A Villain through My Eyes

Have you ever been happy by somebody’s death? I have – not in reality, but in literature. The deaths of the Green Goblin from Spiderman, Voldemort from Harry Potter, and James from Twilight are some examples. In the case of Candide, the death of Pangloss made me so pleased that I decided to write a blog about it.

Why do I hate Pangloss, you ask? Sure, he isn’t one of those stereotypical bad guys from the usual novels, but he’s close enough. To begin with, it is all Pangloss’ fault that Candide is so dim. Candide follows Pangloss’ “all is for the best” philosophy, which promotes blind optimism (Page 20). Please, if such philosophy was true, then why are there atrocious events occurring in every page of the book? The worst part is that Pangloss thinks he’s right. He is so full of himself and pretends he knows everything. He tries to justify obvious events that contradict his philosophy with the most idiotic reasons ever. For example, he tries to justify Syphilis in saying that chocolate and cochineal would not have been discovered if Columbus had not gone to and returned from the Americas.

Besides his ridiculous philosophy, he deserved to die because he’s a hypocritical and immoral man. The readers can already tell he is immoral by him manipulating his power. As “the greatest philosopher in Westphalia, and consequently the greatest in all the world,” he uses his reputation to take advantage of his students (Page 20). He uses his profession as an excuse to give “a lesson in experimental physic to [Cunegonde’s] mother’s waiting-woman” (Page 21). He exploits these people who probably know nothing better to satisfy his sexual desires. Couldn’t this be considered raping? Disgusting!

What made me dislike him even more was when he prevented Candide from saving James, the Anabaptist. James had drowned from honorably rescuing a sailor and could have been saved if someone went down there to get him. Yet, of course, foolish old Pangloss had to prevent this from happening by convincing Candide that the “Lisbon harbor was made on purpose for this Anabaptist to drown there” (Page 33). Really, Pangloss? If this was so, then you should have died a long time ago by Syphilis. If Candide could not save James because it would go against your “all for the best” philosophy, then why did you accept Candide’s offer to help you? Surely, you contracted Syphilis for a reason as well.

A complete hypocrite. I am so glad he died.