[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Western Civilization
Candide is one of those "follow the leader" type characters, who don’t do much thinking for himself. Most of Candide's opinions match those of his philosophy teacher, Pangloss. Pangloss firmly holds the belief that he lives in the best of all possible worlds, and that everything that happens is for the best. Ironically, this book is ridden with a string of horrible (and rather strange) misfortunes. The characters in the book remain surprisingly well adjusted, considering the things they've endured.
Candide is a humorous novel in which Candide finds himself questioning Pangloss's theory about living in the best of all worlds. (This idea is particularly shaken when Candide finds himself in a land where the mud is pure gold, the pebbles on the side of the road are precious gems, and the people are gentle and harmonious. If he had lived in a perfect world before, how could this country possibly exist?). This novel effectively dispels the once widely believed theory that everything is for the best, and that misfortunes are part of an unseen greater good.
The strength of this particular little yellow book with the black stripes is the introductory and background materials for "Candide." Although Voltaire's novel is a literary masterpiece, is it also a rhetorical work that needs to be understood in its particular context of time and place. In his "Introduction," Lowers defines a "Voltairean" and provides a very detailed 10-page essay on Voltaire's career and how he came to write Candide.
After the standard summary/commentary review of the novel's chapters, Lowers is equally detailed in covering the "Background to 'Candide.'" Specifically, he establishes the Philosophy of Gottfired Wilhelm Leibnitz, satirized by Voltaire as "optimism" (the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds) and embodied in Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man," a poetic but rationalistic effort to justify the ways of God to man philosophically......
