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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. Voltaire 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 attended 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
Olympe Dunoyer. From this point on until later in his life, Voltaire mostly stayed in Paris and
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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.
In late 1725, a new French decree labeled Voltaire as an “undesirable” and he was
imprisoned in the Bastille. Voltaire had suspicions that the sentence would be for life, so he
requested a change to exile in England; the French granted his request. This time in England both
changed and intensified Voltaire’s views and opinions. Voltaire’s observation of the success of a
constitutional monarchy and England’s more numerous social freedoms, led him to write more
and more against the absolute monarchy of France. After Voltaire had finished his three year
banishment, he returned to Paris and published his newfound views about monarchies and the
freedoms that normal people should be entitled. This publication was translated to English, this
was the first major international popularity that Voltaire experienced.
The next major event in Voltaire’s life was his meeting of Gabrielle Emilie le Tonnelier,
with whom he studied many natural sciences. This shifted the focus of much of Voltaire’s work
from mostly political to more intellectual. For the later part of Voltaire’s life, he lived in and
around Paris until Louis XV barred him from the city. After this he moved to Geneva, but many
polices in place there were not friendly to a sarcastic witty writer. After buying a massive estate
in the city, Voltaire moved to the city of Ferney, where he wrote Candide. Here he purchased an
equally massive estate. While living in Ferney, he began to be sympathetic to persecuted people,
and invited many to his home.
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In 1778, Voltaire was traveling to Paris to see a performance of Irene, when he became
deathly ill and thought himself dying. When he recovered, he continued to Paris and finally
watched the play. Although he had seemed to have recovered, he soon relapsed and died later
that year. His body was buried in the abbey at Champagne. His brain and heart were embalmed
and brought back to Paris, as he was considered a hero of the revolution, and they were placed in
a shrine in the Pantheon. (Sareil)
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)
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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.
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,
himself. The subject of this kind of satire is covered by literature critic Peyton Richter’s quote
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“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 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. Voltaire was no doubt a champion of the
people and a model of humanist ideals. Voltaire’s ideas and ideals will forever live in the minds
of his readers.