Wealth: The Difference Shifter

Sometimes, when we stop getting so obsessed and intense about reaching our goals, the energy starts to naturally flow and we receive more than what we ever expected. There are other situations that we have to be flexible, we have to learn how to use different strategies to reach our goals. In Candide, Voltaire is able to use Cacambo, Candide’s slave, in order to make fun of voltiarepas, people who use both opposite views to be rewarded to the maximum level from all sides have no morality. Cacambo states that when “you don’t get what you expect on one side, you find it on the other. Fresh sights and fresh adventures are always welcome” (62). This describes an individual who doesn’t stand up for what he is and believes in but uses everyone and everything for his benefit. Someone who does stand for what he thinks will be living a life full of meaning and character. It is interesting how this character brings a new workspace for Voltaire in the book. The character is passionate and tries to advise the easiest way to get out of situations. Will he remain loyal to Candide, or is he going to follow his advice and use the circumstances?

One of the satire targets in Chapters 14-15 is the military behavior. Our society sometimes forgets the human side of each soldier that fights for a country, the limitations and terror of war life as well as the distancing from their loved ones. As Candide and the Baron, brother of Cunégonde, meet we are shown the human side of this priest-soldier life. The natural side to family encounters as they “fell back in amazement, and then embraced each other and burst into tears” (64). Voltaire is both showing a reality of everyday life (the necessity of family even when at war) and making fun of how serious a military institution becomes, protecting a country’s ability to express its power through enlisted people who are forced to follow very difficult orders. This is only one of the examples of satire targeting in these chapters. We can also see how Voltaire continues making fun of people who live thinking that all is for the best and the idea that the power is carried by family.

Through the example of Candide killing the brother of Cunégonde the reader is assured that Voltaire is making fun of family disunity when power comes available. As the Baron makes fun of Candide thinking that he could marry the Baron’s sister we are shown how family unity is in danger when an integrant wants to marry a person from a different social class. We also see how Candide is still compromised with Pangloss’ teachings even after the suffering he has gone through. As Candide responds to the Barons insults he mentions that his “master Pangloss used to tell me that men are equal; and I shall marry her without hesitation” (67). We are confronted by a situation where differences in wealth change the perception that all men are created equal. This is something that we could also see in Slaughterhouse-Five, where Vonnegut’s equality among men is shared in the idea that life is destined to happen a certain way for specific events to happen, but there is a determining difference between the role each person is assigned to take. The relationship between Billy and Valencia shows this through the win-win situation that is shown. Valencia gains a relationship with a man who accepts her physical problems due to the substantial change in social class he will have if he marries her. In a way, Voltaire is showing how ridiculous life becomes if we believe that suffering is inevitable and meant to happen. There is an obligation to analyze as a reader how this equality is seen through Voltaire’s eye, a topic to be watched carefully in the following chapters.