The Contributions Of Love In Voltaire's Novel

765 Words2 Pages

François-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire, was born on November 21, 1694, near Paris, France. He was born to a middle-class family and by the age of ten he had acquired a passionate opposition to organized religion and an eagerness for literature. Voltaire’s inclination for satire brought him enemies, powerful friends, and got him locked up in the Bastille prison for almost one year. Candide was a response to a destructive earthquake that hit Lisbon, in Portugal, on November 1, 1755. Candide is a satire on love because no real romantic love seems to exist in the novel. Candide’s love for Cunégonde is the driving force of his journey in the novel. Cunégonde was seventeen, plump, fresh, and desirable. Candide found her remarkably pretty …show more content…

She lived in a palace and grew up in wealth, pleasures, charm, dignities, and talent. At the age of fourteen, she was engaged to the prince of Massa Carrara, but his mistress murdered him with a toxic drink. When the old woman and her mother set sail to Gaeta pirates raped the women where eventually they would be sold as slaves. Despite the numerous times the old woman was raped and sold she was pleased to meet a countryman who took her to a nearby cottage to care for her. A nobleman took the old woman as his slave and beat her daily for two years until he was executed. The old woman almost committed suicide several times in her life, but never carried it out because she “loved life” too much. Voltaire repeatedly argued for human rights and refused to cast his writing as a response to current events and debates. About 30,000 people died in the earthquake that hit Lisbon in 1775. While Candide was on his journey he killed three men, two of which were priests. He abandoned El Dorado because of his love for Cunégonde and survived execution. When Candide killed the monkeys he believed his good deed would gain Cacambo, and he advantages in the unknown country, but it did not. The old woman suffered many times because of males, but was hopeful when one was willing to care of

Show More
Related

  • A Series of Unfortunate Events in Voltaire's Candide

    619 Words  | 2 Pages

    Voltaire. Candide. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1918. Project Gutenberg. Web. 11 January 2014. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19942/19942-h/19942-h.htm

    Read More

  • Criticism In Voltaire's 'Candide'

    1237 Words  | 3 Pages

    In chapter 5 of book Candide, the Enlightenment period and the birth of tolerance were on full display. In Candide, the Enlightenment thinkers’ view of the optimum world is challenged through satiric examples of the Lisbon Bay and Lisbon Earthquake. Voltaire continues to use ironically tragic events to test Pangloss’s contention with the phenomenon of evil. The use of grotesque and naive behavior between individuals in this chapter makes you really question their irrational thinking with the cause and effects of the events that just transpired.

    Read More

  • Essay on Voltaire’s Candide: Visualizing Perfection

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Candide by Voltaire

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    Voltaire’s most classic work, Candide, is a satiric assault on most everything that was prevalent in society during the author’s lifetime. The entire novel can be regarded as a bleak story where every character compares life stories to see whose life is worse. Just when the novel cannot get anymore morbid or depressing, it does, to a much greater degree. While Candide is generally considered a universal denunciation, it is optimism that Voltaire is attacking to the greatest degree. However, there are numerous other satirical themes throughout the novel worth discussing. These other areas of mockery include aristocratic snobbery, religious bigotry, militarism, and human nature.

    Read More

  • Voltaire Essay

    660 Words  | 2 Pages

    Voltaire was the youngest of five siblings, and had very high expectations. His father wanted him to be a notary after college, but he wanted to be a writer. After being caught pretending to be a notary, his father sent him to study law. There he got a job as a secretary, and continued writing. Voltaire also developed a tense relation with the authorities of the time. Through his critical views on religious intolerance and the governmental practices in general, cost him several imprisonments and exiles. In one of such imprisonments, at the Bastille, he wrote his first play entitled Œdipe. Also, during his imprisonment, he received his pet name “Voltaire”.

    Read More

  • Men Vs. Women In Voltaire's Candide

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in Candide by Voltaire

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Criticism In Chapter 5 Of Voltaire's 'Candide'

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    In chapter 5 of Candide, the Enlightenment and the birth of tolerance were on full display. In Candide, the Enlightenment thinkers’ view of the optimum world is challenged through the shipwreck and the satiric explanations of the Lisbon Bay and Lisbon Earthquake. Voltaire continues to use ironically tragic events to test Pangloss’s optimistic philosophy, which attempts to explain evil. The use of grotesque and naive behavior between individuals in this chapter makes the reader question Pangloss’s irrational thinking with the cause and effects of the events.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Sexism In Voltaire's Candide

