For Wednesday's Class: Voltaire, Candide, Chapters 13-22

Goya, The Shooting of the Rebels on May 3rd, 1803

As before, answer TWO of the following questions for Wednesday's class. 

Q1: In many ways, Candide is a book about education: how do young people learn to be adults in the modern world (of the 18^th century, that is)? What lessons do Candide and Cunegonde receive in right and wrong, and are either of them forced to corrupt their “good” nature simply to prosper in the world? Does success require a moral sacrifice for Voltaire?

Q2: El Dorado is a fabled paradise in the New World, which many explorers, including Sir Walter Raleigh, spent their lives trying to find. Lucky for him, Candide stumbles right onto it. What does Candide see in El Dorado that goes against the very nature of European civilization? Why might this entire passage be an elaborate satire of the idea that “whatever is, is right”?

Q3: How do the two new characters, Cacambo and Martin, add to the satire of the novel? What new perspective does one, or both, offer, and how do they help us see aspects of the world that Candide is too young and ignorant to notice? 

Q4: In a letter to his friend, Frederick the Great, Voltaire once wrote, “It is said there are savages who eat men and think they do right.  I reply that these savages have the same idea of justice and injustice as we have.  They make war as we do from madness and passion; we see the same crimes committed everywhere, and eating one’s enemies is but an additional ceremony.  The wrong is not putting them on the spit but killing them.” How might Voltaire illustrate these sentiments through some of the action and events of Candide? In other words, why is evil not a how but a what/why question?