A Hyperbolic Episode

Candide never disappoints.  By adding relevance to Candide's travels, the author keeps the reader entertained.  Furthermore, he is doing something that is always nice to see.  Voltaire is exposing both sides of philosophy, or both sides of good and evil.

"...he found he could not do without Martin, his philosopher." pg. 96

Clearly, Candide has forgotten Pangloss, and replaced his so-called mentor with this pessimistic companion.  It must have been easy, since Martin is the polar opposite of Dr. Pangloss.

"’Do you think,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other, as they do to-day, that they have always been false, cozening, faithless, ungrateful, thieving, weak, inconstant, mean-spirited, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloody, slanderous, debouched, fanatic, hypocritical, and stupid?’

‘Do you think,’ said Martin, ‘that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could find them?’" pg. 96

First of all, it seems odd that Voltaire apparently picked up a thesaurus, figuratively of course, and put down all the synonyms of scoundrel that he found, in order to generalize human behavior. It's even more absurd, that after an entire novel that persuades the reader to reform and that intends to show the reader the negative aspects of society, the philosopher that wrote it seems to think that human nature will never change.  After such a big fuss regarding God and religion, how could Voltaire even insinuate that human behavior can be compared directly to that of a bird? 

On a different note, Candide's plot has lost all relevance to the point the author is trying to make. This can be proven in the discussion that Martin and Candide have out at sea, whilst discussing the misfortunes of war, a battle starts right in front of them. There is no logical structure that the plot follows. The coincidence, if you will, seems so improbable that it’s as if the entire episode is hyperbolic. 

What about the ending of the novel?  That will be discussed in my next post.  For now, Candide is en route to an obscure yet definitive ending. At least I hope it is.