Candide...

Voltaire uses several rhetorical devices throughout his novel, Candide, to help portray his main themes and messages. The story is based on satire. It's about a man with such blatant optimism that by the end this optimism turns into stupidity. For example in the novel Candide is taken away from his one love, Cunegonde. In his search to be reunited with her, Candide is flogged, almost killed, looses his beloved tutor Pangloss, believes Cunegonde was raped and disemboweled, etc. At times he may consider to doubt Pangloss's theory that their world "is the best of all possible worlds", but he still remains optimistic that life is good, and he can't complain. Exaggeration is a common device used in the story because the number of bad events that occur can't happen to someone in such a short amount of time. Every character suffers throughout the book and many of them try and down play their tragedies through their reactions. They make it seem like an everyday occurrence; as if it was inevitable. When Candide is reunited with his Cunegonde after believing she was brutally murdered and raped he asks, "So were you not raped after all? And were you not disemboweled…?" She responds calmly, "I most certainly was in both cases." This also an example of antithesis because of the opposition between such horrible events and the optimism in which Cunegonde says it. We can see this all throughout the book. I believe Voltaire does this to reinforce the stupidity of the people, and the satire that makes the story so amusing.