Examples Of Hypocrisy In Candide

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In a time of religious upheaval in Europe, post-Lutheran theses and in the midst of political revolutions, Voltaire offers another option to the religious institutions of this time in his novel Candide: deism. He poses this option by satirizing organized religions to illustrate their corruption and hypocrisy. Voltaire asks where God is throughout Candide. Whenever an awful thing happens, one must ask oneself why, if God is merciful and benevolent, this would happen, or why these religious people would allow this. Voltaire uses these “awful things” as evidence of corruption within the church. After an earthquake in Lisbon, Candide and Pangloss are subjected to flogging and hanging, respectively. The two are treated like so in order to appease …show more content…

When Cunegonde tells her story for the first time, the corruption of the Grand Inquisitor and the Court banker, a Jew, are shown. “(Cunegonde) should belong to both of them in common, to the Jew on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sabbath days, and to the Inquisitor the other days of the week… they cannot decide whether Saturday night belongs to the old law or to the new” (Voltaire 42). The two holy men are not just splitting up their Sabbaths, but also a woman. The two take part in prostitution, a practice publicly frowned upon by the church. Voltaire asserts that the two men, regardless of religion, prioritize money and their own wants(Scherr 1). The humor Voltaire uses to approach this emphasizes the hypocrisy within religion as an institution. The leaders of these institutions are dishonest, not believing in the very things they teach.
While churches are being thrown up into the air and theocracies turned upside down, Voltaire dismantles beliefs and hierarchies, arguing that none of these establishments are as holy as they preach to be. His use of cutting sarcasm and cynicism in absurd circumstances turns the reader against the institutions of religion, and towards finding his own beliefs and interpretations of religion. Voltaire doesn’t question the realness of God, only the bandwagon mindset of those following religious institutions

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