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Candide
In Voltaire's Candide, I do not believe the author's recommendation is to retreat from social commitment. Candide is a parody (a form of satire, making fun of an idea...) of Gottfried Wilhelm von...
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Candide
Candide: Or, All for the Best is a French satirical novel written by Voltaire (1694–1778), first published in 1759. In Candide, Voltaire satirizes the philosophical cult of the theory of...
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Candide
Antithesis is a literary device or technique in which two opposite clauses or ideas are presented together, in a parallel grammatical structure, in order to present a contrasting concept. More...
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Candide
The novel Candide is written as an epic journey in a way. Each of the characters follows through a series of unfortunate events and eventually finds himself or herself on a quest to reunite Candide...
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Candide
This statement (or some variation thereof, depending on which translation you are reading) can be found in chapter 20 of Candide. Throughout the interactions between Candide and Martin in part 1 of...
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Candide
When we speak about the intellectual and literary trends of the eighteenth century, we largely speak in terms of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason (in which Voltaire is usually featured...
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Candide
The main causes of human suffering and dissatisfaction in Voltaire’s Candide come from a few select sources. The top five are the following: religion, war/violence, nature, sex, and lack of...
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Candide
Two of the major themes of Candide are the arbitrary nature of fortune and the universal nature of misfortune. Chapter 26 represents perhaps the strongest statement of this theme, as it carries...
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Candide
Pangloss and Martin have two conflicting viewpoints on life and on the nature of the world. Pangloss is the champion of optimism (and a mocking satire of Leibnitz). For Pangloss, this world must be...
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Candide
Even in Candide's early chapters, Voltaire presents Europe as a continent rife with injustice and cruelty. One might well treat it in language of the absurd (even though the modern concept of the...
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Candide
Voltaire's novel Candide repeatedly expresses a negative view on sex. There are many instances where sex is used in a negative way throughout the book, all of which accelerate the story and...
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Candide
The answer to this is unclear, because Voltaire's Candide is such a pessimistic work overall. It is very difficult to find much optimism within it, and the main character, who seems at times to be...
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Candide
Voltaire is a deist, so he is not necessarily opposed to religion as a whole, but he does have some very strong negative attitudes toward major organized religions. Overall, Voltaire shows a strong...
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Candide
In Candide, the title character comes into contact—and often conflict—with religious figures and institutions on several occasions. Voltaire overall is critical of both; while he tends to...
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Candide
I think the easiest and most obvious answer to this question would be to point towards chapter 26 of Candide, in which Voltaire turns his vision of arbitrary fortune to reflect on the monarchs...
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Candide
This question seems somewhat difficult to answer because Voltaire's subversiveness stretches so widely, across all of European society as a whole. He criticizes the Church, the nobility, military...
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Candide
Candide's eviction from Thunder-ten-tronckh is the opening event which sets into motion his various adventures and misfortunes. Candide himself is described as a gentle, well-meaning individual,...
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Candide
El Dorado, in Voltaire's famous Candide, is the legendary shining city of splendor. When Candide and Cacambo accidentally stumble into this magnificent city in the middle of their journeys, they...
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Candide
El Dorado is a place of bliss and beauty, the one rational place in the world of the story. Candide stumbles upon this magnificent city, where he essentially needn't worry about anything and has...
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Candide
In Voltaire's Candide, the main character goes through many trials and tribulations, including military service, imprisonment, and much more. In addition to his own sorrows, he witnesses many other...
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Candide
In the novel Candide by Voltaire, nature is used primarily as a force of evil and destruction. Voltaire is making a pointed religious commentary throughout the novel, as well as drawing on a very...
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Candide
Candide is a satire, and the term "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-boobology" is Voltaire's way of poking fun of and mocking abstract philosophy. This specific wording is invoked in reference to...
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Candide
Verbal irony is when dialogue (or sometimes narration) appears to say one thing on the surface but really means something else entirely. It is often sarcastic and used for satirical purposes, which...
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Candide
Voltaire's novel Candide is replete with examples of situational irony (in which expectations conflict with what actually happens) and dramatic irony (in which readers of a given work of literature...
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Candide
As one observes with Candide, irony is a weapon in Voltaire's hands. He uses it to attack the irrationalities and abuses of the world. Possibly one of the most striking examples of situational...
