The Final Solution

As I read the final section of Candide I was glad to find a message, a life statement contrary to what Voltaire had made fun of through the novel. Even though teaching is not the main objective in Voltaire’s piece, he is able to leave the idea that working things out is the true objective in life. As the Turk farmer said, “we find that the work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice and poverty” (143). As I wrote in my previous post, Changing For The Best, what we make of life’s blessings and unfortunate events is what differentiates a Gandhi or Dalai Lama from a regular person who is overwhelmed by life’s rapid shifts. This different approach to life, a look at the bigger picture, society and one’s possible role in aiding its evolution through productive work is what is necessary to overcome boredom, vice and poverty. One must find deep meaning for the journey. Voltaire shows this change in the mentality of his characters as a community change. The final message that we are not alone in the quest to overcome our inability to accept is necessary to include a fitting ending to his novel, which captured the mentality of many types of human beings: from the completely disappointed and depressed Martin to the extremely positive and light Pangloss.

Something that caught my attention as I read the last chapter of the book was the drastic change between the predetermined Pangloss (“all is for the better”) to the one that accepts the challenge to work in order to overcome life’s difficulties. As he discussed with Candide about why man was put in the garden of Eden he concludes that the final purpose was for him “to work, in fact; which proves that man was not born to an easy life” (143). Pangloss gives a new understanding to his life statement, he now accepts that man was indeed supposed to accept the unfortunate events of life but that it was up to the individual to make the best he could out of it.

Martin also undergoes a drastic transformation at the end of the book. As he discussed with Candide their adventures with Count Pococurante, I noticed a change in his negative, disappointed attitude that characterized him throughout the novel. Martin informs us that Plato once stated “that the best stomachs are not those that reject all food” (124). Martin is now an individual who believes that not liking anything in life is disastrous, he has realized how disappointing it is to be disappointed about everything in life and shows how nature embraces all. Are we supposed to live without any appreciation for what life has brought us? Voltaire is finally showing a way out of the limits of dry, bitter, cynical criticism and granting everyone a path towards a more fertile, warmer look at human life and society.