| Candide is the fast, funny, often outrageous, adventure of a gentle man, who is pummeled and whipped in every direction by fate, while he desperately clings to the belief that we live in the "best of all possible worlds". This eighteenth century philosophical tale is alive with wit, brilliance, and graceful story telling. Candide has become Voltaire's most celebrated work. Candide is easily Voltaire's wittiest novel. In its time it was a powerful tool for political attack on Europe's degenerate and immoral society. The work vividly and satirically portrays the horrors of eitheenth-century life: civil and religious wars, sexual diseases, despotic rulers, the arbitrary punishment of innocent victims - the same enduring problems we witness today. Through the constant misfortunes of Candide, Voltaire poses meaningful questions about the nature of suffering. Pangloss' philosophy is eagerly and enthusiastically accepted by Candide in the beginning of the novel. But toward the end of his life he refutes this Utopian theory, concluding that diligence in labor is the only answers to a life constantly riddled with bad luck. Indeed, Voltaire teaches that man is incapable of understanding the evil in the world, and concludes that the fundamental aim in life is not happiness, but survival. |
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