Breathing Through Tears: Seize the Day: chapters 6-7

The last two chapters of Seize the Day, show how Wilhelm has truly reached his day of reckoning, as he finally discovers that he has been wrong and he asks for forgiveness and for a second chance. He is tricked by Tamkin, but he manages to accept it learning a valuable lesson. At the end of this novel, Wilhelm realizes that to be able to save himself from drowning in his misery, he has to let go. To be able to let go he has to have that moment of reflexion where his tears will be the ones that will cure him.

Throughout the novel, Wilhelm is afraid to let go and he avoids crying in front of others, cry in front of these people... No! No! And yet his unshed tears rose and rose and he looked liked a man about to drown.”(100) He tried very hard not to cry, which made it even worst. His emotions begun to accumulate and he felt as if he couldn’t breathe for much longer, until he finally feels that he is drowning. This resumes what I have been talking about previously because it shows that although he appeared to be strong, he was very weak and couldn’t handle it.

After he realized that Tamkin is gone, he goes back to his father and asks for forgiveness as he recognizes that was wrong and that he can’t take it much longer. His father refuses to help him and begins to feel once again as if he can’t breathe, “My chest is all up, I feel chocked. I just simply can’t catch my breath.” (105) His attitude towards his father changes dramatically and he wants to be with him just to feel that somebody cares about him, but he receives no support from Dr. Adler. He begins to choke and drown to death, but inside his soul. This is the symbolism that is found within this novel. Maybe the air that he is not receiving is the moments and the days that have gone by and that he hasn’t breathed into, or seized in other words. When he looses his investments in the stock market he feels as if he has lost everything, but later on he realizes that he is just as Tamkin has said people were, materialistic and dependant on the mechanical aspects of life.

As Wilhelm goes out into the street, he begins to observe the people that are around him, and he tries to understand their lives, something that he never did before. He opens up to the world and is ready to see beyond his enclosed perspective by observing others, “... in every face the refinement of one particular motive or essence- I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give away, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. (111) In this part of the novel, Wilhelm becomes more of a person as he tries to understand the world. At the beginning of the chapter he has doubts and hates himself for being stupid, and towards the end he allows his soul to be free within the crowd.

Finally, Wilhelm ends his day by discovering who he really is an accepting himself with his flaws and endless defeats. He saves himself from drowning by crying and expulsing all those tears that wouldn’t let him breathe for so long, “Wilhelm began to cry. He cried at first softly and from sentiment, but soon from deeper feeling...the source of all his tears had suddenly sprung open within him.”(113) He ends alone, but relieved from all the stress and constant worries that his past and his future tormented hi with, living that moment, seizing the day that had taught him so much of the world, humanity and himself just by being an observer and a pupil.

Animal Instinct: Seize the Day: chapters 4-5

In chapters four through five, Seize the Day begins to establish a more philosophical and reflective tone. Wilhelm meets with Tamkin in the Hotel and they carry on with their investments in the stock market. While all of this is taking place, Tamkin manages to lecture Wilhelm about life and he teaches him his “seize the day” ideology.

In the first part of chapter four, I found that the use of animals as a way to refer to people was more common, than I thought it was in previous chapters. I had already observed how Wilhelm used animal names to express his feelings towards a person and even himself, but it became more evident in this segment of the text, “Ass! Idiot! Wild boar! Dumb mule! Slave! Lousy, wallowing hippopotamus! Wilhelm called himself as his bending legs carried him from the dinning room (52) The use of this device may have several interpretations. One of them may be that the author wants to show that we humans are still wild animals that have an animalistic instinct as part of their nature and therefore will never adapt fully to the material and mechanical world. The mechanical world is also mentioned in the poem that Tamkin shows to Wilhelm, which he mentions is a criticism towards humanity and an explanation of why mechanism is the responsible for destruction in the world. Further on in the chapter, Tamkin himself uses the animal names to refer to an specific state of a human being as well as he establishes another element that relates to the setting of the story and its importance. “If you only knew one percent of what goes on in the city of New York! You see, I understand what it is when the lonely person begins to feel like an animal. When the night comes and he feels like howling from his window like a wolf.”(63) The first part of this segment makes reference to New York, the setting of the novel. The fact that Wilhelm doesn’t know anything about the people of the city, shows how he is completed alienated from society, and is a total stranger in that town. He is constantly thinking about the country side and how he wants to go back. Within the same context, Tamkin talks about a man that is so lonely that he acts like a wolf, howling for someone else to respond. He is probably talking about Wilhelm because he doesn’t belong in the city and he feels lonely due to his isolation from the rest of the people whom inhabit it. The use of the wolf as a personification of Wilhelm is very clever as it portrays a lot of his lonesome personality.

