Examples Of Satire In Candide

When there is something wrong with society as a whole, the voiceless cannot change anything. Their subtle attempts at retaliation, then, are satire. Satire is the weapon of the powerless, rebelling against the powerful. New ideas and philosophies are always criticizing the old ones in an ever growing system. During the Enlightenment, there was an amazing flourishing of knowledge and free thought. People began to question society’s old ways of thinking. Natural philosophy and the study of human nature grew. One such philosopher was a man named Voltaire. He saw many things wrong with his society. He went on to consistently criticize social issues he saw and flaws in other philosopher’s ideologies in his book, Candide. Candide describes the journey of a boy named Candide, traveling the world, learning about life. Candide starts out with an optimistic view on life, and through experience, learns that the world is not as amazing as he thinks. Voltaire uses events in his book to illustrate problems in his current society through his …show more content…
Here, old men covered with wounds, beheld their wives, hugging their children to their bloody breasts, massacred before their faces; there, their daughters, disembowelled and breathing their last after having satisfied the natural wants of Bulgarian heroes; while others, half burnt in the flames, begged to be despatched. The earth was strewed with brains, arms, and legs. (Voltaire 10)
The absolute decimation the town and the innocent lives it held was meant to explicitly explain Voltaire’s opinions on wars, being that war is pointless destruction only for sating the basest instincts of mankind. Voltaire’s satire of war is direct and brutally unequivocal; in contrast, his satire of philosophy is more carefully woven and subtly omnipresent through