Voltaire makes his ideological priorities clear in Candide. Pangloss’s
philosophy lacks use and purpose, and often leads to misguided suffering,
but the Inquisition’s determination to suppress dissenting opinion
at any cost represents tyranny and unjust persecution. The Inquisition
authorities twist Pangloss’s words to make them appear to be a direct
attack on Christian orthodoxy, and flog Candide for merely seeming to
approve of what Pangloss says. This flogging of Candide represents
exaggeration on Voltaire’s part, an amplification of the Inquisition’s
repressive tactics that serves a satirical purpose. Along with outrage
at the cruelty of the Inquisition, we are encouraged to laugh at
its irrationality, as well as at the exaggerated nature of Candide’s
experience.
Cunégonde’s situation inspires a similarly subversive
combination of horror and absurdity. Her story demonstrates the
vulnerability of women to male exploitation and their status as
objects of possession and barter. Cunégonde is bought and sold like
a painting or piece of livestock, yet the deadpan calm with which
she relates her experiences to Candide creates an element of the
absurd. Candide takes this absurdity further; as Cunégonde describes
how her Bulgar rapist left a wound on her thigh, Candide interrupts
to say, “What a pity! I should very much like to see it.” In the
middle of this litany of dreadful events, Candide’s suggestive comments
seem ridiculous, but the absurdity provides comic relief from the
despicably violent crimes that Cunégonde describes.
The stereotyped representation of the Jew Don Issachar
may offend the contemporary reader, but it demonstrates the hypocrisy that
afflicted even such a progressive thinker as Voltaire. Voltaire attacked
religious persecution throughout his life, but he suffered from
his own collection of prejudices. In theory, he opposed the persecution
of Jews, but in practice, he expressed anti-Semitic views of his
own. In his Dictionary of Philosophy, Voltaire
describes the Jews as “the most abominable people in the world.”
Don Issachar’s character is a narrow, mean-spirited stereotype—a
rich, conniving merchant who deals in the market of human flesh.
Voltaire makes another attack on religious hypocrisy
through the character of the Franciscan who steals Cunégonde’s jewels.
The Franciscan order required a vow of poverty from its members,
making Voltaire’s choice of that order for his thief especially
ironic.
