Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire was the French author of the
novella Candide, also known as "Optimism"(Durant and Durant 724). In
Candide, Voltaire sought to point out the fallacy of Gottfried William
von Leibniz's theory of optimism and the hardships brought on by the
resulting inaction toward the evils of the world. Voltaire's use of
satire, and its techniques of exaggeration and contrast highlight the
evil and brutality of war and the world in general when men are meekly
accepting of their fate. Leibniz, a German philosopher and
mathematician of Voltaire's time, developed the idea that the world
they were living in at that time was "the best of all possible
worlds." This systematic optimism shown by Leibniz is the
philosophical system that believed everything already was for the
best, no matter how terrible it seemed. In this satire, Voltaire
showed the world full of natural disasters and brutality. Voltaire
also used contrast in the personalities of......
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