Moliere’s 1664 comedy “Tartuffe” and Voltaire’s 1759 novel “Candide” are two signature works which criticize against nobility, philosophy, the church, and social prejudice. They are often considered representative texts of the Enlightenment by satirizing a number of Enlightenment philosophies and indicating that the Enlightenment was a worldwide movement. How do they do it?
In Tartuffe, Moliere makes a satire on the religious hypocrite and presents an Enlightenment thought that females are capable of reason. In Moliere’s world, women are rational and clever. They choose to subvert the irrational patriarchy. The reader can see that it is the female characters reveal the hypocrite Tartuffe and his evil, showing their clear sense of right and wrong. Any by unmasking Tartuffe, they bring everything back to where it should be. Notice at that time, women live in completely subordination to fathers and husbands …show more content…
The theory “best of all possible worlds” is conceptualized by the Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, and then is parodied in the ridiculous optimism displayed by both Candide and his mentor, Dr. Pangloss. Voltaire describes Dr. Pangloss as a person who always thinks that nothing is without reason when describing “that things cannot be otherwise than they are” by suggesting “noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles” and “legs, as anyone can plainly see, were made to be breeched, and so we have breeches” (chapter 1, 356). In the end, Dr. Pangloss still an optimistic person, who is always explaining how things happened are really for the best. This is irony because it just encourages people to give up hope for the best and stop trying to make life more pleasant for themselves and
In Tartuffe, Moliere makes a satire on the religious hypocrite and presents an Enlightenment thought that females are capable of reason. In Moliere’s world, women are rational and clever. They choose to subvert the irrational patriarchy. The reader can see that it is the female characters reveal the hypocrite Tartuffe and his evil, showing their clear sense of right and wrong. Any by unmasking Tartuffe, they bring everything back to where it should be. Notice at that time, women live in completely subordination to fathers and husbands …show more content…
The theory “best of all possible worlds” is conceptualized by the Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, and then is parodied in the ridiculous optimism displayed by both Candide and his mentor, Dr. Pangloss. Voltaire describes Dr. Pangloss as a person who always thinks that nothing is without reason when describing “that things cannot be otherwise than they are” by suggesting “noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles” and “legs, as anyone can plainly see, were made to be breeched, and so we have breeches” (chapter 1, 356). In the end, Dr. Pangloss still an optimistic person, who is always explaining how things happened are really for the best. This is irony because it just encourages people to give up hope for the best and stop trying to make life more pleasant for themselves and