Candide: A Pointed Political Work
After an age of authoritarian governments and social unrest came The Enlightenment. Often called the “Age of Reason”, The Enlightenment (1688-1789) was a period during which Europeans aimed to reach a higher level of understanding by thinking for themselves and by applying reason to every facet of life. The Age of Reason prompted developments in not only the arts and sciences, but also in politics—many Enlightenment thinkers demanded change in the way that their respective nations were run. Voltaire (1694-1778), a French writer, essayist and philosopher, experienced firsthand the results of the tyranny that ran rampant through Europe, being incarcerated numerous times and exiled from Paris for his outspoken writing. In his biting satire Candide, Voltaire mocks political follies of European governments and expresses that the excessively harsh punishments, lack of free will in Absolutist governments and the misuse and corruption of Christianity hold back European societies from reaching their full potential.
In the vein of Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments, Voltaire emphasizes that punishments during the eighteenth century in Europe were far from fitting the crime. Beccaria (1738-1794), an Italian man who closely followed the writings of Montesquieu, called for a reform of the penal system in his famous On Crimes and Punishments. Just punishments were vital for society because, “As punishments become more cruel,” Beccaria wrote, “men’s minds…become increasingly hardened” (Beccaria 200). While Voltaire makes light of prodigal punishment in his comedy Candide, it is nonetheless a repeated and seemingly essential theme. The main character Candide is kicked out of the castle of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh at the beginning of the book simply for kissing the Baron’s daughter, Cunégonde (Voltaire 3). More pointedly, Candide is sentenced, “to be whipped six and thirty times throughout the entire regiment [72,000...