Role Of Optimism In Candide

Voltaire was famous for being a writer, historian, and a philosopher known for his wittiness, his attacks on the Catholic Church, and his support of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state. Voltaire is partially famous for his wit and he shows that very well in Candide. Voltaire hated optimism and in a very well manner produces a humorously exaggerated imitation of that through Pangloss, the philosophical optimist, and Candide, the student of Pangloss. Pangloss stated in the novel that their world is the “best of all possible worlds”. The type of optimist that I perceived Pangloss to be was that of a philosopher who saw the glass as half empty instead of half full. Candide on the other hand gradually started to notice that suffering and evil don’t exist as part of a larger divine harmony. Throughout the story, …show more content…
If what is going on is for the greater of the happiness of the people, then they could be thought of as moral. In Candide, Pangloss sees the best in everything, even the disasters. I can’t say I agree with this belief Pangloss has, but I can try and see where he is coming from. The true evilness us human can have is greatly showed throughout the novel, including war, killing, rape, disease, disaster, betrayal, torture and so on. How can one believe that all these bad things happening are for the better? Voltaire did a good job in using wit throughout the novel. The contradiction between optimism and horror makes the text more appealing, and gets them questioning about have confidence in in optimism blindly. I think the tragedy is in part because of the bad side of human nature. The experience that Candide has went through is a reflect of the dark side of the society and lack of trust. Moreover, the boundary of right from wrong is very vaguely shown throughout, even very reasonable people can’t have their say in all that is