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.