Optimism

 Candide by Voltaire

Optimism is streaked through Candide. It is even in the title. At first glance it would seem that optimism fades from the start. Candide first thought the world a happy place and believed Pangloss when told this is a good world. It took him going out into the world to see it isn’t a good place. This doesn’t have to mean that optimism can’t still be alive and well. This is hit home with the old woman saying “a hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more (Candide 118).” Their very life is what allows them to be optimistic.

Pangloss believes that all good things come from bad and that this, the world, is the right. He says all things in this world are for the best. A lot of his arguments come from if this happens then this happens, this type of argument believes if one is true the other is also true. There are a lot of holes in this. Pangloss can’t prove that the bad caused the good as he claims. Even if he could that cannot prove that the good could not have come without the bad. He cannot prove that if we tried we couldn’t improve the bad and make only good improvements. He also fails to take into account wroth. Was the bad worth what was gained in good things? He even states a disease “which thus strikes at and defeats the greatest end of Nature herself-we should have neither chocolate nor cachineal (Candide 106).” Something that prevents a great part of nature is completely forgiven because of chocolate. I know we like chocolate but really? Later on it even says chocolate killed the prince of Massa-Carrara. Of course it wasn’t the chocolate that would kill him but shouldn’t it be enough that it was called chocolate? Either way it isn’t seen as a good thing and makes even Pangloss’s good things seem less so.

Voltaire makes Pangloss look very useless. He doesn’t do anything, he maintains no active part in the world, and in the end he impacts no one, or at least does not maintain whatever impact he did focus on others. Pangloss’s only importance was while he was teaching. When his students left he had nothing. Beyond that his teachings where undermined throughout the whole story by Candide’s experiences. At the same time Pangloss’s believe means he takes no responsibility. In his tail of what befell Cunegonde and her family he says nothing about what he went through. More than likely he was hiding like a cowered and watched the raping of women and the splattering of those whose castle he resided in. He speaks in such a way that even the most horrible thing is considered an everyday event and without distinction other than to wax poetically.

The experiences within the story are all of comedic horror. You would think that this was being out of the way in writing this way because of the time period but we do the same thing nowadays. Rape jokes, gold diggers, and anything else is thrown in. All this builds up to the main point of the story. We are constantly trying to one up each other. Candide is born from this nature. His father is believed to be a “respectable, honest gentleman (Candide 100),” yet his mother refused to marry him leaving Candide fatherless. The old woman believes she has suffered more than anyone, as if that is to be bragged about!

I feel, within the old woman’s story, is among the most profound lines of the entire book. “These are such common matters that they are not worth describing (Candide 116).” This is an awful thing to say after telling of a rape. This story takes place during the enlightenment, a time period where people are realizing they have control of their actions. We take this for a given today. Yet this line still has a great deal of impact because it is still not something we talk about. The very belief behind why rape happens hasn’t changed much since this time period. This is a line that is meant to be satire and has nothing to do with speaking to the future but I can’t help but take it that way seeing as this is a story about change in the time period that did a great deal of it. I don’t see this as a bad thing though. Voltaire put his humor right up against real life events, such as the conditions of Moracco and the great Lisbon earthquake.

I want to take a moment to look at Paquette because she stands out from the other women of the story. Marrying was never brought up with her and most, if not all, of her sexual encounters are of her own free will. She is working class and seems a very fitting representative of society. She has to work for whoever is around and isn't happy about it. The most important part is she is expected to be happy about it.

Now optimism is the question within this story but I can't help but feel I interchange it with hope. So is there hope? I would say there is. Candide expressed it every time he found someone he lost along the way, starting with the sheep that he would find the life he wanted to lead. "Candide was more joyful to recover this one sheep than he had been afflicted to lose a hundred of them, all loaded with big Eldorado diamonds. (Candide 135)." He did not find this life but as Pangloss says all is for the best. His view may be flawed but Candide's hope made him gather the people he meet together and they now have a chance to be happy.

Voltaire is full of hard truths and conflicting personality views. "Very little virtue or happiness upon earth, except perhaps in El Dorado, where nobody could gain admittance (Optimism 87)." Eldorado is everything you would think of in the perfect place and yet Candide leaves. Why? There are two ways I see this, mine and what I believe Voltaire wanted. First Voltaire, he implies that Eldorado means nothing to Candide because it lacks status. He cannot be rich or important here at all. This is seen again when he wishes to marry Cunegonde, even when she is ugly, because her brother blatantly says Candide is not good enough. My view depends on Compassion.

Compassion means, in the original Latin of this time period, co-suffering. Candide could not be happy in Eldorado because no one there shared his suffering. "Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities (Optimism 70)." We need each other and I believe Candide knew this, after all he took the time to buy the freedom of those he traveled with, and he knew at the very end that they could come together to build a world for themselves. No the book did not tell of them finding some great happiness but it does tell of them gaining value in themselves and with each other.

"So God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (637-41)(Genesis 1: 27)." "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (589-91)(Genesis 2:15)."

Ok so the Bible is a pretty common thing and a good many people feel they know it but I'm betting most would say God made man to worship him but you are wrong. At the end Candide says "we must cultivate our garden (Optimism 113)." Eve is mother of all reason; her eating of the fruit allows us to see what we could not before. If you know anything of logic and philosophy you know there are three stages information, knowledge, and finally wisdom. Information is just facts, you don't have to know what they can do, knowledge is applying facts with some degree of understanding, and finally wisdom is having a grasp of how knowledge can be used. I bring up the garden, Eve, and logic all at once to make one firm point, Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good an evil. With Eve bringing reason into the world we only gained a light understanding of what is good or bad; it takes time to build wisdom from knowledge. They, and us, need to cultivate our gardens.

Throughout these hard ships they have gained empathy, understanding, and now rely on each other for compassion. They start to learn what skills they each have and enrich themselves as well as their company. They no longer have value in what they are born to but what they, themselves, do.

"Genesis." 2011. The Holy Bible ESV: English Standard Version : Containing the Old and New Testaments. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2001. N. pag.Ebook reader.

Voltaire. Candide. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1918. Ebook Reader.

 Voltaire. "Candide, or Optimism." 2013. The Norton Anthology World Literature. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 97-159. Print. 1650 to the Present.