Philosophies in Voltaire's Candide

A detailed Summary of Philosophies in Voltaire's Candide

Voltaire's Candide is a novel with many philosophical ideas about life. Through Candide's journeys and interaction with different cultures throughout the book, we the reader find that Voltaire is describing his ideas or outlooks on life. In the novel, Voltaire portrays three philosophies that are of importance. The first is the philosophy of a utopian society, the second is the philosophy of optimism, and the third is the statement, " we must go and work in our garden.".

The first of the philosophies is that of the utopian society. In the novel, the city of Eldorado is portrayed as the utopian society. Eldorado is Voltaire's ideal world, one that he knew could never exist, but could provide him with an agent to point out sad failings of the real world. In Eldorado, every person is on an equal, class levels don't exist, and crime is nonexistent. In the novel, when Candide sees all of the riches that the Eldoradans inhabit, he is so taken aback by their lack of real interest in it all, he can't understand why they live the way they do. He also uses his philosophy of the utopian society to show how very far short of being perfect our culture falls. He uses it to contrast the experiences that

Finally, the third philosophy represented in Candide is the statement that, "we must go and work in the garden ". In context, the conversation where this statement is made happens when Candide is speaking to the neighborhood dervish. The first question that is asked is: " Will you kindly tell us why such a strange animal as a man was ever made? "( pg. 141) The dervish's response is: " What has that got to do with you? Is it none of your business? "(pg. 141). What Voltaire is saying here is that those type of questions are none of our business and should be left well alone. He believes it is Gods business to know, not ours. Next, Candide poses this question: " But surely reverend father, there is a great deal of evil in this world. "(pg. 141). The dervish responds: " And what if there is? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt, do you suppose that he worries wether the ship's mice are comfortable or not? "(pg. 141). Voltaire now is saying that the evil in this world is so trivial, like the mice on a ship, that God doesn't waste his time with something that isn't his problem. Evil is an Earthly problem and needs to be dealt with in an Earthly manner. No higher power is going to intercede and fix the problem for us. God has left it up to us. That leads to the next statement after Candide has finished contemplating the dervish's preaching. As Candide walks with Panglos, he makes the statement: " We must go and work in the garden "(pg. 144). This is Voltaire's way of explaining why the problem of evil is not Gods issue. Voltaire uses the garden to represent the world. We as a people who created evil must come and cultivate or weed out the evil in the world

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Approximate Word count = 1122
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels