Is giving up an option for you? When something hard appears in your way do you turn around? For me giving up is not the first option you should look at. Before doing that you can try many different things to be able to succeed in the area you have trouble. It may be a excruciating task you have to accomplish but nothing is impossible if you really set yourself to do it. Apparently there are many people that do not share this idea with me. There are people that prefer to stay mediocre all their life by not trying to accomplish his problems. In Candide there is a part where I see the feeling of wanting to be mediocre reflected. In the book there is an ignorant fellow they find that when they ask him a question he answers: "I am an ignorant fellow and quite content to be so" (pg.77). I think this case is very different from the case of us. The difference is that this man lives in a wonderful place where everything runs perfectly. He lives a very good life and is able to survive without an education. We do not live in a utopia so we can't rely on things happening as we would like them to happen. In our world we have to work and study to be able to accomplish things in life. In our life education is the most important thing in life because without it you won't be accepted into university or get a good job. In the New York Times I read an article called Leaner Times at Harvard: No Cookies and in this article they talk about education. This article shows that in the most prestigious universities of the United States the economical crisis is making things change. The main change that may affect the student's education is that they closed up a lot of cafeterias so the accessibility to fresh and warm breakfasts is lowering.
There are many characteristics of a utopia. Many of them have tried to be achieved by many different people throughout history but all proved to not work. If you really think about it, it is very hard to build a place where all people live in their dream world. With all the requirements for a perfect utopia I would say that the ones that are most important are that the people are all treated as equal and that there is enough money for everyone to be able to live comfortably. In the city of El Dorado we see that both of these characteristics are accomplished. We saw that even the one person that works as a farmer but doesn't have education is considered as equal as all the rest. When we talk about gold in El Dorado we think that ii is extremely abundant and our thoughts are proved when the King says: "But take all you want, and much good may it do you" (pg.83). I couldn't believe that a person was giving away gold like if it didn't have any worth. After I read this the thought that the values of things vary according to the person that has it. In this case there was so much gold in El Dorado that the King did not mind giving some away. It is also the same if you have a gift from someone very special that could be worth five dollars. If a person offers to buy it from you at twenty dollars you will probably not sell it because it has more value to you than the money. If another person happens to find this and he is offered ten dollars and he knows the worth in money he will probably sell it. When they have all the gold and it is lost Candide says to Cacambo: "There is nothing solid but virtue and the prospect of seeing Lady Cunègonde again" (pg.85). This also shows the emotional value that things can reach. If Candide was in that moment with Lady Cunègonde he would of probably be sad about the loss of the money, but at that moment there was a thing with much more value in his mind. I think Voltaire might have done this to show us the materialistic world we live in. In this world everything and everyone would do anything for a certain amount of money. Voltaire wants to criticize this by showing through Candide that money is not the most important thing in life. If had the chance to ask one question to Voltaire it would be which do you hate most the corruption of the Church or the corruption of society?
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