Candide Overall Thoughts

Overall I found Candide an enjoyable story. Voltaire's writing style makes it slightly confusing, but once you adjust to that the story is rather simple. The thirty chapters of the book fly by, but seem as if each one could stand alone as it's own story. Voltaire uses this piece, and the many short chapters to satirize different items. In each chapter he seems to attach his loathing satire to one or more pieces of society, and make fun of them to the point where he has gone too far. In chapter 26, Candide somehow has dinner with six different exiled kings. He thinks that their lives are terrible, saying "Who in your opinion is more to be pitied, the Emperor Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, King Charles Edward, or myself? (p. 67)." While all of these men have been sent away as kings, they all still live luxurious lives. The fact that Candide would think that their lives are just terrible is laughable, seeing that they were once kings. Candide seems to never take into account others who have had things worse than himself, and spends the story obsessed with himself and his own hardships. Voltaire uses the character of Candide excellently as a mode of his satire