I enter my house really late in the night. Tomorrow I have school and have to do a blog about the book that I have just finished reading. I walk slowly to my computer as a person that is sentenced to death walk towards the guillotine. When I get to my computer I have a new temptation that is to go to Facebook and waste my time while I could be doing my work. Finally, Dr. Pangloss's teachings save me from committing this fraud and I decide to write my blog. In Candide being a philosopher is a very strange job. First, philosophers are supposed to be one of the most studied persons and dedicate a lot of time to study and understand the world. In Candide a philosopher can be practically anyone. According to Voltaire: "For he found he could not do without Martin, his philosopher" (pg.96). Martin was a person that Candide had found in a ship who wasn't very rich. In real life a philosopher has to go through tons of reading and learning to be called so and in the book Martin became Candide's philosopher. In this book we find that Candide encounters many philosophers like the old woman, Cacambo, Martin, and Pangloss. If had to place these characters in order of who knew more about the world and life I would say that Cacambo and the old lady knew better than the rest. I say this because throughout the story they tell their own story and seem to be the most experienced and the ones that had gone through most things. In some way experience can be more useful than studying. For example if a person studies a lot of marketing but hasn't really tried to do marketing he would probably do not as good as a person that has studied less than him but has had ten years of experience in the field. There is also a lot of criticism of philosophy and Pangloss's teachings. How can everything in life be there for a good reason if all what happens to Candide and his friends is bad. There never seems to be a reward at the end of the way. As I read through the story I believed that after some terrible events there must be something better happening but each time the situations got worse. Pangloss teaching was that everything was for the best, but how can something that just keeps getting worse be for the best. After reading this book I think that philosophies only apply to the thinking of you and can't be generalized in the people.
In this book there are a lot of evil forces that want to prevent Candide from reaching his love but always good triumphs over evil as Pangloss says. In real life this story is impossible because Candide survived many things. How can one be the only one alive with three others after an earthquake, or how can he survive the difficult trip to El Dorado. The battle of good versus evil was really reflected in the humans. We saw that when Candide traveled with Martin through Europe they saw all kinds of terrible human acts. I do not think that humans are as bad as Voltaire shows them in this book. Human beings have always been characterized as being very greedy and horrible creatures that want everything for them. If you want the worse description that human beings can ever have you should read this book and see how Voltaire despises human beings and society. There was a maxim that Martin said: "I am more ever convinced that man is evil" (pg.108). This showed that human beings in this book appear all to be against happiness and always wanting to destroy their equals. When I read this I stopped because I got thirsty. While I went to get something to drink I was thinking about this and realized that animals are not as dehumanized as we think. We associate barbarism and destroying things with acting like animals. After this I a question came up to my mind. Do animals kill or destroy things or others for pleasure? The answer for this is no and animals kill others for survival and not to have fun. Voltaire also has a target on priests and corruption. He is constantly criticizing the Catholic Church and how they are corrupt. As I was reaching the last part of the book I saw a quotation that said: "High estate is always dangerous" (pg.143). This also shows how Voltaire thinks of corruption. I think that he would agree if I said to him that power corrupted people because throughout his book he kept showing that the power that an individual had affected their way of behaving and being.
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