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