Irony and Humor Two popular writing techniques used by many of the enlightenment’s great were irony and humor. Great writers such as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere and Francois-Marie Arouet De Voltaire made excellent use of these techniques. With humor, both writers wrote stories which kept their audience involved in funny situations, while with irony the writers were able to explain their underlying messages. Born seventy-two years apart, they are a superb example of how these techniques were carried out over time. Moliere’s Tartuffe and Voltaire’s Candide are classic texts, which unmask man and society through their clever dark comedy. After reading these two works, one will undoubtedly see how similar the two author’s perceptions were during this great awakening. Moliere’s Tartuffe is a great ironic story centered on one man’s family and the trials and tribulations throughout their household. The protagonist in Tartuffe is Orgon. Orgon is portrayed as an over-trusting fool. He is over concerned with his beloved guest to such great extent that he becomes blind to the obvious fallacies that stand before him. As said in scene two by Dorine, “. . . but he’s quite lost his senses since he fell beneath Tartuffe’s infatuating spell. He calls him brother, and loves him as his life, preferring him to mother, child, or wife,” Orgon has put his family and the truth aside from him and has lost his reason (21-22). It is Orgon’s state of mind which this story actually thrives upon. Without the fool, there is no one to take advantage of. Similarly, Voltaire’s Candide is an ironic story centered on one man’s trials and tribulations through life. The protagonist in the story is Candide. Candide is portrayed as a... ... middle of paper ... ...consists of noblemen, middle class, and peasants. Someone in each story was lifted a little too high in regard, also while someone from each story needed to regain his ability to reason. Both of these faults are the causes of many of the stories’ problems. The people of their time could see how the stories ran quite parallel to their reality. As well today’s reader can draw certain parallels to his world. Someone once said, “Great minds think alike.” Moliere and Voltaire prove this statement. Works such as Tartuffe and Candide pushed forth the idea of reason and logic during the enlightenment. A reader from any time period will see how close these two authors’ stories are. The underlying themes and conflicts are universal and the characters easy to relate to. If the authors were not known, it could be possible to mistake both works for a single writer.
The author, Voltaire, wrote in the Enlightenment period, a literary movement characterized by the rising concern of philosophy, science, and politics. Voltaire’s writing was influenced by the Enlightenment movement to create awareness of global issues. This is evident in the repeated tragedies Candide stumbles upon. Social issues, corrupt authority figures, and war are real world topics that Voltaire chooses to address in Candide. The satirical nature of Candide allows for an in-depth discussion between the characters regarding the problems they face and the problems of the people they meet, creating a perspective that the audience is forced to look through. It is also a coming of age story, not just for Candide, but for the rising awareness in global issues. Voltaire’s inclusion of the issues of his time reflect the severity of those issues. Satire is used as a reaction to a society’s hypocrisy. Candide as a satirical piece reflects what people have neglected to pay attention to. Coming into a new era of awareness and responsibility leads Candide to reflect on the live he lived in Westphalia and the people he encountered across
The experiences that we face in life vary from person to person and one of the greatest differences occur between men and women. In Voltaire 's novel Candide a great deal of the experiences that each of the characters face is unique to them, but the experiences of the women differ greatly to those of the men. The way the two sexes handled those experiences also varied and reflected a satirical view of the times in which Voltaire lived. The differences in events between the men and women can be seen in a few key points that are seen throughout the Novel.
In addition to these similarities, they are both wide-eyed young boys, extremely impressionable and eager to please. Candide accepts Doctor Pangloss’ theories of metaphysico-theologoco-cosmonology without question. In layman’s terms this is a ridiculous take on the belief that everything happens for a reason. Voltaire is making a satirical jab at religion as well as philosophers [2] ; Candide blindly follows the teachings of Doctor Pangloss, even though he does not fully understand the ideas, as if they were words from a god.
He pushed culture towards science-based reasoning and separation of church and state. With the Age of Enlightenment and Voltaire’s philosophy, Candide is a great story that both entertained the audience of the time and taught them a lesson on what the future of civilization should be. The plotline of this tragedy and love story starts with Candide, an
In Voltaire's satire Candide the reader follows the travel of the main character Candide. Candide dynamically develops through the book by adsorbing multiple philosophies,and eventually concluding his own design. Throughout his journeys he encounters three major philosophies: optimism, pessimism and realism. The first philosopher is Pangloss and he teaches about optimism. The second philosopher that he meets is cacambo, and he is a person who accepts the world as it actually is. The last philosopher that candide encounters is a pessimist, and the despises everything in the world. As these three philosophers travel with Candide, they helped him see different viewpoints of the world. As a result, Candide’s development is greatly affected by the philosophies of Pangloss, Cacambo, and Martin.
Voltaire's masterpiece Candide recounts the journey of a young man as he ventures the world and faces reality, deals with it, is guided, transformed, and eventually defined by it. Voltaire's story tells the tale of Candide as his character matures from the naivete of a child to the extensive temperament of a distinguished man.
