For the whole story of “Candide”, I concluded that Desire led to tragedy. Candide wanted to be with Cunegonde and then was kicked out. People wanted more property and territory and then led to wars. Or others did not satisfied with their current situation and then led to fighting or stealing and so on. After Candide was kicked out castle, he suffered a lot as he was caught by others and escaped again and again. He met his tutor Pangloss and saw how he died and later got to know he was alive. He got to know the miserable experiences from Cunegonde and others later. He also experienced cheating, fighting and helpless. However, he still believed things would get better as time went on. As last, everyone got disappointed and gave up trying. As Candide met the ugly Cunegonde, as all of his money was cheated by a man, as they had nothing but a small farm, they gave up trying to do anything. However, as Candide heard the story from a man who lived very happy with his family who only owned a small farm, he got to know the truth. Everything will be better and be the best if you are satisfied with yourself and current situation, you will be very happy and satisfy. After that, all of them did farming on their farm and lived happily together.
I have learnt from this interesting story that the author was trying to tell people to not desire too much, if they did, lots of tragedies would happen. If you want to live happily, just be simply. Do not let yourself to be too much complicated. Everything would be happening very well and the world would finally be the best if you are simple. Sometimes people desire too much, and then try to think of many ways to get what they want and lead to miserable outcome. Author is trying to let people understand this simple and important truth through this story. However, how many people will understand it and can do it!!
I agree with what you said. In the beginning of the story, Pangloss said: “since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end.” As we can see, Pangloss thought the world is beautiful, everything is good. However, the real society wasn’t like that. People were greedy, they did not satisfy with what they got. What the author is trying to convince us of, that the author is making, is that the world is not so perfect and people have their desire and greedy. After Candide got some bad life experience, finally he understood the true life. In their real life, people did not help each other; they might even take advantage of each other. Therefore, I think be a simple person, not desire too much, you will have a better life.
I’d like to point out that when Candide met the charitable anabaptist early on, the anabaptist was hesitant to subscribe to Pangloss’ and Candide’s philosophy that everything serves as the best means to an end. I believe the author may have been trying to convince us that this kind of philosophy can only be held by those that are still naive, and that once you have learned something of the world you will become more realistic on your expectations of the rest of the world. That being said, Candide’s misery did bring him to a better place at times, even leading him to find (and save) his old tutor who he revered.
I think it is important to have the correct understanding of the two terms, “greed” and “desire”, as the confusion may lead us to discarding the good quality of one. Personally, I do not believe holding desire is bad or potentially harmful.
GREED is “intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.” (Oxford dictionaries), while DESIRE is “a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing something to happen” (Oxford dictionaries). We are driven by a variety of desire and that is for good, eg. desire for sex – which keeps human race go on, desire for food – which urges us to eat, and it does not necessarily mean eat too much, desire for security and safety, desire for education, desire for freedom, etc.
Yes, I agree that Candide’s desire for love with Miss Cunegonde put him in tragedy. Yet it is hard for me to concur that such a desire is too complicated. On the contrary, a desire to love and to be loved is essentially fundamental and simple. However, the simplicity of this very desire does not prevent the boat of miseries for Candide from setting sail. In my opinion, the flaw — which Voltaire was trying to prove — lies in the wrong perception of those characters in the story. The father and brother of Miss Cunegonde paid too much appreciation for his upper class, the aristocrats, and had too much disregards for the lower class, those who were not born aristocrats. That is why they disapproved Candide’s desire for Miss Cunegonde. Another big flaw is the philosophy people hold of the world and accept it without questioning the logic behind it. Is it really that we should accept all situations in life as they are regardless how bad they can be? I think having desire to make it nicer does not necessarily put us in a worse place.
I am a simple person, quite simple, but full of desire for various things – education, career, opportunities, and happiness.
I agree with you as well as the author. It is very important to be simple. I believe that by desiring too much it can cause a lot of problems as it did in this piece of literature. Perhaps we should have goals or be hopeful for certain things but should not be misled to desire too much where we become dependent.