Candide

Voltaire’s Candide contains many meanings that are still relevant in the present day because people today haven’t changed they way they. Voltaire used Candide’s travels and experiences to communicate his own views and opinions. In Candide, Voltaire expresses his ideas about war, women, and happiness that still apply to society today.

Voltaire viewed war as brutal and horrible because usually neither side gained much in the end. In chapter three, Voltaire illustrates how senseless war is. “First the cannon toppled about six thousand men on either side; then the muskets removed from the best of both possible worlds between nine and ten thousand scoundrels who were infesting its surface. Next the bayonet proved sufficient reason for the death of a few thousand more. The total may well have amounted to thirty thousand or so corpses.” (Voltaire, 7-8) After the war, Candide deserted the Bulgar army. As he fled, he came to an Abar village that had been destroyed by the Bulgars. The Bulgar soldiers had killed all of the people that lived there after raping the women. Then they burned the village. Candide kept running and came to a Bulgar village that the Abar soldiers had done the same thing to. (Voltaire, 8) Voltaire mocked the wars with his satirical writing as he described the soldiers dying. After fighting the war, each side had lost soldiers and villages. They didn’t make any real accomplishments. The war was a waste of human lives and resources. The same situations still are happening today. In Africa there are numerous civil wars that aren’t accomplishing anything but death. One example is in Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army has been attempting to overthrow the government since the 1980’s. So far, nothing has been accomplished except the death of many innocent men, women, and children. (Invisible Children) People still are fighting today for pointless reasons and the end remains the same; innocent people continue to die.

Voltaire also expressed his ideas about how women were treated in that era because at some point in the story, most of the women are either raped or nastily treated by men. One example is CurÐ"©gonde. She was raped toward the beginning of the book. Later in the book, CurÐ"©gonde