The idea of a society that is based on equality would seem pleasing to any ordinary person. Being held with the same expectations on the same plane. But what any ordinary person fails to realize is that once everyone is given the same choices and opportunities there is nowhere else to go, no up and no down. In the passage “Candide” written by Voltaire we are introduced to the land of El Dorado a place where Candide the illegitimate nephew of a German baron passes through with his friends on a journey. A place where its inhabitants live in the ideal society. We are also introduced to the garden that Candide and his friends cultivate outside of Constantinople. The place where they settle and live contently “… eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”
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It is a place of equality free of greed, pretensions, and suffering. There is no religious conflict, gold and jewels litter the streets with no value placed on them. “Candide asked to see the court of justice, the parliament. They told him they had none, and that they were strangers to lawsuits. He asked if they had any prisons, and they answered no” (74). Showing the reader how amazing it is that a society can actually function without any justice system. “I cannot conceive, said he, what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay, but take as much as you like, and great good may it do to you” (74) says the king of El Dorado amusingly confused with why Candide placed such value on the sheep and pebbles which where gold that where found on the grounds of El Dorado. But since they placed no value on the gold and jewels that where found on the land the king let them part peacefully with all the goods and riches they wished to take with them. And as luck would have it on Candide’s journey to cayenne “the second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass, where they and their burdens were lost; two more died of fatigue a few days after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others subsequently fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred days, only two sheep remained” (89). “My friend, you see how perishable are riches of this world; there
It is a place of equality free of greed, pretensions, and suffering. There is no religious conflict, gold and jewels litter the streets with no value placed on them. “Candide asked to see the court of justice, the parliament. They told him they had none, and that they were strangers to lawsuits. He asked if they had any prisons, and they answered no” (74). Showing the reader how amazing it is that a society can actually function without any justice system. “I cannot conceive, said he, what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay, but take as much as you like, and great good may it do to you” (74) says the king of El Dorado amusingly confused with why Candide placed such value on the sheep and pebbles which where gold that where found on the grounds of El Dorado. But since they placed no value on the gold and jewels that where found on the land the king let them part peacefully with all the goods and riches they wished to take with them. And as luck would have it on Candide’s journey to cayenne “the second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass, where they and their burdens were lost; two more died of fatigue a few days after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others subsequently fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred days, only two sheep remained” (89). “My friend, you see how perishable are riches of this world; there