Introduction to Candide (Ch.1 and 2)

Candide

By: Voltaire

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What were Voltaire's political beliefs?

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"Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static force useful only as a counterbalance since its "religious tax" or the tithe helped to create a strong backing for revolutionaries.

Voltaire at Frederick the Great's Sanssouci. Engraving by Baquoy.
Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses.[citation needed]To Voltaire, only an enlightened monarch or an enlightened absolutist, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of his subjects and kingdom. Voltaire essentially believed enlightened despotism to be the key to progress and change.
He was, however, deeply opposed to the use of war and violence as means for the resolution of controversies, as he repeatedly and forcefully stated in many of his works, including the "Philosophical Dictionary," where he described war as an "infernal enterprise" and those who resort to it "ridiculous murderers." He also believed that Africans were a separate species, inferior to the Europeans, and that ancient Jews were "an ignorant and barbarous people" drawing examples of this from the Old Testament.

Voltaire's château at Ferney, France.
He is best known today for his novel, Candide, ou l'Optimisme (Candide, or Optimism, 1759), which satirized the philosophy of Leibniz. "

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire

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CHAPTERS 1 AND 2

December 10th, 2007

6:44 P.M.

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.....As I read these first two chapters, I quickly realized that there are a bunch of absurdities and sarcasm mixed together to compose this satire.

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.....The first chapter mocks Candide's family feelings of "superiority". His mother would not marry his father because he had a petty family inheritance, yet the mother's family inheritance isn't that much different. Another example of the storyline's absurdity is the wonderful teacher Candide and his cousin had, Mr. Pangloss. He taught "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology". By naming his curriculum such a long name that has a little bit of everything and a little bit of nothing, Voltaire completely mocks whatever credibility the curriculum could have. He just wants to show Pangloss as an arrogant known all that in reality knows nothing. Voltaire wants to show it's a meaningless and ineffective program, that doesn't really teach anything valuable. And education is the foundation for everything. If these people have such education then they aren't the "noble" family they want to appear to be.

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......The second chapter was weirder than the first. The first was full of absurdity and everything but at least it was somewhat realistic. However, the second just seems absurd all the way around (at least that's what I thought at first, as I write I'm realizing it does make sense). At first I was going to say Voltaire was completely out of his mind, but that isn't the case. I think he was to critisize the army's brutality and cruelty. Once Candide is kicked out of the Baron's house, he becomes "enlisted" (because we soon learn it was more like enslaved) in the army with the promise of money, ego feeding, and survival. However, once Candide has regained strength and confidence he decides to leave without notice, not realizing that he doesn't have that freedom. "One fine spring morning he took it into his head to decamp and walked straight off, thinking it a priviledge common to man and beast to use his legs when he wanted. But he had not gone six miles before he was caught, bound, and thrown into a dungeon by four other six-foot heroes (24)." The whole absurdity in this is that as punishment he has to choose "between being floggerd thirty-six times by the whole regiment or having twelve bullets in his brain." How cruel is that? Human instinct is to survive, so obviously he would choose the flogging even if it implies over four thousand floggings. Voltaire ironically called this decision "Liberty." In conclusion, this chapter critisizes the way the army use cruelty and lack of mercy in order to threaten real liberty.