Guest Blogger: Kelly A.

So far, we’ve read satire as fiction in Candide, and now as verse in “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope. What mainly makes ROTL a satire is that it’s parody of an epic story. We all fondly remember Homer’s The Odyssey, and cleverly, many of the epic characteristics represented in this story are present in ROTL, the main difference being one is a heroic fiction novel and one is a pathetic story of an overreaction between two families. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and battle, helps Odysseus out of many tough situations. In ROTL, Belinda’s guardian nymph, Ariel, comes to her in a dream and gathers many other spirits to guard her chastity. The scene where Odysseus murders countless suitors with a bow and arrow can be compared to the cutting of Belinda’s precious lock of hair by the Baron. Beginning with an invocation to the muse, then a premonition in a dream, followed by rites at the altar, and finally description of the “warfare,” The Rape of the Lock is clearly a mock epic. You might ask yourself grudgingly, so what?

Edward Lawrence said in Literary Criticism (1400-1800), “With sensitivity, exquisite taste, high-spirited wit, and gentle satire, the poem forces a continuous comparison between insignificant and significant things.” Pope intended his verses to cool hot tempers and to encourage his friends to laugh at their own foolishness. A form that suits a more heroic culture is not appropriate for the story of these people; it sounds silly to the reader, thus emphasizing the families’ idiocy. He just didn’t see what the big deal was. Yeah, the Baron was a jerk, but it’s just a lock of hair; it shouldn’t make a difference in how one looks after being in a “toilette” anyway. ;)

Guest Blogger: Mikail G.

To me the most dominant theme in Candide was that of religion. Not the presence of religion but rather the questioning of it. How can there possibly be a just god out there when horrific things such as the earthquake in Lisbon are taking place?
"They felt the earth tremble beneath them. The sea boiled up in the harbour and broke the ships which lay at anchor. Whirlwinds of flame and ashes covered the streets and squares. Houses came crashing down. Roofs toppled on to their foundations, and the foundations crumbled. Thirty thousand men, women and children were crushed to death under the ruins." (33).

This quote may not directly imply that there is no God but it definitely challenges the validity of the common perception of God. Voltaire reinforces his opinion through countless examples of suffering, rape and death. It is ridiculous to say that every horror that took place was for some greater good (ie. Children dying and women being raped repeatedly). Voltaire did something out of the ordinary by portraying religion badly but he is not the only one who has taken a stand against the mighty “religious machine.” In 1859, Charles Darwin published his controversial findings On the Origin of Species which pretty much established the theory of evolution (which contradicts all of the different creation stories that different religions believe in). One of the most famous atheists (not to say that Voltaire was an atheist) today is Bill Maher. He hosts a TV show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and recently came out with a documentary titled “Religulous.” He often puts a comedic twist on religion but also admits that the power religion has over people is quite scary. “I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.” (Bill Maher). He challenges the power of the church when he says “I think what's dangerous is the idea that someone can wash away your sins.” Voltaire would probably agree with Bill Maher when he states that “Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need.”
Voltaire was able to transmit many themes in his short novel Candide but I would have to say that religion is the most important of them all.

“It's all been satirized for your protection.” (Bill Maher).

Guest Blogger: Katie G.

Well now, Candide.
I happened to get sick on the day of the symposium so maybe someone has already mentioned this before but...

The strangely similar...
New world vs. Old world
-it seems like these two places have exactly the same problems!
-Nothing really changed for Candide (his crimes followed him)
-Candide's life still sucked and so did everyone else's life (Even in Eldorado Candide was unhappy)
It was nice how the people of Eldorado scoffed at the outsiders obsession with their "yellow mud" and "stones" What is so special about shiny rocks anyway!?

Now a more general idea is the ever dreadful "So what?" Why did Voltaire decide to write a novel about an impressionable guy with a crappy life? If you loved, liked or hated Candide everyone can lay blame for its creation on the fatalist ideas of Leibniz and Pope. After the disaster at Lisbon the general comforting statement to the sufferers was "Oh no no no do not feel bad or sad because you could not of done anything to stop it anyway" FATE. The idea that God was just and good did not correlate with the horrors going on and the preaching that its all in God's plan for these things to happen for Voltaire.
Candide experiences so many horrors one after another and eventually things go well for him, for a small period of time, only for things to go sour once again. It seems like the only time things do go well is when some one for free will comes along and leads Candide on the right path but he still eventually faces a new tragedy. What a happy novel! The only thing keeping this from depressing readers completely is the use of low burlesque making the horrible situations go down a little easier.
The satirical novel makes the fatalist seem ridiculous and attempts to shine a better light on free will.
This menippean style satire confused everyone at one point and if you say "nay" Please explain the butt biting monkeys cause their purpose in the novel still eludes me.


Okay so I have gotten that out of my system! How did everyones paper go? (Minus the noise...) If the noise was so much of a distraction your paper did not go well... Remember: What is, is right. That blotch on your transcript is all apart of the much bigger picture. ;)

Candide Wrap-Up

Final burning thoughts you didn't get a chance to speak to during the symposium? Here's your opportunity; make it good!

Guest Blogger: Marina M.

WARNING: this blog was written in the wee hours of the morning and may contain things that don’t make sense…Hooray for procrastination.

So of coarse I’m blogging about Candide. But instead of choosing just one theme and going deep into it (which is basically what our paper is anyway) I decided that I would just whip out a ton of themes; that way we can blog about them together and get some ideas for the paper. They aren’t in depth, and not all of them explain why he is using this theme… so feel free to add whatever you desire. I didn’t use SparkNotes or anything (which in retrospect would have saved a lot of time, darn it!) so there is a lot that I still don’t understand… like that monkey butt nibbling thing??
Also, I’m sorry it’s really really really long, but it is mostly bullet points. Good luck!


