Candide: The Optimistic Fate

Voltaire begins his novel through a description of his main character Candide, who “combined sound judgment with unaffected simplicity” (19). The narrator slowly contextualizes the relationship between young Candide and the wise tutor, Pangloss. We are immediately immersed in the philosophy of optimistic fate where “there is no effect without a cause” (20). It makes it seem like the whole book will be about the pursuit of happiness through the acceptance of the events that gradually make our characters. We are shown how great young Candide is and how his house and family are of vital importance in his life.

Pangloss describes that everything in life “was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose” (20). The language and sentence composition Voltaire uses for this character is very useful since the reader knows exactly what he is talking about. As I read the first chapter I found it very interesting to compare it to the previous book I read, the Handbook of Epictetus. Epictetus chooses the voice of a narrator to expose his message of predestination and limits his message through the example he gives. On the other hand Voltaire uses one of his characters to expose his message, this shows one of the main differences between both pieces, Voltaire contextualizes messages in a story, Epictetus states his principles.

The optimism we can observe is directed to the absolute necessity of having a positive attitude towards what our destiny has slowly uncovered. Pangloss says “that those who maintain that all is right talk nonsense; they ought to say that all is for the best” (20). Voltaire attacks the effect that sad and horrible events that happen in a human’s life by showing that things may not be all right but that they have to happen for the general best. This is a different approach from Epictetus’ who shows that the good and bad events we can’t control are necessary for the well-being of the human kind, the master play. Will Voltaire continue giving us messages through the teachings of Pangloss and their effects on Candide or will he completely change the objective of his piece?