Saturday, November 28, 2015
Anybody else starting to feel bad for Candide?
So is anybody else picking up a series of unfortunate events kind of vibe from this story? While I was reading Candide, I started to feel bad for the guy. Though he had a incestuous incident with his cousin, it all seemed pretty innocent at the time. First he gets banished from the "greatest castle on the face of the earth" or something like that.then he gets taken in by those Bulgar people, Who with him like 4000 times, and almost gets excuted. Then the poor dude finds out that his love (I know I t's really weird because it's his cousin, but he still loves this girl come on), gets brutally raped and disemboweled by the same people who flog him. Then he gets yelled at for begging to a guy who preaches charity, at some point I kinda just wished that Voltaire would cut the guy a break. We did meet James the Anabaptist which was a nice break to Candide's misery, but I have a feeling that these poor "effects" are still on the way for Candide.
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I completely agree... This guy really has the worst luck. My opinion may change as we continue to read further, but at this point, the headnotes seem a little off. They say, "[Candide] subjects its characters to an accumulation of horrors so bizarre that they provoke a bewildered response of laughter as self-protection." Honestly, I haven't been laughing while reading this or finding humor in any way--it's actually really sad. The head notes also read, "the central characters keep coming back to life at opportune moments, as though no disaster could have permanent or ultimately destructive effects." The first instance we see a character returning from the dead is when Candide meets up with Cunegonde. (She was just said to be dead by the philosopher, though, so she may not even have died in the first place). Anyway, I don't think her return clears the field completely of "permanent or ultimately destructive effects." Candide can be relieved that his love is not dead; however, she was still raped and stabbed. Her parents and brother were also killed in the process. These effects are definitely permanent. So, I really hope things start to turn around for Candide (and Cunegonde too).
Definitely - the introduction says that Candide is a great work of dark comedy, but I don't see any comedy at this point. In the story (and in real life), people do horrible things to others, and natural disasters are unavoidable, so the victims are only able to keep telling themselves that everything was necessary and for the best.
I feel so bad for Candide. At first (and this was probably the satirical writing style having this effect on me), I found him a bit annoying because of his "whatever" attitude. After all of these bad things that happen to him, he seems to sort of shrug them off and not care and just state it with no emotion. I guess that could be good in some cases but in the beginning, it made me not want to pity him. Now I am much more sympathetic to Candide. He doesn't mean for any of these bad things to happen. He is like a magnet to these awful events. He doesn't even necessarily mean to kill anyone. But, I have seen a common theme among the deaths and it seems to be that his love for Cunegonde takes over his mind in these briefs moments and he ends up killing these interferences over it. To me, he really seems like a genuinely good character just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Poor Candide... I just want to give him a hug.
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