CKQ +ch+19-22+PeterL

In //Candide//, Voltaire is satirizing the idea that this is 'the best of all possible worlds." Therefore, Voltaire wants to you answer the following question:

1. Why is this not the best of all possible worlds? But, at the same time, //Candide// is not an entirely hopeless novel. What rays of hope do you see? As you post your responses to the 'key question' also mention 'rays of hope' that you see in the novel.

Here are some specific categories to look for:
 * religion
 * kings
 * governments
 * war
 * avarice (greed)
 * social pride
 * dishonesty
 * slavery
 * inhuman treatment of others
 * disease
 * cataclysms

"Oh Pangloss!' cried Candide. 'This is one abomination you could not have anticipated, and I fear it has finally done for me: I am giving up on your Optimism after all.'--'What is Optimism?' asked Cacambo -- 'Alas!' said Candide, 'it is the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well.' page 52

Candide and Cacambo speak this dialogue after sighting a black man with his one arm and leg cut off. In the previous sections, no matter what difficulties faced Candide, he still held on to a ray of hope from Dr. Pangloss's teachings which stated that the world you currently live in is the best of all possible worlds. However, this is the point where Candide finally gave up on this belief and decides this actually is not the best of all possible worlds when 'dogs, monkeys and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are (page 52)' The word choice used in the passage above also supports Candide's change of belief. He refers to Optimism as 'mania' and madness, and the word Alas is used, which is an exclamation used while lamenting.

'Well, there you have it,' said Martin. 'That is how men behave towards each other.' -- 'Certainly,' said Candide. 'the devil has had a hand in this business, at least.' pg. 57

This is a perfect example of inhuman treatment of others. This is spoken when Martin and Candide just sighted two vessels firing upon each other and one sinks along with the passengers. 'All raising their arms to heaven and uttering the most fearful shrieks; the next moment everything was swallowed.' if this indeed was the best of all possible worlds, heaven would have accepted them but instead they drowned to a place more likely to be called hell.

'Alas!' cried Candide, 'Now here is a trick worthy of the Old World!" he returns to shore, plunged in misery...

The Captain who stole Candide's goods and the cold magistrate are being described as wicked, ugly, gloomy human beings...etc. If the world was indeed the best of all possible worlds, such people would not exist.

'My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world' nothing is certain but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Cunegonde again.' - I agree siad Cacambo, 'but we still have two sheep laden with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever possess, and I can see in the distance a town that I suspect to be Surinam, which belongs to the Dutch. We are at the end of our troubles, and the beginning of our happiness.'

This is a ray of hope. Candide and Cacambo are carrying immense riches from El Dorado and are dreaming of leading a good life back in Europe.