Irony In Candide And The Screwtape Letters

To “awaken thoughtful laughter” means that the author manages to make their reader stop and think about what the text is really saying. The novels Candide and The Screwtape Letters attempt to use irony to satirize their targts.

Voltaire’s Candide targets things like optimism and religion. He primarily uses irony to get his points across. The optimistic theory in particular that Voltaire makes fun of is the idea that this is “the best of all possible worlds”. Candide and Pangloss explain away everything as “meant to happen” because it couldn’t possibly be bad if this is the best of all possible worlds. The irony there is that what they are describing as the “best world” is clearly not. For example, Pangloss uses circular logic to explain an earthquake in Lisbon. This makes Pangloss’ ideology seem ridiculous. By the end of the novel, even naive Candide has thrown away his acceptance of this optimistic standpoint. Voltaire also finds a major target

He makes fun of human nature by presenting human qualities as good, but through the eyes of a demon. The image of a deon is generally seen as a bad one. This is ironic because demons represent evil, and anything they see as good, normal people would see as morally wrong. Most of the characteristics Screwtape presents to his nephew Wormwood as traits they want the Patient to have don’t seem terrible. However, Screwtape has deeper explanations for them. For example, he wants to strain the Patient’s relationship with his mother. In every argument they have, both people will be convinced that they are innocent. Eventually, they will be saying things to offend people, but being convinced that they haven’t done anything wrong. This is funny on the surface, but it makes you stop and think about if you do that. If you do, it makes you think, “Should I be doing something that a demon would find helpful?” Probably not. It shocks you into wanting to