Candide Travels Through Familiar Lands - Essay Example

English Candide What is the underlying message Voltaire is attempting to convey through his story Candide? Candide travels through familiar lands as he first takes up with the Bulgar army and then drifts to Holland and Lisbon before fleeing to South America a poor desperate wanted man. Painfully learning that money can purchase, in one form or another, the attentions of his sweetheart as she informs him that she has been a sex slave during all the time of his travels and then leaves him for a wealthier man in Buenos Aires, Candide seeks enough fortune to change her mind. Having found his fortune, he returns to Europe only to suffer numerous other misfortunes as his treasure is taken away and restored and friends become scarce among the scoundrels who would take advantage of him. Thus he learns that money cannot buy happiness even if it might give all outward appearances of doing so. Having finally discovered the location of his old friends, Candide emancipates them all from their Turkish slave owners only to find that even luxurious togetherness is not sufficient to keep everyone happy. Although they have a beautiful country home, they find themselves only fighting amongst themselves and making each other very unhappy. In the end, the story indicates that despite any optimism felt by the characters, or the attainment of their hopes and dreams, happiness or contentment does not follow. Voltaire’s book illustrates the evils he felt were most prevalent in his society. Produced during the Enlightenment era, the novella illustrates many of the prevailing themes of the times, which often revolved around questions of human values and “inherited intellectual authority.” “By the time the Enlightenment reached its maturity … there was a rough consensus among its leading thinkers in regard to certain key themes: rejection of orthodox, scriptural Christianity …; conviction of the superiority of modern over ancient thought …; extension of this natural-scientific model to a host of new social sciences …; and a proto-liberal political program, aimed at protecting what were now seen as the equal natural rights of individuals” (Wright 15). While Candide presents itself as a satire against optimism, it has been argued that this satire is instead a more in-depth look at how that optimism, so often associated with the Enlightenment, could be realized – by concentration on freeing oneself from an unhappy past, as the characters do when they wholeheartedly devote themselves to the cultivation of their garden rather than allowing themselves to wallow in their misery or luxury. Thus, when Candide says at the end of Voltaire’s story that we must cultivate our gardens, he is summing up the overall lesson contained in his story. Rather than concerning ourselves with lamenting over the past, or what cannot be had, as is seen in Candide, the path to true enlightenment and true self-knowledge is to remain beneficially employed at some task, to work for the betterment of others rather than oneself and to have an open mind for understanding and new ideas. Lysistrata What does Aristophanes have to say about the role of women in his play Lysistrata? Throughout the play, Lysistrata refused to accept her status as a ‘mere’ woman. This is particularly true as the war continued to drag on. She realized the degree to which the people at home were suffering as a result of the lack of young men and the inattention given to other important aspects of life that the men were involved in. As she acted within her community, Lysistrata continued to insist that women were at least as smart and wise as the men are if not smarter. As a result, she insisted that they were equally as able to make important and necessary political decisions by cleverly finding a way of trivializing the men’s activities to match the activities of the women, which were commonly considered trivial. As she pointed out to others, even the means through which she acquired her education is similar to the way in which the men of the town gained their education. “I am but a woman; but I have good common sense; Nature has endowed me with discriminating judgment, which I have yet further developed, thanks to the wise teachings of my father and the elders of the city” (Aristophanes 279). Just like all the male members of her society, Lysistrata pointed out how she learned her lessons in the same traditional ways as the others did, by listening to the words of the older men. Her arguments that she is equal to the men are therefore very convincing even though she neglects to refer to the content of the lessons learned. This only becomes more convincing as Lysistrata listed out the various ways in which she is qualified to make her stance as she argued with the men toward the end of the play. In addition to the strength shown by Lysistrata herself, the women who joined her also demonstrated a great deal of strength as a unified force, both literally and figuratively. In their attempt to control the politics of the war and bring it to a speedy end, the women appropriated the men’s traditional role as the leaders of society and forced the men into the subservient role as they were forced to realize their reliance on the women for their own well-being and future happiness. The women together, presented in the traditional form of the chorus, presented very logical and reasonable arguments to the older citizens of the reasons for their actions, gaining their support from the older men. These women pointed out how the female gender was once considered a very important and idealized element of society. As children they were treated as important and of value as their virtue and purity were jealously guarded as a family treasure. They arrived at the very reasonable conclusion that their advice is necessary for the future of the community. “I have useful counsel to give our city, which deserves it well at my hands for the brilliant distinctions it has lavished on my girlhood … So surely I am bound to give my best advice to Athens. What matters that I was born a woman, if I can cure your misfortunes? I pay my share of tolls and taxes, by giving men to the State. But you, you miserable greybeards, you contribute nothing to the public charges; on the contrary, you have wasted the treasure of our forefathers, as it was called, the treasure amassed in the days of the Persian Wars” (Aristophanes 258). Through their ability to reason with the old men of Athens to the point where they agreed with the women, the female chorus is able to prove their own strength. Aristophanes does this brilliantly as he allowed the women to adopt the same form of expression typically used by the men as they argued in the senate, thus proving that they were equal to the highest office in the civilized world at the time even while he introduces the comic elements of role reversal and non-linear reasoning – the treasured girl was not treasured for her intelligence, but this is the impression given by the grown women. Works Cited Aristophanes. “Lysistrata.” The Eleven Comedies. Vol. 1. Charleston, S.C.: BiblioBazaar, 2005. Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet. Candide. New York: Bantam Classics, 1984. Wright, Johnson Kent. Candide Voltaire and the Enlightenment. (2007). Yale Press. May 21, 2009 Read More