https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEjMvYS1gAE

In case you’re interested, here is a link to Leonard Bernstein’s comedic operatic adaptation of Voltaire’s Candide. It was originally written and performed in 1956 (the linked version is much more recent). This might be an interesting adaptation for you to watch as it was written and performed immediately after World War II (and they make a few implicit references to the war), and makes a clearer link between the centuries in which they were written.

While watching, you might want to ask yourself, (1) what episodes were kept/cut for this version, and why did he focus on these elements in 1956? (2) If you were to adapt it again today in 2015, which episode(s) would be its main focus?

Candide begins lightheartedly, then almost immediately gives way to caustic satire and morbidity. As I follow Candide in his misfortunes, I wonder if Voltaire wasn’t a bit too cynical in personal life.

While reading “Candide,” I felt that there were some underlying parallels between this story and “Tartuffe,” as well as certain discussions that we had in class. As described, Candide was a very genuine person. And, with his actions, it was very clear that he acted upon emotion, rather than reason. In almost every situation which he was placed into, he reacted upon emotions of love. For instance, when he was living in the baron’s castle, he pretty much had everything going for him. He did not have royal blood, yet he pretty much lived in line with the means of the royal baron family. However, when it came to the baron’s daughter, Cunegonde, he simply could not act upon reason, but his actions subconsciously relied upon his emotions for her. So, when it came to her, he could not help but kiss her and show his love or her, despite what the baron would think. When Candide did do this, the baron threw him out of the castle, as expected. This somewhat reminded me of “Tartuffe” because in many instances, such as with the case of Mariane and Valere, the characters had to battle between acting upon emotion or reason. Mariane’s emotion told her to marry Valere and abandon her father’s desire for her to marry Tartuffe. However, her reason told her she must marry Tartuffe because this is what her father says she must do. We see this throughout the story of “Candide,” where we constantly see Candide going off his emotion before reason. However, with Cunegonde, we sometimes see her going off of reason, rather than emotion. For instance, when she had accepted the proposal of Don Fernando, it showed that her reasonable desire for financial security stood above her feelings for Candide. I feel like in general, we can relate with this tug and war battle that constantly occurs between our heart and brain, or our emotion and reason.

To my understanding of this reading it was a wild and crazy tale of a very young man’s misadventures across half the world–adventures that retain their power to shock, horrify, and make you laugh. Sometimes all at the same time. Candide’s teacher, Pangloss, teaches that logic proves that this is the best of all possible worlds and that all things work out for the best. Starting with chapter one, things don’t seem to go that way for Candide though. He’s kicked out of the castle, drafted into the army, almost flogged to death for trying to desert, almost killed in a battle, almost drowned at sea, almost killed in an earthquake, almost burned by the inquisition.

To me the reading was very exciting. After each chapter I just want to keep on reading and reading just to see what candide was going to confront next . Just like him we all have a mentor we learn from and who always listens to for a piece of advice. After reading the 20 chapters I want to finish the rest of the reading. Hopefully all the readings this semester will be as interesting.

I read an online version of Candide so the pages cited will be different from the book.

The passage that seems to stand out the most to me was in Chapter Twelve, after the Old Woman described her life she said, “I have been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?” (30). This passage stood out to me because it supported Candide’s optimistic view in a realistic way that Pangloss’ teachings didn’t. Candide was banished from his home and ended up on a journey with no where to go. He ended up being almost beaten to death by Bulgarians, managed to escape, got shipwrecked, killed men and suffered through many more hardships. Through it all he believed in Pangloss’ teachings of “this is the best of all possible worlds” (1) and “everything is for the best” (13). Pangloss’ teachings seemed almost impossible to follow because through all the hardships he went through, it would be hard to believe that this world, filled with evil, would be the “best of all worlds.” However, through what the Old Woman said it would seem that Candide loves life almost as much as the Old Woman. Candide carries the burden of dead men and is constantly faced with torment, but due to his fondness of life he is able to have a strong belief in Pangloss’ teachings. In the beginning, Pangloss’ teachings seemed foolish to me because in the story, women were being raped and traded, Candide was being constantly robbed and hurt therefore, it didn’t seem like the “best possible world.” Through what the Old Woman said, it helped me realize that to Candide it was indeed the best of all worlds because he has a great fondness for life which helps him see that this world is the best of all worlds.

