How is Voltaire, Candide both a religious and social critique of the Old Regime?
Francois Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire (1694-1778) wrote "Candide" as both a social and religious critique of the Old Regime. Like many of his other writing's, "Candide" was an attack on many levels of the eighteenth-century French society (Perry 434).
In "Candide", chapter I, Voltaire writes "The old family servants suspected that he was the son of the Baron's sister by a worthy gentleman of that neighbourhood, whom the young lady would never agree to marry because he could only claim seventy-one quaterings, the rest of his family tree having suffered from the ravages of time."(Voltaire 19) This is one of the many mockeries Voltaire makes at the aristocracy's natural superiority by birth. This statement shows how Voltaire thinks it's ridiculous that the nobles strictly abided by their irrational beliefs.
In chapter III, Voltaire makes an attack on religion. "While Candide is in......
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