Voltaire’s 1759 seminal novella “Candide,” tells the story of the titular Candide, a young aristocrat who is unfortunately taken away from his wealthy home after flirting and kissing a young lady by the name of Cunegonde. Within his life as an aristocrat, Candide studied under the philosopher Pangloss, who mostly taught under the philosophy of Optimism, which is the idea of looking to the brighter side of life - metaphorically speaking. This philosophy is extremely important to understanding the character of Candide, as optimism itself, while the philosophy itself has the ability to be complex, optimism itself is a very tangible and easy philosophical concept to understand as it is simply looking at life with a more positive metaphorical lenses. The simplicity and relatability present within the philosophy of optimism is important to the story of Candide as it is not only realistic that the character Candide, a young, naive, but a well-educated man would be able to follow the philosophy of Optimism but also the fact that Voltaire’s novella, Candide, uses Candide’s usage of optimism as a method to critique religion, life, and the philosophy of optimism itself. When we first meet Candide, he is dedicated to his mentor Pangloss, he believes wholeheartedly that one’s perception of life is the reason why misery and mental anguish occurs. However, it is with the following events throughout the story that Candide eventually finds an ever-growing disillusionment within mentor Pangloss’ philosophy and teachings. Throughout a majority of the novel, Candide is under the belief that his mentor, and what Candide believes to be one of or the smartest person in the world, Pangloss is dead, leaving Candide for what seems to be the first time in his life to be on his own with his education and his own developing thoughts. As mentioned previously, the first difficulty Candide finds within his journey is getting kicked out of castle after he is caught kissing the Barons’ daughter Cunegonde. This is extremely devasting to Candide, as for this reader, this is the only place that we have known Candide to be – he is essentially ripped from his home which would be simply devasting for anyone, let alone a young aristocrat who has only known the riches of the world. Throughout the first act of the novella, Candide comes to find the underbelly of the world through various misfortunates, these atrocities that Candide comes across look to break Candide’s blind optimism and create more of a realistic approach to how Candide views the world. For example, within the first act of the book, Candide is enlisted into the Bulgar army and witnesses many atrocities within this section. Candide sees many deaths, the poor, senseless cruelty, and the breakdown of moral ideals. Candide is this section of the novel is extremely disturbed, as are most readers, with the swift turn from the cheery parts of the introduction. However, this quick switch between the nice life that Candide lived and the life within the Bulgar army is a deliberate point on Voltaire’s part to really test the waters in regards to the philosophy of Optimism. Voltaire is making the point that one cannot simply see the world as nothing but good, and Voltaire is able to see that the philosophy of Optimism may not be applicable to the everyman as it may with the rich philosophers and teachers who were teaching this doctrine at the of Candide’s writing. Voltaire also shows this concept within Candide’s reaction to these horrors, for example, Candide within this section of the novella is constantly found to be in a state of confused and despair at witnessing these atrocities and it is within this confusion that it is within this confusion, that the cracks within Candide’s blind optimism start to shine as he is starting to becoming disillusioned by Pangloss’ teacher. However, at this point in the novella, Pangloss is still with Candide and still has an influence over Candide. In the next episodic arch that Candide faces, we find Candide’s journey into the darker side of life is far from over when him and Pangloss get involved in the Inquisition in Lisbon, where they are tried for heresy. Within this section, Candide is witness to multiple other atrocities that further disintegrate his blind optimism such as the murder of innocent civilians. During this time, Candide witnesses what he believes to be the death of his love, Cunegonde. This devasts Candide although he stills tries his best to hold onto to the optimistic beliefs that have been instilled through him by Pangloss, although he finds it more and more difficult. Another strong reason for Candide’s transformation into a realist comes from his ability to listen. Within Pangloss’ own optimistic philosophy there is the idea that everyone is valuable and everyone is good, this results in Candide’s own youthful ability to listen closely to the words of others. This is both the downfall when it comes to his listening of Pangloss as well as one of the sole reasons Candide is able to make his transformation and survive his ordeals throughout the novel. One example of one such people that Candide stumbles across within his trials is what Voltaire simply refers to as “the old lady.” The