The Role of Religious Figures in Candide, and The Portrayal of Organized Religion Through Satirical Critiques Maria Serrao College

Religion is one of the central targets of Voltaire’s criticism in Candide. This topic carries a large significance in the book, as it depicts the controversy surrounding organized religion, and the social paradigma deriving from it in the time period the novel was written. Through the religious figures exposed in the book and their actions, Voltaire attempts to place a critique on the rotting values of organized religion, and convey how the dilation of faith across multitudes results in the disfiguration of the original morals and principles intended to be followed, causant of the posterior social rejection to organized religion in the Europe of the 1700’s.

In Candide, Voltaire achieves a major contrast between the city of El Dorado and the rest of the world. Religion in the City of El Dorado revolves around a deep appreciation for life and nature, where there is not a consumistic ideal of faith that responsabilizes an entity of providing for everyone eternally, but instead a promotion of gratefulness and appreciation for the provided, that incentives the population to care for what has been provided as opposed to expecting an entity to provide as soon as they desire anything. This is expressed through the phrase “we do not...