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.
In Candide, Voltaire sought to point out the fallacy of Gottfried Leibniz's theory of optimism and the hardships brought on by the resulting inaction toward the evils of the world. Voltaire's use of satire, and its techniques of exaggeration and contrast highlight the evil and brutality of war and the world in general when men are meekly accepting of their fate.
Voltaire's Candide uses anti-heroism as an object of mockery against the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Candide, the hero of the novel travels around the world where he encounters many difficulties. During his travels, he sticks to the teaching of his tutor, Doctor Pangloss, believing that "everything is for the best" (3). Voltaire points out the illogicality of this doctrine, "if Columbus had not caught, on an American island, this sickness which attacks the source of generation [...] we should have neither chocolate or cochineal" (8). The sheer stupidity of these illogical conclusions points out Voltaire's problem with most optimists: the illogical degree to which they would carry their doctrine. Voltaire would argue that noses were not designed for spectacles, but rather spectacles were designed for preexisting noses. Pangloss's interpretation of cause and effect is so ignorant as to be comical. While Candide tells an interesting story, it is more important as a satire. However, this does not prove Voltaire is a pessimist.
The book Candide by Voltaire is a humorous satire constructed of many themes. Through his book, Voltaire expresses his views on life by criticizing many aspects of humanity at that time. He focused in war, religion, and love, but the main target of Voltaire's satire was a certain philosophy. All of the previous topics unite to ridicule the philosophy that, as the character Pangloss said, "things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end" (1).
Candide may have started as an innocent boy that believed the world to be perfect, but he soon adapts his beliefs and opinions to the world around him as he realizes that there is nothing perfect of the world he lives in. This is just how people start their lives in the world and learn to adapt to their surroundings as they experience life. Therefore, Candide can be seen as an interpretation of the life of people by Voltaire in his novel Candide. That is because just like Candide, people adapt to the world through life experiences and may do good and bad things.
The first item I will be discussing is Candide which is a satire written by the philosopher François Marie Arouet who is known by his pseudonym Voltaire. Candide main characters adapt the idea that everything happens for the best, no matter how bad it is. It talks about a man who falls in love with a woman and after that he goes through a lot of hardships as he travels the world with his many companions. The novelattacks the church through irony and satire, it mentions how the church punishes people for having heretical ideas, which contradicts the aims of the Enlightenment as the latter supports explaining the world through science in a way that separates the ideas from those mentions in the Bible. The novel includes a character named “Pangloss“, who is a caricature of the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. “Pangloss” supports the idea that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, that idea is destroyed in the novel. Candide is a novel that talks about the idea of theodicy
Tartuffe is a satirical comedic play written by Molière in 1664. It is focused around the family of Orgon and the character of Tartuffe, who has become Orgon’s personal holy man. Before being brought into Orgon’s home, Tartuffe was nothing more than a common beggar who learned how to act pious. Throughout this play, we see Orgon give everything he owns to Tartuffe: his love, his money, his daughter, and even the deed to his house. While everyone else in the household sees Tartuffe for who he really is, Orgon remains blind to it throughout most of the play. Orgon is warned many times by different members of the household, including his own son, yet he only chooses to lash out against those speaking. From early on in the play we as readers are able to recognize that Tartuffe is no more than a hypocrite and Orgon is a blind fool. In the play Tartuffe by Molière there are several different important themes that impact this work,
Candide begins in the German town of Westphalia, where Candide, a young man, lives in the castle of Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh. A noted philosopher, Doctor Pangloss, tutors the baron on philosophical optimism, the idea that "all is for the best . . . in this best of all worlds." Candide, a simple man, first accepts this philosophy, but as he experiences the horrors of war, poverty, the maliciousness of man, and the hypocrisy of the church, he begins to doubt the voracity of Pangloss's theory. Thus, philosophical optimism is the focus of Voltaire’s satire; anti-war and anti-church refrains also run throughout the novel.
Candide by Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) is a critique of the “all for the best” philosophy that Christians keenly followed in the mid-1700s. Voltaire is a famous philosopher from the Enlightenment period. He wrote about his perspective on certain issues existent in the world and addressed them in various ways. In Candide, he specifically used French satire to criticize a popular notion of the 18th century stating that all things, good or bad, are for the best. Voltaire himself was an anti-religious man and he rejected this philosophy that all things happen for a reason; this concept seemed highly irrational, unreasonable, and unnatural to him. He felt that it was dangerous for people to think that God has a plan and that if something bad happens in His plans, its still all for the best. He used many utilities to prove his point, including satire and irony. He displayed various themes throughout the story and indirectly targeted his audience with sarcasm. He created various characters to represent the different types of people he was targeting. Even the names of the people were satirical. The word Candide, for example, literally means “naïve” and “childlike honesty”. Pangloss, another major character, means “all tongue”. By doing so, Voltaire was able to play with his readers on every page of the book.