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Idealism In Candide

Decent Essays

Amgalan Jargalsaikhan
World Literature II
Prof. Hurst
Candide
Oct, 2014 Being a young man raised in a fine castle of the Baron, Candide had no idea of what a real life is outside of the caste. In that place, he was surrounded by his needs, including his lover Cundegonde and a great mentor Pangloss. Once he was abandoned from his fine castle, he had separated from his Cundegone and had to face the brutal life on his journey to find his lover. However, Candide learned the idea of Pangloss, which is ‘everything is for the best’, he faces, hears, and lives through the worst things of human existence on his journey. Every adventure he goes through with or without the help of others, such as Cacambo, Martin, Pangloss, and an old woman, gives him …show more content…

Pangloss is a great philosopher of his own, but he has a lack of ability to see the world outside of his view. Candide, who trained by him and believed in his great philosophical ideas, had to go through some extremely hard times understanding how this brutal world works if everything happening around him is for the best. For example, in the play when right after Pangloss was hanged, Candide who is extremely suffering says, “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like?...oh my dear Pangloss, greatest of philosophers, was it necessary for me to watch you being hanged, for no reason that I can see?” Not just for Pangloss, he also feels sorrow for what happened to Anabapist and …show more content…

As for my opinion, I think the whole play ‘Candide’ is pretty depressing, especially when our protagonist tries to act like everything is fine just like Pangloss in some terrible situations. When he is starting to think outside of the box of optimism, he decides to bring twenty miserable people to his inn and hears them all. After he heard all of them, he says, “That Pangloss would be hard put to prove his system. I wish he were here. Certainly, if everything goes well, it is in Eldorado and not in the rest of the world.” Candide is being pessimistic in this part and it is a sign he is gaining his insight. Believing against his beliefs must be a hard step, but Candide suffered and heard enough to handle the

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