Voltaire's Writing Techniques In Candide

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

be doing, and that outside of mealtimes...the rest of the day is spent in useless quarrels...-it's one unending warfare. By having this character take on such a pessimistic tone, he directly contradicts the obviously over-optimistic tone of Candide. In the conclusion (page 1617) an old turk instructs Candide in the futility of needless philosophizing by saying that "...the work keeps us from three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty." In each of these examples, the character chosen by the author comes across as a reasonable and respectable person, making the author's point of view seem just as reasonable and respectable. Another technique Voltaire uses in Candide is that of taking actual people and events and weaving into his work of fiction. He often does this to mock or ridicule his political and literary adversaries, as shown in the conversation between the abbe' and the Parisian supper guests (page 1593). The abbe' mentions two critics who in Voltaire's time have criticized ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

(as big as six elephants) or the weight of his dumbbells (each one is eight hundred and five tons). Besides being entertaining to read, these exaggerations serve to point out the ridiculousness of an ideal by showing it in a preposterous light. The format in which Candide is written closely resembles that of Cervantes's Don Quixote. In both books, the authors have chosen to name each chapter in a descriptive style; the name of the chapter tends to be a brief description of the action that is to take place within it. Compare chapter three of Don Quixote, "Of the amusing manner in which Don Quixote had himself dubbed a knight." with chapter three of Candide, "How Candide Escaped from the ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: