El Dorado in Respect to Enlightenment

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El Dorado: A Dystopia Shadowed By Gold As Cacambo and Candide search for Cayenne they come across the city of El Dorado. The city is made of gold, the government is fair, and the people are happy. They are treated as royalty and are given all their needs. It appears that El Dorado is a Utopia. The term as coined by Sir Thomas More in his book titled Utopia, describes a fictional society where there is no social, economic or political issues. El Dorado appears to follow most of these guidelines but under closer inspection we notice that city is not at perfect as it appears. The city has a wide variety of social statuses, the city uses its resources impractically and citizens are not economically equal. El Dorado, at first glance appears to perfect. It is economically stable, everyone appears to be treated equally, and there are no religious conflict because they all share in one religion. Everyone appears to be genuinely happy with how they are treated. They do not great the king by throwing “themselves upon their knees or on their stomachs” (Voltaire 68) but rather to kiss him on each cheek. The great crowns officers were made up of both sexes (67). They do not need a court of “justice, prisons or a parliament” because “they were strangers to lawsuits” (68). Candide and Cacambo are amazed by how highly functioning the nation is. In their curiosity they explore the nation and its inner workings with the king and still find no flaws in the system. Candide regularly exclaims “The castle where I was born is nothing in comparison with this” (68). Despite appearing socially as a utopia, the city does have faults to it. One of the first notable interactions with this is when they visit the restaurant in the first town. The owner of the restaurant worried as to why they had received gold as tips after their meal (gold is valued equally as dirt). He explains “you have

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