Criticism In Voltaire's 'Candide'

In chapter 5 of book Candide, the Enlightenment period and the birth of tolerance were on full display. In Candide, the Enlightenment thinkers’ view of the optimum world is challenged through satiric examples of the Lisbon Bay and Lisbon Earthquake. Voltaire continues to use ironically tragic events to test Pangloss’s contention with the phenomenon of evil. The use of grotesque and naive behavior between individuals in this chapter makes you really question their irrational thinking with the cause and effects of the events that just transpired. As chapter 5 begins, the ship was in the midst of a tempest and its crew feared for their lives. As Voltaire used vivid imagery to described the individuals aboard the ship as “making loud outcries,

Now one would expect someone (Candide or Pangloss) to save James, but then Pangloss demonstrated to Candide that the Lisbon Bay was formed just for James to drown in. Pangloss statement was a paradox to the common viewer of the play because of how illogical the statement seems, but at the time, Pangloss used his complacent reasoning of optimism, convinced that god planned this all out. Voltaire uses satire in this example to emphasize the far-fetched and completely uncorrelated events, such as a formation of a bay and the drowning of James. The lack of rational from Pangloss also comes from his connection with god. This connection allows for Pangloss to ship the responsibility onto God for the unfortunate events then to take individual responsibility to act and save James because Pangloss believed that God was good and had a reason for this event to happen. Then the ship went on to capsized and the entire crew perished but ironically, the only three to survive are Pangloss, Candide and the sailor, the three that were irrational in theory and cynical in

Speech like, “Large sheets of flames and cinders covered the streets and public places; the houses tottered, and were tumbled topsy-turvy even to their foundations”, gave the viewer an image of a terrifying and traumatic event. This type of speech specifically, “flames and cinders covering the streets” by Voltaire signified the evil and produced questions like how can God be good? How can he possibly justify these horrific events that have just transpired? These corresponding events should have been enough for anyone to start second guessing god and his reasoning behind this. In the book Pangloss still believed there to be sufficient reasoning for this phenomenon as he went on to explain, “the city of Lima in South America experienced the same last year; the same cause, the same effects; there is certainly a train of sulfur all the way underground from Lima to Lisbon”(reading). The way Pangloss connected underground sulfur to an earthquake killing thousands of people is beyond absurd, as there is no evidence or reason to believe that sulfur would produce this kind of event. Pangloss was not the only foolish believer at the time, according to lecture followers of optimism, “explained horrors of the earthquake away with the idea that it was all for the best: the living would inherit from the dead; the city would be rebuilt, providing jobs”.