Candide by Voltaire Analysis Essay Example

Voltaire uses the life of Candide to show his skepticism of Optimism in the world. Throughout the book, Candide is constantly tested when it comes to luck, and unfortunately it never goes well for him. Candide is consistently being hit with obstacles, even from the first few chapters of the book. Every time Candide is hit with an obstacle, Pangloss is there, saying it is the best of all worlds, and that Candide should stay optimistic. When things finally start to go well for Candide, unfortunately for him, they go right back to being negative once again. 

Candide’s character is used by Voltaire as a vessel to show the progression away from optimism in one's life, and unfortunately for Candide, Voltaire is very cynical/skeptical of optimism. Candide starts off as a naïve boy, who takes Pangloss's teachings very seriously. Candide starts off as a Naïve child, who in the beginning of the book, we see fall in love with Cunegonde. When Candide kisses Cunegonde, he is banished from the castle, and forced to live on his own. This is where we begin to see his optimism fade away. When Candide is kicked out of the castle, he is forced to join the Bulgar army. 

Candide is abused and beaten in the army and is shocked when he sees the brutality of war. In response to this, Candide uses the free will he thinks all people have, and flees the Bulgar army. He is soon caught and when he is, he is tried for deserting. It is at this moment when Candide begins to realize he does not have as much free will as he initially thought, and his optimism on how the world works is slightly lowered. This, however, is only the first stage of failure for Candide’s optimism. At this point in time, Candide is still an optimist, and still tries to look at everything in the best possible light. 

On top of using Candide to show the progression of optimism, Voltaire uses Pangloss as a vessel to make fun of optimists. Voltaire makes Pangloss look progressively more like a moron, and less like an intelligent philosopher. No matter what happens to Pangloss, he always glosses over everything and acts as though nothing happened. “All events are linked together in the best of all possible worlds.” In the beginning of the book, Pangloss has every right to be an optimist. Pangloss is living in a big castle, he is living comfortably as a tutor, and has no worries. When Candide is banished, it is not until a bit later in the book where we see Pangloss. At this point in time, we really get to see Voltaire’s true view on optimists. Pangloss is sick with Syphilis, and instead of feeling bad for himself, or trying to recover, he explains to a distraught Candide that getting syphilis is a good thing. “For if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease which is evidently opposite to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.” Pangloss in this quote is explaining how because Columbus brought syphilis to the new world, they now had the joys of chocolate; even though he is sick, Columbus bringing said sickness to the new world also brought sweets, and because of this, everything is ok. 

This is not the only place we truly see how dumb Voltaire tries to make Pangloss appear. Throughout the book, Pangloss experiences earthquakes, war, being robbed, being hanged; and every single time something bad happens to him, he finds a way to explain why the tragedies happening around them are actually a good thing. Perhaps the most obscure viewpoint Pangloss demonstrates is during the earthquakes and volcanoes. At this point in the book, they had just experienced the Lisbon earthquake, which killed between 30 and 40 thousand people. Instead of feeling sorry for those who have fallen, or those who were injured, Pangloss’ initial reaction was that the disaster was actually a good thing. “All that is, is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.” 

Throughout the book, we see Pangloss follows a very straight path, never changing his mindset, and always staying optimistic. “’It is demonstrable,’ said he, ‘that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end.’”. Pangloss maintains this viewpoint, which is Voltaire’s way of saying optimists are stupid, and they have no real logic behind their thinking.  

As Voltaire continues to throw obstacles in the way of Candide, he progressively became more skeptical of optimism, as reflects Voltaire’s view on the philosophy. Although it’s not a straight path, it is a back and forth journey that progressively has a negative trend. Candide goes from being parallel to Pangloss's mindset, to gradually drifting off course, and by the time we get to the end, Candide is far from an optimist. Voltaire is trying to convey the message that although we may begin our lives overly optimistic, it is natural that we see the true nature of the world and evolve our mindsets to a more skeptical pragmatist mindset. Voltaire is quoted as saying “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.” Voltaire is in the mindset that optimism is not the best viewpoint on the world and if anything, is far from the best period. Voltaire believes that optimists are delusional, and he does an excellent job of conveying this through Pangloss.  

Voltaire uses Candide and Pangloss as vessels to show his view on optimists. He especially uses Pangloss to show how dumb the philosophy really is. Voltaire uses Candide to show the progression of optimism in one’s life. Candide starts off as a young naïve child, and progresses, loses his innocence, and towards the end is far from an optimist. Voltaire uses Pangloss and Candide to convey two separate paths; one path is of a delusional optimist, who never seems to evolve in his mindset, and the other is of a young boy, who starts of as an optimist, but over time begins to experience the real world for himself, and exponentially becomes more cynical. These two paths, although they started off the same, split off. Throughout life we learn about the real world, and experience both the good and the bad of everything, and in Voltaire’s eyes, we need to experience it all, and have both negative and positive opinions of everything. Not everything is all good, and not everything is all bad, and Candide is the perfect vessel of optimism gone bad. 

Shows the progression away from optimism, realistic path vs unicorns and rainbows. Blind faith and trusting in a god you can’t see.