If satirical comedy can accurately shed light on the flaws of society, it seems that hypocrisy in its many forms, is the first and hardest of them to fall. Voltaire’s 1759 satire, Candide does just this as it pokes holes in the many dysfunctions...

Religion is one of the central targets of Voltaire’s criticism in Candide. This topic carries a large significance in the book, as it depicts the controversy surrounding organized religion, and the social paradigma deriving from it in the time...

Although the main characters in Voltaire's Candide supposedly resign themselves to work and cultivation rather than philosophizing in the end, it is necessary for them to survive struggle and turmoil in order to come to this realization. The...

A child has the ability to make the most critical and objective observation on society and the behavior of man. How is this possible? A child has yet to mature and lacks proper education and experience. However, it is for this very reason that a...

Subjective novelists tend to use personal attitudes to shape their characters. Whether it be an interjection of opinion here, or an allusion to personal experience there, the beauty of a story lies in the clever disclosure of the author's...

Voltaire's Candide bears the mark of a piece written during a time of reform. It is heavy with satire, poking fun at whatever issues become tangled in its storyline. The subjects tackled range from the political to the religious, and each receives...

In Voltaire's Candide, the title character voyages from continent to continent in search of love and the meaning of life. On his journeys, his optimism--learned from his ever-present tutor, Pangloss--is slowly whittled away. Candide experiences...

Voltaire wrote Candide in 1759 during an “era… in which the conventions and inequities of European society were being questioned and attacked on all sides” (v). It is apparent from the text that his ultimate goal in writing the novel was to point...

One of the primary objectives of the Enlightenment was to promote reason and rationalism as a method of achieving social and political reform. However, Voltaire, a powerful and renowned philosopher and writer during the period, often criticized...

A stark parallel can be drawn between the two central female characters of Voltaire’s satirical philosophic thrust, Candide. It is through the tragic strife and oppression of first the Old Woman and then Cunegonde that we see two sagas woven of...

John Adams wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles” (Adams & Institute...

Voltaire, as an eighteenth century French philosopher and writer, lived in a far different society than the average American college student is accustomed to today. Though Voltaire was a champion of civil liberties, he spent most of his life in a...

A child has the ability to make the most critical and objective observation on society and the behavior of man. How is this possible? A child has yet to mature and lacks proper education and experience. However, it is for this very reason that a...

“Men,” said he “must, in some things, have deviated from their original innocence; for they were not born wolves, and yet they worry one another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty– four pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have...

Voltaire’s novella Candide is a satirical piece detailing the eventful travels of Candide in order to criticize many aspects of Enlightenment philosophical thought, including theodicy and Leibniz’s philosophical optimism, rationalism, and the...

If the entire world were experiencing hardship, one is forced to wonder, would it be equal? If the entire world were experiencing joy, one is forced to wonder, would it be equal? If the entire world were to experience any one specific event--any...

The theme of love is omnipresent in literature; no matter what nook or cranny you search in a library, it is there. However, this theme conveys more than just kisses, heartbreak, and rampant sexual tension. It describes a culture through their...

Every culture has certain historical events that alter the way that culture functions and appears. For much of the world, the world wars were this historical influence. Many countries had not experienced such a sudden loss in population, and for...

Candide journeys through life with a childish naivete and shies away from making his own philosophical proclamations, often allowing others to do his thinking for him and serve as his surrogate brain. Instead of stepping back and truly pondering...

Familiarizing oneself with philosophical ideas of 18th century Europe means understanding the ways in which writers during this time dealt with the unique philosophical problems - social, political, scientific and religious - of the Enlightenment...

Violence and other cruelties are such a large part of the world that they can never be fully rooted out, no matter how hard the effort is to remove them. A common coping mechanism of handling the tragedies of everyday life is to ignore or to...

Throughout Voltaire’s Candide the reader was introduced to a wide variety of unique characters, each seemingly with their own philosophies and beliefs on how life should be viewed. Voltaire seems to stress through the development of the...

In a study of Voltaire’s Candide, the central critical discussion revolves around the final chapter. Candide’s epic journey finds its conclusion in a garden, where Candide and his companions are reunited and choose to spend the rest of their days...

The moment that mankind became advanced enough to ridicule the society that it had created was the moment that it began doing so. This form of societal ridicule known as satire has been around since the time of the Egyptians, though most modern...