Voltaire's Candide
...ked world Candide concludes that all is not well, and that our world was not the best of all possible worlds, opposite to the teachings of Dr. Pangloss. Now the Old Woman, after telling her tale of rape, enslavement, and cannibalism, launches into the assumption of suicide. Which in Voltaire’s era was in opposition to God, and Christian principle. On the other hand the old woman’s very life, as an illegitimate child of a Pope, makes a declaration against the church. Perhaps the old woman doesn’t believe in God, or considers the hell could not be as bad as life. The old woman goes on to say, “I’ve wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but I stillI love life. That ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most pernicious inclinations. What could be more stupid than to persist in carrying a burden that we constantly want to cast off, to hold our existence in horror, yet cling to it nonetheless, to fondle the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten our heart?”(Candied, 49). Voltaire believes that citizens should not put up with suffering. He sneers at inexperienced, compliant types, informing us that people ought to be vigorous in creating their happiness. “The old woman was driven to say, I’d liked to know which is worse: to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to ru...