old lady is simply put, one of the most interesting and tragic characters both within the novella and throughout all of western literature. The old lady comes from a very similar background to Candide, she mentions she was a princess in her youth, however, (much like Candide) was forced out of her home and has experienced a horrific life filled with violence, sexual assault, and atrocities beyond comprehension. The old lady is both psychically and emotionally tore down by these events within her life, however, she still clings to life, not out of a genuine joy for life, but as it’s the only thing she knowns is living and clings onto life although it has been spiteful to her. By the time Candide reaches the city of Eldorado, a beautiful city that is essentially everything that Pangloss had promised within the philosophy of optimism, Candide is at odds with his previously held belief of optimism and his new found realistic philosophy. Candide ultimately sides with his new found realistic philosophy as he finally caves to his longing to be with Cunegonde, as she is not in Elodrado. However, it is when Candide finds Cunegonde and discovers that she has changed that Candide fully comes to terms this growing disillusionment with an overly optimistic life philosophy in regards to the world and life and love. Within the last chapters of the novella, Candide has transformed and understands a more complex view of the world. Once he discovers Cunegonde is alive and Pangloss is alive, he is aware that things are different. Candide no longer views the world in overly optimistic terms, but he develops a proto-existentialist view of the world that both encourages some elements of optimism as a philosophy, but is a great deal more realistic than Pangloss’ blind optimism. Candide has developed an understanding that while the world can offer both beauty and harm, is ultimately up to the people living life to better themselves. This can be viewed within the last and arguably most famous quote from the last line of the novella being from Candide himself, “We must cultivate our own garden.” This phrase summarizes the novella and the overall message of both the novella itself and what Candide has learned from his character’s development. Voltaire was critiquing optimism throughout Candide and uses Candide’s transformation as the means to elaborate upon this idea that whilst the world is filled with good and evil, is ultimately up to the individual for how they intake the information. It also important to note that Voltaire includes a couple pointers for his realistic perspective to the world. Overall, Candide’s character and said character’s transformation is the central purpose of the novella Candide. Within Candide’s character, Voltaire is able to expound upon ideas and critiques for religion, faith, and optimism; Within this expansion of ideas’ there is a multitude of ideas that we can use to evaluate and analyze both Candide’s predicament as well as the ideas that Voltaire was elaborating on such as the proper way to live in a cruel and chaotic, how to live when one is surrounded by evil individuals and forces, and how to deal with emotions within oneself that conflict with preexisting beliefs. It is ever so important to analyze Candide within both the historical context that was ever so present in Candide at the time when Voltaire wrote it and how it played into both political revolution, the art of satire, literature in general, as well as to analyze the work of Candide in the perspective of someone in the 21st century as it is ever so crucial to today’s world. As Candide while set in the past, is a novel that is really about living, and the novella is about discovering ones’ self throughout the course of both struggles and victories, peaks and valleys, as well as the general strifes and wins that are present in a life that is filled with twists in turns. When analyzing Candide, we really turn a mirror on ourselves as individuals, looking to see how not only how we view the world and the situations we find ourselves throughout life as well as how we as people interact with ideas such as Optimism and Individualism and Cynicism. As Voltaire writes and crafts the narrative of Candide, he puts the audience front and certain, having Candide’s dialogue being very minimalist within his conversations present within Candide. This presents Candide with an interesting narrative twist, where while there is a constant narrative and fun plot, Voltaire essentially lets the audience loose with how they interpret the conversations among Candide the other characters as well as the other characters’ various viewpoints throughout the story. This audience participation lends a lot of important philosophical thought to Candide in developing the ideas within the story. However, it is with Candide’s transformation and experiences highlights some of the pitfalls that Voltaire was able to spot within organized religion and philosophies such as optimism. These reasons as well as Candide’s transformation and his relation to other characters throughout the novella is what makes his character and his story some important to the Western Cannon.
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