    1054 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women didn't have that many choices in order for them to gain power in life. They could become the mistress of a powerful and rich man or marry into a good family. Because of that, women were treated in a disrespectful way that led to rape, which Voltaire tries to emphasize the importance of their role. He uses this idea to grab people's attention so they would be well aware of how serious rape is. If Voltaire was capitalizing and reinforcing sexism, then those who were raped wouldn’t be telling each other their stories on how they were raped. However, to emphasize this point, Voltaire needs to make it funny or offend people for attention. Voltaire uses their story to highlight how serious rape was, by telling us that among women it became a common topic to talk about. If Voltaire hadn’t talked about rape as if it wasn’t a problem then, many would be thinking that he’s trying to reinforce sexism. In Candide, Voltaire is critiquing and satirizing

    Read More

  • The Female Characters In Voltaire's Candide

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main female characters of this story is Cunégonde, the love interest of Candide, whose life did a complete 180 turn around. When we first find Cunégonde we see that she lives a lavish life with her family. We see her life turn around when her house is burned down, and her family murdered. Cunégonde herself is raped and sold to a man known as Don Issachar. She is then forced to be shared with another man known as The Grand Inquisitor. Although Cunégonde is a victim in the beginning, she retains her strong character, and after Candide slays the two men, she quickly seizes the opportunity to leaves with Candide and the old woman. If she were a victim,she would quickly falter, unsure of how to act or move because of

    Read More

  • Women in Voltaire’s Candide

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cunegonde is the daughter of a wealthy German lord. She is described as “extremely beautiful” (Voltaire. 5) and is repeatedly referred to as “the fair Cunegonde.” (39). She is the typical damsel-in-distress: a woman who is completely reliant on male protection and often fainting at the sight of anything the least bit distressing. She is a vapid beauty and completely obsequious to whomever she happens to belong to at the time. However, Voltaire does not blame her foolish naiveté on her femininity. Candide himself is terribly innocent and is unable to make decisions without the advice of a third party. In a way, Cunegonde accepts her situation in life better than Candide does. She knows that as a woman in the eighteenth century she has few options if she wishes to survive and she is not above using her beauty to her advantage. She never questions or philosophizes like many of the male characters. Her acceptance of the sexual slavery she finds herself in belies an understanding of the limited options women had at the time.

    Read More

  • Analysis On Candide: The Impossibility Of The Happy Life

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire lived from 1694-1778. He was an author and a philosopher whose philosophy stressed rationality, democracy and scientific inquiry. These interests can all be seen in Candide, for example, which has a philosopher for a main character and which satirizes the philosophy of Leibnitz throughout the text. The novel Candide was written in response to the earthquake of 1759 which hit Lisbon and resulted in the instantaneous and indiscriminate deaths of thousands. Appalled by the horrible deaths of so many innocent people, Voltaire was at this time also incensed by Leibnitz who wrote that given the worlds God might have created, by choosing to endow mankind with free will, "the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds." To Voltaire, this response to the earthquake amounted to an abominable moral complacency and indifference by philosophers such as Leibnitz, who Voltaire felt seemed to accept all the other normal suffering and injustice in the world. Hence in Candide, Voltaire relentlessly satirizes Leibnitz's formulation by shifting the stress to "this is the best of all possible worlds" and bringing up the line every time a character encounters a horrible calamity or atrocity. However, it should be added that Voltaire's hatred of injustices perpetrated by the aristocracy, the church and the state--all of which he satirizes in Candide--also grew out of his personal experiences.

    Read More

  • Optimism and Pessimism in Voltaire’s Candide

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    Voltaire, , and Roger Pearson. Candide: And Other Stories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Print

    Read More

  • The Meaning of Eldorado in Voltaire’s Candide

    2476 Words  | 5 Pages

    Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet de. “Candide.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Gen. ed. Martin Puchner. Shoter 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 2013. 100-59. Print.

    Read More

  • Language Analysis of "The Canonization" by John Donne

    276 Words  | 1 Pages

    Voltaire's Candide captures the extremes of human suffering, providing a disparaging account of what many of us would deem an unbearable cross to carry. While the author's message was not to glorify his characters for their resilience, the reader will clearly feel humbled after learning of the intense suffering that Candide and friends endure. In particular, it is the story of the old woman, who perhaps best explains the spirit of the characters, when she says 'A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but I always loved life more.' Considering that she has been raped repeatedly and essentially gone from riches to rags, her passion for life should remain unquestioned. Candide also displays this sense of hope in light of his many hardships. He honors his commitment to marry Cunegonde at the end of the story despite the physical abnormalities that have plagued her. Cunegonde, as you may remember, was also raped and taken as a sex slave. In addition, she was a victim of cannibalism and her face has clearly made a turn for the worse. Essentially, her once beautiful physique has undergone a complete transformation.

    Read More

More about The Contributions Of Love In Voltaire's Novel

Open Document