Examples Of Satire In Candide

In Candide, Voltaire explores the ideas of paternalistic optimism and uses satire as a method of social commentary. His story follows the misery of one man as he pursues his one and only love and the happiness that he eventually finds. By framing the novel around a biblical story and having Candide lose and regain paradise, Voltaire suggests that one must cultivate their own perfect world as opposed to optimistically enduring the present in the hopes of a better future. At the beginning of the novel, Candide is expelled from the baron’s magnificent castle due to his giving in to his personal temptation. This temptation being the young, “plump and amiable” Miss Cunégonde, who resided in the baron’s castle as well (11). Candide kissed Miss Cunégonde, was discovered by the baron, and expelled from the castle. The plot of the beginning of this novel parallels the biblical story of The Fall. Voltaire employed the use of a biblical allusion to stress the idea of Candide’s perfect world. The similarities are evident in several places. The baron’s castle, much like the Garden of Eden, was described as an, “earthly paradise” (14). Candide was living in a wonderful

Throughout the entirety of Candide, he makes comments on optimism and its faults. By framing the novel around a biblical story and having Candide lose and regain paradise, Voltaire suggests that one must cultivate their own perfect world as opposed to optimistically enduring the present in the hopes of a better future. In the novel this is evident, Candide pursues his own paradise, goes through hell, and cultivates his own garden once more. Through the cyclic nature presented, Voltaire shows that optimism does not a paradise make and that the only way one can truly have paradise is to take their destiny into their own hands and cultivate their own