Voltaire's Candide - Essay Example

The author’s own perception of God is presented in the work where Voltaire expresses his hatred for the churches abuse and lust for power. The work also presents the author’s atheist views. There are various aesthetic reasons why the novel is of great readership. The novel is an attempt to question the supposed inexorableness of vice, evil and anguish. Among them, one serious consideration is the dualism of optimism challenged all through the novel, by pessimism. This dualism of concepts is one of the significant reasons that make the novel aesthetically enjoyable.

What Voltaire is interested in is a satire of philosophical optimism put forward by Leibniz. Voltaire is successful in countering the belief that God, in his immeasurable wisdom, created the best sufficient world. In challenging the concept of optimism, Voltaire works through the characters and their experience in life. Anti-heroism is the tool used to the best effect of mockery against the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The hero of the novel, Candide, wanders around the world with the Enlightenment ideas.

Doctor Pangloss’s (a caricature of Leibniz) theory that “everything is for the best” (2) drives him forward. During his journey, Candide comes across various difficulties. But, he does not give up his search for Cunegonde, with optimism learned from his master. Voltaire challenges the logic of the optimistic theory of the world. The utter illogicality of the doctrine is clear in the words “if Columbus had not caught, on an American island, this sickness which attacks the source of generation… we should have neither chocolate nor cochineal” (2).

Candide is a novel that tells a pleasing story. At the same time, the novel is also a satire that mocks the theory of optimism that believes in a better world for human existence. Voltaire presents his version of optimism through the idea of society. "When he [Voltaire] wishes to seriously justify a moral precept he does