Thoughts about Candide

There is a sentence in chapter 5 that really caught my attention. It is when Pangloss says to the sailor/ thief that was on the ship with them. To understand the context, Pangloss, Candide, James the anabaptist and the thief were on a ship, it sank, there was an earthquake and when they got to the destroyed land, the thief finds money and buys the pleasures of a girl. Pangloss grabs him and says to him "This will never do, my friend; you are not obeying the universal rule of Reason; you have misjudged the occasion." Obviously the other guy turns back and says "Bloody hell" (Page 34, Candide). If we see it from Pangloss' side, then obviously he's right. There is a disaster, everyone is dead or dying and this guy just comes in, steals money and has sex. It has no reason, as Pangloss said. Without even helping anyone he just comes and abuses. But, though, if we see it from the thief's view, well he was just on a ship for some time, was in a natural didaster, and who knows how much time since the last time he did it, so as a good low class person, he looks for the first easy sex he finds. It's kind of hard to see who Voltaire is mocking here, if he's mocking someone at all.

There was a part which reminded me a lot of a book I just read. In page 35, a man besides Pangloss says "for if all is for the best, there can be no such thing as the fall of Man and eternal punishment." I laughed and thought to myself 'this guy certainly hasn't read Dante's Inferno (haha)'.