Approaching Chapter 12 of Candide, the reader starts to realize something fascinating about Candide, his uselessness. Maybe uselessness is too rough a word for a character that the reader grows close to due to his naitevte. There I think instead of useless; naive is the correct word for describing Candide. The main cause of this "Peter Panish" way of life has already been mentioned in my previous blog: The Philosopher of the Holy Roman Empire, the sole brain to teach metaphyisco-theologo-cosmolo-nigolgy, the one and only, Dr. Pangloss.
Candide finds himself enduring epic events, but somehow he seems to find a way to justify these actions. And unfortunately his soul mate, Lady Cunegonde, has had her fair share of time with Dr. Pangloss. So if you step out of the chaos for just a moment and grossly simplify the situation in Candide, it´s quite funny. I´ll draw it out for you: dumb and dumber. You might ask me, how could you call Lady Cunegonde naive? "...by celebrating an auto-da-fe, to which he did me the honor of inviting me. I had an excellent seat, and delicious refreshments were served to the ladies between Mass and the execution. “(Forty-two.) That should be enough to support my idea of why I think Candide and her Excellency aren´t the best couple for embarking on an odyssey.
So knowing that the reader would find himself either wanting to strangle or hurl himself into the book, Voltaire places a guardian angel with Candide and Lady Cunegonde, the old woman. With having only been in the storyline a couple chapters, it becomes obvious that she will be the lifeline of the two. She manages to think outside the box, something that Lady Cunegonde has a challenge with and well something that Candide will never be able to accomplish. She acts as a seatbelt to the couple: brainstorms plans to escape, to survive, and to slowly open Candide and Lady Cunegonde minds´. My question is, will the old woman be able to erase Dr. Pangloss´s mentality out of the two or will she spoon feed them all the way to safety?
Antonio, you have a great blog. I couldn't find any grammatical errors that take away from the meaning of the blog. Also, I agree with your view of Candide as a naive man. That can show that the way of being brought up definitely affects you as a person.
ReplyDeleteAntonio, I enjoyed your blog entry. It was interesting how you compared Candide with Dumb and Dumber. It is true that both Lady Cunégonde and Candide have made foolish mistakes and that it looks like the Old Lady is the only one that can save them. I think that their experiences will make them wiser as the Old Lady has by having survived a horrible life. Very good blog entry. keep up the good work.
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