Tamkin introduces his philosophy to Wilhelm to make him understand that his constant worrying about his future, and the torments of his past are not worth thinking about. “Bringing the people into the here and now. The real universe. That’s the present ‘- moment. The past is no god to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real- the here and now. Seize the day.”(62) This ideology is everywhere, no matter where you are you will know people that think this way, including myself. I remember watching the movie, The Dead Poet’s Society where the new teacher of a very prestigious school, attempted to teach his students to seize the day, Carpe Diem. They began to life their life’s to the fullest and tried to confront their fears. This is precisely what Tamkin is inducing Wilhelm to do, as he sees that his life completely empty and shallow. Some time after he mentions this, another quote appears in the text which is even more specific, “Grasp the hour, the moment, the instant.”(86) This citation reminded me of the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-five. They were always talking about how life is about enjoying each moment and living up to it. Although Wilhelm does not really understand this ideology very much, it is causing certain curiosity as he questions its essence and purpose.

The element of water begins to appear constantly, and it shows its relation to the feeling that Wilhelm had of being drowned and not being able to breathe, in the previous chapters. Water had been mentioned several times, especially by Dr. Adler who emphasized on it being the cure for all the illnesses. This time water appears as the condemnation of Wilhelm, which will lead him to eventually drown, “The waters of the earth are going to roll over me.”(73)

Wilhelm the Lonely: Seize the Day: Chapters 1-3

The novel, Seize the Day by Saul Bellow, begins by introducing Wilhelm, a guy in his forties who is tiered of life and pictures himself as a complete failure. He has no hope at all, his family is against him and he is in his way to bankruptcy. The tone that this character uses is very dark and egocentric, as he reveals himself completely to the reader. It is probably one the few books that I have read that makes such an introspective of one person that profoundly.

In the first three chapter of this book, the main characters questions himself a lot and attempts to answer this question, always resulting in the worst possible answer. The following are some examples of the questions that Wilhelm makes, “He had put forth plenty of effort, but that was not the same as working hard, was it? (4) ... “And while the losses were small they weren’t gains, were they? (5) In these examples we can see how he manages to feel so stupid and useless all the time, without the help of anyone else. In the first quote he degrades his achievements because he doubts that he did put hard work into them. He doesn’t give any credit to himself. In the second citation, he shows how negative he is, not believing that a loss is actually a gain, as many people say. He has no hope that things will get better, so he assumes his defeats as losses instead of considering them as new opportunities to grow as a person. This tone is very dark and fearful and full of questions which give the impression that the he is unsure about what he is saying. The voice is also very personal and the omniscient narrator gets inside Wilhelm’s head most of the time, reveling the essence of his thoughts. These elements show how this man is so isolated and hidden away from society and from the rest of the world. He always feels like a stranger when surrounded by people and he can’t open up completely to someone, not even his father, because he feels misunderstood. The fact that Wilhem feels that he’s running out of breath, shows the reader that he is in a way drowning in his own sadness and is not able to come out to breathe. “Dumb and incompetent, he struggled for breath...”(46)

Wilhelm, has other problems that are very common for people that are going through a mid-life crisis and that relates a lot to the Crying of Lot 49. This issue is connected to drug abuse, especially of pills. As we saw in Pynchon’s novel, many characters are induced into the world of drugs, and they are not only the young hippies, but also the older characters like Dr. Hilarious and Mucho Mass. They begin to consume because they feel that they don’t have anything else to do and they are alone in the world. Wilhelm feels the same way too, and he begins to take different types of pills to see if he feels better when taking them. In a way, this is being paranoid, which also relates to the Crying of Lot 49. “Meanwhile I suggest you cut down on drugs- ‘You exaggerate that, Dad. I don’t really, I give my self a little boost against-’ He almost pronounced the word misery but he kept his resolution not to complain.” (42) In that segment it is evident that he takes those medicines trying to achieve some happiness or stability, but doesn’t really achieve it. He takes them to fight his misery, but he is actually increasing it. This is another reason for him feeling like he is drowning and he can’t escape it, not even with drugs.

