Road to El Dorado
Explorers always wanted to find the "Golden City." Of course, none of them did. In Candide, Voltaire describes a city that is equivalent to any "Golden City." This world is the ideal world that almost anyone would like to live in. However, when Candide finds his "Golden City," known as El Dorado, he leaves it. One might wonder why Candide left El Dorado, but there were many well justified reasons for Candide's departure from the perfect world he was searching for. Candide gives several arguments for leaving El Dorado. Candide wants to find Cunegund, and he wants to be of higher status. In El Dorado, everyone has wealth; but if Candide leaves with some pebbles from El Dorado he can richer then the nobles in Europe. With these reasons in mind, Candide prepares for his departure from the perfect Utopia. The seemingly perfect Utopia is not that perfect for Candide, for there are a few things that Candide must have in his world that are not present in El Dorado.
Candide was forced to leave his beautiful love, Cunegund. This was hard for Candide because he loved Cunegund very much. Candide could not be happy without Cunegund. He says, "I own, my friend (Cacambo), once more, that the castle where I was born is a mere nothing in comparison to the place where we now are; but still Miss Cunegund is not here (52)." All the riches in the world do not make up for the absence of Cunegund.
Candide also realizes that in El Dorado he is nothing special. Almost everyone in El Dorado has the same wealth. Candide rationalized, " If we remain here we shall only be as others are; whereas, if we return to our own world with only a dozen El Dorado sheep, loaded with the pebbles of this country, we shall be richer than all king...
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...of the riches of El Dorado.
At the end of the book, when Candide is reunited with Cunegund, he learns that Cunegund is not as she used to be. Cunegund had become ugly and ill natured, and the old woman is even worse than Cunegund. Everybody has his own flaws, but through work everyone has skills. Through work the little society created bountiful crops. They became content with working and developing their talents while taking care of the garden. In El Dorado people did not work hard. They had what they needed and then some. Work brings people pride that money and riches cannot provide. Candide left El Dorado to find his true love and to be wealthier then others. Even though things did not happen as Candide hoped, he still found his Utopia by hard work and friendship. Candide gave up his wealth in the end because he realized that wealth was not everything in life.
Cunegonde was painted as a woman who was not so strong. In chapter 7 after meeting candide, cunegonde collapsed on the sofa (Voltaire pg. 365). This is a way of saying that she as a woman was not strong which is what made her faint in a moment of sorrow, pain and anxiety. No man was ever said to faint in the book when they got anxious or pain because they never really had to go through those emotions it was only attributed to women as we saw through cunegonde.
In the first chapter, Candide is caught kissing Cunegonde by her father, the Baron, who banishes him from the castle. He walks to an inn where he is recruited into the Bulgarian army by two large soldiers who lead him to the camp where his "training" begins. His training consists of regular beatings, so Candide decides to leave the army. He is later caught and given the choice between execution and being beaten 36 times by each of the army's 2,000 soldiers. He chooses the beating. After 4,000 blows he is missing nearly all of the skin on his back, and asks to be shot instead. He is p...
Candide is a person of privilege who began life in the Castle of Westphalia. While a part of the castle-life, Candide was taught by Dr. Pangloss. Pangloss is a philosopher who teaches there is a cause for all things and that everything is all for the good, even though a person may not understand it at the time. Suddenly, however, Candide is exiled from the privileged confines of the castle when he is caught kissing Cunegonde, the daughter of the Baron. Upon his exile Candide immediately begins to face adversities. Candide finds himself in the army simply because he is the right size. His life in the army is nothing but turmoil and hardship. Despite the misfortunes of army life, Candide continues to believe there is a cause and effect for all things.
