Candide By Christopher Donney World History

Christopher Donney World History P.7 Candide was a book written by Francois- Marie Arouet also known as Voltaire in 1759, and takes place in Switzerland. The book was about the journey’s of young man named Candide and the things he experienced and the people he met throughout his journey. Candide was first published by Dover Publications in New York, 1991. This book was chosen for me to read so that I could gain full understanding of what it was like to live in that time period and the distinct ways of life that were practiced. For example certain religious problems were shown throughout the book such as the corrupt system of government lead by the church. During this time period religious leaders had full control over the state and
Voltaire expressed his opinions frequently throughout the book on how the government was corrupt and hypocritical (Voltaire 55).

In class we have been studying the normalities and events that occurred in the time period of Voltaire but after reading Candide I can picture it more vividly than ever before because I get to experience these events as if I am Candide. In Candide Voltaire allows me to gain insight on how he felt on his journey and that is very important for my course so that anything I wasn’t certain about is confirmed. Some practical information in this book would be the way of living during this time period, traditions, and religious ideas. This knowledge could be useful in future classes where we discuss the life of philosophers such as Voltaire.

Voltaire wrote Candide to be able to express his views on the philosophy of the 18th century and on how he disagreed with it.
I believe that Voltaire’s goal for this novel was to inform the audience of his beliefs and the reasons behind them. Voltaire manages to show these points by writing a story of a young man living in this time period; but base the character around his beliefs. I found Candide to be written to an optimistic audience who are re-examining the way they think and Voltaire intended to help them make a decision about their thoughts. Voltaire writes about the city of El Dorado and how everyone follows one religion and agrees about everything, making the city a very peaceful place (Voltaire 54). Voltaire expresses how even though they all agree does not make it write and throughout the book he emphasizes how important it is to question authority. Although Voltaire makes very good points it does not change my viewpoint because if everyone questioned power the world would be unbearable and anarchy would be everywhere, similar to how the enlightenment played a part in starting the French
Revolution.

The key ideas behind Candide included hypocrisy, religion, and corrupt power.
Hypocrisy and corrupt power can be seen throughout the book when he talks about how religious leaders are corrupt and all hypocrites. To summarize the key points of the novel I would conclude that no matter what, power is corrupt in certain ways and religious rulers during that time period were hypocrites. Voltaire had a strong dislike for Christianity and everything it stood for because he felt that he deserved equal rights. Religious leaders claimed that everyone deserved things equally but in reality what they promised was not true. Candide can be related to to modern day society because politics is still full of hypocrites who have power. The only difference is that power is not determined by religion, but the idea stands on how most politicians are hypocrites that promise one thing but never end up doing what they say they
will.

Personally I thought the idea behind the story was well developed but the story itself was not well executed. I feel that if Voltaire was a better writer the story would have been more interesting to follow and get the reader more involved with the text. It is made clear to the reader what the author’s purpose was for writing the book. Although he may have fulfilled his purpose the way he got it across was not as good as it could have been if Voltaire put more thought behind the story. It was claimed that Voltaire wrote this story in nearly 3 days and this can be seen clearly by the quality of the writing, it seems rushed and not completely thought out (Julian Barnes, A Candid View of Candide, theguardian.com).

I found it interesting that for one small mistake or disagreement Candide was banished from the castle and forced to survive on his own. I believe that the whole story was based behind an event that seemed unfair and the stories theme was about inequality and fairness. For example Voltaire writes, “The Baron chanced to come by; he beheld the cause and effect, and, without hesitation, saluted Candide with some notable kicks on the breech and drove him out of doors.” on page 2. To me this shows how Candide was harshly punished even though Cunegonde was the one to start the kiss with Candide. On the other hand I found it uninteresting or boring how the story dragged on longer than I felt it should have. Voltaire did manage to keep the story going even though certain events were not important and unnecessary for the story to develop. Candide was a novel that taught me many things and I did think it was worth reading even though I may not have enjoyed reading the book.

Candide did a great job of enhancing my knowledge on the time period and I learned a few interesting things that I have not heard before. Although Candide may not have been the most entertaining book, it was educational and as a student I would say that I gained more understanding in the subject area and as a scholar. If I had to choose to recommend this book to a friend or not, I would make my decision based off of what type of book they like; informative or entertaining. Candide is more of a book that is informative and less exciting, but for an informative book I would say it is very good. After reading Candide my view on the time period has not changed because prior to reading Candide we talked about the time period and Voltaire just backed up what I already knew. Overall, I would say that Candide was an interesting story and very educational.