Answer TWO of
the following, and remember, give a short paragraph response and be thoughtful. I would rather you respond with confusion and detail rather than too briefly being certain.
Q1: In many
ways, Candide is a book about
education: how do young people learn to be adults in the modern world (of the
18th century, that is)? What lessons do Candide and Cunegonde receive
in right and wrong, and are either of them forced to corrupt their “good”
nature simply to prosper in the world? Does success require a moral sacrifice
for Voltaire?
Q2: El Dorado is
a fabled paradise in the New World, which many explorers, including Sir Walter
Raleigh, spent their lives trying to find. Lucky for him, Candide stumbles
right onto it. What does Candide see in El Dorado that goes against the very
nature of European civilization? Why might this entire passage be an elaborate
satire of tradition and the idea of “whatever is, is right”?
Q3: After the
incident with the monkeys, Candide remarks, “What all is said and done, there
is a sterling goodness in unsophisticated Nature; for instead of eating me,
these people behaved most politely as soon as they learnt that I was not a
Jesuit” (72). How is Candide guilty of adopting Pangloss’ philosophy too
literally here? And what other views/voices does he seem to echo in this
passage?
Q4: How do the
two new characters, Cacambo and Martin add to the satire of the novel? What new
perspective does one, or both, offer, and how do they help us see aspects of
the world that Candide is too young and ignorant to notice?
QUESTION ONE:
ReplyDeleteIf Candide is a story about people trying to figure out how which philosophy will guide them the most smoothly through this world, it’s also about the failures of philosophy, because there is no perfect equation to get us through life. Free will unbalances the best of them. Candide and Cunegonde begin as fairly innocent characters, but end up just as corrupt as the rest of society. Cunegonde comes to view her body as a product to be sold; Candide takes the lives of others for expediency (The Grand Inquisitor, Don Issachar) and for petty rage (The Baron, for not blessing his marriage to his sister), and treasures vengeance at the cost of others (the Dutch pirate and the passengers on his ship). He’s just as selfish as everyone else, but Voltaire, through him, is showing us that everyone thinks of themselves as the main character in their story, and their decisions justified.
QUESTION TWO:
The irony of the El Dorado chapters is that, even though Candide has spent the book seeking the best of all worlds, he can’t be happy when he finds it. The characters in Voltaire’s work play witness to all varieties of prejudice, but can’t surmount their own—a basic one, possessed by people of most religions, genders, and ages. It’s the idea that a price must be put on the things we love/need, and that ‘value’ is only that which makes some people better than others. Candide and his valet find that idea subverted when they see diamonds and rubies treated like gravel.
The thing is, I don’t think that Voltaire really believes that the philosophy that runs El Dorado is impossible. Good, selfless people exist—he acknowledges that with the Anabaptist. But El Dorado itself is impossible, because the only way to create it would be for ‘good’ people to seclude themselves—and they never would, because to abandon those in need would go against the selfless philosophy.
Great responses--and I agree, he knows that good people exist, but not good societies. Or at least not good societies that don't isolate themselves from the world. Society is compromised by people who seek to take advantage of it for selfish ends, and destroy the fragile social contract of civilization.
Delete1. People in this world learn through a very unforgiving system of trial and error. One mistake and you're out, no three strikes to be had here. They also try and justify this cut-throat world through various philosophies with varying degrees of success. Mostly, though it is never explicitly phrased this way, the rule of thumb is that whoever has the gun (or sword, army, power, ect.) makes the rules. Because Cunegonde was at the mercy of soldiers she's learned, quite brutally, that her only saving grace is her beauty and buys each day through that. Candide learns, through sheer force of will that everything he does will eventually be rewarded, even if through dumb luck. And because he suffers along the way he believes he earns his way through life solely because he suffered and all his actions are justified and right. I'm not sure if success requires moral sacrifice for Voltaire though. There are parts where, if Candide was truly a good person, he would have been fine. He could have changed everything for everyone else, even. I think it's more about how corrupt their society is and people who are genuinely good suffer until they become corrupted too. Or, you know, die soon after meeting Candide.
ReplyDelete2. By basically all appearances, El Dorado is paradise for Candide. He should WANT to stay and be happy that he found the one place that won't burn him at the stake for haplessly stumbling into trouble or treat him like dirt. They believe in equality and their religious practice is quite easy going, completely unlike Europe. If this was a post modern book, we'd stay in El Dorado for a bit longer until something comes up to reveal an ugly truth, but since we don't, we can only assume that El Dorado is absolutely perfect. Especially by the low standards of what Candide should desire based on prior experience. As for it being satire, i could really see where this is coming from. How many people complain about how bad life is, but if they were to find 'paradise', they'd leave soon after because it wasn't 'right'? Certainly Candide. He wants all the trappings of the Old World while complaining how it isn't like the New World where everyone is equal and no one is burned alive because of earthquakes or the like. The only way he'd be happy is if he was king of everything. I bet if he actually got to settle down on a nice estate with Cunegonde he'd yearn for something else. Considering his track record, it would probably be something stupid, like his neighbor's stables or garden. And then he'd be right back where he was. On the run and thoroughly convinced that he didn't do anything wrong.
