Frankenstein and Candide: comparative analysis

Candide & Frankenstein

The Fall of Man, the Fall of Humanity from a State of Grace: The failure of religion and science in both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Voltaire's Candide

Both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Voltaire's Candide show the failure of ideology -- namely the inability of human beings to frame their lives according to a narrow doctrine, however superficially persuasive that doctrine might seem upon its surface. It does not matter if the doctrine is political, religious, or even scientific in nature -- the use of satirical or science fiction underlines the importance of idiosyncrasies in human narrative, nature, and thought. In the case of Voltaire's Candide, of course, the doctrine that is 'deflated' is that all human beings live in the best of all possible worlds. In the case of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the ideology the text desires to deflate is more subtly expressed. Shelley seeks to deflate the religious definitions of limits of humanity and the Enlightenment scientific impulse's belief that all human needs are rational.

Why was this such a concern during the authorship of both texts that have such similar concerns yet such distinct styles? Religion and the role of the state were two of the most controversial public issues during the centuries when Shelley and Voltaire wrote, and both texts thus seem to feel duty-bound to grapple with these issue, one text through the fictional and character-driven vehicle of the novel, the other, earlier text through that of the picaresque, or travel nature of satire. By showing the failure of either Enlightenment or religious ideology distilled in their most general essences to satisfy the complex needs of human existence, both authors show the failure of doctrines, particularly in religious form in Candide, and particularly in rational form in Frankenstein, to satisfy human needs.

Voltaire begins his satire Candide in the house of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, who "was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia." Candide, the novel's titular hero and main protagonist, immediately strikes the reader as a kind of innocent, an untouched and untaught blank slate or tabula rasa example of humanity. Candide the character is utterly subject to the whims of his patron the baron and the tutor Pangloss, whom the baron has commissioned as his educator. The book suggests the ability first and foremost for education to shape the developing mind and character of a child from birth. Although this recalls Rousseau's ideal of education, it is important to note that although Candide is being educated in political and liberal philosophy in school, in reality the text is set not in a democracy, but in a dictatorship.

There Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh "was called 'My Lord' by all his people, and he never told a story but everyone laughed at it." In this beautiful but stifling aristocratic fiefdom, "Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology" to Candide, a "youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His [Candide's] face was the true index of his mind. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity; and [that is why] hence, I presume, he had his name of Candide," or candidness. The teachings of Pangloss make sense in this paradise, however, because of the utter domination of the baron's influence and the wealth enjoyed by all who fawn at his feet. Once death and destruction come to the community, the metaphysics advocated by Pangloss make little sense to anyone, including the reader as well as Westphalia's inhabitants. (Voltaire, Chapter 1)

Before Westphalia is invaded, Pangloss could easily prove "to admiration that there is no effect without a cause; and, that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of all castles," but as political events do not support the existence of this ideology, Pangloss' advanced ideology grows increasingly foolish to the eyes of the reader if not his determined pupils. Thus, still, in the face of all odds, Candide, his tutor, and the daughter of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh Miss Cunegund, stubbornly hold to the doctrine of the world's perfectibility, more out of determination to carry on a foolishly outmoded ideology that provides structure and solace, rather than a true search of truth. (Voltaire, Chapter 1)

Even from the beginning of the tale, the fissures of the state's goodness as well as Pangloss' ideology are questioned. After all, the old servants of the house of the Baron suspect that Candide, rather than being taken on because of baronial goodwill, was selected as he was the illegitimate son of the Baron's sister, "by a very good sort of a gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady refused to marry." (Voltaire, Chapter 1) This infidelity on the part of the supposedly moral aristocracy seems not only hypocritical, but grows increasingly distasteful as it is even practiced by the supposedly more moral theological powers of the satire. Candide, in Chapter 9, dispatches both a Grand Inquisitor (after he has been reunited with Pangloss and faced the Inquisition) an ostensibly pious Jew, after they have been both enjoying the favors of Cunegund.

Later on, in increasingly irreverent and fantastical language, "The History of the Old Woman," detailed in Chapter 11, relates how the woman who helps Candide and Cunegund escape from the clutches of the Inquisition is also, like Candide, an illegitimate child -- but she is not the daughter of a baron, rather she is the bastard daughter of the supposedly celibate Pope Urban X, thus the Princess of Palestrina! In this part of the tale, test the debauchment of Cunegund sound too awful, by her faith-believing captors, remember that she willingly submitted to the advances of her tutor Pangloss, too, while she was his pupil.

Thus, Popes, Baron, as well as philosophy tutors are fundamentally sexually motivated beings whose behavior does not adhere to a rigidly fixed ideology, even if they may espouse such an ideology and consciously believe in their advocated doctrine, over the course of Candide. Even Pangloss seems to participate in this transparent hypocrisy in his behavior towards Cunegund. For Voltaire, in human practice, neither theology nor piety to the state serves to induce moral behavior upon the part of rulers or ruled. This suggests there is a strong defense of Enlightenment political freedom and rational destruction of old, institutionalized traditions of Kings and the Catholic Church in Candide.

