A magnifying glass "in early modern" period

本文旨在通过分析该地块在伏尔泰的小说老实人，表达讽刺文学作品的力的paper范文。通过表达讽刺的方式，伏尔泰提出的罪行，差距和可笑的现象具有讽刺意味的，以反映真实世界的情况。

1.Introduction

This paper aims to express the power of satire in literature works by analyzing the plots in Voltaire’s novel Candide. By using satire way of expression, Voltaire present the crimes, the disparity and ridiculous phenomena ironically to reflect the situation in the real world.
2.The background information
During the early modern" period, A passel of excellent world-famous literature works appeared. Some of them are famous for the using of a genre of literature: satire. To be more specific, Voltaire's Candide, Goethe's Faust and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels all adopted satire to reflect the essence of human beings and the whole society.
Usually, satire is used to be a literary device for exposing the contradictory or shortcomings of characters. As is known to all, satire can create the effect of humor and exaggeration. Besides, Satire in these literature works is like a magnifying glass to zoom in the social phenomenon. As a consequence, litterateurs always use satire to express their observation and thoughts about current and even future world. This is actually where the power of satire.
3.The power of satire
Among all the famous literature works, Voltaire's Candide is a well-known, typical and one of the greatest satire. Voltaire use satire to effect a remodeling rather than the demolishing of humanity to the public. The objectives of Voltaire are of various kinds. The most important one is the philosophy of optimism. In addition, religious elements, emperor, the nation, war and other related elements are also included. Voltaire mostly use exaggeration to fulfill his purpose of irony through the contrasting of understatement, or by the forms of litotes (L Hellman, 1957). In other words, the opposite thing about negativity will be described to express irony. The indirect statement is a very good substitution to trigger and stimulate the deeper thoughts of people. Writers often use euphemistic expressions to get around the straightforward or offensive message. Simultaneously, Voltaire adopted the comical way to present the crimes, the disparity and ridiculous phenomena ironically.
As for Candide, Voltaire’s main purpose is to fustigate and denounce the blind spirit of optimism (DI Dalnekoff, 1974). Naturally, exaggeration and satire are the most appropriate and effective weapons for him. Voltaire demonstrated absurd through absurd, namely the thoughts and concepts coined by Pangloss and repeated by his disciplines versus the declaration to be concluded from the recorded amazing experience. Candide enjoys the beauty of “the best of all possible worlds” in the castle of Baron. Certainly, many events in the real world are described in an irony and exaggerated way, namely The Seven Years War, The carnage of the Bulgar-Abar conflict, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Cunégonde’s apparent death, her parents’ real death and etc.
The beginning of Candide defines the values of Candide at first. He once lived in a castle of utopian, which can be described as a carefree life (like the Garden of Eden paradise). He lived with the aristocratic daughter (Cunegonde). They are attracted to each other. Besides, his teacher always impress him with Leibniz Mainz style optimism. However, a good day is not long, Candide impulsively kissed Cunegonde one day, which happens to be caught by her father. This is the start of his miserable life. Candide was kicked out the castle and started his journey of vagabondage. During his traveling throughout Europe and North America, he witnessed and experienced the misery of the world along the way. The optimism he adopted before seems to be a joke and continues to be challenged. As he began to question the meaning of life, the power of satire start to be shown (Voltaire,1981).
The writer used a variety of forms of opposition optimism and shaped "the best of all possible worlds" (HT Mason, 1992). Again and again irony and sarcasm was used to reshape the whole values build in the heart of Candide at his early age. In the view sight of Candide, all the things can be the best, in spite of the fact he has come across obstacles and challenges over and over. No redemptive elements existed in any kinds of miserable events which Candide encounters. As a consequence, Voltaire managed to ironically demonstrate that there is nothing better than his Utopia world——the noble castle he lived before. This is actually where the comical point lies in. The Leibnizian philosophy seems to be established at first but was demolish by the satire and irony.
Voltaire used the euphemistic terms as the main rhetorical device in Candide. The character of Doctor Pangloss is a very typical euphemistic one with great effect of satire. He always deliver the hackneyed and stereotyped expressions of optimism to Candide. By exaggerating and berating the inhumanities in the whole society, Voltaire attacked and fustigate the philosophical optimism. The scene in which Cunegonde would marry a man for money rather than the true love.
By using the irony and satire, Voltaire describe a miserable story of Candide skillfully. It is an irrefutable from the novel that the main part of the world has been reconstructed by the indulgence of human beings. In fact, the pessimistic thing associated with Candide are actually happening in the real world. 
4.Conclusion
By way of conclusion, the significance of satire should be emphasized since its power in literature cannot be overlooked. In fact, the satire in the novel is what happens in the real world. In this case, the satire is just like a magnifying glass "in early modern" period, which can magnify the weakness of human beings and the whole world. Candide is one of the greatest novel in terms of the using of satire.
Reference
DI Dalnekoff, the Meaning of Eldorado: Utopia and Satire in Candide, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1974
HT Mason, Candide: optimism demolished, Twayne Pub, 1992
L Hellman, L Bernstein, R Wilbur, Candide: a comic operetta based on Voltaire's satire, Random House, 1957
Voltaire. Candide. A Bantam Book, New York, 1981.