Voltaire's Use Of Optimism In Candide
By questioning the indifference, greed, treachery and corruption of the existing institutions, Candide fails to understand the submission of the majority and their optimism. This taken for granted attitude might be explained by human nature which “is readily prone to finding “lessons” in disasters because any system of order to which we may appeal seems better than no system at all (Mason, 1990, p4) . Hence, Voltaire’s satire of optimistic philosophy in the character of Pangloss. Candide’s tutor advocates “the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” which believes that “this world is the best of all possible worlds”. Throughout the novella, Pangloss holds on his optimism to the end and explains all that befalls men by the cause and effect principle. He asserts "I
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. for, after all, I am a philosopher; and it would not become me to retract my sentiments." He is convinced that Jacques drowned in the Bay of Lisbon because “(it) had been formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in”, that syphilis was something indispensable in the best of worlds, a necessary ingredient; for, if Columbus in an island of America had not caught this disease . . . we should not have chocolate and cochineal” (11, 58-63) and that “noses were made to wear spectacles”, “legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches” and “stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles” ( Chapter 1, pg. 4). Candide, who believes naively in his tutor’s views, grows disillusioned by the end of the novel and abandons optimism. He exclaimed “it is the mania of maintaining that everything is well when we are wretched.'" (Chapter 19, p. 83) and adds “'I confess that when I consider this globe, or rather this globule, I think that God has abandoned it to some evil creature[.]'"(Chapter 20, p. 90). He asks Pangloss in another chapter “'[W]hen you were hanged, dissected, stunned with blows and made to row in the galleys, did you always think that everything was for the best in this world?'"
. for, after all, I am a philosopher; and it would not become me to retract my sentiments." He is convinced that Jacques drowned in the Bay of Lisbon because “(it) had been formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in”, that syphilis was something indispensable in the best of worlds, a necessary ingredient; for, if Columbus in an island of America had not caught this disease . . . we should not have chocolate and cochineal” (11, 58-63) and that “noses were made to wear spectacles”, “legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches” and “stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles” ( Chapter 1, pg. 4). Candide, who believes naively in his tutor’s views, grows disillusioned by the end of the novel and abandons optimism. He exclaimed “it is the mania of maintaining that everything is well when we are wretched.'" (Chapter 19, p. 83) and adds “'I confess that when I consider this globe, or rather this globule, I think that God has abandoned it to some evil creature[.]'"(Chapter 20, p. 90). He asks Pangloss in another chapter “'[W]hen you were hanged, dissected, stunned with blows and made to row in the galleys, did you always think that everything was for the best in this world?'"