Candide: Voltaire's Impact On French Society

1. Introduction During the 1700s, Voltaire became a prominent member of French society. Born as François-Marie Arouet, he donned his penname and became a renowned poet and writer. Despite having been born to a wealthy bourgeois family, he became increasingly skeptical of the French government. Most of his writings were critical of French society, the monarchy, and the Catholic Church. This led him to be exiled from France on multiple occasions, both willingly and unwillingly. Voltaire would have a profound effect on French society, and his writings would be regarded as both heroic and antichrist, depending on who was in charge of the country. Voltaire had a undisputable impact on the minds of the French (Kors) One of his most famous pieces of writing was Candide, which was written in 1759 as a satirical piece on French society (“Candide”). The novel is held as an equal-opportunity satire that seeks to point out the folly in all social groups, but while certain opinions in the novel are revolutionary, other sentiments echoed the prejudices that France already maintained. Since the Jewish population was on the fringe of French society, Voltaire’s negative portrayal of the …show more content…
After the Turks capture the Baron and Pangloss, two of Candide’s companions, Candide needs to find a way to pay ransom. A Jewish merchant offers to pay fifty thousand sequins for a diamond that costs twice the amount. Candide takes his offer, but it shows that Voltaire sees Jewish people as nothing more than a miser (Voltaire 133). This is the second instance in the novel that a Jewish person is presented in connotation with money. There would be an argument to be made about Voltaire’s treatment of Jewish people if his Jewish characters were varied, but they all have some connection with money. This is no variation in the characterization. Thus, Voltaire’s Jewish characters are nothing more than anti-Semitic