CHAPTER 6 : VOLTAIRE’S CANDIDE

A230A- Week 5

Utopian versus Dystopian

Utopia means good or perfect place that is no where to be found.  The word appeared in the English scholar Thomas More’s text but the concept was old. Utopian Literature showed perfect imaginary environments based upon ideals (such as toleration, the equal education of the sexes, and the absence of money and private property).

'Dystopian‘ is a the opposite of utopia. Authors showed that worlds in which human ideals of a perfect society were shown are ridiculous, or at least impracticable. They showed that man is naturally corrupt and that the world is full of mistakes and evil things. Eg. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels

Dystopian

Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about society, powerful institutions, fixed beliefs.

In Greek, it is the bad place to live ; an unfavorable society

Week 5 Candide

Chapter 6: Voltaire’s Candide

The names of the characters.A philosophical TaleAn Indirect SatireFour narratorsThe main Narrator = Dr Ralph and then, three women charactersTheme of travel: travels across the world to many

real places located on the map. The doctrine / creed/concept of optimism The concept of Fate or Free will. Candide / candour not cant

Names used in Candide pp.xxxvi-xxxvii in Candide

Voltaire plays on names to serve comedy and satire in the tale.

CANDIDE in Latin : White pure, beautiful and honest and Frank

Pangloss in Greek: stands for all tongue (all talk)Cunegonde: Latin and French is a reference to wife of

Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, who took a vow of chastity.Cacambo refers to mud and filth.Paquette: a common name for servants Pococurante: in Italian one who cares about little.

He is the rich man who gets bored easily despite his riches.

Travel motif in Candide

Several kinds of travel: All based on real places and can be located on the map. The characters all start at Westphalia in Germany

Candide itineraries: include Holland, Lisbon, South America, Paris, Venice, Turkey, Eldorado, …

Cunegonde itineraries: Lisbon, south America, Turkey ….

Cacamboe, Candide servant, journeysThe intellectual journey of Pangloss, Candide’s

teacher

Travel Motif- Places

Places referred to and their significance: V relied on travelers accounts in describing these places

- Westphalia is based on the real region in Germany

- Eldorado is an imaginary place but routes to and from there are real.

- Constantinople is the capital of Turkey at that time. It represent the Muslim belief in fate

Candide is similar to Rasselas

Rasselas (1759) written by Samuel Johnson show a pampered young aristocrat from Happy valley in Ethiopia who travels exploring the world with his sister and the philosopher Imlac and find only misery and pain.

Although V was a rebel and a sceptic and Johnson was not, they both discuss the same issue from opposing points of views.

Activity 3 page 177 in block – Example of indirect satire

Compare the title with what you learn from chapter 1? The title suggests that the story’s origin is the German text about Dr. Ralph which Voltaire has made up. The purpose is to distance Candide from himself.

Using “Once upon time” as the first words suggests the beginning of a fairy tale so we can accept all the exaggerations since they are not true.

The absurd names “Monsieur the Baron von Thunder-ten-tronckh” and the ironic tone used to show that Candide was an illegitimate son of the Baron’s sister and “ a kindly and honest gentleman of the neighbourhood” show that the audience understand that the narrator's comments are not to be taken as true. (Example of satire)

Satire

Voltaire therefore makes extensive use of literary irony: “the use of a naive hero or unreliable narrator, whose view of the world differs widely from the true circumstances recognized by the author or readers”. this makes the readers know more than the characters. This technique makes the reader cleverer than the characters. He feels flattered.

Much of the humor  in Candide is derived from the ironic distance between the unreliable fictional narrator's words, Dr Ralph, and Voltaire's satirical attack on his society.

The eighteenth century was the greatest period of satire.

Optimism

It is a philosophical concept that argued that the world follows a cause and effect pattern and that the evil in this world is partial and aims at a greater good. It shows that evil/ bad actions are done by humans so they are the faults of humans.

Optimism believed that good comes out of all evil and that all is well that ends well.

It argues that good will prevail because it is part of human’s nature.

