CKQ+Justin

First of all, Candide is not living in the best of all possible worlds because there are many problems even more than what we see these days. The most of the people are trying to increase their properties or assets indiscriminately even by committing a crime. Also, there were some fights between people caused by some silly reasons. Trying to fill their self-esteems by earning jewels or money is similar to what people do nowadays, but the ways of doing this were slightly different. However, in this book or chapters 19 through 22 showed people’s greediness and selfishness clearly.

I’ve found a example on page 51, //“the poor man had no left leg and no right hand...“And was it Monsieur Vanderdendur?' said Candide, 'who treated you like this?'- 'Yes, Monsieur.' said the negro.”// This part is where Candide and Cacambo found a negro lying down on the ground. This is an example of slavery since the master of the negro, Monsieur Vanderendur, cut his hand and leg and tortured him.

Another example was on page 54, //“Candide, helpless and quite dumbfounded, immediately loses sight of him.”// After Candide left his sheep and got off from the ship, Vanderdendur just sailed away without Candide. This is an example of avarice which also means greed. Vanderdendur sailed away without Candide to steal the sheep which he thought would bring him the fortunes. However, as a result, Vanderdendur was shipwrecked and had lost everything.

The last example was about inhuman treatment of others where the two doctors treat Candide only because they saw an diamond ring on Candide’s finger. //“ Since he had an enormous diamond on his finger, and since a prodigiously heavy strong-box had been noticed among his luggage, he soon had by his side two doctors whom he had not sent for....”// These three examples including slavery, avarice, and inhuman treatment of others all showed clearly why Candide is not living in the best of all possible worlds. They all had money in common. Overall, I would say that money made this not the best of all possible worlds since everyone was going crazy about money and busy for caring about themselves.

There were some rays of hope because there weren’t only negative things going on in these chapters. First, the sheep that the king of Eldorado gave Candide was filled with jewels. With those jewels, Candide could do everything he wanted to. Also, he thought Cunégonde was dead, but he met her again. Finally, Candide missed the ship, he found the ship was wrecked and vanderdendur was punished. From this, he learned that someone will get punished if they steal other’s money.