Voltaire's Candide

Voltaire's Candide

Voltaire, whose real name was Francois Marie Arouet, was a man whose cynical style of writing brought attention upon himself, both in the positive aspect and in the negative. Francois associated himself with a group of politically power-hungry people who held a frantic hatred against the duke of Orleans. He was wrongly believed to have printed two libelous poems that defaced the duke and due to the false accusation he was imprisoned in the Bastille. This oppression of his right, by imprisoning him wrongly, might have led to Voltaire's less than favorable way of introducing France within his novel Candide. Near when Voltaire was in his 60's a great quake took place in Lisbon killing thousands of people and the tragedy of the quake was written about in the novel, and only a year after, a devastating Seven Year War began which was also referenced within the novel Candide. Because of the overall suffering that man has brought upon each other and was given to them by nature he rejected the concept of a rational and well regulated universe and has often made puns at that philosophical ideal within the Candide.

Voltaire's Candide tells of the struggle of a man who went through much misfortune in life to pursue happiness and love. The protagonist was a man, who went by the name of Candide and the story gives a vivid detail of his adventures as he sought to win the love of Miss Cunegonde.