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Voltaire was a great Enlightenment thinker and critic in the 18th century, famous for his satiric writing style. Candide is Voltaire’s representative satiric novel, telling the story of a young man named Candide and what he has experienced after he has been banished from his home. In the process, he gradually abandons his unthinking optimism and grows to be a man of independent thinking. Daniel Gordon, editor of Candide by Voltaire, with related documents, describes the book as a “pursuit of happiness” (16). The novel has employed satire as the main rhetoric device and has achieved strong humorous and provoking effect. In 2011, Professor Julian Barnes wrote “A Candid View of Candide” to pay tribute to Voltaire’s Candide, analyzing the meaning of Candide to the present world. Barnes describes Candide as “it was a report on the current state of the world, deliberately set among the headlines of the day” (para. 2), demonstrating that the events that happened caused the miseries of a human being at that time might happen nowadays, maybe in a different form. But the weakness of the human nature still takes possession of people’s decision-making process. Through the satire, Voltaire reveals the weakness of the human nature, such as greed, cruelty, clinging to burdened beliefs, but, as observed by Julian Barnes, the satire by Voltaire can also be used to refer to phenomenon in the modern times and that the story of Candide is still of reference meaning to the people living in the current world.
Voltaire’s satire deeply reflects the depravity of the human nature, such as brutality. In Chapter 3 of Candide, Voltaire describes the cruelty of war and the ordeal the war brings to the local people:
There several young virgins, whose bodies had been ripped open, after they had satisfied the natural necessities of the Bulgarian heroes, breathed their last; while others, half-burned in flames, begged to be dispatched out of the world. The ground about them was covered with the brains, arms, and legs of dead men (Voltaire 6).
“Satisfaction of the necessity” is actually a break of the basic moral line. In the eyes of the Bulgarian soldiers, the people they kill and insulted are not human beings, but the tools used to meet certain needs. The brutality of their behaviors is “heroic.” The satire used evokes readers to reflect on the nature of war, and grow sympathy for the people who have been ravaged by war. The more poignant the tone is, the more convincing the idea becomes. The satire also has a virtual impact to readers that this is what could really happen in the battlefields. Civilians under the warfare could not evade the harm of it. The agonies brought by the war could be described by the enemies as “the heroic acts done by heroes in the battlefields.” Ironic as it is, it could happen in the real world.
Another point that is worthy of noticing in the novel is the unchanging and even deteriorating natures of the people around Candide. Candide’s teacher, Pangloss, from the beginning to the end, sticks to one belief: “everything is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best” (7) in spite of every miserable event that he has suffered. Miss Cunegund’s brother, the Baron, refuses Candide’s marriage to his sister just because their family bears “seventy-two quarterings” (24) no matter what Candide has contributed to them. The sense of hierarchy is more important than anything else to the Baron, even though he has to pay a high price for it. As Miss Cunegund, her good temper and elegance seem to be gone together with her good looks. Candide is an exception. In his journey to seek for happiness, he grows to be a man with rich experiences and independent thinking and questions the rationality of the optimism his teacher once taught him. The unchanging natures of the main characters of the novel are described by Barnes as “they are when first presented” (para. 4). Voltaire arranges Pangloss and the Baron to hold the same idea as they do from the beginning? Maybe, Voltaire wants to tell the readers that there are certain deeply-rooted thought and beliefs that could not be changed no matter what happens. Even though such beliefs and thoughts become a burden, the people who hold them would not give them up.
Voltaire’s satire still applies in the modern world. The skipper of the Dutch vessel tripled his price of the voyage when he volunteers to offer service to Candide (Voltaire 55). The same occurs in the Syrian Crisis. The Syrian citizens chose to flee the country. Many of them had no other choices but to choose the illegal way. One Syrian man interviewed told the reporter that he was forced to pay 1,125 dollars for the journey by the smugglers who did care whether he could safely reach the destiny and the man almost lost his life in the boat, “they only want to get your money - they don’t care if you die” (Dearden para. 6). In that chaotic world, money means life. The smugglers cared nothing about the lives of the people ravaged by the Syrian War. Money was the only thing they were eager to get. For the Dutch skipper and the Syrian smugglers, centuries have passed, but their greed for money does not change at all. Mr. Barnes is sharp to observe the same feature of the different times, money, together with other influential powers, still controls the world (para. 5).
In the world filled with cruelty, with people unwilling to change their burdened beliefs, the future seems to be pessimistic. Through Candide saying, “let’s cultivate the garden” (97), Voltaire offers an answer to the question. Each and every one of figures in the novel has experienced great sufferings. Candide finds El Dorado, a paradise-like place, but he does not choose to stay here with his servant Cacambo because he knows that is not his place of happiness and his love is far away waiting for his return. Pangloss still holds his belief to the Leibnitzian optimism while Candide the proper way to cope with the world -- by starting from the practical. Pure thinking and reasoning would not help to solve any practical issue. But the down-to-earth actions can. This is also what Voltaire wants to tell the readers: in front of the miserable and changing world, start from what you can do to sustain yourself is the practical way to support life.
To conclude, in the novel Candide, a typical satiric work by Voltaire, tells the story of a young man changing from a Leibnitzian optimist to a practical pragmatist. After he is banished from his home, he encounters various ridiculous and cruel sufferings. Through the experiences, he begins to question the rationality of the Leibnitzian optimism he has believed so strongly. Through the satire used in the novel, Voltaire reveals the cruelty and the depravity of the human nature. As is observed by Barnes, although more than two and half centuries have passed, the satire of Voltaire still applies to the modern society. Humanity and the cruelty of it do not change much with the advancement of the times. It requires a practical attitude towards life.
Works Cited
Barnes, Julian. “A Candid View of Candide.” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/
01/candide-voltaire-rereading-julian-barnes. Accessed 1 May 2017.
Dearden, Lizzie. “Syrian Refugee Tells Harrowing Story of Journey to Europe: “I Fell in the Sea... I Thought I Would Die.” Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/syrian-refuge
e-tells-harrowing-story-of-journey-to-europe-i-fell-in-the-seai-thought-i-would-die-10457279.html.
Voltaire. Candide. Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project, 1998.
Voltaire. Candide by Voltaire, with related documents. Edited by Daniel Gordon, Bedford / St Martins, 2016.