Ending-Candide

As I finished reading Candide, I found Voltaire a very effective writer. At first I didn´t understand his satire, but as the book went on I adapted. I found it a very creative and entertaing way to portray his message about optimism and passim. His common place of using human natures typical behaviors helped me connect with the book. I found it very interesting how he compared society and its ideals throughout the book.

In the last chapters after all the suffering Candide has gone through, he finally has an optimistic life after all. Voltaire’s use of vividness really helped me out when reading. I could imagine every scene, since he used appropriate descriptive words for each scene.

I found the final passage of the book a very good one to end it. It was a very strong ending, with a very true message.

¨You are perfectly right, said Pangloss; for when man was put into the Garden of Eden, he was put there to dress it and to keep it, to work in fact which proves that man was not born to an easy life. ….Let’s work without speculating, said Martin; it’s the only way to make life bearable. The entire household agreed to this admirable plan, and each began to exercise his talents. That is very well put, said Candide, but we must go and work our garden.¨ (Candide pg.143-144)

The message I got from Voltaire was that being rich doesn’t symbolize happiness. As we saw in chapter 30 it mentions all those noble men, who had it all and ended up getting killed. I love the ending how Candide finally teaches Pangloss something. Candide teaches Pangloss that in order to have a better world each must do it´s own contribution and work for it, because improvement only comes from work, not from doing nothing like all those noble men. They really didn´t accomplish much, because since they had it all they didn´t work to improve.