Finally, as I continue to read the novel, I realize that the author has established a very interesting element to the time scheme. The story is taking place during one single day, which relates directly to the title of the novel. It will be intriguing to see what will happen next, because it has to be very extraordinary for Wilhelm to realize that he has to seize that particular day. This approach is very clever as well, because it shows the reader that most of the time people don’t realize that they do many things during one day, and that most of the times we waste out time. He wants the readers to reflect about the changes they can make on their lives by using their time wisely during one day, and how they can appreciate life more by doing so.

Second Reading of Friendly Fire

After reading Friendly Fire for a second time, I realized that I had been wrong about the generalizations I made and the pro-war characteristics I had found. In my second reading, I observed new elements in the story, such as the specific target it had, which I didn’t notice in my previous reading.

This time, I decided to make an emphasis on the title, trying to relate it to the story in different ways. A Friendly Fire is when in war, there is an attack from part of the allies, being either accidental or intentional. When the military refers to a Friendly Fire, they use the term as a euphemism or double speak, trying to make their offenses into more agreeable terms, that will not sound as insulting and cruel as they really are. This can also be seen as an oxymoron, because this term contradicts itself in many ways, starting with its own name. In the story, Friendly Fire, the title may be applied in various parts of the text. The first one is found within a military context, “But when there was that fuss about the friendly-fire incident with the Danish soldiers, she fixated on the idea that Anthony had been involved in it, even though Roy insisted that he’d been nowhere near where it had happened.(Hadley) In this part of the story we encounter the thoughts that one of the characters has about her son in war. She hears about a Friendly Fire that occurs near to her son’s camp, and she is afraid that something has happened to him. For her, the term Friendly Fire, is the complete the opposite of its literal meaning, because it may be the cause of her son’s death. She sees that it is a doublespeak that the military is trying to impose on her, so she doesn’t feel that they have harmed the member of her family that is in war.

Further on in the story, I realized that the Friendly Fire that was being addressed earlier was not the only one that actually existed within the story. This time, it was not the military euphemism which was taking place, but the oxymoron that was so evident between the emotions of the characters, and what they pretended to be before everybody else in their life. These two women are hard working and positive within their jobs, always trying to appear that they are happy and satisfied with what they have in front of others. This is shown throughout the story in various ways, one of them being the flirtatious attitude of one of them towards the men for whom they are cleaning their toilets, which already makes it very contradicting. “It was better when the men were in. There was always the opportunity for a bit of a joke. He probably liked the sight of my backside better than my face, she thought when she got up to refill her bucket and caught sight of herself in the mirror above one of the sinks, a square of polished tin screwed onto the wall.”(Hadley) This woman tries to look confident before this strange man, approaching him though jokes and posses, but when he leaves, the reflection that she makes about her life and her current state, which is cleaning toilets, brings the apparent doublespeak that she was trying to make with herself and with the man to the floor, making her feel terrible once again. She realized that she can’t fool herself, and probably she can’t fool others, she is just a maid, just like a Friendly Fire isn’t as friendly as it sounds.

A Fictional Reality : Friendly Fire

The story, Friendly Fire is a piece of fiction that describes the life of two hard working women in New York. Although it is a made up story with fictional characters and situations, it portrays the reality of many Americans.

Pam and Shelley are cleaning ladies that are coworkers and go out one night to clean a warehouse. They are separated the whole time they are doing their job, but in a way they are connected. As each one of them is working, their minds are concentrated more on their personal problems than on the job they are elaborating. These women are full of troubles and on top of that they are responsible for sustaining their homes. The tone of this story reminds me of the movie, Maid in Manhattan. This story takes place in a hotel in New York, and the characters are the cleaning ladies, which are all independent women that have to take care of their families. This seems to occur a lot, not only in the United States, but everywhere else in the world. The author is sort of victimizing women in this story, showing them as the beings who are suffering the most. It is probable that this piece has as a target the sexism in lower classes, but maybe it just wants to show the reality of these people.

As I read through the story, I saw that there are certain topics that are recurrent not only in the newspapers but in US literature as well. A perfect example of this is the war in Irak, and the soldiers that are the always pictured as the victims of the situation. The problem with this, is that in the US, they have the choice of choosing if they want to join the army or not. The approach of the author in this story is based on the pressure that the families and society have over these young people, basically because of the economic advantages that are store for them. In Friendly Fire, there is a lot of pressure from part of the father towards the son to join the military,” “They’ll soon have him sorted out,” she said, but actually she’d been so angry that she couldn’t forgive him—or anyone else, either. She’d blamed Roy for reading war books and leaving them lying round the house. Or it was Anthony’s girlfriend’s fault: Leanne only wanted the money for those two kids who weren’t Anthony’s. She didn’t care what he had to do to get it. ..He’s going to make a proper career for himself,” Roy had said. “You ought to be proud of him, working so hard to pass his qualifications.”(Hadley)

Another topic that is very recurrent is teen age pregnancy. Lately there has been a lot of propaganda against this situation, due to the fact that it has increased so much during the last years. In this story the daughter of one of the main characters has a baby at seventeen and this creates a lot of tension in the mother-daughter relationship. Movies like Juno and Knocked up, show how important teen age pregnancy has become, and they are similar to this story because they address the same topic to give the message to the readers. “You’re such an ungrateful cow, Kerry had said cheerfully. “Just wait and see.” Roy hadn’t seemed to mind the sight of his seventeen-year-old daughter with her pregnant belly swollen out like a football. Like a bomb, Kerry put it...She was so clever at school. I wanted her to do something better,” Shelley had said. “Not just what the rest of them around here do—shelling out more kids.”(Hadley)

Overall, I concluded that this fictional story was really an attempt to create a crude image of reality by hiding a very general situation with names and places that do not exist.

Martin=Voltaire? Candide: chapters 21-30

In the last chapters of Candide, many characters that had vanished from the story, reappeared. These people didn’t only bring changes into the plot of the novel, but they led Candide to make more philosophical inferences about life. The characters that are constantly with Candide throughout the novel begin to change their minds about their personal philosophical views as they encounter terrible circunstances.

As I read these chapters, the character that caught my attention most of the time was Martin. He was always going against the ideas of Candide, especially those that were influence of Pangloss. He was considered a “pessimist” by Candide, but he was actually a realist due to the fact that he was correct on most of the things he predicted would happen. Martin has a lot of interesting quotes in which he makes certain analogies that makes it easier for Candide to understand. “ ‘Do you think’, said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other, as they do today, that they have always been false, cozening, faithless, ungrateful, thieving, weak, inconstant, mean spirited, envious, greedy, drunker, miserly, ambitious, bloody, slanderous, debauched, fanatic, hypocritical, and stupid? –‘Do you think’, said Martin, ‘that hawks have always been accustomed to eat pigeons when they came in their way?’ ‘Doubtless,’ said Candide. ‘Well then," replied Martin, "if hawks have always had the same nature, why should you pretend that mankind change theirs?’ ‘Oh,’ said Candide, ‘there is a great deal of difference; for free will...’ (96) In that passage, it is clear that Martin has a broader view of humanity than Candide, and he is definitely more experienced than him. Candide is very biased by all of the theories given to him by Pangloss, and he always tries to excuse people from their wrongdoings based on those ideas. Martin has thoughts that reflect Voltaire’s perspective on the world, and on men. He shows to be completely against the positivism that Pangloss tries to impose. “ ‘I hope, ’said Martin, ‘that one day she will make you happy, but I very much doubt it.’ ‘What a pessimist you are!’ exclaimed Candide. ‘That is because I know what life is,’ said Martin.”

In another citation, Candide accepts that Martin is right about the fact that some of the disasters that have occurred to them are simply tragedies, and not for the best, as Candide is convinced. “How right you are, my dear Martin! There is nothing here but illusion and one calamity after another.”(112) As the novel gets closer to its end, Martin gains more credibility and trust, not only from Candide, but from the rest of the characters. Martin seems to be the most knowledgeable of the people that are near to Candide and he’s probably the strongest amongst them.

