Candide By Christopher Donney World History

Christopher Donney World History P.7 Candide was a book written by Francois- Marie Arouet also known as Voltaire in 1759, and takes place in Switzerland. The book was about the journey’s of young man named Candide and the things he experienced and the people he met throughout his journey. Candide was first published by Dover Publications in New York, 1991. This book was chosen for me to read so that I could gain full understanding of what it was like to live in that time period and the distinct ways of life that were practiced. For example certain religious problems were shown throughout the book such as the corrupt system of government lead by the church. During this time period religious leaders had full control over the state and
I believe that Voltaire’s goal for this novel was to inform the audience of his beliefs and the reasons behind them. Voltaire manages to show these points by writing a story of a young man living in this time period; but base the character around his beliefs. I found Candide to be written to an optimistic audience who are re-examining the way they think and Voltaire intended to help them make a decision about their thoughts. Voltaire writes about the city of El Dorado and how everyone follows one religion and agrees about everything, making the city a very peaceful place (Voltaire 54). Voltaire expresses how even though they all agree does not make it write and throughout the book he emphasizes how important it is to question authority. Although Voltaire makes very good points it does not change my viewpoint because if everyone questioned power the world would be unbearable and anarchy would be everywhere, similar to how the enlightenment played a part in starting the French
Hypocrisy and corrupt power can be seen throughout the book when he talks about how religious leaders are corrupt and all hypocrites. To summarize the key points of the novel I would conclude that no matter what, power is corrupt in certain ways and religious rulers during that time period were hypocrites. Voltaire had a strong dislike for Christianity and everything it stood for because he felt that he deserved equal rights. Religious leaders claimed that everyone deserved things equally but in reality what they promised was not true. Candide can be related to to modern day society because politics is still full of hypocrites who have power. The only difference is that power is not determined by religion, but the idea stands on how most politicians are hypocrites that promise one thing but never end up doing what they say they