Destiny?

As I reached the end of Candide, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Surely a tragedy, something so horrifying that it would surely give me nightmares and cause me to question the nature of mankind, or a utopian ending, with everything ending perfectly and all the characters living happily ever after, or even no ending at all; for him to simply leave the reader hanging in the middle of the narrative for the alleged freedom that gives the reader to finish the story in their own way. I was prepared for any type of ending Voltaire decided to throw upon the reader, that is, anything but what he actually did.

The ending of the book, as unexpected as it was, didn’t cause me to question religion, war, money, morality, philosophy, or even optimism. On the other hand, it did cause be to question destiny and Pangloss’ theory regarding it. Although most of the events that happened at the end gave Candide what he had been searching for throughout the entire novel, they weren’t particularly what he had asked for. Had everything he had previously done led to this “best of all possible worlds”? Could this even be considered as such?

Although I am not thrilled with the ending the book had, I am not completely disappointed. Voltaire managed to surprise his readers one last time, and in doing so sparked revolutionary thoughts in his audience. The point he got across is that if we want something to change, we can’t just expect to sit back and allow others to do all the work, because things won’t end up the way you hoped they would. If you want change you must take matters into your own hands and fight for what you want in order to create your own perfect world.