The theory/cult/concept of optimism

Optimism was a philosophical issue in 18th century which was supported by :

1) The scientific view that all happenings follow a cause /effect pattern which nothing can influence or divert.2) The Roman Catholic Inquisition which saw that people are responsible for much of the wrong in this world.

Pangloss's journey: from theory to fact

- Voltaire's philosophical views - expressed in literary works like Candide. Candide is named after his adventurous naïve hero but it is its subtitle, 'Optimism' that announces its theme. The character of Candide's tutor Pangloss is

the spokesman on behalf of 'Optimism', and all of the main characters in the course of their journeys test to the very limits Pangloss's creed. ((The character of Pangloss was Voltaire's exaggerated comic creation.))  

'Optimism' had distinct intellectual sources

1) Lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. (1711) who believed that humans are good by nature and that benevolence doesn't contradict self interest .

2) Pope’s Essay on Man

3) Gottfried Leibniz concept

Leibniz’s concept

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz  argued that since the creator was both omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful) and since he wished that his creatures should be happy, it followed that the world he made was one that secured the most possible content / satisfaction.

- Leibniz did not deny that nasty/bad things happened, nor that people suffered, but human beings had limited knowledge and what appeared to them as setbacks/bad could very well be part of the grand universal plan. Only God, with his serene overview, saw how things are.

Optimism Leibniz versus Voltaire

  Leibniz’s concept was the answer to 'The Problem of Evil' and 'The Problem of Pain‘ but Voltaire disagreed with Leibniz. Both pain and evil seem contradictory in a world

supposedly overseen by a compassionate God.   In Candide, Voltaire repeatedly points this out.

 Leibniz approach argued that  since God is perfect by definition, it follows that he can do no wrong.

Voltaire's approach is based on his observations of the world: he saw injustice, murder, rape and slavery around him and wondered about how could people be optimistic but he leaves the readers draw their own conclusions about whether or not man is good by nature; whether one should be optimistic or not, ….

Voltaire’s Doubt in Optimism

This was caused by the Lisbon earthquake which caused the death of over100,000 and destroyed most of the city’s infrastructure. The outbreak of war when Frederick of Prussia invaded Saxony which lasted for 7 years made Voltaire doubt the optimism concept.

Activity 4 p 182 in block and chapter 5 in Candide

Contrast Voltaire views on Optimism with Pope’s.?

Contrast Voltaire views on Optimism with Pope’s?

Chapter 5 of Candide attacks the cosmic complacency, the fake security and thin optimism, expressed in Pope's Essay on Man: “ One truth is clear, Whatever IS, IS RIGHT” . He uses  ridicule, a technique at which Voltaire is particularly skilled in.

- AN example of how Voltaire exposes the limitations of Pangloss's philosophy of optimism (and by extension Pope's and Leibniz's) is during the dinner after the earthquake, when he declares: 'This is all for the best ... For if there is a volcano beneath Lisbon, then it cannot be anywhere else; for it is impossible for things to be elsewhere than where they are. For all is well' (p. 14).  In the context of the destruction caused by the earthquake, Pangloss's optimism sounds inadequate.

Another example of V’s attack on Optimism

When Pangloss restrains Candide from rescuing the pious Anabaptist arguing that it is his fate to drown and there must be a universal reason. Voltaire is criticizing “optimism”.

Summary of the contrast

Pope and Leibniz : Whatever happens even if it is partial evil must be accepted as part of the divine plan. الخطة من كجزء الجزئي الشر مقبوال يكون أن يجباإللهية

Voltaire thinks that the amount of suffering that humans endure in the world does not make sense. However, he leaves the reader to decide for himself whether humans/ the world is evil or good (utopian or dystopian) التي المعاناة كمية أن يعتقد فولتير . يترك انه وقال ذلك، ومع له معنى ال العالم في البشر يتحملهاأو / الشر هو العالم البشر كان إذا ما لنفسه يقرر أن للقارئ) بائس ) أو الفاضلة المدينة الخير

Voltaire’s Candour = Frankness

Voltaire's attack on the ideas of Leibniz and Pope is not limited to matters of content: his very style of writing is an attack on their self-deluding optimism.

