Voltaire

Sarah DeBurkarte

Voltaire’s Candide

During the Old Regime of Europe, some people began to diverge from this system and become part of a movement called the Enlightenment and they were known as Enlightenment thinkers. Voltaire was one of these thinkers with beliefs that the Old Regime should be eradicated. In his Candide, he mocks the Old Regime’s way of thinking multiple times. Voltaire’s Candide provides an Enlightenment religious and social critique of the Old Regime through the wealth and religious beliefs of the people in the Old Regime.

In Candide, Voltaire instantly began to mock the Old Regime by commenting on their wealth, as the Old Regime believed money determined everything. Before the Enlightenment period, money was the only thing that made a person seemed like he or she mattered in the world. Money controlled everything in the Old Regime and those who had it also had power. In Candide, Voltaire uses satire to describe how ridiculous the people of the Old Regime acted about money, stating how Candide’s mother would never marry a man because, while he was “good” and “honest,” he had “only seventy-one quarterings” (Voltaire 1). Money controlled people’s actions because while the man seemed to be perfect and an overall good person, he did not have enough money to prove that he was good enough for Candide’s mother. Voltaire’s true thoughts of what money did the people were shown later in the book when Candide gained wealth from the jewels from El Dorado, but it caused him more problems than it benefited him. Candide was continually robbed and cheated because of his wealth; meaning money causes greed and makes people evil and act against their morals. Voltaire then refers to the fact that in the Old Regime, having money meant attracting companions and friends as he writes on page 56 when Candide has an illness but because of his money, “two physicians” came to take care of him “even though he never sent for them.” The character, Martin, mocks Candide by...