How Does Voltaire Use Satire In Candide

Voltaire’s Use of Satire

Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and a philosopher who lived in the late 17th to 18th centuries. Voltaire wrote many famous works of literature, including one of his satirical novel, Candide (Voltaire, 1981). The main character of this novel is Candide. He is a villainous character and a protagonist. He is portrayed to be a likeable character even after all the sins he’s committed, such as murder. Voltaire uses Candide to express his thoughts and to put across his disgust with the belief that mankind is forever improving through the use of satire. Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity. Satire is well used by Voltaire in this novel.

Voltaire could not use satire any better than how it is used in Candide. Candide is a young man who lives in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronchk in Westphalia. He believes that living in the castle is the best decision. He has little to no knowledge of the outside world. He is taught a very powerful, yet easily misunderstanding concept from his mentor, Dr. Pangloss, that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds,” (16). Candide is easily misled by this theory after he is caught kissing Baron’s daughter, Cunégonde, and is kicked out of the castle into the harsh world (17).
Candide is thrown out into the real world just like an “18” year old man out into the real world for the first time. Candide learns about suffering and hardship. He meets many advisors, one of whom is Cunégonde’s servant: The Old Woman. The Old Woman tells Candide some part of her life story. The Old Woman perhaps suffers most from any other characters from the novel. The Old Woman had a life any girl could possibly dream of. She was a princess, she was very beautiful and rich, and she was to get married to a very handsome man. Unfortunately, nothing goes the right way as her husband dies. She and her mother sails for a vacation estate, but when they were going, their boat was captured by Barbary pirates and she was raped, along with her mother and their servants (39). When they arrived to their destination, Morocco, they arrived to more trouble as the country was being destroyed by countless men. The Old Woman’s mother died in the scene, along with everyone else. The Old Woman passed out and was awaken as an Italian eunuch was attempting to rape her (41). The Old Woman’s story misled Candide to believe that the world is full of hate, murder, and rape. After this, whenever Candide goes through scenes including disease, rape, suffer, and natural disasters, he sees it as something positive, and looks for the effect of it.
Voltaire uses satire to keep the story interesting and the satire keeps the reader interested.

Voltaire does not invent any new evils of the world, but he displays the real ones. Religion is used as an example of satire in the novel. Voltaire also uses religion to put across his disgust on mankind. In chapter three, Candide escapes from the Bulgars, an army of the King of Bulgar, he goes to another town and requests charity from a Protestant minister. Then, the minister asks Candide questions to express his religious obedience. The orator asks, “my friend… do you believe that the Pope is the Antichrist?” Candide answers, “I’ve never heard anyone say so… but whether he is or not, I still have nothing to eat.” The orator then says, “you don’t deserve to eat… go, you scoundrel, you wretch, and never come near me again,” (21). Voltaire expresses this satirical irony very well because religious sites such as churches, mosques, and temples are supposed to give charity to the needy, but the protestant minister did not give Candide food to

eat.
One may disagree with Voltaire and say that the world is and can become only better, but that in not true.

Voltaire’s main reason for writing this novel was to destroy the theory of optimism. All the bad that is happening in this world overrides the good. One possible way to improve is by following a theory that my former family therapist had taught me, “We can only improve by moving one step forward for every two steps we go backwards.” This means that for every two bad things we do, we must do one good thing to improve. We won’t improve too positively, but it’s as positive as we can get, because there is no optimism left. There will always be conflicts in this world, and nothing is perfect. This is how God created life, for those who believe. There is no such thing as a utopian society. A utopian society cannot be achieved no matter how hard we

try.
Voltaire has disgust towards the belief that mankind is forever improving – improving in the sense of perfection. Perfection is like infinity. There are smaller infinities, and there are larger infinities. The only way to reach the larger infinities, is by going through the smaller infinities. Similarly, with perfection, in order to attempt to reach a perfect state, we must become perfect at smaller things such as trying to keep away from horrible thoughts such as murdering someone or raping someone, and then move onto bigger things such as keeping a calm mind and not getting angry at every little thing, and that is what Candide says in the end of the novel, “…we must cultivate our own garden,” (113). With the use of satire, Voltaire’s novel is not to be forgotten. The novel is alive when Candide is used to express the ongoing problems of our daily lives. This is what makes Candide superb, not the fact that this world will never improve, but the idea that an author such as Voltaire thought of to use Candide to express his thoughts and to put across his disgust with the belief that mankind is forever improving through the use of satire.