Voltaires Candide Through My Present Day View

Term Paper Title	Voltaires Candide Through My Present Day View
# of Words	1059
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.24

Voltaire's Candide Through My Present Day View

The world as I see it is not perfect.  In this present day and age there are some people that like to believe that god created a beautiful planet, but I believe the devil should receive some credit for its creation also.  One of the world’s greatest satires, Candide by Voltaire, some characters feel the same way that I do. However others do not.  Martin, a skeptic thinks this is not “the best of all possible worlds” (“Candide”102), as Dr. Pangloss would say.  My present worldview is more close to the view of the eighteenth century character Martin, in the book Candide.  Martin, an old philosopher who embarked with candide shows strong pessimistic views. Candide is pretty much a follower and is not a very intelligent man.  He looks up to Dr.  Pangloss, his mentor.  I disagree with candide’s point of view on life, because he is a follower of another man and doesn’t know how to live his own life.

Through out the book Candide many of the characters die horrible deaths.  The entire book is mainly a satire attacking simple human follies and frailties.  The vice being ironically attacked here is optomisticism.  Most of the characters are killed brutally or hurt fiercely for some of the most stupid reasons.  One incident from the book involves Candide reuniting with his old master dr. Pangloss.  Early in the book Candide reunites with Dr. Pangloss scabbed, spitting out teeth, and choking.  Pangloss is diseased with syphilis.  Pangloss obtained this disease from a slave girl named Paquette.  This disease was brought from America with Christopher Columbus.  “It was a a thing unavoidable, a neccessary ingredient in the best of all worlds ... ”(Candide8).  This is one of the experiences that candide goes trough that makes it hard to believe that this was the best of all possible worlds, as Pangloss constantly assures him.  Personally, I would accept this situation.  This world is plagued with pestilences of great measure.  I have had friends die of diseases and I just accept the fact that it happens.

Earlier Candide falls in love with a woman named Cunegonde.  Cunegonde dies, but comes back later on in the book.  From meeting with Pangloss, Candide learns that Cunegonde died earlier.  In a situation like that I would react as Candide did.  However, death is a part of life.  Sadly, in real life people just don’t come back a couple of weeks later.  I have had many friends and family die, and I know how that feels.  Later on in the book, in France (Candide XXII), Candide cheated on Cunegonde while she was supposedly sick in a hotel.  It turned out that the woman in the bed was not Cunegonde.  If I were in a scenario like that, where I am faced with a chance to cheat on a woman I loved I probably would not do it.  I have cheated on various girlfriends before, but I hardly loved any of them.  That is how messed up this world is.

In Europe, Candide ran in a guantlet in Bulgaria.  He was beat countless times by men.  This situation  shows h...

Read entire document