Literary life lessons from Voltaire

Voltaire’s Candide is a reasonably short story covering the travels of a young man, Candide, as he is thrown from continent to continent via a series of mishaps, misfortunes and misadventures.

At its heart the story is a comedy, aiming to refute the leading philosophy of its time: optimism. Despite its intended audience, however, its teachings are still relevant for us now, centuries later.

The most immediate ‘literary life lesson’ of Voltaire’s Candide is that optimism, or a belief in the perfect order of things, is absurd. The protagonist is thrown from the brutality of European warfare to the destruction of the Lisbon earthquake, from the horror of the Spanish inquisition to the cannibalism of Brazilian tribes. During these events however, he still adheres to the philosophy of his teacher, Pangloss, who argues that “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” (clearly an ironic belief to uphold, given his repeated misfortunes).

Literature, regardless of its time period, will always provide us with a useful base which allows us to re-examine our own lives 

This doesn’t mean that Voltaire was a nihilist. On the contrary, his story ends with Candide finally achieving peace and fulfilment. This happens neither with a sudden influx of money nor due to some romantic encounter, but rather through the hard and honest work in tending a garden. This simple labour contrasts with the complexity of his previous life, in which he had suffered so much for no discernible reason.

This garden acts as both a literal and metaphorical motif. On the one hand, it signifies the literal cultivation of a plot of land, but it also represents the cultivation of one’s own mentality and life more generally. Therefore, when Pangloss argues (in his blindly optimistic fashion) that Candide’s peace would not have been possible without the misfortunes that led him there and, thus, that the world is still perfectly ordered, Candide simply replies, “that is very well put … but we must go and work our garden”.

Literature, regardless of its time period, will always provide us with a useful base which allows us to re-examine our own lives. This is only one example. But how can this specific tale help us?

We often place our desire to achieve stand-out results and to land a well-paying job far above any personal needs and our mental health

As students, we often lose ourselves on a course which has little to do with existential fulfilment, and far more to do with meeting a career trajectory.

We often place our desire to achieve stand-out results and to land a well-paying job far above any personal needs and our mental health. This story however, shows us that money will not bring us fulfilment. On the contrary, it might actually have the opposite effect.

A further life lesson from this story is the worthlessness of money. When in South America, Candide stumbles across the lost city of El Dorado (a city supposedly made of gold), he manages to amass great wealth, but these riches don’t succeed in bringing him happiness. Rather, he is cheated of much of it by a wily merchant and then ends up gifting the rest away to his ‘friends’, who soon abandon him. It is in fact these misfortunes with money which have the greatest impact on Candide, far outweighing any physical suffering. 

Student life is stressful and cluttered, and on top of that, many of us have also experienced misfortune (I’d hope not to the same severity of Candide, but suffering is nonetheless relative). Voltaire’s Candide shows us that taking pride in our essays, or devoting ourselves to revision (focusing on the simpler things, rather than overthinking other aspects of our life), may actually be beneficial, helping us to streamline our thoughts and lead to a more fulfilled life.