At the end of the novel, all of the characters change their minds about life and the idea of happiness. The only person that remains the same and keeps his ideology is Martin. He never lets anybody else convince him otherwise, as Candide does all time with Pangloss. “As for Martin he was firmly persuaded that a man is badly off wherever he is, so he suffered in patience.”(139) In the citation, above we can see how Martin stands firm with his beliefs. He learns to live knowing that he will always see reality instead of the less possible positive outcome of a situation. When I analyzed this, I realized that what Martin doesn’t have is faith, in general. By not having faith of any kind and hating Jesuits as much as Candide does, Martin is actually a person that is against the Church and what it represents. As we already know, Candide is a satirical piece by Voltaire which attacks the Church, the state and the ignorance of the lower classes. This novel is also a criticism against the ‘positivism’ philosophies that were being proposed by Leibnitz, and that Pangloss is such a great fan of. “I would not be proper for me to recant, especially as Leibnitz can not be wrong.”(136) After thinking about it, I deduced that Martin is probably Voltaire’s voice within the novel. He is representing the author as an insider and he shares all of the ideas that Voltaire himself proposed in his lifetime. Many authors tend to include themselves within their novels, and this could be the case.

Candide's absurdity and Europe's setbacks: Candide 16-20

Chapters 16-20 of Candide have less social targets, than the chapters before, but it still has a lot of attacks made towards certain institutions. Voltaire introduces new characters and cultures, to form a comparison between the different types of societies and their ideologies.

The character of Candide is a perfect example of the absurd within satire. He justifies his most impulsive actions, by using the most absurd reasoning. Candide has a very local view of the world, meaning that he is not aware that there is an entire universe out there that he hasn’t explored. This is clearly addressed when he kills a couple of monkeys, afraid that they were going to seriously hurt two girls. “...he fired and killed the two monkeys. ‘I have delivered those two poor creatures from great danger. If I have sinned in killing an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made amole amends in saving the lives of these two girls.”(69) The absurdity of killing two monkeys because they could hurt some girls is just too ridiculous. Candide not only takes it seriously, but he also thinks that he is a hero because he does that. His actions are very impulsive and he doesn’t relate to the rest of the people in the world.

The next quote I found has a lot of prejudicial thoughts made by Candide, who supposes that the Orellions would mistreat him when he arrived to their country. In a way, they did want to kill him at first when they thought that he was a Jesuit, but when they found that he had killed one, they were truly kind with Candide, “When all is said and done, there is a sterling goodness in unsophisticated nature; for instead of eating me, these people behaved more politely as soon as they found out I was not a Jesuit.”(72) This quote shows two things. The first one is that Candide thinks the worst about the natives, and in a way they also think the worst about the Jesuits, for their reign over these kinds of populations had always been very cruel. He continues to think that they are complete savages, and the satirical element that Voltaire uses to express this thought is the one of them becoming polite when they knew that Candide was not a Jesuit. The author is making fun of the natives and of their ignorance, because during those times, the native tribes were looked down at all the times because of their cultural differences with the Europeans.

When Candide arrives to Peru, the tone of the novel changes, and the target is not the ignorance of the natives in America or their hate towards the Jesuits. The target in this new chapter is the European society and the foundations of its economy. As soon as they see that there is gold everywhere in that country they begin to recollect it like beggars. No body in Peru was used to that sort of behavior for some sand and rocks, and so they had reactions such as this one, “Gentlemen it is obvious that you are strangers here, and we are not used to foreigners. So please excuse our laughter at your offering of paying us with stones off the road.”(77) The fact that the Indigenous are laughing at the Europeans is a satirical element placed there by the author to criticize the mercantilism that had overtaken Europe’s economy for so long. Voltaire obviously wanted to see changes in the economy, so he mentioned this to state it clearly to the public.

Finally, I encountered this quote, “I have no right to detain strangers against their will; that would be a tyranny which neither our customs nor laws could justify. All men are free.”(83) After analyzing this segment of the text, I realized that Voltaire is trying to show that the Peruvian natives are much wiser than the Europeans, and that the real savages are those who live in the old continent. They are savages because they do not respect human rights as they should and they will do whatever it takes to gain more power, even if it means to destroy the rest of the people. Voltaire was stating that Europe needed to develop some natural rights and laws so that the tyranny of the monarchs and enforce them. This would end the tyrannies of the monarchs, and the pole would be able to live in peace. These are principles that would be used during the French Revolution.

