Candide: a Brief Analysis of the Optimism and Satirical Style of Voltaire

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The purpose of this paper is analyze two readings taken from the book Candide (1759) which tells the adventures of the philosopher Dr. Pangloss who teaches of the optimism of 1Leibniz to his pupil Candide, living within a corrupt society in age of the Enlightenment. The book written by François-Marie Arouet, most known by his pseudonym Voltaire, is a 2picaresque novel, genre of narrative prose fiction originated in sixteenth century Spain and flourished throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continues to Influence modern literature. The first reading entitled "How the Portuguese Made a Superb Auto-De-Fe to Prevent Any Future Earthquakes, and How Candide Underwent Public Flagellation" (Sayre, Pg. 834), which is almost the entire chapter 6 of the book, discusses about a solution to prevent earthquakes and how the main characters were blamed and punished. After the devastation of most of the city of Lisbon in 1755 by an earthquake the sages of the country have concluded that the best way to prevent new earthquakes would be entertaining the people with an 3“Act of Faith”, so a bunch of people accused of heresy was convicted and punished including Dr. Pangloss blamed by speak what he think, was hanged and Candide was severely flogged, accused by follow and support his mentor. Soon after another earthquake struck the city and the thesis that an act of faith could save the city of earthquakes was proven wrong and upon confirmation that it would be just superstition we expected that Dr. Pangloss would be burnt and dead at the end. On the second reading "What befell Candide, Cunegund, Martin Pangloss, etc..." (Sayre, Pg. 834-835) extracted of the chapter 28 of the book, we can identify the surprise ending where Dr. Pangloss reveals in details to Candido how he escaped of hanging. In conclusion when Dr. Pangloss was asked by Candide if he
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