And even though Candide is the main character, Voltaire uses more than him to show the faults of human beings by using Lady Cunegonde and other people to visualize the chaos of lust. Throughout the entire story, lust raises its disgusting head again and again, driven by man’s desire for woman. Lady Cunegonde is a symbol of beauty within this book who by the end, becomes ruined and twisted by man’s flaws. A “six-foot Bulgar” (Voltaire 34) rapes her, she is sought after by “the Inquisitor, who loves [her] dearly” (Voltaire 35) and “Don Issachar” (Voltaire 34). These men all see her as an object to appease their lust. Voltaire use of these scenes, especially Lady Cunegonde’s, show the lust of man and how it damages the people that come into contact with it. Unfortunately, lust brought about another trouble to the world, syphilis. Voltaire mentions this downfall to expand upon the point that lust is a terrible flaw of Humanity that causes suffering where ever it is. This suffering is shown in Pangloss, who gets the disease from the maid and “[loses] only an eye and an ear” (Voltaire 27). If Pangloss had not lusted after a woman, he would not have ended up another victim to syphilis, one of lust’s many hard consequences. Even Lady Cunegonde’s old maid is treated like an item and ruined by the lust of man. She was the “daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina” (Voltaire 42), the most beautiful
One of the main female characters of this story is Cunégonde, the love interest of Candide, whose life did a complete 180 turn around. When we first find Cunégonde we see that she lives a lavish life with her family. We see her life turn around when her house is burned down, and her family murdered. Cunégonde herself is raped and sold to a man known as Don Issachar. She is then forced to be shared with another man known as The Grand Inquisitor. Although Cunégonde is a victim in the beginning, she retains her strong character, and after Candide slays the two men, she quickly seizes the opportunity to leaves with Candide and the old woman. If she were a victim,she would quickly falter, unsure of how to act or move because of
...ue perspectives on the world. Candide revived a glimpse of the the best possible world, the world as it really is, and the worst possible world. In the end all the philosophies are rejected and they decide that the world is full of good and bad events, “ there is a concatenation of the events in the best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of the magnificent castle for love of miss Cunegonde; if you had not been put into the inquisition; if you had not walked over america; if you ad not stabbed the baron; if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of el dorado; you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio nuts... but let us cultivate our garden “ (Voltaire, 87). Candide choses to ignore the philosophies and just simply live he came to this deduction after vast travels and experiences he decides to tend his garden.
Voltaire uses the old lady’s elaborate story of suffering to show that sometimes suffering happens for reasons not necessarily within human control. After Pangloss’ death an old lady assists Candide in his quest to find the love of his life Cundegonde. Along the way she shares her story. She was the daughter of Pope Urban X and lived a life of luxury; anything she wanted was hers. As she matured, she grew into a beautiful woman and was betrothed to the ruling prince of Massa-Carrara.
life and the moral at the end of The House of Eld relates to the
When Candide and Cacambo stay in the Land of Eldorado for a whole month they see many things that they consider to be strange and very much question the culture of the land. The land of Eldorado seems to be described as a perfect place, or Utopia, where nothing will ever go wrong and every individual is the same. Candide finds it extremely difficult to believe and understand how there is not one specific religion that is established in the Land of Eldorado. He questioned how the people in Eldorado basically reached any agreement because they did things very differently from any other place he has visited throughout his journey of being with Miss Cunegonde. Candide also noticed that because every individual person in Eldorado is truly equal,
The multitudes of disasters that Candide endures culminate in his eventual, if temporary, abandonment of optimism.
Voltaire's Candide is a philosophical tale of one man's search for true happiness and his ultimate acceptance of life's disappointments. Candide grows up in the Castle of Westfalia 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. The message of Candide is that one must strive to overcome adversity and not passively accept problems in the belief that all is for the best.
Before getting into the comparison and contrasting here is a little background information on Candide. Candide is a very interesting character throughout the story and Voltaire uses him to represent his own ideas. In the beginning of the story Candide is a good-hearted boy but he is very naïve. Candide believes in the philosophy of his teacher Pangloss, that all is for the best in this "best of all possible worlds". (Voltaire, pg. 4) Candide bases his whole life off of this philosophy and even thought his life has been nothing but struggles, Candide never strays from this idea. Every time Candide is going through hard times and something good would happened he would refer back to this philosophy and believe it more and more every time something good happened. Candide is also very attracted to Cunegonde. Cunegonde is the Baron’s daughter and is very beautiful. Candide has always wanted to marry her but it has not happened because he is way below her rank. Candide eventually gets thrown out of his town for sneaking around with Cunegonde. This doesn’...
...mise to only love their husbands or wives and now he had been unfaithful to her with the Marquise. This action by Candide demonstrates how Candide has adapted to the world and how people also adapt to the things that exist.
Few movies have been panned by critics but widely accepted by viewers across the nation. National Treasure is one of them. Even after receiving sub par reviews including only two stars from Roger Ebert, National Treasure won over the public, earning almost $350 million worldwide. Even though the movie is under the Walt Disney Company and has a PG rating, this movie is not just for children. Superb acting and action from beginning to end will keep people of all ages glued to their seat as they follow one man’s quest for a hidden treasure.
Voltaire's Candide is a novel which contains conceptual ideas and at the same time is also exaggerated. Voltaire offers sad themes disguised by jokes and witticism, and the story itself presents a distinctive outlook on life. The crucial contrast in the story deals with irrational ideas as taught to Candide about being optimistic, versus reality as viewed by the rest of the world.