Many Contrasts

Many contrasts were found in my reading of Voltaire's, Candide. Good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, weak vs. strong, optimism vs. reality are a few. Candide was though of as a mild, well mannered man , so he was viewed as a weak man of low social status and even considered naive. As Candide lives life he becomes well versed in worldy knowledge, death and destruction. Candide realizes all things were not as his tutor, a follower of Leibniz doctrine, named Pangloss had taught him.
Pangloss taught Optimisim and this had help shelter Candides life even more. The evil and disasters of the world had begun to confuse Candide and made him slightly doubt the doctrine of cause and effect taught by Pangloss. The doctrine teaches that there cannot be an effect without a cause.That in the best off all possible worldsthe Baron's castle was the best of all castyles and his wife was best of all possible Barneses.Pangloss stated,"It is clear that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end"(Voltaire 521). Pangloss tried to explain noses were made for eye glasses so we have eye glasses. Candide then tries to justify within himself the evils when attacks on Leibnizian optmism occur.
I look at Voltaire's story of Candide as a story of only the strong survive. You have to learn from your hard knocks in life and use those lessons to grow and become stonger for survival. I believe Candide thought more this way at the end of the story and believed less in optimisim. Most of Candide discuss various forms of evil and the evil turns away his optimisim The many harsh situations Candide found himself in made him strong. He was beaten, lashed, witnessed much death and destruction from earth quakes to wars to a drowning of a friend .
The worldly evils in Candide were based on real historical events. The Seven year war, the death and destruction caused by the 1775 Lisbon earthquake to name a few made the writeings of Voltaire more solid and made you ponder on what his real meaning was in useing truth instead of fiction. This truth when applied to Candide caught him in still attempting to stay optimistic while having to deal in his mind the problem of good vs. evil.
Pangloss argured that all happenings were for the best but the Anabaptist and friend Jacques made a good arguement that had to make optimisim take a small step backward. Jacques thoughts were, "It must be that men have corrupted nature, for they are not born as wolves, yet that is what they become"(Voltaire 526). Candide felt this way also as he lost hope for the rest of mankind and changed his optimistic thinking. The world disasters brought forth the truth that if this were the best possible world. then it should be better than it is.