In
a previous post I made myself the question of whether or not Candide would
learn the lesson of thinking before acting and not blindly trusting everyone.
Unfortunately, for Candide he did not. He kept on making the same senseless
mistakes throughout the story, just like when he bargains the price of a trip
to Europe with the Dutch Captain who continuously keeps raising the price to huge
amounts. Eventually they agreed on thirty thousand piastres no idea of what
currency that is, but it sure does sounds as a large amount. Candide then
leaves the source of his riches at the hands of the Captain, as the Dutch “watched
his opportunity” so “He set his sails, raised anchor, and the wind favored him”
robbing Candide of his last two sheep and their respective riches (88-89). Desperate
Candide then turns to a Judge for justice and all he does is charging for
knocking on his door and then listening to the hearings. Obviously, Voltaire is
trying to expose the hard and unfair world humanity has created and how the
most innocent and good of individuals are the ones who suffer the most. When Candide
talks with Martin his new scholar friend he argues the world has fallen to some
“mischievous power” as Martin states he has seen “a million regimented assassins
surge from one end of Europe to the other committing murder and brigandage in
strictest discipline” (92). Voltaire through Martin’s words shows the reader
the state of eternal conflict humans embrace, how we somehow let evil take over
us and let the poor suffer from it.
I
just like Candide have many times felt I was used and in some way tricked,
however I’ve learned from my mistakes and have become more suspicious of “friendly”
strangers. Not only because in many cases they just seek to exploit you, but
because they always end up gaining your trust and then betraying you. I believe
Voltaire’s point in these episodes is that humans must learn to either be good
and fair with everyone, or to be smart enough not to trust everyone you
encounter.
Furthermore,
when Candide arrives in Paris and then suddenly becomes sick Martin expresses a
great truth when he states “I remember being ill myself during my first visit
to Paris. I was very poor. But I had no friends, no ladies, and no doctors, so
I soon recovered” (97). Like Candide I too have suffered the consequences of
being in bad company, in many cases it is better to be alone than with those
who pretend to be nice with you for their own benefit. In this case since
Martin was poor no one came to his aid when he was ill, on the other hand there
was Candide who is now rich and pestered by false friendships. Society’s hypocrisy
is now being attacked. Even as Candide recovers he is surprised that when
betting with his friends “he never held an ace in his hand, but Martin was not
surprised”, clearly Martin knew the evils of Parisians as he himself had
experienced it once (98). Nonetheless, Voltaire’s attack of the French society
does not stop there as Martin then explains the double faced nature of the
people of Paris how “every possible contradiction and inconsistency would be found
in the government, the law courts, the churches, and in the whole life of this
absurd nation” (100). An accurate description of what used to be France before
the Revolution came or any other nation ruled by autocratic regimes. How everyone
in power would do everything to stay in it or acquire some more, in any case it
was the common man or the naïve ones such as Candide who faced the problems of
that kind of system.
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