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Candide

 

            
             Candide hopes to go to the new world to find that "the best of all possible universes."" As soon as he gets there, the reader starts to see that the new world free of all the corruption and the wickedness, is in reality just as crooked as the Old world. .
             The rebellion in Paraguay shows the hypocrisy of politics carried over to the new world. The Jesuits are leading a revolt of the natives against the Spanish colonial government, yet it's quite obvious that these natives hate the Jesuits enough to want to eat them if they come across one, not because they are hungry but merely because they hate them. The Jesuits, who are a hypocrisy in themselves, claim to be priests fighting for welfare of these natives but in reality they are just using them to gain wealth which they won't be sharing with them. This is familiar when you think of Sadam Husein "fighting for his land and people- but when he is overthrown we see that the majority of his people were only following him because they feared him, and they have hated him with a passion for what he has put them through. .
             Also I found it interesting that the issue of homesexuality within the priesthood has been brought up. When Cunegonde's brother tells Candide how the Revered Father Croust the superior of the Abbey, "conceived a very tender friendship for [him]- because of his tremendously good looks. So obviously this has been a reoccurring problem ever since the 1700's. I think that sometimes people think the homosexuality was "invented- in the 1980's but evidently that isn't so. .
             The arrogance of the upper class is also frustrating when the reader see's the "Baron- suddenly turn on Candide when he mentions marrying Cunegonde. The "Baron- immediately freaks out because Candide doesn't have the "seventy-two- generations of nobility in his blood. I'm sure Candide wasn't expecting such snobbery and thinks back once again to Pangloss who taught him that all men are equal.


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