Due Apr 15
Satire’s End
Reading: Voltaire, Candide, Chs 14-30 (pp 48-113).
Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, posting as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:
- Finding patterns: highlight a recurrent pattern the plot in Voltaire’s satirical novel.
- Changing patterns: highlight a moment from later in the novel where a pattern fails to play out.
- Ending and resolution: what do you make of the novel’s end? Highlight an issue from earlier that’s resolved by this ending—alternatively, highlight an issue that fails to be resolved.
In Class: Introduction to Romanticism.
Finding patterns
⤹Click the reply button just below.
One pattern i noticed was the consistent theme of Resurrection. In chapter 27, after Pangloss was hung, he returns because the executioner mis-tied the rope. Moreover, the Baron is “run through the body” yet he reappears in chapter 15, being brought back to health by a priest. Through these honesty ridiculous revival’s, Voltaire is poking fun at adventure tropes, showing that heroes will survive impossible odds to further the story.
Changing patterns
⤹Click the reply button just below.
Ending & Resolution
⤹Click the reply button just below.