Not Everything Is For The Best

I can't find a particular interest in the story of Candide because it is much absurd for my taste. Never the less, the constant criticism has made it interesting because it makes us understand what was going on in that time. I personally think that we would have a better perception of the book or at least understand the satire better if we lived in that time, or if we experienced the philosophy of life those people had. In these chapters I had to go back to the introduction to find the purpose of voltaire and understand his acid humor.

Throughout the chapters voltaire always wrote how, "Pangloss explained to him [Candide] how all was designed for the best"(31). Every page Pangloss commented on the same thing. That must have meant something to Voltaire. I tried to find the meaning of it, but it is hard because sometimes I rely a lot on that saying, and that is why I didn't find it satyrical. But then I questioned myself, "why would he repeat this so much?, when practically there was no hope for them." It must have been that he was against this. 

In that time the only hope was God, and people relied on him as if he were guilty and as if he made everything happen "for the best". But it is this that Voltaire wants to criticize, not the fact that we believe in a God but that we are led to false expectations because we are so optimistic. It is not wrong to be optimistic, on the contrary it is a very good quality but it is wrong when we mislead it. Voltaire said that, "If all is for the best is explained in an absolute sense, without offering hope for the future, it is only an insult to the miseries we endure"(10). It is as if he were saying that if the words don't really imply a change or don't promise to make the things better they will make everything worse. Those words or our false expectations of hope are like a shield that in a way make us feel better but they really are creating a lie within our thoughts. It is not the words that voltaire is against of but the way we constantly use them without results.

That way of criticism is what made me realize that this in could be considered an ethical book, that has more advice to life than what you think. Even if we are not living in Voltaire's time and he have different perceptions, our principles have always been the same, they have come from the same roots.