Comparing Fable Of The Bees And Candide

The poem ‘Fable of the Bees’ and the novella Candide both comment on the state of European society of the time. In Fable of the Bees, Bernard Mandeville uses a fictional bee society as a metaphor for how he believes European society ought to function. Voltaire uses satire in Candide to reveal the wrong he sees in society as a whole, and what he feels constitutes the best possible society. Both Mandeville and Voltaire wrote in eighteenth century Europe, at the height of the Enlightenment era. Their descriptions of European society are similar, yet how each thought the perfect society should be differ significantly. It is my opinion that the ideal society Voltaire depicts in Candide is fundamentally at odds with the best possible society envisioned

by Mandeville in Fable of the Bees.
The poem Fable of the Bees describes a flourishing bee society in which individuals revel in their lust and greed.

The bee society essentially mimics the basic structure of the European society from which Mandeville writes, but differs drastically in its principle morality. In Mandeville’s bee society, deceit trumps honestly as the primary virtue. This change in morality is a benefit for the bees, allowing the society to become immensely productive and wealthy. Mandeville uses the avarice and pride of the aristocracy to exemplify the bee society’s success. The nobility of the bee society pride themselves on enquiring extravagant luxuries, in so doing they encourage a vast industry to develop around satisfying their demands, which creates employment while generating income that is acquisitioned by the state. The story takes a turn when the bees begin to favor honesty and demand their gods to change the behaviors of the society. The gods acquiesce and the bees become honest and

decent individuals. This divine interference brings about a sudden and complete change to the society. Crimes are no longer committed leaving the justice system obsolete, the absence of debauchery leaves many establishments deserted, and without pride the need for luxuries evaporates. All income acquired through deceit and swindling vanishes, while the industries established to satisfy the vices of the bees disappears. The once grand and powerful bee society becomes a hollow shell of its former self. Essentially, Mandeville argues that hedonism is a greater benefit to European society than humility. A society that possesses avarice, deceit, and vices will be a more productive and free than those that strive for complete honesty. For Mandeville such society is the best possible for Europeans.
In the novella Candide, Voltaire uses the journey of the title character to satirically examine the wrongs of European society. The novella begins with Candide staunchly upholding the philosophy championed by his tutor Professor Pangloss. Pangloss’s philosophy is that the world as it is is the best of all possible worlds. Throughout the story Candide is beset by a series of almost constant misfortunes and cruelty. Candide is confronted by the evils and wrongs of European society and the wider world either through personal experience or the experiences of people he encounters along his travels. And at every occasion Candide seeks to justify the wrongdoing with his philosophy that such evils must be necessary in the best of all possible worlds. Along Candide’s adventure, he stubbles into the legendary El Dorado, an isolated utopia rich with gold and precious stones. The monarch of El Dorado is the quintessential enlightened despot; his subjects are loyal to him by their own submission, and work diligently for the benefit of the kingdom rather than themselves. There are no courts or prisons in El Dorado because crime is nonexistent. The country is not only vastly more wealthy but also technologically superior to European states. Despite living in a utopia, Candide abandons El Dorado in search of his beloved Lady Cunégonde. After many more adventures and misfortunes Candide eventually abandons his belief that the world is the best possible.
Both Mandeville and Voltaire describe a European society that is full of evils and wrongdoers, a place where the individual’s primary interests are to benefit themselves at the cost of others.

It is a society where deceit, theft, and violence are commonly used for the benefit of the individual. Where the authors differ is in there interpretations of what the best possible society should be. Mandeville’s bee hive society in Fable of the Bees is nearly identical to the European society of his time. For Mandeville, the state of European society was the best possible for Europeans. In Fable of the Bees Mandeville is essentially arguing that the avarice, debauchery, and deceit of Europeans is what has enabled them to become such an industrious and powerful society, admired and feared by outsiders much like the Bee hive was. The utopia described in Candide completely contradicts Mandeville. For Voltaire the best possible society was one which the individual worked for the benefit of society as a whole. Progress and development where achieved not through satisfying the demand for luxuries but through furthering scientific knowledge and understanding. The fact that El Dorado was abundant in resources valued by Europeans was irrelevant to why a utopia existed there; it was the societal structure that enabled it to become the best possible society. Voltaire’s El Dorado is a utopian society founded on cooperation and scientific innovation; such is at odds with the utopia of Mandeville,

whose foundations rest on the vices of avarice and deceit. In a sense, the traumatic journeys of Candide through European society act as an invalidation of Mandeville’s best possible society.