مسائل على يقتصر ال والبابا اليبنتز أفكار على فولتير هجوميخدعون: التفاؤل على هجوم هو الكتابة من جدا أسلوبه المحتوى.أنفسهم

 The title of Candide is principally taken from the name of its protagonist, but it applies equally well to its style. This is a book that makes no effort to be civil, even rejoices in its rudeness. Voltaire's candour is therefore integral to his message.  His target is to present things as they are without beautifying or decorating them.

The Female characters

The female characters offer stories of injustice and suffering but in a comic style.

Giving a voice to female characters was a new technique that allowed the marginalized to speak and was a way to expose the hypocrisy of humans.

ولكن والمعاناة الظلم قصص تقدم النسائية الشخصياتكوميدي .بأسلوب

جديدة تقنية كانت النسائية لاللشخصيات صوت إعطاءنفاق لفضح وسيلة وكان الكالم على المهمشين تسمح .البشر

Cunegonde's journey: candour not cant

The female perspective

Her journey show the hypocrisy of humans in their treatment to women in an honest way. The unworldly Doctor Ralph is not the only narrator in Candide. There are three episodes in the novel narrated by women: رحلتها . الوحيد الراوي ليس رالف دكتور وساذج صادقة بطريقة للنساء معاملتهم في البشر نفاق تظهر

. النسائي رواه الرواية في حلقات ثالث هناك كانديد :في

Chapter 8 is narrated by Candide's beloved, Cunegonde, who retells the events of the opening chapters from her perspective;

Chapters 11 and 12 are narrated by the old woman, who tells Cunegonde the story of her calamitous life;

and the first part of Chapter 24 is narrated by Pacquette, who contradicts Candide’s view that she is happy by describing her decline from serving maid to prostitute.

The female perspective

In these episodes, told from a feminine perspective, Voltaire gives us history from the point of view of its victims.  Voltaire is satirizing the creed of Pope and Leibniz, in these three episodes, narrated by female characters. Pangloss's optimism is exposed as an illusion by the facts of female oppression in a male-dominated society.  All three women tell tales of suffering and misadventure, which are presented comically by their hyperbole.

وجهة من التاريخ يعطينا فولتير أنثوية، نظر وجهة من وقال الحلقات، هذه في . الحلقات هذه في وايبنتز، البابا للعقيدة والمسيئة فولتير ضحاياه من نظر . ضربا باعتبارها بانجلوس التفاؤل يتعرض النسائية الشخصيات رواه الثالث، . كل الذكور عليه يسيطر مجتمع في اإلناث القمع وقائع قبل من الوهم منبطريقة عرض يتم والتي والمغامرة، المعاناة من حكايات تحكي نساء ثالث

بهم المبالغة طريق عن .هزلية

The most important female character in Candide is Cunegonde :HOW

-  In terms of the plot: much of Candide's journeying is in search of Cunegonde.  - Aside from its comic effects, her name which derives from the chaste wife of Henry II….. This is an example of satire because Cunegonde is exploited sexually by many characters. Her name also shows Voltaire's play on names. Like Candide, her name shows the quality of candour (frank, honest, and sincere).-Her name and character also show that what we think of as beautiful could be ugly or (indecent) and vice versa. She changes to an ugly woman in the end.

The female perspective- Cunegonde’s story

Ch 8 is an alternative story to Dr Ralph’s narration in chapters 2-7. Voltaire uses her story to expose the injustices inflicted on minorities: women, protestants, intellectuals and Jews.

She tells the incident of her rescue from being raped by The Buglar solider who later on sells her to a Jew because he grows disgusted from her. When the Inquisitor hints that she should leave the Jew and raise herself by becoming his girl friend, Voltaire is criticizing Europe’s hypocrisy, anti- Semitism and hierarchy ( the idea of the chain of beings).