Kenia Starry
question 2. El Dorado is a land of plenty and equality. it seems no one goes hungry, there aren't any priests, criminals, or greed. gold and precious stones literally litter the ground and the people throw them away. people help one another and everyone thanks god morning and night for what he has provided. compare this to candide's Europe and it looks like heaven on earth. when candide sees all of this he cannot believe his eyes. no priests to burn people at the stake? no soldiers to rape and pillage villagers? no money to obtain power and status? surely this seemed ridiculous to him. but by pangloss' philosophy then El Dorado is the best of all possible worlds, yet candide wasn't satisfied by it and so he left. everyone goes through their whole lives looking for paradise but never finding it and if they did find it they wouldn't like it or couldn't recognize it. with the satire on tradition I'm not sure i see it within the chapters, the only thing i can come up with is satireing the traditions of Europe at the time by calling them crazy.
Deletequestion 4
martin is the physical representation of pessimism while to me cacambo represents reason. i say that about cacambo because when candide told him to talk to the natives he wanted him to be harsh and rebuke them for being cannibals but instead he said he understood their reasoning behind it and thought it only fair for them to eat their enemies. cacambo suggests to me that the European way isn't the only way, in opposition to candide's best possible worlds view. martin is ying to candide's yang, candide is the hopeless optimist the sees the good in the world (his version of good that is) while on the other hand martin sees no hope for humanity and never will. for every bit of justice and goodwill candide points out martin turns around and shows the consequences of said acts. as the saying goes "no good deed goes unpunished". martin brings candide back to the real world so to speak, to show that the world isn't just unicorn kisses and lady cunegondes whenever he wants to see it that way.
Great responses both of you (Joshua, you posted this as a response to Kenia, so I have to respond to both of you here): Kenia, I agree with you, Candide starts thinking his suffering entitles him to certain rewards, which doesn't really work (and makes him choose some rather questionable choices). Can murder ever be justified? And with so little thought? He rationalizes it away far too quickly. And Joshua: yes, Candide wants a new world, but can't imagine it--even when he sees it! That's the problem: how can we make a better society if we can't let go of the traditions of our own, esp. when these traditions are corrupt or harmful? Candide hates Europe, but also thinks we need priests and Inquistions. He can't imagine life without them, bad though they are. Are we truly any different? :)
DeleteQ1: Candide, like many young people, goes out into the world to become an adult and is shaped by his experiences, in his case it is a vastly negative experience. Voltaire's shining golden boy of innocence and naivety becomes just as cynical, murderous, and corrupted like everyone else. His cousin and love Cunigonde is also changed by her terrible experiences and is just as awful as Candide, having sold her body just to survive. Candide and Cunigonde's personality changes are an allegory into the lives of everyday young adults. Children have an innate sense of wonder and a natural ability to question everything, but sadly we tend to lose all of this by the time we leave public school in which there is no room for creative minds. Once adults are out into the work force we just become another bee in the hive. This wasn't any different in the age of Voltaire. Much like Candide, young men could leave home a soldier and come back a changed person. Women's only role through most of history was to be a complacent, docile housewife. Of course most 17th century and modern 21st century young adults don't go through what Candide and Cunigonde did, but Voltaire wants us to retrieve his message of morality and the division between good and evil from the text: there is no pure good and evil, there is only a moral grey where people have to decide what is moral and what isn't.
ReplyDeleteQ2: When Candide arrives in El Dorado he is humorously horrified at what he sees. By golly, they eat people! Yes, well Candide so do some Europeans (in the book at least). Europeans (and really all humans in general) are capable of great good and great evil and everything in between. Such is human nature. Candide goes to the New World to escape the horrors of war-torn Europe and encounters a very similar, though primitive, civilization at El Dorado but he somehow still believes that Europeans are morally superior. He is so distraught that he hightails it back home. New World natives and Europeans are not more superior than one another. They are alike in many ways, and it is shown in the hypocrisy of Candide that Voltaire is saying that Europeans in the 17th century aren't the shining beacons of civilization they like to believe they are.
Yes, at least Candide had the ability to live and experience life, whereas the women had to be wives or property to another man. That's the story that really emerges in this book: the men go on adventures while the women are simply passed around from man to man, never participating but always suffering. It shows the true inequalities of this society, and the farce of freedom and equality that so many governments boasted. Even in the Enlightenment, no man was truly free, or as Rousseau wrote, "man is born free, and is everywhere in chains."
DeleteQ2: In Europe you pay for your meal and anything else you want in El Dorado you don’t pay for anything everyone gives it to you or helps you at. They get their money from the government. They kids would use gold, emeralds, rubies, and more for toys. In Europe they didn’t have that so when Candide saw them playing with the gems it surprised him, and after the schoolmaster told to the children to come in they left them on the road like it was nothing. Candide being an outsider picked the pebbles up off the road and took them to the schoolmaster who then just tossed them away. The entire passage is an elaborate satire because it’s showing Candide that just because you consider it to be right in Europe doesn’t mean it’s right here.
ReplyDeleteQ3: Throughout the story Candide has to face many issues some which don’t turn in his favor. He is slowly starting to use Pangloss philosophy when he realizes it turns in his favor. Candide doesn’t see the brighter side of things until it’s almost too late. Pangloss taught every place is the best place and everything has a purpose in life, when Candide is trapped he doesn’t really seem how these people could be the best because they were planning on eating him. Then after Cacambo talks to them and explains he switches his views.
Bailey Copeland
Yes, I'm glad you see that Candide changes philosophies in the wind: when things are going his way, he reverts to Pangloss' philosophy. Elsewhere, he questions it and suggests that there is no overall philosophy guiding mankind. It's the dilemma many of us find ourselves in: can we believe in something when things seem so dark and pointless? And can we question the divine plan when everything works out in our favor?
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