Analysis Of The Novel 'Candide' By Voltaire

Olivia Shaul

Mrs. Alice Barron

Advanced World Literature and Composition

11 April 2016 Candide Essay

During the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Age of Enlightenment was a time period that many individuals questioned and a time period in which the way people looked at the world changed drastically. It was a time that gave people the opportunity to reason and find truth on their own. Religion became one of the main “optimist” ideas of the Enlightenment, and belief that enlightenment is taught through others. The scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century brought new skeptic views on religion, of which philosophers focused on reason and truth. Also during the Reformation, religious views were the set of controversy. Both

According to William Bristow from Stanford University, Deism was the form of religion most associated with the enlightenment. Nevertheless, Voltaire believed in a god, but he did not admit that there was enough evidence to support what many believed about him or ascribed to him. It is easy to understand that Voltaire would have a hard time accepting the idea that his god would set up a system where he goes out of his way to assure that all is for the best. Also, it shows that his god is not concerned with the individual lives of individual humans, this affirmation is proven through the conversation between Pangloss and the Dervish. In order to end all the philosophical debate occurring between Candide and other characters, Pangloss persists in asking the Dervish why man was made and why there is evil in the world. As a response, the Deverish makes an enigmatic analogy

Many encounters of religious leaders appear in the novel, such as the Grand Inquisitor, an important official of the catholic church, who forced a Jew to share cunegonde with him and threatened him with religious persecution, then proposed the Jew with an “auto-da-fe.” (Voltaire, 32) The Jew that was dealt with was named Don Issachar, the one who brought Cunegonde to make her his sex slave. Then there was the daughter of a Pope, whose father being a Catholic Priest should have been celibate; and a Franciscan Friar who is considered a Jewel thief. Then there is the Jesuit Priest who admits to having homosexual inclinations. All of these being religious leaders, satires the religious aspects of these leaders in a negative and hypocritical way. Through Candide’s eyes, you can see the dangers in an organized religion that Voltaire