Satire In Alexander Pope's Essay On Man

Several significant pieces of literature were written and published during the Age of Reason. This period of time was mainly defined by the shift in philosophic principle from religion to human reasoning. Some authors did not agree with this new way of thinking and kept their writings more in line with the older, religious ways of thought. Other authors fully embraced this shift in thinking and wrote corresponding literature that occasionally ridiculed the older ways of life and philosophy. Satire became the main medium by which authors voiced their disagreement with a particular way of thinking. Prominent authors such as Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, and Jean-Baptiste Moliere used satire heavily in their works to make their opinions on issues
The work is a satire on philosophic optimism that is in complete opposition to Alexander Pope and his Essay on Man. Pope’s work is primarily meant to vindicate the ways of God to man through philosophic optimism. Philosophic optimism is the belief that everything will turn out well in the end. Voltaire disagreed with the idea of philosophic optimism. He shows his disagreement by making a mockery of the belief through the extreme events that he puts his characters through and one’s unwavering optimistic view on life’s events. The main satirical device used throughout this story is hyperbole. Candide and his comrades experience one insane scenario after the other and are somehow still alive after it all to tell their tale. Candide’s tutor Pangloss is the medium through which all of Voltaire’s distaste for optimism shines through. He believes that “everything necessarily serves the best end” (Voltaire 101) and clings unwaveringly to this theory throughout the entire story despite the trials he sees and suffers through himself. Closely related to the criticism of optimism is Voltaire’s criticism of organized religion which often includes a god as a power that has a divine purpose for everything that occurs. Voltaire
The main character, Tartuffe, is an extreme religious imposter who exemplifies the hypocrisy that Moliere believes is present in the church. Orgon represents the gullible general public who believes anything that they are told by a member of the clergy. Moliere uses the difference between Orgon and the more sensible Cleante to present the differing ideas of how truly religious people present themselves. Cleante believes that honest worship is a private event and that “those who groan and lay prostrate” (Moliere, 1.5, l. 97) are insincere. Orgon has the exact opposite belief and the airs that Tartuffe put on were what originally drew Orgon to him. While Moliere does attack certain aspects of religion, and mostly Christianity, he does not appear to be against the actual religion, only the hypocrisy present in it. Despite this, the Catholic Church was offended by Moliere’s work and he was criticized and censored for