"Candide" - Political, Social, and Economic Analysis

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                                                                                                Candide  Essay                The first interaction of Candide, Cunegund, and Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, is a prime example of Voltaire’s satirical social view of the nobility. Don Fernando is the governor of Buenos Ayres and is described as having “a haughtiness suitable to a person who bore so many names.” Voltaire sarcastically remarks on how the amount of names that Don Fernando holds allows him a just cause as to why he may go around with a pompous demeanor that shows that he is held above everyone else. This is also a silent reference to how the nobility of that time seemed to conduct themselves around the bourgeoisie or peasant class. They carried themselves as though they were above everyone else of a lower class and if all that was done in the lesser classes were the acts of heathens. He also satirically comments on how his conceded and self-righteous attitude caused “everyone who had the honor of conversing with him was violently tempted to bastinade His Excellency.”  This was very likely representative of the peasants’ feelings toward the actual
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nobility of the time.             The arrogant mindset of the nobility is also displayed in chapter 15 when the Baron of Thunder–ten–tronckh, and Miss Cunegund’s brother, refuses to allow Candide to marry his sister. Though the Baron and Candide had previously just been rejoicing over their unexpected reunion, at the mention of Candide wanting to marry Miss Cunegund, things automatically turned for the worse. The Baron pronounced that Candide would not marry his sister because she had seventy-two quarterings to her name and Candide had none. This was much in the same way that Candide’s mother had refused to marry Candide’s ...

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