Aristocracy and Religious Oligarchy: Candide 10-15

In chapters ten through fifteen Voltaire targets the Catholic Church and its power in society, as well as he points out the resentment that the people have towards the high social classes.

On one of these chapters, there is a satiric element used by the author to criticize how society, especially the lower classes were very ignorant and enjoyed the misery of others. We can see this in the following quote, “It is wonderful how quickly these gentlemen can strip people; but what surprised me more was that they put their fingers into a place where we women admit nothing but a syringe-tube. This seemed to be an unusual custom...”(51) After reading this, anybody would deduce that the acts committed were in a form raping women. The women their selves are completely ignorant of what was being done to them and this female character uses words such as “wonderful” to describe the situation. This is obviously a satiric element used by Voltaire.

Some pages later, the author makes a direct attack to the Catholic Church. “The reverend fathers own the whole lot, and the people own nothing: That’s what I call a masterpiece of reason and justice.”(62) This is very sarcastic and offensive to the Church which had all the power and money of the people. The priests manipulated everyone and they demanded many things from the people. By using words such as “masterpiece and justice” when referring to the abuse of the religious leaders with the civilians is definitely the sarcastic element used by Voltaire. I can relate this directly to the ideologies that Voltaire proposed during his time, especially the one that said that the Church and the State should be separated and that there should be freedom and tolerance of religion.

Later on, another attack is made, but this time against the people’s behavior during this times and how they blamed it on the higher social classes. This was mainly due to their resentment towards those upper classes that had all the power and that abused of the rest of the people. This could be related as well to the French Revolution or at least the beginning of this important movement, where the people of France had to revolt against the aristocracy to be able to gain some rights. There is a perfect example of the impulsive behavior of the people before the revolution, as their anger accumulated against the most wealthy and powerful such as the members of the church, “I have killed my old master, my friend and my brother- in -law. I am the best tempered man there ever was, yet I have already killed three men, and two of them were priests!”(67) The example that related even better to the French Revolution is the following quote, “My master Pangloss used to tell me that men are equal...”(67) Here Voltaire addresses the equality of men through Candide and in a way it is an incentive for the people to meditate about their rights as human beings and as citizens of a nations. Voltaire was definitely one of founding fathers of the revolution and he was the person that most desired to have a society where the religions were separate from the government and there was no involuntary actions from part of the people to join the Church. The respect for human rights and civil liberties were the main objectives that Voltaire had, and Candide is the written proof of that. This novel is a legacy, not only because of its political and philosophical content, but because of the satire it uses to achieve a literary style that was of significant reflections and profundity.

Satirical Cruelty: Candide 4-9

Chapters four through nine have a lot of philosophical comments that at the beginning may sound confusing, but later on you realize are actually satirical elements put there by Voltaire.

In these chapters I could see how society was mocked when the author shows how tragic events were not given much importance by the characters. This could be seen in the scenes that followed the shipwrecks, storms and earthquakes, where the characters showed to be more concerned about other personal affairs, than by such tragedies. In a way, Voltaire is being satirical when he does that because he is saying that human beings, are very superficial and selfish, always concerned for their personal benefit, and not for the wellbeing of others, not even in the most terrible circumstances like the ones above. Another example beside the natural disasters is the personal tragedies of others, “During treatment Pangloss lost only one eye and an ear.”(31) This quote shows how Voltaire makes the characters so uninterested and uncompassionate about somebody else who has lost and eye and an ear by making it slightly bad. Loosing only one eye is something that will handicap a person forever, I say it because when my Dad lost one, it was very hard on him and it was very difficult to recover. The satirical element here is society itself and how humanity is so cruel and self centered.

I also found another example of this in the following citation, “private misfortunes contribute to the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the more we find that all is well.”(31) When I read this segment I found it very true, because most of the time “somebody’s lose is our gain”, but putting it like that is just too perverse and evil, although it portrays the essence of society and how it functions. This could be linked to Macbeth as he and his wife benefit directly from the misfortune of others, especially on their death. When this occurs, these characters gain more social status and therefore more power. They begin to kill the people so that they can achieve the maximum position faster and more efficiently.