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Candide
Candide and Cundegonde's relationship is packed with irony. For one, they start out as idealistic lovers who are hopelessly devoted to one another. Candide goes on a quest to reunite with...
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Candide
There are several instances in which Voltaire criticizes religion. For example, in Chapter 14, the character Cacambo, Candide's footman in Paraguay, is described as having been a "singing boy,...
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Candide
Depicting her like the heroine of the picareque novel, a heroine who is the idolized beauty of the hero of that genre, Voltaire employs Cunegonde as a symbol of Candide's idealization and...
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Candide
Perhaps Voltaire was not so much a pessimist as a disappointed idealist. Such is usually the case with satirists: They see what problems exist in their society and they ridicule them with the...
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Candide
The primary target of Voltaire's satire in Candide is the German philosopher Leibniz who claimed that our world is "the best of all possible worlds". Leibniz argued that, in spite of its many...
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Candide
Candide has been indoctrinated by the kingdom's philosopher "Pangloss" before he is expelled for loving the Princess Cunegonde from the fictional kingdom of Westphalia. His teachings in...
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Candide
No. I think Voltaire agrees half way with Martin. That is to say, Martin is cynical about the world, doesn't believe in major causes or philosophies, has learned from experience, and talks...
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Candide
In Chapter XVII of Voltaire's famous satire, Candide and his servant Cacambo, in desperate straits, reach Eldorado where they are amazed at the riches, as well as the cultivation of the country for...
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Candide
In Voltaire's novel, Candide, three themes stand out in the old woman's tale. The old woman has not always been a servant; in fact, she was once a member of the nobility—the Princess of...
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Candide
This work was written in 1759. It is both a satire or life and a parody of a romantic adventure story in which the main character, a young man named Candide, is forced out into the world by a...
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Candide
With the theme of "Candide" as the human condition, Votaire sees optimism as a stutifying limitation upon understanding this condition. For, Dr. Pangloss's doctrine of optimism holds that...
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Candide
In Chapter 19 of Voltaire's satirical work, Candide, Candide and his servant Cacambo encounter misfortunes until they reach Eldorado. However, although they are in a paradise, Candide cannot live...
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Candide
Candide is young and naive, making him the definition of the unreliable narrator. The reader cannot trust the unreliable narrator to convey correct information, because the narrator himself does...
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Candide
I guess Candide can be considered a heroic figure. He does rise to the occasion and kill Issachar when he has to do so, and the inquisitor as well. He certainly goes through enough adventures to be...
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Candide
Best known by his nom de plume, or pen-name, Francois-Marie Arouet, criticized his society; in fact, he signed everything "Ecrasez l'in-fame," or "down with infamy." His famous work, "Candide,"...
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Candide
During the period in which Voltaire was writing Candide, France was governed by a king who was an absolute monarch. The Roman Catholic Church was the official state church, and under a concept...
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Candide
In Candide, Voltaire is questioning whether the philosophy of optimism is a viable perspective on the world, given all of the tragedy that occurs every day. Voltaire satirizes this philosophy in...
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Candide
Candide depicts evil as an ever-present force in human history and in an individual lifetime. After being kicked off the property of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, Candide travels far and wide,...
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Candide
Questions such as this are very difficult to answer because they assume a direct correspondence between writers and the characters they depict. Most often, one cannot easily say whether or not the...
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Candide
Candide, of course, is a philosophical novel. While it can be enjoyed on several different levels--Voltaire's wit has actually translated quite well across the centuries--Voltaire is using the...
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Candide
In "Candide," the forces of evil in the world deter the exercise of one's free will. Dr. Pangloss, a follower of Gottfried Leibnitz, who attempts to use logic to explain evil, feels that certain...
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Candide
After Candide is flogged in Chapter 6, an old woman cares for him. While with Candide in Chapter 11, she tells him her miserable story of being captured along with her mother, her mother's...
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Candide
Voltaire's aim in Candide is to disprove the philosopher Leibniz's optimism. This held that our world is the best of all possible worlds and also suggests that any tragedies in this world in some...
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Candide
"Chacun doit cultiver son jardin" is the final reflection of Candide, and this idea that one must cultivate his own garden--to paraphrase the metaphor: one must make one's own happiness--is the...
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Candide
Voltaire's Candide is a quintessential satire: there is hardly a paragraph that does not express ridicule. The main focus of this ridicule is the Optimism of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz based...
