Pangloss And Voltaire's Candide: An Analysis

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What is the true meaning of optimism? Optimism can be displayed and/or exhibited in a variety of ways. Optimism is a kind of way that an individual perceives to have a happy conclusion. With this in mind, can it necessarily be a bad thing? Most would not think so, but having a positive outlook on everything is not such a great thing either. When the perception of a situation is one sided, meaning always optimistic or always pessimistic, it is never good. In Voltaire’s Candide, Voltaire shows the reader how optimism can easily become a satire through the utilization of the two primary characters in the story: Pangloss and Candide. Both Pangloss and Candide are optimists, and see the majority of situations on the bright side. A sentence that…show more content…
Optimism is a good thing to possess when it comes down to the matter of mindset, but too much of it is not. As long as the belief you keep does not blind you to the realization that there are others, then it is fine. Candide was ultimately affected by optimism because he could not see life in any other way. Even when others questioned him about it, he simply replied in the same way Pangloss would, that everything was for the very best in this world. Now if Candide had even gathered an ounce of a theory that life may not even be for the best of all possible worlds as well as with everything that occurred on his journey, he may have become wiser in the long run. In a way, optimism can be a way out as a sign of repression as well. When our brain knows that it cannot handle a situation with such emotional dexterity tied to it, it initiates a defense mechanism which is repression. When in the act of rep ressing something, our brain sort of does this action where it uses something else to block out whatever is causing us pain, devising and storing it away into our subconscious where it is payed less attention to. Pangloss may have conceived his theory that everything is for the best of all possible worlds in order to maybe hide what he truly feels, or better yet, what he
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