Voltaire: Candide

Themes for Discussion

• Philosophies of justification are ridiculed for standing in the way of change
  • The status quo (Old Regime) vs progress (Enlightenment)
  • Pangloss represents the justification of the status quo
    • Every bad event is met with an absurd justification
      • Candide's injury during the Lisbon earthquake
      • Jacques' death
    • All talk - no action
• Ridicules the position and power of aristocracy
  • Kings without kingdoms
  • Contrast the Baron's portrayal from beginning to end.
• Ridicules the organized church/religions
  • Reflects the Enlightenment's contempt for large bureaucracies of oppression
    • Protestants and their lack of charity in Holland
    • Portrayal of Jesuits and Jews reflects Voltaire's own particular history
• Deism - Belief in a perfect God of creation that no longer is involved in the life of the created
  • Deism of Eldorado
  • Contrast the opening of the story (garden of creation) to the end (farm to be tended
• Critics and "experts" - a.k.a. Pococurante - satirized
• Sculpture of Voltaire by Houdon

"We must tend our gardens"

• The defining quote of the Enlightenment
  • Work is better than vain speculation - action is better than talk
  • A deist motif - God created the world, but man must tend this world
• An intellectual call to action

Humanities Resource of Mark Hunter