“ALL IS FOR THE BEST”
- it keeps somehow working out for him… whether it was the 2 innocent Jews being
burned so Candide could meet his love, or Candide using his horrific Bulgar
experience to become a captain…
- when the best of all possible worlds wasn’t cutting it, he moves on for best of all
possible universes

IRONY
- mostly verbal things you need to catch, like “such harmony that hell itself could not
rival”, “heroic butchery”, the “honest” eunuch selling the girl… there’s a lot
- vicious sailor who didn’t help the honest Anabaptist
- earthquake on same day as flogging
These are just a few…

RELIGIOUS HYPOCRACY
- priest buried in beautiful church, Jew in dunghill
- Anabaptist is only one to help
- A lot of short lines you need to catch, like the Christian prince who wanted weapons to destroy another Christian power… the holy water that was actually nasty salt water…
- Tends to satirize Islam a bit…
- How being a priest is more like a power status since he (Cunegonde’s brother) was also a colonel, he had the power to have someone beaten and excommunicated. It wasn’t a spiritual thing…
- OVERALL he’s not really bashing religion, but rather the system it’s under. Remember that Eldorado is Voltaire’s ideal; they had a religion, but it wasn’t filled with the hypocrisy of material wants and status

FREE WILL vs. OVERALL GOOD
- Candide seems to believe in both, but how does that work?
- Balance between “trusting in Providence” and doing “as you say”

UNIVERSAL REASON
- It happens over and over that they need to know why…
- People come to conclusions on life based on their surroundings… For example
compare Martin’s belief in evil to the goodness of Eldorado
- Not really something you can learn from another (the fortnight discussion on the
boat really didn’t do anything but entertain. Although Candide did get a base
belief from Panglos, its definition changes as he continues his journey…)

HAPPINESS
- everyone can complain about their lives
- LOVE keeps providing hope (love could actually be its own theme. There are some interesting quotes about it, like “I loved him to the point of idolatry” and “to fondle the snake that devours us until it eats our hearts away”…doesn’t have to be love of people, could in fact emphasize a lack of it. It can also be a love of life… which I guess leads back to happiness)
- Define bad, define happiness (it seems to change as Candide visited different places)
- Contentment. It changes with people’s surroundings; no matter the situation people always said they had the worse. Even Eldorado didn’t claim they were the best, but the were still happy with it.
- It tends to be a theme that if you leave your original place, you lose happiness (either Eldorado, or Candide’s original home...)
- “so these happy men decided to be happy no longer” (interesting quote from when the men decided to leave Eldorado)
- Joy is stronger than grief (example: the joy of finding one red sheep was stronger than losing the other 100)
- We learn that criticizing doesn’t make you happy

MONEY
- sailor risked his life for money, but not honest Anabaptist
- of coarse Eldorado… (“these children must be well brought up if they are taught
to despise gold and precious stones”… Europeans and their irrational lust for dirt
that would drive them to kill… what is he satirizing I wonder?)
- Candide points out how perishable riches are and how only virtue should last… yet he still keeps the diamonds (even though he is horrible with money!!!)

INNOCENSE
- yet he still kills
- often says he does stuff “innocently”
- what does this mean? Is he truly innocent, or just stupid? (Momma says stupid is as
stupid does…)
- “combined judgment with unaffected simplicity” is one of our first descriptions of
Candide
- he listens to everyone but himself, and doesn’t question until like 2/3 of the book
(wow Cacambo’s advice was just as good as the old woman’s)

NATIONALITY
- Russian= mean, French=nice… (unless you go to France…) But German is
always polite and courteous… hmmm
- I guess could even talk about manners and power in general… (and compare
with Eldorado! This is what Voltaire believes is ideal, note how the king preferred
hugging to groveling, what does this say?)
- could also go a completely different direction and talk about how he goes from
country to country and the lessons he learns on the way (“what happened to the
world of worlds?”)
- The innocence and happiness of Eldorado is preserved by not leaving, while
Candide becomes more and more depressed on his travels
- Also Voltaire talks about racial equality! (the black slave who lost a leg and hand
and talks about humanity being brothers since we are all decedents of Adam…)


CACAMBO
- ok so I guess you could do an analysis on ANY CHARACTER in the novel,
especially since Candide goes from one “philosopher” to another… maybe even
compare and contrast and show how they affect his philosophy along the book
since he’s too simple to have a mind of his own (THIS IS THE MAIN PART OF
THE BOOK HINT HINT)
- anyway for me Cacambo is just weird. So he says stuff like “when you don’t get
what you want on one side, you join another” but then he’s oddly optimistic about
things like women and reverend fathers killing for land or something…
inconsistent I think, like he’ll use “free will” to choose something, but still has
enough faith where he’ll say right after “perhaps God will have pity on us in the
end”… weird, but still interesting. I guess he’s a good link between complete
Panglos and Martin
- unlike Candide he never loses his head and leads him places… even though he’s
technically the servant
- Knows how to speak to people’s appeals vs. Candide who not only does a horrible job of reading people, but tells the same stories over and over to everyone and gets himself into trouble because of it

SCIENCE
- In Eldorado the man was content to be ignorant… but they also had huge
buildings dedicated to science
- Debate on Homer and scientific explanations…
- They even tried explaining the red sheep
Candide was curious by nature

SEXUALITY (if you really want to go there...)
- could narrow it down to the role of women in the novel and if they are
“degraded” and what that does for the novel, whether it’s Cunegonde or
Pococurante or even the women in Eldorado… (by the way Cacambo said that
“women are never at a loss, God looks after them”… you could throw that in
somewhere)
If you made it this far, than I am proud of you 

Satire Assignment

Find an example of satire. Post the link and a genius statement. 5 points.