Voltaire’s Views of Religion and State Expressed In Candide

Bibliography Andrews, Wayne. Voltaire. New York: New Directions Pub. 1981 Gay, Peter. Voltaire's Politics.New York: Random House,1965 Weitz, Morris.

The many popular figures in Hell, especially the Popes, ended up there for their grievous and shocking misconducts. In Canto 19, the pilgrim talks to Pope Nicholas III, who tells him that he is in Hell for simony (Alighieri 455, 456). Simony is when someone pays to receive sacraments, which happened during the period of Dante’s life; this shows how he perceives the political figures who have committed these scandals. He uses multiple Popes in the Inferno to illuminate how deeply corrupted the leaders of the church were. Dante exemplifies this by Pope Nicholas being scared that Pope Boniface VIII, who actuall... ... middle of paper ... ...onjointly, Dante’s strategically used imagery shows the horrors are merely the hidden sins committed on Earth and that caused them to be punished in Hell to their sins’ equal severity.

614-616. New York: Bantam Books, 1967. Print. Duyckinck, Evert. “Melville’s Moby-Dick; or the Whale.” from The Literary World In Melville, Herman.

Franz Kafka’s The Trial: Human Institutions and the Absurd In his novel The Trial, Franz Kafka describes Josef K.’s encounter with a hidden totalitarian government and his transformation under the noted government’s pressures and disturbances in his life. The ongoing madness and Josef K.’s personal destruction captures the vulnerability of human institutions like the church, family, and state to human desires and the absurd, an existential idea that gives no meaning in the world besides the one that humans assign to it. Kafka criticizes mankind’s innate and destructive logic to create societal institutions that confine citizens and inevitably lead to the failure of human values and beliefs. These institutions attempt to deceive citizens by hiding life’s chaos and uncertainty, a process highlighted by the court system. Throughout the book, Josef K. meets multiple characters who maintain their own different roles in society and possess exclusive knowledge of the court system.

The fear he exhibits makes readers feel pity towards him because he is innocent and it creates a negative view of the church and of the government in Florence. Corruption in this case destabilizes the morals of politics because Dante was cheated for a higher official to benefit. In summation, Dante Alighieri uses cantos 19 and 22 in order to covey that the morals of politics and leaders are undermined by corruption. Dante teaches us about the history and politics of his time and he teaches us that it can influence the way society views politics and religion. Through this book we are reminded of how far society has come and how it is able to operate as it still does today.

Oedipus the King. Trans: Moses Hadas. New York:  Bantam Books, 1965. Weller, Philip. Macbeth Navigator.

Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 432-443.

San Diego, Claifornia: Lucent Books Inc., 1995. Dowd, David L. The French Revolution. New York, New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Durant, William and Ariel. Rousseau and Revolution.

Pohl, Frederick J.. Amerigo Vespucci: Pilot Major. New York: Octagon Books Inc, 1966. Zweig, Stefan. Amerigo: A Comedy of Errors in History. New York: The Viking Press, 1942.

In fact, Catholics are the butt of many sardonic jokes in the essay. ... ... middle of paper ... ...and hammering the "condemning social statement" into the reader. Swift goes beyond just describing the socioeconomic distance between the aristocracy and the poor. He goes beyond showing the deplorable state of the country. Swift clearly shows the ludicrous nature of the society in which he lived, the feudal system, religious conflicts, the lack of social mobility, the aristocracy, and overpopulation.