Candide Blog #1

Phelps, Sydney; Entry #1
My dearest and highly esteemed colleague and friend, Rachel, how are thee faring upon these holiday vacations?
        I strongly agree with you that this tale of the quest of Candide is terrible and horrifying. This short novel is extremely satirical and has some dark humor elements as Candide encounters himself in the most ridiculous tragedies of unreasonable misfortune. Voltaire creates these terrible circumstances of death and carnage to reveal how ridiculous Candide's and Pangloss' philosophy is. In the intro to the book it says, "but the author accept[s] neither Martin's pessimism nor Pangloss's optimism at their face value"(8). I think that this makes it clear that Voltaire is trying to satirize and poke fun at the absurdity of total optimism and total pessimism. Through the horrible events that happen to Candide, like him being kicked out of the castle, the war, the shipwreck and the earthquake, Voltaire shows that there is evil in this world and it is very foolish to believe that, "all things are necessarily connected and arranged for the best"(24). I think that Candide and Pangloss are deluded with fanciful ideas and do not see the world at face value for what it is..
       I agree with you that Voltaire portrays Pangloss as a hypocrite. I think he may be trying to make a comment about the philosophers of that day who preached about right and wrong and then went and had affairs or hesitated to help their fellow human beings. I believe we also see this in the Protestant preacher refuses to help Candide when he was starving. The man was preaching for "the good cause"(24), and yet he tells Candide that he does not deserve to eat because he's not against the Pope. It almost seems as though no one is spared from Voltaire's criticism except for James the Anabaptist. Could this be because Voltaire agrees with James' worldview and philosophies? I think from what we've seen is that James has a happy medium of recognizing that there is sin in the world, but he does not fail to help those in need like Candide and Pangloss. What do you think of the Anabaptist, James?
(I got some insight on the importance of the character of James from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/characters.html).
      To answer your question, I do not believe that it was fair for the baron to kick Candide out of the castle because his daughter, Cunegonde, was the one that came on to him. It also seemed that they had mutual feelings from the way they behaved. I believe Voltaire makes another judgment on the "royal folk" because the baroness would not marry Candide's father because he only had "seventy-one generations of nobility"(17). He criticizes them for being obsessed with their noble lineage more than their character and whether or not they proved to be noble through their actions.
      I found the scene about the war strange. Candide just walks by all the men, women, and children dying without giving a thought about helping them. He deserts the army to go, "reason about cause and effect"(23). It seems as though everyone cares more about their philosophies or their "causes" more than actual people. Do you think seeing the war made Candide question Pangloss' philosophy at all? Also, I think the worst tragedy that Candide has suffered has been the death of Cunegonde-- it seemed like he genuinely cared for her because he did not forget about her and asked Pangloss about her.

PS-- here's a good quote that shows Voltaire's contempt towards philosophers-- "Candide, trembling like a philosopher, hid himself as best as he could during this heroic carnage"(23).