinds of policies and political philosophies which had been bringing many problems in the country (Voltaire, 4). In that case, it is through the use of minor characters surrounding the life of Candide that he was able to point out some of these issues in a complaining tone and as well give adequate solutions on how the existing problems could be competently solved.
Works Cited
Voltaire. Candide. 2009. Web.