Candide went through so many things in the book and many of them weren't entirely his fault. It all began with the kiss with cunegonde. This act was innocent in his mind yet he got kicked out of the castle for it. I personally don't feel like it was his fault and that punishment definitely did not fit the crime under the circumstances.
As time went on, however, many of his acts started to become questionable. For example stealing jewel and killing highly esteemed people might not be entirely justifiable at this part in the book. It can be argued that he was solely trying to save himself and cunegonde, but the innocent mindset that he had in the beginning of the book isn't really present anyone.
The way I think of it is that he was a child at the beginning of the book and didn't know any better so he shouldn't have been punished so harshly for kissing cunegonde. But every child at some point reaches adulthood and comes to an understanding of what exactly it is that they are doing. The more experiences candide encounters, the more innocence he loses and the more fault he has in his actions.
Overall, I think that the punishment for any crime in the world he lives in is very extensive. Burning, killing, and beheading criminals is a bit inhumane. Regardless of that fact, if he hadnt been kicked out of the castle, he would've never had to encounter what he experienced and he wouldnt have had to.do the crimes that he commited.
It's very true that our actions as a child shape our behavior as we reach adulthood. Your assessment brings up the class discussion we had the other day about weather it was better to live innocently and ignorantly in bliss or to be knowledgeable about the suffering in the world and even have to experience some of it yourself. As far as the actual punishments he received, I agree that death is a gross overreaction to most crimes, especially when considering the fact that when a punishment is given well, the receiver learns from it and doesn't commit the crime again. With death, this isn't possible. So be escaping death, Candide is able to learn from his actions and grow.
ReplyDeleteI agree that through the course of the book his actions have gotten more questionable and it makes a lot of sense the way you put it. He may not necessarily be doing increasingly bad things or different things than he would have at the beginning of the book but his failure to grow up and make smart decisions is charming at the beginning and then annoying as he goes on and should be changing but is not.
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