Voltaire's Paradox: Candide, Chapters XVI - XX

These few chapters were a breaking point in the novel as well as in Candide’s life. This character evolved from having a naïve, innocent view of life to adopting a more realistic position towards the events and occurrences that unfolded before him throughout his journey to South America. At first, Candide ceased being so gullible when he began questioning the validity of Pangloss’s inferences.
“‘Oh, Pangloss!’ cried Candide. ‘A scandal like this never occurred to you! But it’s the truth, and I shall have to renounce that optimism of yours in the end.
‘What is optimism?’ asked Cacambo.
‘It’s the passion for maintaining that all is right when all goes wrong with us,’ replied Candide, weeping as he looked at the negro.” (p. 86).
Candide is accepting the fact that evil does exist in the world and at the same time emphasizing the philosophy that everything that occurs in the universe is bad; consequently, Candide is indirectly assuring that nothing has a positive outcome and, hence, not only denying but also opposing Pangloss’s theory. As the time progressed and Candide became a spectator to more and more horrors, his incredulity escalated up to a point where he even doubted the true nature of man, which determines someone’s behavior throughout the rest of their lifetimes. “The wickedness of man appeared to him in all its ugliness, and his mind became a prey to gloomy thoughts.” (p. 89). Candide is accepting a pragmatic approach to life, where true facts and events, not simple inferences with no credibility or evidence at all, mold the mind’s reasoning. In his work, Voltaire promoted and strengthened the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher contemporary to Voltaire’s times who, in his book Leviathan, proclaimed that man was naturally evil and selfish.
“‘… and in those towns which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace and where the arts flourish, men suffer more from envy, cares, and anxiety than a besieged town suffers from the scourges of war, for secret vexations are much more cruel than public miseries. In short, I have seen and experienced so much, that I am forced to believe that man’s origin is evil.’” (p. 92).

Apart from mocking social pretensions, as I stated in previous blogs, Voltaire begins to criticize the value and importance man has placed on gold and other riches. Eldorado is the perfect example of a utopia: there exists no sadness or poverty and men engage in a happy lifestyle, avoiding wars and all sorts of conflicts. The inhabitants of this city view wealth and material goods as something insignificant and worthless that nobody will ever bother to steal or fight for. Wealth is relative; therefore, what’s valuable is not the tangible object per say, but the value man has placed on it: “…but as we are surrounded by unscalable rocks and precipices, we have so far been sheltered from the greed of European nations, who have a quite irrational lust for the pebbles and dirt found in our soil, and would kill every man of us to get hold of them.” (p. 79).

The inhabitants of Eldorado hold and unworldly view towards life. They are not interested, like their European brothers, to make the acquisition of wealth their main focus in life; however, they manage to live in perfect harmony and order, making the reader believe that the key to constructing a utopia is not the possession of endless riches, but of no riches at all. Voltaire takes this assumption one step further by mentioning that the comforts of an opulent life can vanish easily: “‘You see, my friend, how perishable are the riches of this world. There is nothing solid but virtue and the prospect of seeing Lady Cunégonde again.’” (p. 85). A paradox is established by saying that only that which is abstract has the certainty of remaining permanent and constant in one’s life.