Candide

Candide is a satirical social commentary Voltaire used to voice his views in the 18th century. Voltaire wrote this book during the Age of Enlightenment. Throughout the novel, Voltaire satirizes many aspects of European life during this era through the naïve and simple protagonist Candide and his ever optimistic mentor Pangloss. From religion to the aristocracy, Voltaire takes a stab at various aspects of medieval European life. He also indirectly states that life in 18th century Europe was filled with corruption and flaws. The novel starts out with Candide being banned from the castle after kissing Cunegonde. Then the novel erratically moves forward with different tragic stories. Candide is then forced into military service and almost dies as a result of attempted escape. He then reunites with his former mentor Pangloss. Pangloss then tells Candide of the ensuing events after his departure. Then they travel to Lisbon and the city is devastated by fire, earthquake, and tsunamis. This event was a mirror image of the real 1755 Lisbon earthquake. This event nearly wiped out the entire city as this earthquake was one of the deadliest earthquakes ever. After this destructive earthquake shattered the city, Pangloss still maintained his optimism theory that this world is the best of all worlds. At this point in the novel, Candide is still naïve enough to believe in Pangloss’s theory. However, he slowly begins to realize that Pangloss’s theory is flawed as he experiences many more tragic events. I think that Pangloss represents the overly optimistic critics Voltaire faced during his lifetime while Candide represents the immature and naïve common people. An important philosophy Pangloss believes is that all the events in this world happen for the best outcome. On the surface, it seems like this philosophy only refers to this world being the best of all worlds. However, it has a deeper meaning that free will is not an absolute necessity since all the events in this world have to occur for the best outcome. Voltaire is strongly opposed to this idea as he believes that human free will is an absolute necessity. He conveys his views through Candide as he rejects Pangloss’s overly optimistic theory at the end of the novel. Being as naïve as he is, Candide somehow believed in this optimistic theory throughout the novel even though he directly witnessed thousands of men needlessly dying during war, villages getting slaughtered, women being constantly raped, and natural disaster seeming to strike at every opportunity it gets. He finally begins to change his views and reject this silly optimism theory after stumbling onto El Dorado. Because El Dorado is a utopia where everything is perfect, Candide directly sees that Pangloss’s optimism theory only applies within a utopia like El Dorado. Now that he has seen a perfect world, he can now compare the real world to it and realizes that Pangloss’s theory can not be applied to the outside world. At the very end of the novel, Candide states that “we must cultivate our garden.” This means that he believes people shouldn’t believe in any single philosophy that governs the universe and life but instead they should try to find out on their own.

All the Kings Men

The character Jack in this novel is a troubled man who seems to always want to escape reality. He's like a person who is trapped in his past and doesn't want to get out. Perhaps the present is too painful and unplesant or the past is too impactful. Whatever it is, he's a character who is living in the past. He is infatuated with sleep as he uses sleep as one way to escape the present. This is apparent as he always talks about his dreams. This relates to the Great Sleep as sleep is used to escape responsibilty and reality. The Great Sleep talks about dreaming of sleep and just waking up to sleep again. This unhealthy infatuation with sleep results from Jack's desire to constantly escape reality. Similiar to the Great Sleep, Jack's belief in the Great Twitch also shows his desire to escape reality. When Jack discovers that Anne, the love of his life, has been having an affair with Willie, he suddenly flees to California. Their affair was so unexpected that it devastated Jack. Anne had been a symbol of his pleaseant past and by stripping away this link to his past, the pain was unberable. Although Jack ended up marrying Lois, he still never got over his love for Anne. He stated in the book that he married Lois just for her looks and once he started to analyze her as a person, he became disgusthed. Fleeing to California is another way Jack is attempting to escape reality as the reality is too miserable and painful. During this journey, there are allusions made to Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was the American belief that Americans were destined to conquer and rule all of America during the 18th century. During the era when Manifest Destiny was popular, Americans had not conquered the western part of America so Jack's escape to the west is definitely an allusion to Manifest Destiny. Symbolically, he was conquering the west. Also this journey leads Jack to believe in the Great Twitch. On the way back from Califronia, he picks up a man who has a twitch in his eye. This leads Jack to conclude that life is like an involutary twitch. Basically, the Great Twitch is the belief that all the things in life are uncontrollable and are similiar to involunatry twitches. One can furthur conclude that because life is uncontrollable, life is without purpose. In essence, life is predetermined and one can not control the outcome of his or her life. This theory allows Jack to escape reality because by believing in the Great Twitch, he technically had no control over the outcome of his relationship with Anne. Also, he had no control over Anne having an affair with his boss and that this was all fate. This ideology allowed him to cope with reality in a sense although he was technically escaping reality. In essence, the Great Twitch ideology allowed Jack to avoid all blame and guilt as he believed that he had no control over what was going on. This is a dangerous ideology because it allows one to avoid guilt and blame while they could've actually controlled the outcome.

Tess of the D'urbervilles

As I read the novel Tess of the D'urbervilles, I slowly realized the theme that was encompassing all the events that had occured in the novel. The theme was that love is not blind in the face of extreme tragedy. Although Tess and Angel had sincerely become madly in love, Tess's tragic past essentially shattered their love. Her tragic past also reminds us, as the readers, of the fact that no one can really escape their pasts. Even though Tess had tried on numerous occasions to tell Angel of her tragic past, he had refused to hear her saying that whatever it is he could forgive and forget. She even decided to put a note underneath his door that explained her past but I guess it was fate that he didn't get to read the note. Had he just read that note or allowed Tess to share her past, they might've not become married and their situation wouldn't have been so tragic. Whatever it was that prevented Angel from hearing about Tess's past, he was so confident that their love could overcome anything. This was clearly not the case as once Angel actually heard about Tess's past, he became distraught. It was her past that ultimatley led to Tess's arrest and death at the conclusion of the novel. If love was really blind, Angel should've been able to disregard and forget her past but it was so overwhelming and extremely tragic that it caused him to leave Tess and be alone for a couple years. The direct consequence of Angel's actions was Tess reluctantly becoming married to Alec after he constantly tempted her with financial support. During Angel's absence, Tess desperatley pleaded to Angel to forgive her and expressed her love towards him through her letters. We as the readers find out later that Angel had never gotten them and it only adds more to the tragedy. When Angel finally returns home and finds out that Tess was too proud and stubborn to ask for financial help from his family, he realizes the hardships Tess must've faced while he was abroad. He immediatley embarks on a journey to find Tess and when he does it's already too late. Once Tess sees Angel, her long hibernated love is rejuvenated and this ultimately causes her to kill Alec and run away. However, the townspeople find both of them in the end when all seems to be happy and Tess is hanged. This shows that love is not blind and can "expire". This story's tragic nature is only enhanced by the fact that both Angel and Tess at one time thought love is blind. They both find out the hard way and they both pay a heavy cost. This theme applies to life as well. Love isn't really blind and love can disintegrate because of someone's past. Even if both parties involved in a love affair sincerely believe they can overcome the other person's flaws and pasts, if the flaw or past is too overwhelming then the love disintegrates. This is the realistic view on love the author is trying to portray throughout this novel.