Later on after the earthquakes and the series of natural disasters, there is a specific comment that is mentioned that can be very shocking to the reader, “For it is impossible for things not to be where they are, because everything is for the best.”(35) What the character that said this meant, was that all of those terrible events were meant to happen for the best. This is too much of a positive attitude to be taken towards such tragedies. It is true that sometimes a loss or a bad thing will make you grow as a person and will open your mind, but most of the times tragic events may scar people eternally.

On the next page, I found this segment which caught my attention, “The authorities of that country could find no surer means of avoiding total ruin than by giving the people a magnificent auto-da-fé. (36) This auto-da-fé was the scarifying of people that were really innocent but were charged with the most absurd offenses under the superstition that the natural disasters would stop that way. The most ridiculous thing of all is that after they did this, another earthquake occurred and they did it again. By saying that it was a “magnificent auto-da-fé” Voltaire is being very sarcastic and is criticizing society for being so superstitious and ignorant.

Finally, in chapter IX, Voltaire targets the Inquisition and attacks it in a very harsh way through Candide’s behavior, “a jealous man in love doesn’t know what he is doing, especially if he has been whipped by the Inquisition.”(46) Here, he is blaming the impulsive behavior of Candide on the Inquisition and what it did on him. This is a very clear attack and Voltaire is not afraid to blame the Church for the troubles of the main character.

Vocabulary:

disembowelled: to cut or slash open the abdomen of, as by bayoneting, so as to expose or remove the viscera.

A role model of world citizen: Candide 1-3

After reading the first three chapters of Candide, I could say that Voltaire wrote this book to teach people about philosophy and about society. This novel is filled with values as well and there are important lessons that it teaches us about life.

The first element that I noticed was the constant tone of some of the characters, especially those who were supposed to have a lot of wisdom. These characters seem to be speaking in a teacher-like way. One perfect example is the following quote, “ Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology. He could prove to admiration that there is no effect without a cause.”(chapt.1) In this segment of the we are introduced to the teachings of Master Pangloss. They are very profound thoughts and they reflect a lot of society’s aspects. When I read this line for the first time I thought it was a very powerful quote and that everything it said was very true. You will always have an effect that took place because something caused it. This is nature and science combined with logics.

At the end of this first chapter, I encountered a scene were Candide has a romantic moment with Miss Cunegonde, “very particular; their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their knees trembled; their hands strayed.”(chapt.1)When I saw this I was a little disgusted because at the beginning of the novel they mention that Candide lived in that house because it was very probable that he was the son of the sister of the Baroness. If this were to be true, then he would be their nephew and therefore the cousin of the girl that he is in love with. For me this is to a level somewhat incestuous, and maybe Voltaire is trying to tell us something about human kind and love when mentioning this part. When he gets caught committing those acts of “incest” he is punished and the consequence he gets it very bad. This teaches us about the effect- cause theory. It is a way to manipulate the reader and make the result tragic to scare people so they know that it is morally wrong and they shouldn’t do it.

In the next chapter they show us how Candide is very vain and proud. He is given two choices, but because he felt humiliated, he decided to take neither and assume the consequences. “In vain did he remonstrate to them that the human will is free, and that he chose neither; they obliged him to make a choice, and he determined, in virtue of that divine gift called free will, to run the gauntlet six and thirty times.”(chapt. 2) In this part of the novel, he prefers to suffer before he looses his honor. This is probably a quality that Voltaire wanted young men to impose in their life’s, and he used this method to teach about the sacrifices you must do for you vanity and your pride, teaching us to be modest.

Finally, Voltaire shows us how Candide learns the lesson and tries to apply to it to his life. This is a key element to this novel simply because the book teaches us, that we too like the main character should use what we are being told in that book in our life’s, when we need it the most. We should reflect on it and act upon its values and morals. We are all a Candide in our own way. “Now I am convinced that my Master Pangloss told me truth when he said that everything was for the best in this world; for I am infinitely more affected with your extraordinary generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman in the black cloak and his wife." (chapt. 3)