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Nathan Snow
Mrs. Kimbril
AP Prep English 10
6 December 2011
Francois-Marie Arouet, commonly known as Voltaire, was a French humanist and
enlightenment writer most known for his satirical works and his wit. Voltaire was one of the
most effective advocates of personal liberty. His works were said to be his weapon of satire
against the reign of tyranny. He is known to have written over 20,000 letters and 2,000 books,
although the number may be more because he often published anonymously to avoid the popular
ridicule that he received from various churches and governments. Some critics and scholars
argue that the book that most influenced cultural reform was Voltaire’s work Candide. In the
novella Candide, Voltaire makes great use of satire to entrench his many political and social
points in the mind of Candide’s numerous readers.
Voltaire was born to Fancois Arouet and his wife Marie Marguerite d’Aumanrt on the
date of February 20, 1694. He went to the Jesuit school, College Louis-le-Grand. While he was
at this college, he studied Latin and Greek, along with their associated histories. When Voltaire
completed his schooling at Louis-le-Grand, he came to the conclusion that he wished to pursue
writing and literature as his life’s work. Voltaire’s father did not approve of his choice, so he sent
Voltaire to law school in Normandy. While at the law school, Voltaire gained popularity among
his peers and their aristocratic families for his witty essays and short works. After law school,
Voltaire received a job as a secretary to the French ambassador in the Netherlands, but his father
soon had him moved back to France when he fell in love with a protestant named Catherine
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Olympe Dunoyer. From this point on until later in his life, Voltaire mostly stayed in Paris and
the surrounding countryside. It was during this time that Voltaire was most persecuted for his
works and received many small sentences for blasphemy and political dissidence. Many of the
times he was in jail, he was in there by mistake. One of the imprisonments was for a satirical
verse about Philippe d'Orleans. This particular case brought Voltaire eleven months in jail until
the real author stepped up.
By definition, satire is wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.
According to literary critic David Williams “Candide is the one with universal, mythical
qualities combining withering satire of a particular world-view with an exquisitely stylized
parody of the sentimental and picaresque topoi of contemporary novels (which he detested) and
other narrative traditions such as the chivalric romance, utopic and travel literature, fairy and
folktale. . .”(Williams) In this quotation David Williams describes some of the forms of satire
that a reader will come across. Critic Donna Isaacs Dalnekoff describes another form of satire
witnessed in Candide: “. . . satire tends to ridicule what is rigidly systematic, exposing
metaphysical deductions and pretentious theories inadequate to the experience they purport to
explain, a utopia is itself a highly stylized artificial intellectual construct. It is the product of a
geometric spirit and schematizes what in real life is inevitably highly complex, subject to
variations and exceptions. While the satiric speaker purports to have his eyes fixed upon the
sordid phenomena of the real world around him, the utopian speaker is an idealist, caught up in
the contemplation of a remote perfection.”(Dalnekoff) This quotation describes the link often
found in Candide between Eldorado and the satirical tone of the whole novella. The contrast
between the constant death and suffering and the carefree riches of Eldorado provides a bit of
comedy behind all of the suffering.
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Another part of the satire of Candide is the fact that Candide’s victory of finding
Cunegonde is always just out of grasp. Every time it seems that Candide is closing in or has got
Cunegonde, she either is taken away or unknowingly avoids him. For example when Candide
believes Cunegonde to be dead but in fact she was not, and was in the same gilded house as him.
In the words of critic Peyton Richter, “Wait he must, for romance cannot blossom in the
wasteland of Candide, where any reunion is only a prelude to another separation.”(Richter)
These same type of near misses occur throughout the entire work. The mocking of Candide’s
efforts is supported by another quotation from Richter: “For when the couple has reached the
New World--which, not surprisingly, proves as much of a disillusion as the old one they left
behind--Cunegonde, the eternal Woman, exchanges an old love for a new one; more specifically
she abandons Candide for the mustachioed Governor of Argentina, Don Fernando d'Ibaraa, y
Figueora, y Macarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza, whose Spanish pride is as fierce as his name is
resounding, and who has an unfailing eye for female beauty. To our hero she must remain both
an illusion and a reality, pursued and yearned for as long as she remains the former, but, like
every reality in the story, undesirable and undesired when she finally reemerges, soured and
faded. Her transformation is Voltaire's last act of destruction--an inevitable one, without which
he cannot begin his ultimate work of reconstruction.”(Richter)
The final type of satire witnessed in Candide is the undying optimism of Candide. The
subject of this kind of satire is covered by literature critic Peyton Richter’s quote “What sustains
him in his trials is the thing men live by and find it hardest to abandon: hope. Despite his
experiences, Candide remains faithful to his master's credo, and keeps expecting things to be
better elsewhere--almost till the very end. When reality gets the better of him and doubts begin to
assail his mind, an unexpected incident may restore his faith temporarily. When, for instance, he
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is ready to reject a best of all possible worlds in which he sees his former master hanged by order
of the Grand Inquisitor, he is made to believe in it once more with the reappearance of
Cunegonde, previously reported dead; a much-violated Cunegonde, it is true, much used and
abused, but as alluring as ever and faithful to the hero in her fashion.”(Richter) This same
unrelenting optimism is used as a reoccurring theme throughout the work.
In conclusion, in the novella Candide, Voltaire makes great use of satire to entrench his
many political and social points in the mind of Candide’s numerous readers. Voltaire achieved
many great things in his life, but most notably was the success of his wit in persuading many to
either change opinions or to formulate new ones.