Life Is Life

“Had not been a week in my new office, when I happened to meet one evening a young Icoglan, extremely handsome and well-made. The weather was very hot; the young man had an inclination to bathe. I took the opportunity to bathe likewise. I did not know it was a crime for a Christian to be found naked in company with a young Turk” We see again gay behaviors and this time is proven. For the way Voltaire treats this issue and what he says about him I could conclude that either he is gay or that he was a very open minded person.
"When you were hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, did you continue to think that everything in this world happens for the best?" After I read this I couldn’t believe that they continued talking in such positivism it kinds of bothers me because Pangloss is like immortal person, because that’s not how life goes first he never dies no matter what (well really no one but he specially) and second of all everything is always perfect and so positive and nice that disturbs me.
In general I found this book really, really nice even though I find it a little bit hard not to read but to understand I think it must be really interesting to read it again sometime in my future. Thanks for everything!!!!!

If You Want Pleasure Create It

I don’t like the way Martin thinks it looks like he was unhappy but I think he also represent a part of how humanity thinks. There’s something especially that he says that I don’t agree on “there is a pleasure in having no pleasure." I really don’t believe this because if it were true then nobody would do anything if you don’t have pleasure you’re going to be an unhappy person that’s life for us to take chances and pursuit things that will make us happy which is the same as pursuing things that gives us pleasure. “to Seignor Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza,” I find it interesting how They refer to the Spaniards I feel that is like a way of mocking the importance they gave them and the long names they had.

The Circle Of Life

The fortune that he gets in El Dorado only makes him a target for robbers to rob. I kind of see a change in attitude in Candides, before he was wealthy he was optimistic and hopeful and believed in what Pangloss preached but after he got wealthy he know started seeing life in a different way. I think that that is the worst error you can ever do in your life because when by some reason change attitude you immediately change with the people you lave and become an arrogant person and more if the money you win is not with hard work. But I also think that everything in life has certain stage and as everyone in life Candide surpassed his crisis. There’s always something that helps us come through situations and for Candide no doubt was Cunegonde. I really found interesting how Martin thinks and how he says that “the world is made, to make us mad” I really don’t understand the purpose of Martin in the book. Chapter 24 is the perfect example of the cycle of life you try then you can’t do it and you desist then you get up again and it starts all over until you obtain what you want and that is what happens in this chapter after he sends Cacambo to search for Cunegonde he has hope then he doesn’t find them and he doesn’t etc…

Monkeys Are Not Humans

In these chapters I started to understand a little more about how Voltaire does to tell what he needs to. We can see how Europeans took over America and how not only Catholicism but Jesuits also exploited the natives. Also the hypocrisy of churches. “he father perceived that my eyelids stirred a little; he put his hand upon my breast and felt my heartbeat; upon which he gave me proper assistance, and at the end of three weeks I was perfectly recovered. You know, my dear Candide, I was very handsome; I became still more so, and the Reverend Father Croust, superior of that house, took a great fancy to me; he gave me the habit of the order, and some years afterwards I was sent to Rome. Our General stood in need of new recruits of young German Jesuits” I think this can be seen as a homosexual attitude which goes against what Jesuits think.

 

The other part I think it was very interesting was when Candide kills the monkeys that were the lovers of the women. I think that the monkeys were natives because everybody saw the natives as monkeys, running around speaking in a weird language.

Fairy Tale

These characters are really ironic starting with the fact that the old woman is the daughter of the pope and how religion acted in those days how the pope breaks his celibacy by having a baby. Also the misconception that people had about life and especially woman. It is horrifying to see how we were treated. They had no conscience about our importance and that women are human to not even religion.  “He preached a beautiful sermon to the soldiers persuading them not to kill us outright. “Cut just one buttock off each of these ladies ” (pg. 56) They all thought it was like a favor that cant be!

There’s was another thing that impressed me because its like all in life and it is that experience make us stronger, like the old woman who had to suffer a lot and because of that she is know a strong person. The more you travel and the more you live the more you know that’s another thing they stress with the old woman story which I totally agree because thanks to that is that a person becomes wise.

For Good Or For Worse

This chapters were very interesting because I really can imagine what they are going through even though I think the language is a little bit sophisticated for me I can see how it was like. I get the feeling that this book is written with the purpose not to narrate a story but to express a point of view. Which probably in Voltaires time it wasnt acceptable. I was really impressed with the impact that power has even in those times and how religion distinguish people. I really cant understand Pangloss preachings about "how everything is for the best" I find it disturbing how Pangloss thinks because its really of reality it is very positive but its not the true or what you have to know in life to survive and be better. 

"For all this is a manifestation of the rightness of things, since if there is a volcano at Lisbon it could not be anywhere else. For it is impossible for things not to be where they are, because everything is for the best." (pg. 35) With this we are seeing how they thought and how wrong they were. 

Behind Blind Eyes

This story talks about the visit and old friend is going to make to an old friend.Robert thinks its not such a good idea that his wife’s blind friend comes to visit her. This attitude I really thought was stupid because you have to be very narrow minded to be intimidated by a blind man, because for me that’s what he was intimidated. Robert seems like a coward. But we see how at the end of the story he ends up having a really good time with the blind man, which shows us that you cant judge before knowing.

 

There’s another aspect of this story that called my attention and was about the similarity of all the stories and how could be these connected because all the stories in a way. With respect to drugs and alcohol and there’s also something sad about at least one character in each story that makes me think bout the author and how the author lived and the moment in history in which he wrote this stories.