The tone and theme of Candide, a classic work of literature, create new relevance for today’s world. These two elements of the story bring the classic to life for new generations to relate to when they read it. The satirical story connects a new generation of modern readers with the distant past, with both the theme and tone of a whole new identity.
The tone of Voltaire’s highly regarded work is humorous desperate. The tone is humorous because Candide and his companions adhere to the idea from the philosopher Pangloss that everything is for the best. This blind optimism is sometimes negated by the misfortunes that Candide and the other characters in the story experience, yet the characters insist on their positive feelings in every hopeless life. With the sad horrors of life’s events, Candide replied, “I have seen worse things, but a wise man, to whom I afterwards had misfortune, taught me that such things should be, as it should be: there are shadows in a beautiful picture.” This sound follows the horrific events that the characters of Candide endure and their decline to accept the idea that maybe they really are doomed, and not everything is really the best. The reader is expected to give up long before any of the characters.
For example, Candide loses his beloved Pangloss and the Anabaptist on his way to the utopian Eldorado, lashes and flogs more than one person (including his beloved brother Cunegonde Baron), and suffers many other inconveniences, still concluding. all is still for the best, because Cunegonde can still be found. After Panglossa is hanged, dissected, beaten, and rowed in a trireme, he still believes everything very well. Candide asks, “Tell me, dear Pangloss, …do you think that all is good in this world?” Pangloss answers, “I still hold my former opinions.” And he says that the reasoning is from the fact that he is a philosopher, and that he received what he had said wrongly. Also, at the end of the novel, Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss and the old woman all decide that they are fine where they are and that they can tend their garden together, despite all the horrible things they have experienced. in the pasture Pangloss expressed this very well, when he said to Candide at the end: Surely in this the best of all possible worlds they are joined to each other, for if you had not been kicked hard in the back for love you would have been thrown from the beautiful castle. for Lady Cunegonde, if you had not gone through the Inquisition, if you had not traversed America on foot, if you had not thrust your sword through the baron, and if you had not lost all your sheep. Land of Eldorado, you don’t want to eat lemons and pistachios here.” This last note is consistent with the tone of the proof of perpetual hope; Cunegonde is ugly, the old woman is troublesome, and none of the characters are very happy, yet they all continue to do something and hope. “The whole group entered into this laudable plan, and each began to exercise his talents.”
The argument of Candide is that life is unfair and will continue to give rough times every time, regardless of a person’s attitude of hope or faith in all the best things. This theme is shown over and over again, as Candide and his companions suffer countless calamities and tragedies, even in their deepest belief that everything will turn out for the best. Each character is often wounded and pitiful. Some are even thought to have died several times. By the end of the novel, the reader is almost afraid that Candide and the others have not given their whole lives. The reader finally realizes that it is hopeless to think that things will turn out well for the character. But it is also impossible to believe that they do not live, learn, and try to be happy.
Candide, with its humorous sense of despair and its theme that life is continually unfair, resonates with the modern reader in a remarkably timeless way. This novel is relevant to today’s world because Pangloss’s philosophy is still widely accepted among people now. Many believe that everything inside is best inside. The hope shown in Candide is a universal movement that is not limited to one age or generation. Through the modern use of religion, material aid, support groups, and countless other measures, people today perpetuate as despair the idea of good hope expressed in Voltaire’s classic. Although some of the things that happen to Candide could never happen even today, many people have suffered such trauma in their own lives and believe that their lives were led by fate or that they will be happier because of it. .
Overall, it brings the reader into the plot of the story with a humorously desperate tone. The theme, that life is and always is unfair, is easily identified by most readers. All the incredible tragic events that happen to the characters of Candide seem to lead to the conclusion that Candide and his friends give up a desperate philosophy, but no. but in their opinion they want to believe that all things are best, and that they live in the best possible way in every world. Readers can enjoy this humorous entertainment and apply this philosophy in their own lives. In this way all generations can understand and respond to the classic that is Candide.