Candide is a very encouraged story that I can learned a lot by reading the detailed plots. Even the story is written in old English, it is more interesting than what I expected. The novel contains background history, love story, conflicts, religion concepts, and so on. I can see how cruel the ancient were in the first few chapters, like Candide has to “run the gauntlet thirty-six times and endured two floggings by two thousand men.” by suspected as a deserter.(358) It was so unreasonable in nowadays. I am appreciated that I am living in this century. Also, I like the writer, Voltaire made the story so clear in every chapters that I can know all the focal points. He created plenty of characters and made the story can be imagined as a movie.

In this novel, one of my favorite character is the Anabaptist, Jacques. I agree that he said: “ men have corrupted nature, for they are not born wolves, yet that is what they become. god gave them neither twenty four pound cannon nor bayonets, yet they have manufactured both in order to destroy themselves.”(361) By reading history and the news, that is so true that humans always create things to destroy their own world, but the god. In this horrible real world, if we are fortunate to meet people like Jacques, we will have more hope and see the bright side of the world. In my life, I can feel I am around of these kind of people, so it is easy to empathize with Candide in the story.

Since I haven’t finished the story, I don’t know how the story going to end, but I am looking forward to finish it. It increases my interest in reading in English novel.

The story of Candide is one full of luck and chance encounters that keeps him alive. As our humble protagonist goes about his life he is struck constantly with many misfortunes and should, at least by the end, be dead. While I am not even close to the end of the story, I can see that he is a smart mouthed incredibly lucky kid that ironically defies all the reasoning that he hopes to seek out.

For example, in the beginning our hero is thrown out of his lovely castle and is forced to wander the earth because he fell in love with the Barons daughter. His first stroke of luck comes when he finds the Buglars that take-him-in and attempt to make him a part of them. When he goes on a simple walk he is suspected of abandoning them and is sentenced to being beaten to death, but is spared when the king grants him a royal pardon, then he makes his actual escape.

How is this possibly lucky for Candide, well when he escapes to Holland, he meets his old tutor, Pangloss and learns that the Buglars whom he inadvertently joined stormed the castle and that everyone died, even his love Cunegonde. Candide gets even luckier when in Portugal during the execution ceremony where Dr. Pangloss is killed, he is spared once again thanks to a second earthquake. To top off his luck, a woman finds him and helps him heal the wounds suffered from the earthquake, and then takes him to his lover Cunegonde, whom is not dead, and they begin another adventure.

To summarize, Candide is simply one lucky SOB, that is trying to make sence of what exactly the universe is doing to him. To end this somewhat of a rant I ask you, How much luck does Candide have? And what will happen should it run out?

Introduction: Voltaire the author of this piece was a French Enlightenment writer and thinker and is one of the most well known writers of all time.

” He proved admirably that there cannot possible be an effect without a cause and that in this best of all possible worlds the Baron’s castle was the best of all castles and his wife the best of all possible Baronesses.” Perhaps, this is the most important quote in the whole reading. These few lines explain the optimism and belief in a divine figure that Pangloss displays. Basically, he believes everything is for the greater good and happens for a reason. It is so amazing how Pangloss and Candide have such faith in a Lord, yet they live through some of the most unimaginable horrific events one can imagine. From one falling off a boat to his death to being hung to someones “belly cut open”. Personally, if I was living in such a time period where all of this was happening, I know I would not be able to say; ” Things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end”.

While reading the words ” Cunegonde and Candide found themselves behind a screen.. she held his hand quite innocently, her kissed her hand..” I was confused and bothered by the usage of the word found. Why did the author choose to write this in a way that they accidentally or by chance ending up being alone and then kissing. It seems to me as if this were planned or in the greater interest of both parties. If anyone has any ideas or thoughts please reply.

Overall, I found the novel very intriguing. The dynamics between the various characters, and, ultimately, between Candide and Cunegonde had various metaphorical underpinnings that I very much appreciated. Also, I enjoyed watching the shift in Candide’s views on the world. His ability to change from a highly naive person, who relied solely on the views of his mentors, to a mature thinker, who ultimately leans towards pragmatism in the face of the confusing world that confronts him, connected with me immensely.

