Candide

While reading Voltaires Candide, I sensed a touch of detachwork forcet on the bump of the bank clerk regarding the violence occurring in the book. He began the story by short, hardly originative descriptions of the characters, sacking the 1st chapter with an account of the brief lovers rendezvous between Candide and Miss Cunegonde which was perturbed by the latters father having a fit and with unwrap seeming ado, deals Candide with some kicks on the breech, and driving him out the door.This then makes Cunegonde faint but when the girl wakes up, she is met with a boxing of her ears by her mother. The recounting was fast-paced so much so that by the end of the chapter, I felt as though the master of the castle had boot out the door to my face as well as after such(prenominal) speed eventsfleeting descriptions, fleeting meetings, fleeting all toldusions to the depth of the characters relationships with each other (or rather, shallowness thereof)the reason ends without so much a s a description of how the people felt.We are not granted an insight as to how Candide felt about existence abruptly separated from his beloved, or how all their love came to be in the first place, although regarding the former, Candide is shown to not have fought for his love nor his home and went about all wretched, for god knows how long, before he naively gets recruited into ranks of the enemy.He then proceeds with other curt account of Candides subsequent inclusion into the Bulgarian army, and how, however because he chose to take a leisurely walk that soldiers (or heroes) were apparently supposed, he was made to run the gauntlet after choosing that over being calamus in the head. The atrocity of the actions are rendered impotent to the reader because Voltaire do by them with such a detached air of someone who is merely observing events.Then once again a normal observer would not be as uninterested as he was. To an extent, his description of the events became a cruel c omedy the naiveness and foolishness of the young metaphysician, a phrase so obviously ill-judged and, the apparent lack of political and moral judgment on the part of the Bulgarians prior to killing someone who merely took a walk when he was not supposed to, or in other words, the lack of vacillation to commit un respectable execution, which might as well be murder.This posture towards the characters handle that of a cruel god who plays with his own creations/followers like a mean childcontinues throughout the first 15 chapters my approximately favorite being the part where the cowardly Candide makes his way around lots of dead or dying people, and sees the victims of war Voltaire gives me the impression that he has a trance for the morbid, the gruesome, and the morally offensive.No, I do not share this fascination, I just meant to say that it was in this Chapter that Voltaire appeared less indifferent. He gives fiddling value to the emotions and thoughts of his characters, b ut he has an eye for detail of the surroundings. Personally I find the narration quite humorous, the characters are rendered absurd, the punishments for their absurdity severe and exaggerated. As I said earlier, it is a cruel comedy, full of wit and an undertone of intellectual criticism perhaps of the society in which Candide dwelt.However, I also find it morally offensive, as if it were real life and not just a satirical account of a foolish boy, the characters, what with the atrocities, cruelties and hardships they were put through, were treated in an inhumane manner by the narrator there is a lack of compassion on his part, a quality which I infer necessary in this story. Or at least to prove that the narrator has a piece of humanity in him.The lackluster account of the events the reduce on the gruesome and the morbid all of these leave an air of inbred cruelty, of cynicism, of paganism or atheism, of blasphemy, and deep hatred of the lives the characters had. I am given th e impression that the author wishes to enlighten us on the perspective of men who care less for others and more for themselvesindifferent of others suffering, or if they harbor any feeling, it is that of sheer cruel amusement.