Candide Elements of Satire1
• Satire is a genre with a set of conventions
and techniques.
2. Genre
Works of literature often share conventions
of characterization, setting, style, and plot
through and against which they develop
themes. Knowledge of these conventions
can enrich interpretation .
Candide Elements of Satire2
• Satire mocks human behavior and
attitudes to deflate pretension, expose
fallacy, or suggest reform.
The Biggest Questions
• What does the work say? How do you
know?
• What do you think of what the work says?
Why do you think so?
Candide Use of Satirical Techniques
Narrative Style
Philosophical and Moral Issues
Some Questions
• What satirical techniques and conventions
appear in Candide and how are they
used?
• What universal failings of human
institutions, foibles, and flaws are the
targets of Voltaire satire?
• What do these techniques and
conventions add to interpretation?
• The tone of the work is flippant, even
playful. Terrible things happen, yet the
writing remains upbeat and light.
Verbal Irony is found in the contrast
between the tone of the work and the
content. The story presents abundant
evidence of genuine evil with language
that either doesn’t express moral outrage
or misdirects it.
Task: Describe the context and content of
two passages in which verbal irony
creates a mismatch between tone and
content. How is the tone of the passage
created?
Dramatic Irony is found in the discrepancy
between what is obviously true and what
the characters believe to be true. The
story contrasts genuine evil with obviously
flawed human perceptions and ideas
about evil.
Task: Describe the context and content of
two passages in which dramatic irony is
used for a satirical purpose.
The situational irony in the work is never
subtle, as it frequently is in genres other
than satire. The discrepancy between
what can reasonably be expected to
happen and what actually happens is
broad and bold, even beyond the bounds
of logic, explanation, and reality.
Task: Describe the context and content of
two passages in which dramatic irony is
used for a satirical purpose.
Voltaire is unconcerned with maintaining the scale
and appearance of reality. The lack of
verisimilitude purposely takes the narrative into
the realm of the unreal and fantastic.
Furthermore, the frequent use of hyperbole
exaggerates situations beyond the limits of
reality.
Tasks: Define verisimilitude and hyperbole.
Provide an example of missing verisimilitude
and an example of hyperbole.
Parody
The individual adventures are unified as
elements of a mock travelogue that
collects the stories of many people.
Although Candide himself undergoes all
sorts of trials, the story is also concerned
with the evils suffered by many people all
over the world. The effect created by the
travelogue, therefore, is to universalize
evil, even as the tone of the work creates
emotional distance from the characters.
Reduced characterization prevents
identification with Candide, or for that
matter, with any of the characters. The
characters become allegorical, or
representative of human archetypes (and
stereotypes), or of abstract concepts.
Tasks: Define reduced characterization.
Name and describe the allegorical
significance of four characters.
Philosophical and Moral Issues
THEODICY
A literary or theological work that attempts to
reconcile the power and benevolence of
God with the existence of evil.
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
1646-1716
• German mathematician
• Co-inventor of calculus
• Philosopher and
theologian
• Developer of the
philosophical theory of
“optimism”
• Applied mathematical
formulas to theological
issues
By Karen and Michael Austin–Shepherd College
1) If God is all powerful
2) And God is moral
____________________
Then everything that happens
in the world must be the best
thing that could possibly
happen
By Karen and Michael Austin–Shepherd College
Alexander Pope
• Greatest English
Neoclassical poet.
• Translator of The
Iliad and The
Odyssey
• Master of the closed
heroic couplet
• English populizer of
Leibnitz’s theory of
optimism
By Karen and Michael Austin–Shepherd College
Our Limited Perspective
• We are part of a system and cannot see the
whole picture
• What we see as bad is actually good and
necessary
• We are a part of nature, not the singular end of
creation
• It is only our pride that causes us to see our
immediate suffering as a bad thing
• Whatever IS is right
By Karen and Michael Austin–Shepherd College
Voltaire
• Greatest writer in the
French language
• Wrote in almost every
genre of the day
• Wrote Candide as a
satire on the views of
Leibnitz and Pope
By Karen and Michael Austin–Shepherd College
Philosophical and Moral
Issues—for discussion
Proposition: Candide does not reconcile the idea of
the best of all possible worlds with the existence of
evil. Agree/disagree; explain.
What universal failings of human institutions, foibles,
and flaws are the targets of Voltaire’s satire? What
does Voltaire’s ridicule ultimately contribute to the
theme of the work?
Motif of the Garden – What do the last lines of the book
mean? (“We must cultivate our garden.”)