So, my post is about Candide but in two different occasions…

1) Candide, while a young man, has the mentality of a child. He trusts Pangloss and his theory that everything is for the best. I believe that this is incredibly naive and I have huge trouble understanding throughout the entire novel why he has the mentality especially in the very beginning (he’s exiled out of his home, he is taken as a slave, and he is constantly taken advantage of). It is because of this childish and naive mentality that I try to understand Candide’s casual behavior in regards in his killings.

2) I have read Candide before and I still don’t understand the reason why Candide WILLINGLY leaves El Dorado… El Dorado is symbolism for Paradise!!!!!! He had finally found the place that cannot be found and had access to untold riches and he leaves… I understand at this point that Candide will do whatever he can to get to Cunegonde, but leaving paradise was astonishing and kind of stunning as well.

I think these two scenes are important because these two scenes stick out the most to me. Candide’s behavior and actions show a very large contrast and it’s very shocking. I also find Candide’s disregard for El Dorado to be very startling. I try to understand why Voltaire would write a novel much like this one and I come up with a blank. I know this class is the consequences of enlightenment so I wonder what Candide’s reactions and behaviors would be like if he an actual professor who was actually knowledgeable in things that are really important instead of a made up subject and is actually a professor. I wish Candide grew up in an environment that would have helped him have common sense. His naivety is his biggest downfall. While one could argue that he has his happily ever after in a farm, it can be universally agreed that he would have been better off in the beginning if he understood that not everything is “for the best”. Even if he wasn’t educated very well, I just wished that he would have noticed what he had when he was in El Dorado. In this case, I believe that being “enlightened” would not have had a negative consequence…

After reading of only twenty chapters, I can say this novel is extremely fast paced and in some parts of the scene, I would prefer the author to slow down so i can enjoy visualizing the intense scenes more which I will get further into details later. The positive side of the fast paced novel is that as a reader, it gave me a chance to imagine and create my own stories of the scenes to help me transition to the next. However fast paced it is, it is not a boring novel and far less confusing as reading Tartuffe which felt like I was reading a 30 page poem which I was not used to.

In the beginning of the novel where Candide was kicked out of the castle, he portrayed a character of someone who was weak and ignorant of the world outside of the castle. At this point, I predicted he would encounter a lot of hardships/misfortunes which was true as I read on.

I liked how the author, Voltaire, described the scenes during war in a gruesome way so us readers can clearly see and feel how life was during the horrible times. For ex. disembowelment of Cunegonde (which never happened), cutting the baroness to bits, eating human flesh such as the old lady who is the pope’s daughter. It was hard reading these scenes but besides all these misfortunes, there are some good fortunes that follows after. This became repetitive in some way as I continue to read on to the end of chapter 20.

Back to the Title, Candide or Optimism. Throughout the stories of Candide who traveled across countries and gained real world experience, he kept bringing up his philosophy tutor, Pangloss, who he looked up to. Pangloss was his light during his darkness moments in life and taught him to stay positive and reasons why certain things happened to people. “There is no effect without a cause; all events are linked by the chain of necessity and arranged for the best” a quote that Candide mentioned throughout his misfortunes that he learned from Pangloss.

One of my favorite scenes which caught me by surprise and wished the author can slow down the pace is the scene where Candide killed Cunegonde’s brother because he was displeased when he found out Candide wanted to marry his sister, Cunegonde. Because of the disappointment, Candide killed the brother. This scene caught me by surprised because I thought after Candide reunited with one of the Baron’s, he would be saved and no longer need to run away to another country, no longer need to kill any more humans, and end his emotional stress and troubles. But, in a flash of one paraphraph, I was caught in a surprised moment to read that Candide killed the brother, adding to the list of people he killed. This is from a man who was once ignorant about the world and never once killed anyone before he was kicked out of the castle.

To end my post, I would like to share a quote, “Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.” The memories of the misfortunes of Candide will pass as with time. Sometimes we end up in darkness. We can find hope and light during darkness like how Candide did when he traveled to new countries and met the new cultures, people and kings, but because of misfortunes, he can lose the hope and light he once had during his darkness moments. The character Orgon from Tartuffe can relate to this quote, also. During his darkness moments, he met Tartuffe which was his light, but he can lose him there.