Voltaire's Candide: "all Is Not for the Best"

Voltaire's Candide: "All is Not for the Best"

Voltaire's Candide is the story of an innocent man's experiences in a

mad and evil world, his struggle to survive in that world, and his need to

ultimately come to terms with it. All people experience the turmoil of life

and must overcome obstacles, both natural and man-made, in order to eventually

achieve happiness. In life, "man must find a medium between what Martin

(scholar and companion to Candide) calls the "convulsions of anxiety" and the

"lethargy of boredom"" (Richter 137). After a long and difficult struggle in

which Candide is forced to overcome misfortune to find happiness, he concludes

that all is not well (as he has previously been taught by his tutor, Dr.

Pangloss), and that he must work in order to find even a small amount of

pleasure in life.

Candide grows up in the Castle of Westphalia and is taught by the

learned philosopher, Dr. Pangloss. Candide is abruptly exiled from the castle

when found kissing the Baron's daughter, Cunegonde. Devastated by the

separation from Cunegonde, his true love, Candide sets out to different places

in the hope of finding her and achieving total happiness. On his journey, he

faces a number of misfortunes, among them being tortured during army training,

yet he continues to believe that there is a "cause and effect" for everything.

Candide is reunited with Cunegonde, and regains a life of prosperity, but soon

all is taken away, including his beloved Cunegonde. He travels on, and years

later he finds her again, but she is now fat and ugly. His wealth is all gone

and so is his love for the Baron's daughter. Throughout Candide, we see how

accepting situations and not trying to change or overcome obstacles can be

damaging. Life is full of struggles, but it would be nonproductive if people

passively accepted whatever fate had in store for them, shrugging off their

personal responsibility. Voltaire believes that people should not allow

themselves to be victims. He sneers at naive, accepting types, informing us

that people must work to reach their utopia (Bottiglia 93).

In Candide, reality and "the real world" are portrayed as being

disappointing. Within the Baron's castle, Candide is able to lead a Utopian

life. After his banishment, though, he recognizes the evil of the world,

seeing man's sufferings. The only thing that keeps Candide alive is his hope

that things will get better. Even though the world is filled with disaster,

Candide has an optimistic attitude that he adopted from Dr. Pangloss' teachings.

In spite of his many trials, Candide believes that all is well and everything

is for the best. Only once, in frustration, does he admit that he sometimes

feels that optimism is "the mania of maintaining that all is well when we are

miserable" (Voltaire 41). Candide's enthusiastic view of life is contrasted

with, and challenged by the suffering which he endures throughout the book.

Voltaire wrote this book in a mocking and satirical manner in order to express

his opinion that passive optimism is foolish (Richter 134).

Candide eventually learns how to achieve happiness in the face of

misadventure. He learns that in order to attain a state of contentment, one

must be part of society where there is collective effort and work. Labor,

Candide learns, eliminates the three curses of mankind: want, boredom, and vice.

In order to create such a society, man must do the following: love his fellow

man, be just, be vigilant, know how to make the best of a bad situation and

keep from theorizing. Martin expresses this last requirement for such a

society succinctly when he says, "Let's work without speculating; it's the only

way of rendering life bearable" (Voltaire 77).

One of the last people that Candide meets in his travels is an old, poor

Turkish farmer who teaches Candide a lesson which allows him to come to terms

with the world and to settle down happily. The revelation occurs when Candide

and his friends hear of the killing of two intimate advisors of the sultan, and

they ask the Turkish farmer if he could give them more details about the

situation.