He did me the honor of inviting me to attend it. the Inquisitor decided to celebrate an auto-da-fé. ” The irony in this quote is apparent because you normally wouldn’t think that people with so much power and royalty like Cunegonde would get raped.
After Candide discovers that Cunegonde is still alive, Cunegonde explains her story of being raped at her castle, “A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue. In addition to Voltaire’s use of absurd satire, he applies irony to his plot. Unfortunately, characters with such optimism and positivity get themselves into problems and can’t get themselves out because of their absurd loyalty to philosophy. The excuse that “all is for the best” and the annoying repetition of optimism from Pangloss and Candide leads to mishappenings much like the drowning of James. Pangloss stops Candide from saving James, the good man, as “the Lisbon harbor was formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in,” Voltaire satirizes this event, the theory of optimism, and being positive in situations such as these to show the complete absurdity in it. Through his efforts, however, he fell in and everyone watched as he drowned in the Lisbon. For example, early on in the book, James, the Anabaptist, saves a frenzied soldier from drowning in the water. Suffering is seen as one of the worst wrongdoings in society but characters such as Pangloss and Candide believe that that is what is best for society. These exaggerated events ultimately show the complete absurdity of the situations and helps gets the points of controversy across to the reader. Exaggeration is applied to show Europe’s deteriorating society by showing the superstition of things, the church, faulty rulers, war, earthquakes, and the punishment of innocent people. Voltaire portrays optimism as being absurd through his use of exaggeration.
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