The chain of beings

Voltaire refers to an older idea: the ladder of the great chain of beings which, in the Renaissance period, was thought to support all human hierarchies. The ladder reached down from God to the lowliest pebble, but women and Jews were both allotted very low rungs (positions) at the human level.

This V’s attack on fixed ideas and injustice

The old woman story and the Slave story

There is a difference in tone between the old woman’s story which is comic and the slave’s story which is serious especially when her declares that he is a thousands times more miserable than dogs, monkeys and parrots. Volatire’ satire here is serious to express his abomination (hatred of slavery). The slave story makes Candide declare to Pangloss “I am giving up on your optimism after all”.

Cacambo’s Journey -The best of impossible worlds = UTOPIA

The land of Eldorado is a utopia where gold is common like any other rock. Its inhabitants have their own “value” system because gold is not important to them. They live a modest life surrounded by gold and silver.

Eldorado shows the contradiction that there are plenty of better worlds but these are non existent – legendary places.

Two other contradictions in Eldorado’s journey

The contrast between the tourists Candide and Cacambo and that of the contented/satisfied natives. The old man’s house is modest ,the house made “merely of silver and the panelling in the apartment merely of gold”. This is irony to us but the old man believes his house is modest because it has no décor. This contrast alerts the reader to the issue of value.

The second contradiction

Candide and Cacambo want to leave this unreal place and take some of the gold with them to the real world where they will be “richer than all the kings put together” (p.49). They arrange for some sheep to be loaded with gold and taken across the mountains to sell it for a lot of money. They compare themselves to Spanish looters (thieves) who stole the gold of Americas. This is Voltaire’s satire against colonization.

Fate or Free will

Candide’s journey: governed by fate or free will?

Voltaire wrote about the East without ever visiting it. In his philosophical dictionary, he associates the classical scholars and poets with a belief in fate “All events are governed by immutable law” while the idiots are for free will.

Voltaire’s view is that of the idiots so his irony extends to the authorities he cites such as Homer.

Fate or Free will?

It is significant that Candide and his band of travelers conclude their journeys in Turkey, a region still dominated by the declining Ottoman Empire, widely supposed to be despotic.

One of the most deeply rooted perceptions present in the eighteenth-century European mind was that  fate or destiny was a characteristic of the peoples of the 'Orient'.

Orientals’ Fatalism

According to this interpretation, Orientals were oppressed largely because they believed in fate, and thus considered their subjection to be inevitable ( a must). They believed that they cannot change their positions because they are not allowed to defy fate.

Edward Said on Orientals’ fatalism

The Palestinian-American critic Edward Said argues that a belief in oriental passivity and fatalism served in colonizing the orient by the Europeans.

Peoples who were pessimistic were easily dominated, by their own rulers or by outsiders. In the West, it was supposed, men and women were more likely to believe in freedom of choice and were therefore more inclined to resist tyranny.

The Conclusion – (chapter 30)= The garden

The chapter shows Candide getting married to Cunegode and settling on his farm in Turkey with Pangloss, Martin , Paquette, Cacambo and Brother Girofleo . Each one working and proving himself useful despite the money they lost and the hardships they went through. They were together in “good company”.

Voltaire's own idea about free will and fate –The conclusion (chapter 30)

The Dervish-philosopher is 'great', but mainly in the eyes of his disciples/students. He is quite detached/separated from the world and advises Candide and his band to withdraw from the world too.

The Dervish’s philosophy is to withdraw from the world and “keep your mouth shut”. When Pangloss discusses freedom and destiny/fate, the Dervish slams the door in his face.

The old man’s philosophy

The old man on the farm also keeps away from the powerful people in the big city. His philosophy is a retreat to his garden without thinking about fate or free will. He is indifferent. His work in the garden keeps away the three vices “boredom, vice and necessity”.

Both the dervish and the old man prefer retreat from the world.

