Extraordinary Free Will

Optimism: 1. A disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome. Or 2. The belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world. (Dictionary.com). In Candide we see many interpretations of optimism and pessimism, but Candide defined optimism as “the passion for maintaining that all is right when all goes wrong with us.” I think Candide’s definition is inaccurate because one doesn’t need to suffer to be optimistic. He is optimistic because Pangloss, who suffered an immense misfortune, induced him into that belief and because he also lived a calamitous life. I can be optimistic because I prefer to believe the world is good and not bad. My definition of optimism is more like the ones from the dictionary: a belief that happenings will be good.

Voltaire has now introduced a new character and he has philosophies of his own. Martin is a cynical pessimist that heavily contrasts Candide’s optimism. “Well! You see how men treat each other!” Said Martin to Candide when they saw one ship sinking in a battle with another. Martin’s sarcasm is evident and I have a feeling he is somewhat a representation of what Voltaire really thinks. “I have seen so many extraordinary things, that nothing is extraordinary any longer,” said Martin explaining why he wasn’t surprised with Candide’s story of the “love” between some girls and their monkeys. Martin was not as naïve and innocent as Candide, or at least he realized life was not a fairy tale. As Candide and Martin travel to France, Candide thinks of a way to explain why men act badly, but Martin said men have never changed their character: it was their nature (like animals) to be evil. People have always had the same types of characters and through the ages there has always been good and bad, and whether or not people change, Candide shouldn’t defend evil because men have free will. Once the damage is done, there is nothing to revert things. People have free will, but that doesn’t mean someone can do well simply because they want to. Free will doesn’t mean evil vanishes.

The Lost City of Gold

Candide and Cacambo mistakenly arrived at Eldorado, where they had everything. This country was monotheistic, there were no disputes over religion, there was no need of prisons, no inquisition and it was impossible for outsiders to get to it. Eldorado was pretty much the perfect country for Candide because the month that he was there he suffered no misfortune, he was equal to the rest, and had all the resources he needed. Love and greed overcame Candide and he decided to leave Eldorado and take mounts of jewels to pay for Cunégonde. “We can now pay off the Governor of Buenos Ayres, if Lady Cunégonde should be held ransom. Let’s go to Cayenne and set sail, and we will then see what kingdom we can buy”, said Candide. This is a clear example that shows Candide was not satisfied if he was not with his love, but it also shows Candide could become like the greedy European colonizers. I don’t know what will happen to Candide with his riches, but I can predict it won’t be good. The real critic of the colonizers was the King of Eldorado, who said, “A man should be satisfied with what works moderately well. I have no right to detain strangers against their will; that would be a tyranny which neither our customs nor our laws could justify. All men are free”. All this was precisely what the colonizers did with Native Americans. It is evident that Voltaire is mocking the European ways presenting Eldorado as a utopia, but he could also mean that a country like Eldorado (perfect) can’t exist because actually El Dorado, the “Lost City of Gold”, was never found.

Kill Candide

After hearing about the old woman’s misfortune Candide thought about his old friend Pangloss and what he would have said about her suffering. “He would have made some remarkable observations on the moral and physical evils which infest the earth and sea, and with all due respect to him I should have made bold to offer a few objections”, said Candide. Even though Candide remarks Pangloss ideas should be refuted, he still hasn’t said anything too radical about this. Even though he has seen too much pain he seems pusillanimous and scared to contradict Pangloss’s ideas. Candide is still too much of an optimist, but that could change further into the story.

It is funny how now that Candide is in America and is now Captain Candide, he again has suffered some kind of misfortune. Now he has to escape because he is wanted because of one of the murders he commited to save Cunégonde, but was not enough to satisfy Voltaire’s writing: Candide had to suffer a little more. Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueroa y Mascaranes y Lampourdos y Souza, the governor of Buenos Ayres, proposed marriage to Lady Cunégonde, whom Candide passionately loved. Candide has too little to offer to Cunégonde, while the governor has it all. There’s still more to Candide’s misfortune when he murdered Lady Cunégonde’s brother, whom he found when he sought to the rebellious Jesuits in Paraguay for help. This man wanted to rescue Cunégonde and could have been Candide’s savior, but Candide ruined it all. I really laughed reading this because the Baron got angry with Candide, who ruthlessly killed him, because he said wanted to marry Cunégonde. It’s ironic that Candide killed Cunégonde’s brother (his biggest mistake), as both where protective for Cunégonde, but it was not likely for her to marry Candide.

Canide is growing to me as a story of one pronounced murderer. Poor Candide has killed several times, and each making it worst for him, but all for his beloved Lady Cunégonde. Who knows how his love story will be in the end, but hopefully his optimistic, murderous, ravaging pays off and his true love loves him back. Voltaire’s Candide has given me quite the laughs and all because of Candide’s misfortune, so I ask myself if I would laugh too if the book was not satirical and rather serious.

Suicide Solution

Candide is a story of ups and downs. Candide lost Jacques the Anabaptist and Pangloss, but then reunited with Cunégonde, who should now form a club of misfortune with Candide. Candide and Cunégonde are headed for the New World and are accompanied by an old woman, who had suffered far more than the previously introduced characters, but is this coincidence or the more we get into the story there’s more agony? Where is Voltaire going with all of these disastrous tales of pain and suffering? This reminds me of Slaughterhouse-Five, where we first met Billy Pilgrim a man who had suffered a lot and was senile, and then we began knowing new characters whose misfortune was far bigger than Billie’s.

“I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in live with life”, said the old woman, who had been raped the night of her wedding, sold to slavery and got a buttock cut. Like Candide, this woman has lived through the worse, but to the contrary of Candide she has faced her reality. While Candide thinks he has suffered as part for the greater good, she knows she has lived through the worst misery she knows, up to the point where she bet her life to Cunégonde if she found someone more misfortunate than her in their boat. The old woman’s perception of her own misfortune is Voltaire’s a balance to Candide’s irrationality because even though Cunégonde has suffered she doesn’t say much more: she is rather dull and dumb. The old woman contradicts Pangloss’s famous “the best of all possible worlds”, because even though she is the daughter of a pope (isn’t that prohibited?) and was rich and was going to marry a prince, she is pessimist, but fond of life. “I have met a vast number of people who detested their existence, but I have met only twelve who have voluntarily put an end to their misery”, said the old woman. As absurd as it sounds, she thinks twelve suicides is little, but as absurd as it sounds Candide thinks their voyage to the New World will be a prosperous one.

Voltaire has portrayed the world from one end to the other. Candide narrates about war, rape, marriage, love, education, and pretty much all in some way or another have misery. Voltaire criticizes and mocks all of these topics with anti-epic stories about anti-heroes.