Candide's Desensitization

Candide leads the reader through very violent experiences. The novel is full of rape and murders. When I first read the novel I was upset in the way in which Voltaire was using and manipulating the bodies of many of his characters. After listening to the discussions in class and rereading parts of the novel I decided that Voltaire was creating a critique. When the reader reads this novel physical abuse these characters go through becomes almost normal. You get desensitized to the pure nature of this violence. Although, Voltaire wrote this novel in 1759, we can use what he is saying as a critique for modern day. Towards the end of the novel an old woman says, “I should like to know which is worse: to be raped a hundred times by negro pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntler of the Bulgars, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley –in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered or simply to sit here and do nothing?” (91). She mentions all of these horrific events and asks the questions of going through them or being bored. It is astonishing. These violent actions have become a part of everyday life for these characters. I think the same can be said for today’s world. The amount of wars that are being faught, the video games that are out there, the violence on television, these things and more are desensitizing our culture in the same way Candide’s culture was desensitized. Is there are going to be a day when a woman may want to be “raped a hundred times” instead of being bored because that is what she is used to.

I know I am being a bit dramatic but it is an interesting thought.