Pangloss and Candide

Pangloss ignores all the contradictions he saw and affirms his belief in optimism. Candide does not contradict him although his final remark

“ That is well said but we must cultivate our garden” (p.94) shows that he has become practical. Candide likes the old man on the farm. His life is

better than the six kings he has met. Martin’s words “ let us set to work and stop proving things… for that is the only way to make life bearable” show that work is preferred to philosophical ideas. .

Voltaire's philosophy

To work or sit in your garden with or without a book. This is not a retreat philosophy but rather a therapeutic solace.

He gives no answers but contrasts views and philosophies from the East and the West and leaves the reader to decide for himself. Should he retreat to his garden and work or be busy thinking about the world and trying to find a utopia. Is cultivating the garden a passive act or a positive one?

TMA

TMA deadline

13 Dec on LMSEssay of 5 paragraphs =1500-2000 wordsInclude citation form sources as summary.

Paraphrase and quotes . Follow MLA style Use the novel as a source and include quotes

form chapter 30 (the conclusion)Remember to write a thesis statement and

topic sentences for your body paragraphs.

TMA

Candide is classified as dystopian literature which is a literary form that aims to disrupt the human convictions and draw people to question what they take for granted.

Define the genre and explain how Candide fits into this paradigm and what kind of ideas are put to discussion in the novella (Optimism, racism, religious toleration, and women rights). In the final chapter of the novella, Candide says “let’s cultivate our garden,’ do you think this pronounces his intention to end his intellectual journey and put words to action or is it a call for further investigation, is the garden symbolic or real? Does Candide by this closing statement provide a new sense of optimism?

TMA

Divide your articles into five paragraphs and discuss each question in a separate paragraph with examples and quotations from the novel.

3. The word count should range from 1500-2000 words.

4. Revise the final document before submitting your TMA to avoid typos and grammatical mistakes.

5. Use the MLA style of documentation.

TMA –Points to be covered

Write about Voltaire’s life and Candide’s publication . Define dystopian genre Explain Optimism (Shaftesbury, Pope and Leibniz) +

Pangloss Refer to Eldorado as an example of utopia (religious

toleration, gold, no courts) and evaluate why Candide left. Voltaire’s attack on Optimism and how he exposes racism, he also exposes the lack of women rights and the injustice

against them. (the female perspective) He exposes lack of religious toleration ( The Inquisition,

The Muslims in Morocco in the old woman story , the killing of the Turkish mufti in Turkey ) are all examples

Sources to be used

Candide, the tale itself ( Chapter 30) and the summary for examples.

Pages xxi-xxvii The satirist Garden” in the introduction of Candide .

Appendix 3 in Candide pp 109-119Lord Shaftesbury opinions: Cooper, A. A., Third Earl of

Shaftesbury (2001 [1711]) Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (ed. D.D. UYL), 3 vol, New York, Liberty Fund.

An article http://www.academia.edu/8053314/Candide_Thoughts_of_Voltaire_on_Optimism_Phil osophy_and_The_Other_ Available om LMS

Example of using a source

Introduction pp.xxi-xxii

Jean Sareil mentions that Candide is a satire which does not reflect V’s opinion. V shows the world as “inexplicable”; “that life is not worth much and that this ‘not much’ is of the highest value” ( qtd in Wood, xxvii).

On Voltaire’s philosophy

Michael wood in the introduction argues that the ironic comic style focus on not overdoing misery. There is no need for philosophical discussion; it brings no relief (xxvii).

Voltaire writes in Philosophical Dictionary “ There are no extreme pleasures or extreme sufferings which will last a whole life: the sovereign good and the sovereign evil are chimeras” (p.67)

Works cited

Wood, Michael, “ Introduction”, Candide or Optimism. UK: penguin, 2005.

Voltaire, “Bien”, Philosophical Dictionary, Trans: Theodore Besterman. London: 1979

Voltaire, Candide or Optimism, Trans: Theo Cuffe. UK: Penguin , 2005

Help for TMA

MLA ppp is on LMSYou can use the site

www.citationmachine.com to format your citation

The article on Candide is on LMS The pages in last class HW will help you with

TMA.