But the rational defense of a particular ideology, whether of human or worldly goodness, is not possible either. The satirical nature of the travelogue that characterizes the novel, piling one absurdity upon the next absurd event, suggests that rationality is not a perfect mode to understand human life in its entirety, either. Pangloss is an absurd character, yet despite even his own blatant defiance of his belief system, as well as the ebb and flux of life to consistently turn good to bad, he seems to actually place credence in his notions of the world's intrinsic goodness.

Rather than fully validate pure rationality as a way of understanding an irrational world, the Voltaire satire ends more on a Romantic rather than realistic note, not a rationalistic note at all. At the novel's conclusion, the innate goodness of Candide the character has been strained to its breaking point by the horrific events the title character has suffered. The title character has suffered persecution, lost and won and lost fortunes of gold, and also lost his friends. The faithless Cunegund, whom he once desired to marry but could not because of his uncertain birth is subsequently, imposed upon him by her father the Baron. But once again life, and a woman's appearance, unlike ideology, is in constant flux and change. "Even the tender Candide, that affectionate lover, upon seeing his fair Cunegund all sunburned, with bleary eyes, a withered neck, wrinkled face and arms, all covered with a red scurf, started back with horror; but, not withstanding, recovering himself, he advanced towards her out of good manners. She embraced Candide and her brother; they embraced the old woman, and Candide ransomed them both." (Voltaire, Chapter 29)

Candide had, in truth, no great inclination to marry Miss Cunegund," given her infidelity and previous lack of reliability as well as her loss of beauty. (Voltaire, Chapter 30) but "the extreme impertinence of the Baron determined him to conclude the match; and Cunegund pressed him so warmly, that he could not recant." (Voltaire, Chapter 30)

Poor Candide -- this is even though the Baron's own impressments of his former ward are hypocritical, as he harbored Candide as an illegitimate child before, not as a prospective heir. And even at the end of the novel, the slightly more embittered Pangloss tries to stress to Candide, his former pupil, that "there is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts." (Voltaire, Chapter 30) as much as the reader might have suspected Pangloss' increasing embitterment, irrational emotional ties to creed, in the world of the novel, still hold true, although rather than believe him or attempt to show disrespect towards the former tutor who has proved so useless to him, Candide stresses that the mans remarks are "excellently observed...but let us cultivate our garden." (Voltaire, Chapter 30)

Let us, in other words, suggests both Candide and Voltaire -- the first time the author and the protagonist are really united in their sentiments and voice -- return to nature and the inner cultivation of the self and one's personal life and soul in an independent fashion, rather than debate outer, political philosophy that adheres to the ideology of others. This is an ideal that is the soon to be stomping ground of Romanticism, as depicted in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a work also subtitled the "Modern Prometheus" as it illustrates the creation of a human being by a figure who is touched by the fire of daring and inspiration, and suffers for his creation's sake, despite his best intentions.

The novel takes place not as a rollicking satire, but with three-dimensional characters. To give it an added verisimilitude, it is told through the voice and perspective of a traveler and explorer in the Artic, who comes across the scientist. To explain why he has taken to the ice, the scientist tells his tale largely as a flashback, suggesting the fundamental 'reality' to the scenario that is proposed by the novel, even if the actual plot is a work of science fiction. This use of a framing narrative suggests a novel that has a moral, if not a literal truth.

Shelley's plot of Frankenstein depicts its protagonist first not as an innocent, but a deifier of conventional religious and scientific wisdom. However, the scientist, however well versed in technical disciplines, cannot rationally predict his own reaction to the superficial ugliness of his creature, even though the so-called monster in the text proves to be highly articulate and intelligent in conversation, and a student of Romanticism himself. The monster is innately moral, even studying the Sorrows of Werther, when left to his own devices in the woods, much as Candide begins the novel as innately moral. But the creature (and Candide for that matter) innately possesses this goodness, and is not given this by his creator, because Frankenstein has turned the monster away.

The monster, however, unlike the Pangloss-taught Candide, is innately curious, and engages in constant self-education, in absence of tutors other than the books the monster finds. Then, in observing two peasants dwelling in a state of nature and internal reflection, much as the Candide at the end of that character's own saga, Frankenstein's creature cries out "Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy? They possessed a delightful house (for such it was in my eyes) and every luxury; they had a fire to warm them when chill and delicious viands when hungry; they were dressed in excellent clothes; and, still more, they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging each day looks of affection and kindness. What did their tears imply? Did they really express pain? I was at first unable to solve these questions, but perpetual attention and time explained to me many appearances which were at first enigmatic." (Shelley, Chapter 12) the irony is, these rude peasants have even less than did Dr. Frankenstein and his friends, but to the creation of Frankenstein, cast out of society, even simple association with others seems like a paradise. This undercuts the promise of scientific rationality to give humanity all that it needs, or of any specific doctrine.