Voltaire, Candide, and the Enlightenment: Candide's "little society"
Drake 258

Major Themes

Monkies!
According to Cacambo, what are the two reasons Oreillon women do the funky monkey? How is this related to the Enlightenment?  How is this related to the question, way down below, about "L'amour"?  Someone remind Tom to talk about what this all has to do with Rousseau.

Eldorado
What about this city/state represents a possible Enlightenment Utopia?  What is their religion and how do they worship?  What are their basic political beliefs, summarized in the King's reason for not keeping our heroes against their will?

Why, then, according to themselves, do Cacambo and Candide leave El Dorado; what is their motivation to leave?  Why do you think Voltaire has them leave that utopia and settle where they do?  Compare/contrast the economics, political structure and religious ideology (and anything else you find relevant) between El Dorado and the "little society" established at the novel's conclusion. 

Immediately after leaving El Dorado, Cacambo and Candide journey to Surinam, where they see something that leads Candide to cry out "Oh Pangloss!  […] such horrid doings never entered thy imagination. Here is an end of the matter; I find myself, after all, obliged to renounce thy Optimism."  What do they see and why is this and the context in which it has occurred, the thing that leads Candide to this major turning point?

Misery Loves Company
Between Eldorado and their Little Society in Turkey, our heroes encounter many miserable people.  Discuss a few of these characters and explain what, in general terms, seems to keeping them from happiness.

Cacambo
Describe this character.  How is, with the possible exception of the Old Woman and James the Anabaptist, Cacambo different from everyone else in this book?  What would John Locke have to say about him?

The Human Condition
In the last couple pages, the book's, and one can assume Voltaire's, concluding philosophy is delivered by a Dervish, an old man farmer, Candide, Pangloss and Martin.  So:

    a) According to the Dervish, why is man so strange? Interpret the Dervish's ship and mice parable about the nature of evil. What is the Dervish's answer to the question "What ought to be done?"  How does the Dervish's parable about the mice on the ship in fact represent Deism?

    b) According to the old farmer, what are the "three great evils"? What's his solution to dealing with them?

    c) What is Candide's conclusion; what is the appropriate response to the human condition?   

    d) What is Martin's conclusion; what is the appropriate response to the human condition?

    e) What is Pangloss's conclusion; what is the appropriate response to the human condition? How has it changed since the novel's opening?

L'amour
Originally and up until the end, what is it about Cunegund that Candide likes so much?  Why does Candide not want to marry Cunegund?  Why does he marry her, anyway?  What does these say about the nature of one of the causes of human suffering and a possible remedy to that cause? 

Who else gets married and how is their marriage similar?

Candide's Little Society
Only one character is banished from concluding "the little society" Candide et al establish. Who is it, why is he banished, and how is this relevant to Voltaire's implicit argument about the nature of a successful society?  Who gives the advice to banish him? Why is it relevant Enlightenment values (especially those espoused by Locke) that this person offers the advice and the others accept it?

How might this "little society" represent Voltaire's general vision of a successful society?  Compare this society to all the others Candide et al encounter (aside from El Dorado), where everything is awful: Aside from the one banished character mentioned above, what are some of the other things missing from this little community that plagued other societies?

Shake And Bake!
In what ways does Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby mirror the style, plot and theme of Candide?

    a) Style:

    b) Plot and character development:

    c) Theme: